Damoren (3 page)

To his relief, no new
women had gone missing in the last four weeks, but that didn’t mean much. There’s always the hitchhiker, the lone traveler. Maybe no one had noticed it yet. Besides, aswangs didn’t have to feed every single month. Maybe its escapades had brought too much attention and it was laying low. Maybe it had left. Maybe it had hopped bodies and was now possessing some poor bastard whose soul it had marked thirty years ago and now living on the other side of the world. Matt could only pray that wasn’t the case.

As the news blathered on about wars abroad, sports predictions, and some puff piece about a family of adorable raccoons living in an apartment complex, Matt retrieved several jars from his locker, then opened
Dämoren’s case. One by one, he removed the spent primers from the eighteen shells, and using the intricate tools, set fresh ones in their place. He’d prepared the black powder back in Utah two weeks prior. Like everything with the sacred gun, each process was ceremonial. Flecks of his own dried blood had to be added to the mix, making each shot part of the shooter, part of him. Clay had always wondered if Matt’s unusual blood might cause issue with Dämoren, but the pistol handled it fine. The gun demanded the sacrifice, corrupted or not.

From inside a red plastic box, Matt retrieved a gleaming silver slug.
Intricate scrollwork covered the entire surface. A single word, written in tiny script, spiraled up the bullet. ‘
Amen.
’ The closing line to the gold-inlaid prayer etched up the revolver’s barrel. Like the powder, he’d cast the slugs down in Utah. Had Cesar not been able to get the trunk through the border, the Victorian silver in Matt’s possession would have been melted down to make new blessed bullets.

The news show ended and Matt half-listened to an old Mel Gibson movie as he carefully measured and filled the shells with powder, slipped them one at a time into the plier-like tools, etched with scripted blessings, and squeezed a silver slug into place.
By the time Mel had busted a ring of coke-dealers, leapt off the roof of a downtown building, and survived an exploding house, Matt had reloaded all eighteen rounds. The last eighteen in the world.

He loaded seven in
Dämoren, then pulled on a nylon shoulder rig. Clay never liked the holster Matt designed. Said Dämoren preferred leather. Said dressing her in nylon was like putting her in a cheap dress.

“
She ain’t no whore,” the old man had grumbled. “She’s a lady. And the lady likes leather.”

Clay insisted leather held the oil better, and that kept her slick.
Matt didn’t know about all that, but in the six years Dämoren had been his, he never once felt the gun didn’t like his shoulder rig, leather or not. He pulled his jacket on, covering the gun as best could be expected, and headed out. Maybe he’d try some of that real Italian sausage. Tomorrow, he’d go to work.

#

The GPS didn’t even acknowledge the dirt road as Matt rumbled the car up the primitive, rock-strewn trail. Once, thirty years before, the road withstood trucks and heavy equipment. Now, between washouts and fir trees, some places barely let him through. The crumbling bricks of a ruined building, a house at Matt’s guess, peeked through the undergrowth. After nearly a mile the road widened into a white, gravel clearing. A sagging and broken chain link stretched end to end, venturing into the green forest on either side. Beyond it, angular sheet metal buildings, the color of rust and sand, jutted from the earth like the hulking remains of some half-buried battleship. Swirls of colorful graffiti covered every wall below eight feet. Faded black letters spelled, ‘Bullard Mining’, across the top of the main building.

Matt pulled the car around, its nose facing the entrance road, and parked.
He popped the trunk, grabbed a bottle of water from the console, and stepped out. A chirping bird hopped between the branches above, obviously angry at Matt’s presence. Circling around to the back of the car, Matt pulled off his leather jacket. Dämoren hung snugly beneath his left armpit. The bulletproof vest beneath his shirt made his lean frame appear stockier.

He opened the trunk and removed the Ingram.
Its can-like suppressor was longer than the gun itself. He shoved one of the long magazines up the hollow handle, cocked a round, then pulled its green sling strap over his arm. Matt then removed an old policeman belt from the footlocker and put it on. Dämoren’s bronze-cased slugs filled most of the bullet loops. Matt slid two of the Ingram’s magazines, one gold and one silver, into the mag pouches. Automatically, his hands verified and adjusted his pepper spray, light, knife, a padded pouch for spent shells, and another for the powder.

Setting his foot on the car bumper, Matt
pulled up the leg of his jeans and velcroed a knife sheath to his ankle. The staghorn blade was more of a good luck charm than anything. He prayed the day would never come when it was his only defense.

The bird above continued its tirade as Matt removed a red-capped spice shaker from the trunk.
He popped the lid and sprinkled a ring of gray powder around the car. If the demon tried to run, the last place Matt wanted it was hiding in his back seat, or worse, destroying his car. Once done, he closed the lid and slid the glass jar into its belt pouch. He pulled his jacket back on, concealing the weapons, then closed the trunk.

Matt picked up the plastic
water bottle from the roof of the car and opened it, breaking the white tamper-proof ring. He took a tiny swallow, then set the bottle back down and removed a flat blue tube from his pocket, about the size of a pen cap. Carefully, he pressed against his left index finger and pushed its oval button. It clicked with a short moment of pain. A crimson bead of blood welled from his fingertip. Holding his finger just above the mouth of the bottle, Matt forced a few drops inside. The red droplets plumed and swirled as they hit the water. Once he’d squeezed seven or eight drops, Matt screwed the cap back on and shook the bottle hard, then held it up. The pink water swirled, but did nothing. Holding it out beside him, Matt slowly walked toward the abandoned mine.

