Ruger

Part Four: By Any Means Necessary

Cover: Ashley Ricks standing in a child's bedroom, holding a gun to a child's head while a huge demonic hound is breaking down the door. Jason Brooks is trying to keep the door closed, Ashley is crying, and the child doesn't seem to know that anything is happening.

t had started with the gunfire... lots of it. And then the screaming. Then reports of a chemical agent being released in the building. More gunfire, this time on the second floor. Nearly every wall in the building had at least one bullet lodged in it. There were officers down, with injuries ranging from minor to life-threatening. Frantic calls were made, and within seconds, paramedics were speeding through the downtown streets with police escort. More cops were called in from the field to mount an ever-widening manhunt for a sword-wielding maniac who, according to some reports, had battled a man-eating monster in the narrow corridors of police headquarters. But that couldn't have happened. That wasn't possible. Any attempt at ascertaining the truth rapidly devolved into shouted accusations and finger-pointing. All anyone knew was that SOMETHING had happened... and whatever that something was, it had escaped through a second-story window and vanished into the night.

There were more accusations. Pointed fingers became shaking fists. A second, third, and fourth search of the premises yielded nothing. The surrounding streets were empty. Meanwhile, reporters descended on police headquarters like flies drawn to a day-old carcass.

It was in the midst of all this that the call came in...

Shots fired. Residential neighborhood. Black Corvette spotted fleeing the area.

Jason Brooks.

"I've already called in my men!" Sharpe said as he raced down the hallway. "They're already on the way; they'll secure the situation before we arrive!"

Detective Marilyn Dobbs said nothing. The only thing that prevented her from thrusting her elbow into Sharpe's teeth was the fact that her partner, James Royce, was between them. He and Dobbs hit the heavy metal doors at the same time, throwing them open and exploding out into the parking lot. They veered right, toward Dobbs' car, while Captain Sharpe and his underling, Lieutenant Hapmund, raced toward Sharpe's vehicle. Doors slammed. Engines revved. Two cars screeched out of the lot and roared down the street beyond. Three patrol cars fell in behind them, lights flashing and sirens wailing.

"What channel are Sharpe's boys on?" Royce said as he toyed with the radio. "We've got nobody in the area; they'll be the first on scene."

"God help whoever they find," said Dobbs. She pressed the accelerator to the floor; the car pulled away from Sharpe and Hapmund, but not by much. "We gotta get there before they turn all the witnesses into statistics."

Royce chuckled.

"I think they're on 34," he said. He adjusted the police radio. The Law Enforcement Division officers were already en-route, but they were perhaps 5 minutes closer than Dobbs and the others. Dobbs listened to their communications... It was like eavesdropping on a military operation: Arriving on the scene...radio check... weapons-check... splitting into two teams, one to secure the perimeter while the other approached the house...

Then someone shouted something in Spanish... something urgent. It may have been a warning, but it could have been something else. The voice was followed by the inhuman howl of something large and unmistakably evil. The sound roared out of the radio and seemed to fill up the car, pressing down on Dobbs' soul like a boulder of solid, growling menace. She shivered in spite of her efforts not to. The howl was so loud that the very echoes of it almost drowned out the sounds that followed: Screams and automatic gunfire. Shouts and frantic calls for help-

"OFFICERS DOWN!" came a terrified male voice. "OFFICERS D-"

The cry ended, only to be taken up by another voice. A long wordless scream of agony.

Then someone in the perimeter team broke in:

"The insertion team is under attack! We're Moving In!"

"STAND DOWN!" Captain Sharpe's voice barked. "Hold your position until reinforcements arrive!"

"But-"

"STAND DOWN!"

There was silence... and then a quick burst of gunfire. Six lonely, pathetic shots from a handgun... then nothing. No sound at all.

The LED team had been on the scene for exactly 48 seconds.

"THOMPSON! MILLER! COME IN! ANYONE from the insertion team, please respond! This is SHARPE, COME IN! IS ANYONE THERE?! WHAT'S HAPPENING!?!"

"This is Conway," came a reply. "The insertion team is gone, sir. No contact."

"What did you SEE, dammit!"

"Nothing, sir. I don't have a view from this position. Shall I move in?"

"Get to a vantage point, but do NOT approach! Keep your radio open!"

The radio carried the soft sound of footsteps through grass. Then a pause... then more footsteps... then nothing.

"Sir," Conway whispered "...sir... it's right in front of me, sir. Some kind of animal...huge. It hasn't seen me. I've got a shot."

"Take it out," Sharpe responded.

Dobbs snatched the microphone from its cradle and held it to her mouth.

"Back away!" she commanded. "Back away! Get out of there!"

"DOBBS!" Sharpe growled. "Get off of my channel, this is MY operation!"

"Taking the shot, sir... got 'im in the crosshairs..."

"No! Get out of there you stupid-"

KA-POW!

One shot rang out from the assault rifle. The echo hadn't even begun to fade when-

RROOOOOOOOOAARRRRRRRRRRR!!

Then came a noise that sounded like a cross between a human scream and a large watermelon being slowly ripped open.

"CONWAY!"

Royce turned around to look into the car behind them. Sharpe clutched his radio tightly in one fist, looking utterly mortified. Royce waved at him and turned back around.

"ops are so stupid," said Ashley. "Breaking into houses and shooting people just because they THINK they have drugs."

"Doesn't make what's happening to them right," said Donovan.

"Excuse me... I don't take lectures from dead people. Sorry."

