The cultists who had turned my way were starting to put their hands up when I realized that I had miscounted. There were actually twelve of them gathered around the pentagram. I figured that out when Number Thirteen jumped me from behind.
The thirteenth guy had been out of the room – maybe in the john, puking over the sight of blood, I don't know. But he picked a bad moment to come back.
Lucky for me, the bastard didn't have a weapon. Instead, he jumped on my back, threw a forearm around my throat, and tried to grab my gun with his other hand.
Most of the others had turned back to stare in awe at what had just appeared inside the pentagram. I only had time for a quick glance, but I saw that it was a class-four demon, which is about all you'd expect from Amateur Night. Not a heavyweight like Lucifuge Rofocale or Baal, thank heaven, but still enough to cause plenty of trouble if it got loose.
Two of the cultists started toward me, I guess with the idea of giving their buddy on my back some help. I tried to bring my gun to bear on them, but Number Thirteen's hand on my wrist kept pulg it away.
Since I couldn't shoot them, I decided to do the next best thing.
I'd seen a guy do this in a bar fight, years ago. It had impressed me so much that I tried it myself in the gym a couple of times, where it didn't work real well. But I didn't have a lot of options.
I took two running steps, tucked my head down, and went into the beginning of a forward somersault. It wasn't the full deal, not with Number Thirteen clinging to me like a tumor. But it took us right into the two approaching cultists like a huge bowling ball, knocking them sprawling, and ended up with Number Thirteen going down hard on his back with me on top of him. He let go of me then – he was too busy trying to remember how to breathe.
I scrambled to my feet, sensed movement behind me, and turned just in time to catch another cultist's fist square in the face. The guy was no Muhammad Ali, but the punch was enough to knock me off balance. I went down, more pissed off than hurt, and immediately started to get up again.
Then something far stronger than a human hand grabbed my ankle, and in a heartbeat I knew that my leg had breached the pentagram.
The demon had me.
Most people can think pretty fast when they have to. Even me. In a flash I considered my options, and none of them looked very good. I still had my gun, but shooting a demon is a waste of time, even with silver bullets. And Arnie Schwarzenegger in his prime couldn't have broken the grip that thing had on my leg.
I was just thinking that my best option was to put the pistol in my mouth and pull the trigger when Karl Renfer appeared behind one of the smaller cultists, grabbed him at the neck and crotch with those big hands of his, and heaved.
"Here's dinner, Hellfuck!" Karl yelled, as he threw the struggling man right at the demon's ugly, misshapen head.
The kid was stronger than he looked.
Class-four demons aren't very smart. If this one had been brighter, it would have hung on to me with one clawed hand and grabbed the airborne cultist with the other one. Kind of like dinner plus dessert.
Instead, the stupid thing let go of me to grab its new prey, and I rolled away from that pentagram faster than a scalded cat on speed.
I got to my feet just in time to see the demon bite the cultist's head off and swallow it whole.
I waved my gun at the rest of the coven. "Freeze, motherfuckers! Hands in the air – you're all under arrest!" One of them made a dash for the door, but only got a few steps before Karl shot his leg out from under him. It didn't take long for us to get the rest face down on the floor, fingers interlaced behind their necks.
I looked at Karl. "You call for backup?" I asked. My voice was a little unsteady.
He shook his head. "Wasn't time, once I saw what was going down in here."
"Okay, I'll do it now."
I took out my radio, got the station, and told them what we were dealing with. The dispatcher promised to send help immediately. "Be sure to tell 'em to bring an exorcist," I told her. "We got something that needs to be sent back to Gehenna."
As I clicked the radio off, I looked toward the pentagram. The demon was still devouring what was left of the unlucky cultist. Demons are real messy eaters.
Karl saw where I was looking. "Ate the outfit, too," he said. "Must be the extra fiber."
It wasn't all that funny, and definitely a 10 on the Insensitivity Scale, but I laughed. And laughed. It was all I could do to stop it from turning into tears. Comiclose to being eaten alive can shake you up some.
Even a tough guy like me.
So the crime scene people took our statements, the department exorcist sent the snarling and screeching demon back home, and the poor hooker's body was carted off to the morgue. The cultists were on their way to the county jail. They'd be arraigned in the morning.
Only a few of the robed idiots had actually seen Karl throw one of their buds to the demon. God only knows what kind of story they'd be telling. But if it came down to it, Karl and I would be more credible in front of a jury than a couple of cultists facing murder and summoning charges.
A medic said my ankle was badly bruised, but nothing was broken. He taped it up tight and told me to take ibuprofen for the pain.
As Karl and I headed back to the car, I said, "That was quick thinking in there, earlier. Pretty good job of power lifting, too. I guess I owe you one."
There was enough light for me to see his grin. "Okay, so you're buying breakfast, even though it's my turn."
"Deal," I told him. "But you're driving, since I'm injured, and all."
As Karl started the car I said, "You know, those guys in the robes might have been onto something. I sometimes think that Satanism is the perfect religion."
He looked at me like I'd just grown a second head.
"No, really," I told him. "Way I figure it, if you're a Satanist, and you fuck up – well, you go to heaven. Right?"
Karl laughed a lot longer and harder than the feeble joke was worth. Then he turned on the lights and drove us out of there.
The kid was going to work out okay.
• • • •
For Karl and me, the rest of the shift was paperwork: arrest reports, a Supernatural Incident Report, all that stuff. And since Karl had fired his weapon, he had to talk to the Internal Affairs people, who surprised everybody by quickly agreeing that it was a righteous shoot.
We were able to knock off about 6:00, just as the sun was coming up over the city. Karl said, "See ya," and headed off to his car, but I stood at the top of the steps for a minute, watching the sunrise. I know that Scranton's not a big deal like New York or San Francisco. But I still like the way the skyline looks at dawn.
It's not a big town. And the way most people figure these things, it's not a great town, either. But it's my town. And protecting it from the forces of darkness is my job.
The shit hit the fan three months later, and none of us even knew it – at first. On the night in question (as we say in court) I came on shift at the usual time. I barely had the chance to sit down at my desk when McGuire was at his office door. "Markowski, Renfer!" he barked. "You got one."
We'd caught a homicide. The stiff, according to McGuire, was in a house on Linden Street. The address was near the campus of the University of Scranton, which I attended for three years before running out of both money and ambition.
"We know anything about the perp?" I asked. "Vamp, werewolf, or…"
McGuire shook his head. "Or none of the above. It isn't clear the killer was a supe."
I let my raised eyebrows ask the next question. McGuire got it immediately.
"It's our case," he said, "because although the perp might not have been a supe, the victim was."
I heard Karl mutter under his breath, "Well, fuck me to Jesus with a strap-on dildo."