Jason ignored the surreal conversation taking place around him. If someone had told him last week that he'd be sitting in a car listening to a genuine psychic bicker with and equally genuine ghost, he'd have dismissed the entire idea as crazy. But here he was. And here THEY were. Jason had shut off the Corvette's loud engine and was coasting down a slight incline, rolling silently past dark houses on the deserted street.

"This is about as close as we're gonna get," he said, though he doubted that anyone was listening. He pulled over to the curb and parked behind a old Chevy Impala. He checked his weapons and got out. "Ride's over. On foot from here."

"Cops are just gonna let you walk around?" said Ashley. "Thought you were wanted?"

"Any cops that are here are probably dead," said Jason. "And we gotta take this thing out before any more show up."

The house where Jason had confronted Velazquez was two blocks away. The walk was quick, silent, and uneventful... at least for the first block. That's where they found the cop.

The L.E.D. van sat in the middle of the street, its lights piercing the darkness with strobing pulses of bright, electric blue. The flashing headlights illuminated a single form stretched across the ground near the front of the van. It was a man, laying face down, with one arm extended toward an assault rifle that lay just out of reach. The lower half of his body was missing, and what remained lay in a lake of fresh blood.

"Oh..." Ashley gasped.

Jason walked around to the rear of the van, where a second cop hung halfway out of the open door. He had no head. His weapon was on the ground not far away.

"Neither of these weapons have been fired," said Jason. "It came so fast... they never stood a chance."

"What makes you think you'll do any better?" said Ashley.

"I'm faster than they are. Just stay close to me and you'll be okay."

"I wasn't worried about me," said Ashley as she fell in behind him.

"You there, Donovan?"

"I don't have choice," Donovan replied.

"Watch my back."

They continued down the eerily calm street until they spotted it.

"There-" Jason pointed to the house.

"So what are you gonna do... just knock on the door?"

"Yeah. Big-bad will come out to play, and I'll keep him busy while you put the mojo on the kid."

"It's not called a 'mojo'"

"Just be quick. I can't carry but so much ammo."

"What happens when you run out?"

"I die."

he perimeter team had consisted of six armed officers, but only three of them met the reinforcements when they arrived. Royce got out of her car with her weapon already drawn. She heard Sharpe and Hapmund running up behind her.

"Don't do it," said Royce.

Marilyn scowled at her partner and unclenched her fist.

"Status!" Sharpe demanded.

"Insertion team is down," said a young officer. He, like the rest of Sharpe's crew, was dressed in an all-black tactical uniform that included a helmet and a projectile-resistant armored vest. "Conway's dead, and we've lost contact with Dennis and Potts. They were blocking South street, but they aren't answering the radio."

"We need that street blocked," said Marilyn. "And we need all these houses evacuated. You three, hit South street. I'll have a couple of men hold position here while we go clear out the civilians-"

"Excuse me, Ms. Dobbs," said Sharpe. "These men take their orders from ME!"

"Your orders got half of 'em killed!" Dobbs responded.

"I'm the ranking officer, and I'm assuming command of this entire operation," Sharpe said calmly. "Hapmund, call in for more reinforcements. Abandon the search for the intruder at the station... get every cop in the city down here five minutes ago. I need three men to remain here and hold perimeter, and two more to check out South street. Everyone else is with me, we're moving in-"

"You can't be serious," said Marilyn. "You can NOT be serious!"

"Afraid, Detective Dobbs?"

"No, just not STUPID! WHY are we not waiting for reinforcements?"

"We ARE waiting, Detective, but we have no view of the house from here. We're moving into position where we can reconnoiter the scene from a safe distance. We need to know what we're dealing with when the others arrive."

"So basically we're going to the same place Conway was when he got his face chewed off. 'Viewing distance' isn't safe, Sharpe-"

"Then you can stay here."

Two minutes later they were peering across two yards at the house where Jason Brooks had been spotted... the house where the insertion team had met whatever fate had claimed them. As much as Dobbs WISHED that the men had simply vanished without a trace, that simply wasn't the case. Bits and pieces of them were everywhere. Clothes. Weapons. Blood. Something had literally torn them apart, satisfying its hunger with whatever random morsels caught its fancy.

"Reinforcements," Dobbs whispered. "Definitely going to need reinforcements. Ever see anything like this Royce? Royce?"

She looked behind her, but her partner was gone. The two of them were bringing up the rear of Sharpe's team, relegated to a position as far away from Sharpe as possible. Royce had been behind her, but now there was no sign of him.

"Royce!" she hissed. One of Sharpe's men signaled for her to keep her mouth shut... then signaled for her to move to the front of the group. "What?" she whispered as she crept forward.

"That your man?" Sharpe pointed to a figure approaching the house's front door. Actually two figures, a man and a woman. Neither of them was James Royce.

"Brooks," said Marilyn.

"We take him down and we take him down now," said Sharpe. "Pay attention, detective... watch how the professionals do it..."

he'd tried... she really had tried. She tried to warn them, but it was too late. It came for them, and she could do nothing but watch... just as they could do nothing but die. She tried to call it back, even though she knew that it was impossible. She had performed the ceremony; she had made the pact... but she was not the one who controlled the thing. It belonged to the boy, now, and he was the only one who could undo it.

She tried to talk to him. The boy was her grandson; she should have been able to get through to him. But she couldn't. Tomas Velazquez was trapped in a prison of his own terrified mind, where he could neither speak nor listen to anyone outside of himself. Talking to him... yelling at him... threatening him with punishment... none of it did any good.

And then, finally, she'd tried to summon another. If she could bring another demon here to fight the first one, then, with hope, they would destroy each other and everything would be made right. With blood and magic, she called out to the forces of hell. But they wouldn't answer. Why would they even bother? Her soul was already forfeit, and she had nothing left to offer.

Or maybe she did.

Tomas stood quietly in a corner, oblivious to the shadows that danced around him... the final remnants of a failed summons. They seemed drawn to him... reaching out for him...

It was a sign. A sign of the only sacrifice they would accept now... the only thing she had left to offer.

"No," Armena gasped. "Not the boy... no..."

"Isn't that just like a human," came a deep, angry voice from the rear of the house. Armena heard footsteps, and a man stepped into the light. His sunken, predatory eyes seemed to glow a thousand different shades of red, and his skin crawled across his skull as if giant cockroaches had nested beneath it. He walked slowly toward her, and the stench of hell followed after. "Always making messes... but never willing to clean up after your own putrid selves."

"Who... who are you."

"My name can't be pronounced with this tongue..." Royce's long, serpentine tongue flicked out and brushed a stray hair from his forehead. "But you can call me Royce."

"Tomas, run," Armena hissed. "Tomas!"

The boy didn't even look at her. He stared blankly out into space, as if neither Armena nor Royce were even in the room. Royce kept walking toward Armena, and she backed away from him.

"Now you," Royce continued. "YOU'VE made a great big mess." Armena's back touched the kitchen counter. Royce was still coming for her, but now she had nowhere to go. Realizing that she was cornered, she reached behind her and grabbed the large butcher knife. She held it before her, as if the weapon would magically dispell the creature that hell had dispatched for her soul. "Not that we'd mind ordinarily.... but you see... this is our place. Our time... our city. Nobody makes messes here but us."

"Go Away!" Armena screamed.

"No." Royce came closer.

"Our Father, Who Art In H-"

"SHUT UP!" Royce's voice rattled the cabinets and caused the dishes in the sink to clatter against one another. Several glasses on the counter shattered.

"...Oh, please..."

"Begging?" Royce said with a smile. All of his teeth were long, narrow, and razor sharp. "Begging is good. I like begging. Do it again."

"...just don't hurt the boy. Oh, please leave the boy."

"Oh, I'm afraid you've both gotta go. But you have a choice... you can watch me tear HIM apart, or he can watch me tear YOU apart..."

"NOOO!" Armena howled. With knife held high, she charged across the short distance separating her and Royce. The kitchen light glinted off of the blade as she drove it down toward his throat. In the blink of an eye, Royce's hand was around her wrist. He squeezed with a tiny fraction of his strength, and the delicate wrist bones shattered like glass. The knife fell from her grasp and hit the kitchen floor. Royce squeezed harder... grinding the sharp bones together and driving them into the surrounding tissue. Armena screamed... but she'd barely drawn breath when Royce's other hand closed around her jaw. He lifted her head up and back... then lifted her off the floor. Her feet kicked frantically in the air.

"Guess you made your choice then. Hey, watch closely now..." Royce tilted Armena's head so that she could look into his eyes.... where images were beginning to take shape. "First I'm going to show you what I'm gonna do to you... then... I'm gonna do it."

Armena stared into the horrific images in Royce's eyes and wished that she could scream...

ason and Ashley paused within arm's reach of the front door. So far, there'd been no signs of resistance... demonic or otherwise.

"I just walk in?" said Ashley. "Just like that, eh?"

"Why not?" Jason replied. "Here-" He reached into his coat and pulled out a .357 revolver. He held it out to Ashley, who recoiled from the weapon as if he'd offered her a steaming pile of cow dung.

"I don't do guns," said Ashley. "Keep it."

"You'll need it... in case that thing gets away from me."

"How about you just make sure no bullets come flying through the house while I'm working, 'kay?"

"Tell that to the cops hiding behind the next house," said Donovan.

"Yeah, tell that to the... what?"

"Don't look," Donovan warned. "They've already spotted you." Ashley looked anyway. She gasped, and her eyes widened involuntarily. Jason felt a sudden, eerie rush flash through his body as the Affinity kicked in. His stared into Ashley's eyes, where reflections of the scene behind him swam across her dark irises. His mind brought the images into supernatural sharpness... as clear as if he'd turned around and looked for himself. There were six of them. Three men dressed in combat gear and carrying automatic weapons were fanning out in an attempt to surround him. Three more crouched behind the bushes that separated the two yards. One of them was Marilyn Dobbs.

"What are we going to do?" said Ashley.

"Plan hasn't changed." Jason returned the .357 to his pocket. "Get in there and do your thing. Don't worry about me."

Ashley reached for the door, then paused.

"I can help you," she said. "I can-"

"I've got this covered," Jason replied with a smile. "Trust me."

apmund stood beside his car, watching the other officers and listening to Sharpe on the radio. The captain was ordering his men into position to take down Brooks... a move that Hapmund wouldn't have made, but that was probably why Sharpe was the captain and he was just a lieutenant.

He was ALSO listening to the police sirens that were still several blocks away.

What he wasn't listening to was the trunk of the car. If Hapmund had been paying attention, he'd have noticed the faint squeak of the trunk as it opened... or the gentle rocking of the vehicle as a single dark figure eased out of the dark space and stepped onto the asphalt. He wouldn't have heard the footsteps creeping up behind him, because the figure's boots made no sound... but perhaps he would have caught a glimpse of the man's shadow before the figure reached him.

Not that it would have made a difference anyway.

In one quick, silent motion, the man in black swept Hapmund's legs out from under him while simultaneously driving his elbow into the back of Hapmund's skull. Hapmund lurched forward, hitting the car with a *thud* and then sliding to the ground. The noise drew the attention of the other officers, but when they turned around, all they saw was Hapmund laying on the ground, and Hapmund's car speeding off in the direction of the approaching sirens.

"REEZE!"

Jason didn't move. He heard the three cops approach... one directly behind him, and one off to either side, just out of his peripheral vision. They were moving slowly... cautiously...

Jason felt the Affinity rising within him. An unknown energy coursed through his body, permeating every part of his being. It was like a drug a thousand times more powerful than adrenalin had suddenly been injected directly into his veins. He felt hot... strong... fast... sharp... He became keenly aware of the weapons he carried; he could sense their weight... their presence... he could almost feel them in his hands, even though he wasn't touching them. His muscles tensed for action. They ached... yearning to move... to strike... His heartbeat thundered in his chest... growing not faster, but SLOWER as his awareness quickened. Each breath became a loooong slooow sigh. Everything around him seemed to slow exponentially with each pulse...

An unsettling calmness settled over him as his fingers twitched.

"HANDS OUT TO THE SIDE!" one cop demanded. "ON YOUR KNEES! RIGHT NOW!"

Jason smiled.

"Hey," he said. Jason knew the cops were watching him, he could feel their eyes on him... he had their full and undivided attention... "Before I give up... I've got one question..."

"SHUT UP AND GET DOWN! NOOOWWWW!!!!!"

"Have any of you guys ever seen 'The Matrix'?"

"Wha-"

As carefully as they were watching, the cops STILL didn't see it coming. To them, it was a lightning fast assault that only happened in the movies. To Jason it was a slow spin as he drew both .454 revolvers. By the time the cops realized he'd moved, Jason had fired his first shot. Jason saw the bullet... he SAW it... and if it weren't for the Affinity driving his motions, he would have stood amazed at what he'd done. The speeding projectile flew toward the first cop's weapon. It shot toward, and then INTO the rifle barrel... The slug vanished into the tiny hole and lanced down the barrel, where it impacted the bullet already lodged in the rifle's firing chamber. The resulting collision ignited the rifle bullet...turning the automatic weapon's firing mechanism into so many speeding shards of ruined metal.

It was a perfect, impossible shot. And Jason did it not once, but three times. Three shots rang out in such rapid succession that they only made one sound. Jason never stopped moving. As the cops dropped their exploding weapons, he swept his guns across the yard where Sharpe, Dobbs, and a uniformed officer were just beginning to react. Sharpe and the other male officer were leaping in opposite directions. Sharpe was taking aim... the other man was just looking for cover.

Two shots...

The first spun the weapon out of Captain Sharpe's hand, and the second ripped down the length of the other cop's belt, severing his holster and causing his weapon to fall away in mid-leap.

Another motion caught Jason's eye. Marilyn Dobbs was darting down the side of the house, obviously trying to go around the building and come around behind him. Jason held back the Affinity's urge to mow her down in her tracks... barely.

"BACKUP WEAPONS!" Donovan shouted into Jason's mind.

With their rifles ruined, the tactical officers had switched to their backup handguns. Jason judged their positions and did an unconscious calculation of his own speed... he couldn't react in time to keep them from firing at him. Jason spun and threw himself back as their weapons roared and spat hot metal.

But Jason was firing, too.

In the instant that he was airborne, Jason simultaneously fired one shot from each weapon. Bullets raced toward each other and collided in mid-air, deflecting two of the three rounds that the cops had fired at him. The third round caught Jason in the shoulder-

"UNGH!" Jason grunted as he hit the ground. He was laying on his back, and his shoulder felt like he'd been kicked by a stallion... but the bullet-proof lining in his trenchcoat stopped the slug before it could penetrate. Still on his back, Jason fired the last three rounds from his pair of .454 revolvers. Weapons flew from the hands of two cops before they could fire again. The third one managed to make a shot before Jason's slug plugged the barrel of his weapon, but the shot was wild and missed Jason by at least three inches.

Henry Sharpe rose from the bushes, yanking a .357 from a holster hidden on his leg. Jason pulled his second pair of .454's and was about to roll to his feet when something large and...well, LARGE... sailed over his head.

"ROOOOOOOO!!!!"

"Awww, hell..." Jason ignored Sharp and turned toward the hound that was galloping toward the helpless cops...

KREEEEEEEE-

A squadron of police patrol cars... reinforcements for the battle that had just erupted not far away... scattered into chaos as a single car veered onto the road ahead of them and bore down on them like a crazed suicide bomber. The lead cars only caught a glimpse of the man behind the wheel before the gunfire started. The driver was shooting at them... placing several shots into the hood of the first two cars before hitting the brakes and doing a 180 degree turn in the middle of the street.

The car roared down the road with the police in hot pursuit... a high-speed chase that led them further and further away from Jason Brooks...

"h my God..." Ashley gasped when she saw the corpse. What remained of Armena Velazquez was barely recognizable as human. All the pieces were still there, but the body looked like it had been given to a pack of rabid hyenas as a chew toy. The face was mostly just a bloody hole, but the eyes were still intact... the dead orbs were wide open, staring up at the grinning thing that stood above the corpse.

James Royce's flesh crawled, slithered and oozed back into place when Ashley walked into the room. If it weren't for the glowing eyes and the fresh blood coating his too-wide mouth, he would have looked almost human.

"Oh," he hissed/gurgled. "Its just you. The knight's little bitch."

"Looks like you've gotten uglier since the last time I saw you," Ashley retorted.

Royce growled as he started toward her. Ashley glanced over at Tomas, who was seemingly oblivious to the monster's presence. She folded her arms across her chest and stared at Royce.

The demon eyed her with suspicion.

"You're not afraid of me," he hissed.

"Nope. I watch two hours of CNN every day... after that, you guys just aren't all that scary any more."

"Jokes. Heh... you'll die with your next joke still lodged in your throat!"

"Yeah, yeah, sure," said Ashley. "You think I'm scared of you? You're not even a real demon... you're just some errand boy that's gotta work his way UP to insignificant. I mean, LOOK at you... hiding in here with the children and old people. What's the matter? Scared to go outside?"

"Enough!"

"Oooohh... touch a nerve, did I? Why don't you go on out there and get your ass shot off... earn yourself a Purple Heart or whatever they got in hell."

"You... I was going to tear you apart like the old woman... but now..." Royce's body shifted back into fully human mode. He snatched the gun from his holster and pointed it at Ashley. "Now I think I'll just shoot you."

"Bad move, dumbass."

he hound had already pounced on one officer, pinning the defenseless man to the ground and grasping his tactical helmet between its massive jaws. The officer managed to wiggle out of the helmut the instant before the hound crushed it, but the man was still trapped. Jason was about to put a few holes in the creature's cranium when the creature suddenly vanished.

"What happened?"

The trapped officer scrambled to his feet just as a high-pitched scream erupted from inside the house.

"EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!" Tomas shrieked as pointed a trembling finger at Royce's gun.

"What the-"

"ROOOOOOO!!"

The demon-hound appeared without warning, crouching down on the floor between Royce and Ashley. The thing roared and pounced, slamming its immense bulk into Royce with such force that both of them flew across the room, crashed through the window, and landed out in the back yard. They flipped over several times and ended up with Royce laying flat on his back, with the creature's weight pressing him into the ground.

"ARRRRGH!" Royce tore his arm out of the creature's mouth... loosing several long strips of flesh in the process. He grabbed the hound's throat with both hands and pushed the deadly jaws away from him. "Get... OFF OF ME!!"

One tremendous shove sent the hound flying end-over-end into the trees. The thing demolished a few trees before coming to a halt. It glared at Royce, eyes gleaming like lanterns. The canine form faded briefly, revealing twisted thing that lived within it.

"YOU need to learn your place!" Royce growled, his voice sounding like a rumbling thunderstorm. "I don't care WHO you're getting orders from... you attack me again and I'll rip-"

"Royce!"

Marilyn rounded the corner. Royce hid his tattered arm behind his back, and the hound vanished.

"Royce, you're hurt!"

"What?" he replied in his human voice. "No, I..." Royce looked down at his clothes. They were covered with Armena Velazquez's blood. "It attacked me in the house!" he said with false concern. "It killed the Velazquez woman right in front of me! Blood Everywhere!"

"What about the boy?"

"Still inside!"

Suddenly, more gunfire erupted from the front yard...

shley wasted no time. As soon as Royce and the other demon were gone, she turned toward the boy and attempted to enter his mind. She had no expectations of what she would find... the boy was not only a child, but a child with an improperly developed brain. But she hadn't been expecting the raging hurricane of images that battered her psyche. Images and sounds and smells and tastes were thrown at her like weapons... forcing her out of the boy's mind before she could even begin.

She tried again, this time with a slower, more stealthy approach. The result was a another reflexive assault on her own mind. A thousand things rushed out of the boy's psyche. Ashley barely got her own psychic defenses up in time.

"AGH!" Ashley winced and backed away... physically and mentally. The boy was strong. Not just strong... he had the Gift. But it was a gift without a will strong enough to contain it. Raw mental power raged out of control inside the boy... a storm fueled by fear and ignited by the death of the boy's family. And somewhere inside it was a creature that was feeding off of the whole mess.

She had to get inside.

She locked eyes with the boy, but didn't intrude on him, yet. He had rebuffed her with images before... and that was how she was going to get past his mind's reflexes. The images. She eased into him... not far enough to trigger his defenses... not enough to enter his thoughts... just enough to manipulate what he saw and heard...

The boy's eyes widened as the woman in front of him became someone else.

"DADDYYY!!!" Tomas squealed.

The storm faltered... it reeled and sputtered like an engine that had just swallowed a slug of water instead of gasoline. Ashley was waiting. The second the boy reacted, she was in...

enry Sharpe ran towards him, shouting and firing like a madman. Jason threw himself to one side... one of Sharpe's bullets missed his neck by less than an inch. Jason returned fire, knocking Sharpe's next two bullets out of the air and then sending one .357 slug down the back of Sharpe's hand, where it carved/burned a painful grove from his knuckles to his elbow. Sharpe dropped the gun. Jason kept his aimed at Sharpe's head. Nobody moved.

"Notice you're all still alive," said Jason.

"BEHIND YOU!"  Donovan warned.

Jason turned just in time to see Royce and Dobbs appearing from the rear of the house... both with guns aimed right at him, fingers already pulling back on the triggers.

Jason fired first.

Jason's bullet would have bounced off of Royce's gun and lodged itself in the firing mechanism or Dobbs' weapon. It WOULD have... if the demon-hound hadn't chosen that instant to appear. It popped into existence right in the path of Jason's bullet. The slug burned its way into the hound's flank as Royce and Dobbs fired simultaneously. Of course, since THEIR guns hadn't been blessed by priests, their bullets passed through the hound without stopping.

The end result was a double-hit to Jason's chest-

"AAAAGH!!" Jason gasped as the force of the impacts threw him back. Again, his trenchcoat kept the bullets from his skin, but his chest felt as if it had been hit by two very large trains. He landed on his back, unable to breath through the pain.

"GET HIM!" Henry Sharpe grabbed a metal object from his belt and with a flick of his wrist-

Cli-Cli-CLACK!

The small object became a tactical baton, which he swung in a downward arc toward Jason's face.

KLANG!

Jason deflected the swing with his guns, crossing the barrels over his head and making a 'V' which caught the baton and saved his skull. Then he pulled both triggers.

Bullets zipped off in two divergent angles, hitting nothing... but the sound and fury of the gunshots, not to mention two bullets buzzing past his ears, stunned Sharpe long enough for Jason to roll away and get to his feet.

But the other officers were converging on him. Or rather, they were until-

"RRAAAA-" KRUNCH!

Ruger made a flying leap and caught one of the officers in mid-stride. He bit the cop in half before the man even knew he'd been caught.

Jason put four shots into the demon's head, hoping to draw its attention away from the cops. It worked.

The hound came for him...

t was like being locked in a room with a thousand television sets... each one tuned to a different channel and set to maximum volume.

There were many images and sounds that it was difficult for Ashley to concentrate. She forced as much of the mental noise out of her awareness as she could, but it wasn't helping. There was too much going on in the boy's mind... too much fear and confusion. His underdeveloped conscious mind was unable to control his own thoughts, and the boy's psyche... the center of what consciousness he did have... was lost somewhere in this maze of memories.

Ashley tried to push her way through with no success. She was inside, but she couldn't do anything with a mind this chaotic.

So she would just have to make it less chaotic.

She picked the loudest, most insistent images and brought her own gifts to into play. She used her power to do for the boy what he couldn't do for himself... she quieted his mind. She grasped the images... isolated them... and removed them from the boy's awareness. They were still there, but now they were buried beneath a layer of nothingness, submerged by the power of Ashley's mind. One at a time, she cleared the way. The screaming mass of memories and impressions grew quieter. Images winked out, like televisions being turned off. An eerie silence began to grow around her... silence and stillness.

Soon, only one image remained... and that's where the boy was.

It must have been his bedroom. The details of it... the sheets on the bed, the wallpaper... kept changing, but the room itself was immutable. The boy sat on the bed with his legs folded in front of him. The THING was right next to him... curled up beside him. It had taken the shape of the only thing the boy had left... the only thing that he thought would love and protect him. The family dog, Ruger, lay with his head in the boy's lap. The boy stroked his clean, perfect fur... not noticing the writhing tentacles that had slithered out of the dog's flesh and curled around them both... sealing them together. The tentacles had sharp needle-like spines that the thing had thrust into the boy... piercing his arms, legs, back, head... slowly feeding off of the boy's power and fear.

"Thomas," said Ashley. Her voice wasn't her own. She'd kept her illusion of being the boy's father... otherwise the boy would toss her out of his mind like a rowboat in a hurricane. "Tomas, come here..."

The boy looked at her... at his father. He had a curious look in his eyes. Not at all surprised or frightened... in fact, he seemed only mildly interested in his father's seeming resurrection.

It was the Thing. It was keeping the boy subdued.

Ashley reached out to the boy. She took a few steps toward him, but Ruger began to growl. The dog had a hundred times more teeth than could physically fit into his mouth. Each one was as sharp as a razor. Ashley could get no closer. In her OWN mind, she could fight off the demon easily... but this wasn't her mind. The Thing was too powerful here.

"Tomas, let the dog go."

Tomas blinked. He twitched. He tried to move, but the dog wouldn't let him. The boy had the strength to break free, but he couldn't see the need. Tomas thought he was sitting at home playing with his dog... why would he fight?

"Tomas, listen to your father!" Ashley said in a stern voice. "COME TO ME, NOW!"

The Thing growled... but the growl was like a whisper. It told the boy things, and the boy pulled the dog closer to him.

Convincing the boy with words wasn't going to work. Perhaps she could try speaking the boy's own language... the language of images.

With a mental shrug, Ashley removed the Thing's main weapon... she created another illusion over the one that it was creating for itself... she made the boy see it for what it really was.

Tomas looked down at the twisted knot of teeth, tentacles, and eyes that lay beside him. The boy stiffened and tried to pull away, but the tentacles coiled more tightly around him. He couldn't move.

"Fight it, Tomas!" Ashley commanded. "Push it Away! It can't stay if you don't want it to!"

The boy wiggled and twitched, but the Thing wouldn't budge.

"You're strong enough! I KNOW you are! FIGHT!"

But there was no fight in the boy. All Ashley had succeeded in doing was frightening him... and frightened children don't fight. They cry and cower... but they don't fight.

The Thing laughed at her. Ashley wanted to walk over to it and rip it away from the boy... but that wasn't how it worked. The boy had to do it. The boy had to push it away. But how could she make him...

"No..." she muttered. The solution came to her, but it was so horrible that she didn't think she could do it. Not to a child.

She looked at the Thing. Watched its tentacles feeding on Tomas.

She had to do it.

Ashley reached out with her mind and altered the boy's perceptions once again. Her illusion of Tomas' father changed... his/her clothes became shredded, bloody tatters as wounds appeared all over his/her body. Bullet wounds. Blood literally poured out of Jose Velazquez. His body degenerated into a walking mass of pulped, bullet-riddled flesh. Tomas saw his father... his ruined, dead father. Jose pointed to the thing on the bed... the thing that was once Ruger and had become something else had changed forms again.

The police officer sat there where Ruger once lay, pointing his weapon at Jose.

"Watch this, kid," the false cop said. He pulled the trigger. The gun roared. Another large hole appeared in Jose Velazquez's face. Blood and bits of brain splattered over the wall. The cop laughed. And laughed. And laughed and fired again and again and again and-

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!"

Tomas's scream cut the air like a knife. The Thing's severed tentacles whipped through the air, spraying gore in all directions as the room, the bed, and everything else vanished in a mountainous explosion of fear and pure mental fury.... all of it directed at the imaginary cop that Ashley had created around the Thing. The demon squealed as the boy's anger tore it apart... ripping its horrid form into little tiny itty bitty pieces. But even with the Thing gone, the boy's mind continued to rage. It raged against itself... the sounds and images returned, only now they were all twisted and wrong. They sliced across the boy's mind like flying razors... more and more of them... The boy's mind convulsed like a muscle receiving an electric shock.

Ashley broke contact an instant before everything collapsed.

Back in the real world, Ashley held the motionless boy in her arms. He was breathing, but that was the only obvious sign that he was alive. Fear gripped Ashley's heart.

"What have I done?" she gasped. "Oh, God, what have I done..."

She stroked the boy's forehead and tried to re-enter his mind.

Only there was no mind left to re-enter. There was nothing there.

Nothing at all.

"...please, no..."

She'd done it. It had been the only way... she had no choice. But the weight of it still felt like an anchor on her soul. The demon had been too closely bound to the boy's psyche... it had left her no choice but to dislodge it with a massive shock.

A shock that had completely erased the boy's mind.

"...oh, God, no..."

till staggering with a bruised chest and possible broken ribs, Jason took aim at the charging demon and-

"AARRRROOOOOooooeeeEEEEEEEE!!!"

-and then everything changed.

The giant hound grew larger... and larger, then its form began to bubble and hiss. The thing howled in pain... the canine shape vanished like a puff of smoke in a stiff wind. It left behind something so large and horrible that Jason couldn't look at it. It wasn't Ruger any more... it was a Thing... a Thing filled with teeth and tentacles and flesh that was not of this or any other world. A thousand of its mouths opened and howled in pain.

The cops that beheld the thing stood transfixed with terror. One man fainted. Another man urinated on himself. Henry Sharpe stood motionless, staring blankly up at the thing... his face too frozen to register any emotion whatsoever.

"JESUS CHRIST!" Jason cried. He hid his eyes behind the sleeve of his trenchcoat. He couldn't look at it. He just couldn't. "DONOVAN, WHAT IS IT!!!!"

"That," said Donovan. "Is a real demon. Do us all a favor and sent it back where it came from."

Jason's gun fired without him even knowing he'd been aiming it at anything.

The howling and screaming of the creature increased tenfold. An unholy wind bore down on them as the Thing began to convulse. Jason's bulled had bored a small, circular hole straight through the center of the demon. A shaft of angry red light blasted out of the hole like a laser... and then the Thing began to contract.... its flesh puckered and oozed toward the opening. Then, with a sound that Jason prayed he would never hear again in his life, the Thing's body tore itself apart and was sucked down the hole. First, the oozing mucous that passed for the creature's skin tore free and slithered into the hole... followed by muscles, tendons, ligaments, blood vessels, a million different organs... everything. In two blinks of an eye, the thing was gone. Then the tiny glowing hole closed.

The silence that followed was deafening.

No one moved for several seconds... a time that seemed like hours.

Then Jason heard people walking toward him. Marilyn Dobbs and Henry Sharpe. The other cops were still trying to understand what they had seen. And James Royce had mysteriously vanished.

"You," said Sharpe. He paused to swallow the lump in his throat. "You... are under arrest."

"You're kidding, right?"

"Dobbs! You've got a gun... Arrest that man!"

Marilyn Dobbs looked at Sharpe, then at Jason, then back at Sharpe.

"I'm not arresting shit." She said as she tossed her weapon to the ground.

"Fine! I'll do it myself!" Sharpe reached for Dobbs' discarded gun...

BANG!

At first, Jason thought that the gun had gone off. But it was the front door opening. The cheap screen door flew open and slammed against the wall with so much force that the hinges tore free and the door itself broke in half. Ashley Rick stepped out into the yard, her eyes red with tears and anger.

"Ashley?" said Jason. "Ashley what-"

"YOU!" She pointed to Henry Sharpe. "YOU did this! YOU MADE THIS HAPPEN!"

"Wha-"

"WELL ITS NOT GOING TO HAPPEN AGAIN!"

Henry Sharpe suddenly stood upright at rigid attention... and remained there as if unable to move. His eyes fixed on Ashley's face. Jason saw Ashley's aura flash bright white for an instant, and he felt something rush past him... as if something physical had just moved from Ashley to Sharpe. But there was nothing there-

"nnnNNNNARRRRRGH!!!!!" Sharpe howled. He looked down in terror as the bony, dead hand burst from the ground and grabbed his ankle. Of course, the hand wasn't really there... but his mind told him it was real. He saw it. He felt its claws digging into his flesh. He tried to move, but he couldn't.

Then he saw the others. Corpses. Dozens of them... rising from the ground... pulling their rotting bodies up into the world and lurching toward him with arms outstretched. Their skeletal jaws opened... maggots and worms poured out onto the ground as they spoke...

"Iii wasss iiinnnocennntt..." one hissed.
"..yoouuu killld meeee..." said another.

Then they all spoke.

"...killled meee..."
"...nnoooo evidennnce..."
"...youu liiiiieed..."
"Iii diiied in prrrisssooon... youuuu sennnt meee theerrr.... I wass innnocennnt..."
"...whyyyyy..."
"...whyy diidddd youuu dooo iiit..."
"...whyyyy diid youuu killll meeee..."
"...whyyyy..."

"No! NOOO, PLEEASE! Stay away from me!"

More of their cold, dead hands touched him. Grabbed him. Beginning to pull and tear at him. Sharp bones dug into his skin and pulled it away

"AEEEEEEEE!!!"

"...murrrderrrerrr..."

"Noo! NO! I killed you! I killed you all! YOU'RE ALL DEAD!!"

"...murrrderrrerrr..."

"Yes! I killed you! I made up the evidence! I killed you to cover my own mistakes! I was trying to make a name for myself! NO! PLEEEESE!! I'M SORRY!

"...nooo forgiiivenesssss..."

Sharpe felt his face being torn open... his neck... they were tearing him apart piece by piece...

"AAIIIEEEEEEEEEE!"

Suddenly he could move. Sharpe forced the walking corpses away from him and reached for the only weapon he had... the gun that Dobbs had discarded. He snatched it from the ground, pulled the hammer back, and put the weapon to his own head.

"YOU'LL NEVER TAKE ME! NEEVERRRRR!!! "

"NO!"

Detective Dobbs grabbed Sharpe's arm and twisted it, forcing him to drop the gun. She put him in a headlock and held him tight, but he kept struggling... trying to get to the gun. Then he went into uncontrollable convulsions-

"ASHLEY!!! STOP!!"

Jason's shout snapped Ashley out of her trance. She blinked and looked around as if she didn't realize where she was. Then she saw Sharpe. Dobbs was still holding him, but just barely. The man was snarling and growling like an animal... with drool running down his lips and stains spreading across his pants.

"Oh, no..." Ashley gasped. Fresh tears streamed down her cheeks, but these were tears of horror. "... I didn't mean it..." Ashley turned and ran away as fast as she could.

"I don't know what just happened, Brooks," said Dobbs. "But you'd better get after her."

"Thanks," said Jason. He ran after Ashley.

"Don't thank me yet," Dobbs whispered. "Somebody HELP me with this man!" she shouted. The other cops grabbed Sharpe and wrestled him to the ground. Even with two men pinning him to the ground, Sharpe still tried to scratch and bite them like a rabid dog.

"My God," said Dobbs. "What did she do to you?"

"hat did you do to him?" said Jason.

Ashley hadn't been that hard to find... when he'd caught up with her a few blocks away, her aura was still glowing like a neon sign. She was wandering down the street, crying.

"STAY AWAY FROM ME!"

"Hey..." Jason backed away from her. "It's just me, remember?"

"...I'm dangerous..." she said. "You'd be better off just... just keeping away..."

"You're not dangerous to me," said Jason. He extended his hand. "C'mon... I'll take you somewhere. Anywhere."

Ashley grabbed his hand... her grasp was weak and tentative at first, but then she grasped it as if holding on for dear life.

"You... you're not afraid? You don't think I'm a... monster?"

"I've seen monsters," said Jason. "You're a lot better looking. NOT that I mean anything by that... ya know..."

Ashley's lips twitched. It was almost a smile.

"You're a good person," said Jason. "I'd know that even if I couldn't see your aura. So I'll make you a deal. What happened back there... you're gonna have to talk about it eventually, but only when you're ready. I'm not gonna ask you about it. Deal?"

Ashley nodded.

"Looks like we've both got our share of problems. Don't take this the wrong way, but, maybe... you know... me and you should stick together. God knows, I can use the help. What do you think?"

Ashley nodded.

"Business relationship. Strictly."

"Of course," she said.

"So... what about the boy? Tomas? Is he-"

Ashley shook her head and looked away.

"I'm sorry."

"No," said Ashley. "Sharpe is sorry. And I'm sorry. You... you just did your best."

"We both did."

"Your best is a disgrace," came a voice from nearby.

"Wha-" Jason had a gun in his hand faster than Ashley could blink. A dark figure emerged from the bushes near by. He wore all black, and shadows covered his face, revealing nothing but a glimpse of blonde hair. "What the hell... who are you?"

"You have something that rightfully belongs to me," said the man.

"Dear Lord," Donovan muttered. "Jason..."

"Get behind me, Ashley," said Jason as he stepped between her and the stranger. The man took a step toward them... moving into the light. He was little more than a boy... eighteen years old at the most. But he had the grimmest, most deadly serious face Jason had seen on anyone, adult or child. He had a long sword tied to his belt, and one hand rested on the pommel.

Jason eased back the hammer on the revolver.

"Jason, don't shoot him!" said Donovan. "Please!"

"What?" said Jason. "You know this kid?"

"His name is Sebastian. He's my son."
 

copyright 2005 by Dark Icon Entertainment