Warning signs clung to the old chain link, their original messages lost beneath rust and layers of spray paint.
Not needing to pick the padlocked gate, Matt ducked through one of the several openings and continued toward the buildings. He navigated the rusted and decayed remains of equipment, searching for signs of the monster. Aswangs, like many demons, preferred to live in places with dark pasts. Places of great suffering. Mines were always popular. Most, especially the older ones, had their share of accidents and death. This one was no exception, but what had caught Matt’s attention over any of the other possible locations was not the history during its operation, but its more recent tragedies.

After the mine had closed, it became a popular site for teenage parties. In the last twenty years, three teens had died here of drugs and alcohol. Two more were shot by a jealous ex-boyfriend. One, the girl, somehow survived a bullet to the head and spent several hours crawling down the gravel road to the highway where she eventually died. A sordid past like that would be irresistible for a demon seeking a lair.

Matt neared the first building, a one-story shed with a sagging metal roof.
He checked the bottle again. Nothing. He removed the spice shaker from his hip, flipped the lid, and sprinkled a line across the doorway before stepping inside. Broken bits of debris crunched beneath his feet as he made his way through the building. Someone had left an old mattress inside. Grungy stuffing and grass lined an animal nest chewed in through the side. His hand near Dämoren’s grip, he searched everywhere, even a small closet near the back, then left.

Matt checked the bottle again.
The pink water was unchanged. He pursed his lips. The demon had to be here. Nowhere else met all the requirements. What had he missed?

Bypassing a blackened mound of burned
tree limbs and charred bits of lumber, he made his way to the main building. Again, he shook out a strip of powder across the threshold before stepping through the open doorway.

D
read permeated the dim building. Matt checked the water again. Still nothing, but the creeping tingle up his spine assured him that something terribly wrong had happened here. He drew the pistol from its holster.

Light shone through several cracked and
dusty windows into what he figured was once a cafeteria by the size of it. A glint of bright pink and white shone from a pile of refuse near the corner, its distinct lack of dust making it stand out. As he approached, he realized that it was a woman’s sneaker laying atop a torn and filthy pair of jeans. Brown smears, the color of dried blood, stained the light blue denim.

Carefully, he pulled them aside to find a small figure of a
young woman woven from bundled leaves and strips of grass. The hair, made of yellow, finer grass than the rest of her, was pulled back in a ponytail, except for short bangs in the front, which hung just above her eyes.

Rachel Fidell.
She had died here. The monster had devoured her unborn baby, killed her, then ate its fill of her before dumping the body for animals to fight over. Afterward, it had made the doll. Matt didn’t know why, it was just something they did.

The bottled water was still unchanged.
Matt scooped up the grass figure and jammed it into his jacket pocket. Later, he’d burn it along with any others he might find.

Keeping
Dämoren out front, he searched the rest of the cafeteria, but found nothing. He checked a few more rooms, sprinkling the gray powder across their doors once he was done, then moved on. Aswangs favored higher points to make their nests, but Matt wanted to be sure before turning his back to the first floor.

Grimy metal stairs led to a catwalk above.
Slowly, he followed them up, his footsteps making metallic
pings
on each step. Once at the top, he followed the walkway past several large bins rising from the floor below. Rusted chains hung from the ceiling like hideous vines. The walkway ended at a steel ladder leading further up. The rust-flecked bolts appeared secure. Matt holstered his pistol, pocketed the water bottle, and climbed.

An alcove opened up
to the right, near the top. Heaps of what looked like crumpled canvas covered the floor. The stink of rot came from somewhere behind the filthy folds. Matt looked up. Light peeked through the gaps in the trapdoor above. He checked the bottle again. Still pink. Holding tight to the cold bars with one hand, he stretched out until his foot found enough purchase on the landing. The concrete floor was thirty feet below. In one quick move, he swung over the gap and into the alcove.

Bird feathers and bits of fur littered the lumpy canvas nest.
Other objects lay strewn about as well. A silver watch. A few rings. A pair of green plastic-framed glasses. Anna Kurner had been wearing a pair just like them when she vanished.

Matt spied a gray rectangle of corrugated tin, lying a little too intentionally placed among the chaos.
Drawing Dämoren, he crossed the uneven floor and slowly lifted the flimsy metal. A red plastic file envelope. Blocky letters written across the front in black marker read ‘Matthew Hollis.’

A knot of fear balled in his gut.
He looked around, half-expecting to see the barrel of a gun pointed at him, maybe a red laser beam, but no one was there. Matt turned back to the package and read his name again. Of all the things that could have been under that scrap of tin, this was the one that he hadn’t prepared for. He holstered his weapon and picked up the envelope. Licking his lips, he unwound the white string from the plastic button holding the flap closed. Inside, he found a bundle of papers held together with black binder clips. A typed letter on thick paper rested on top.

Dear Mr. Hollis,

As you can see, we’ve been aware of you for some time. While we have always made it a point to not interfere with your activities, developments have arisen that have forced our hand into contacting you.

Matt stopped reading and flipped the pages. The first page was a printout of a web article from three years ago, detailing a multiple homicide and arson outside of Atlanta. The bodies of nine young women, possibly prostitutes, living in an old farmhouse had been discovered. The remains of nearly a dozen more terribly mutilated victims had been found beneath the house. The story had made national headlines.

Memories of Atlanta flashed th
rough his mind. He turned the page to see copies of police photographs of the scene. Charred bodies, their limbs contorted into dance-like poses, lay sprawled out across a tarp. Closeups of bullet holes, still visible in their crinkled skin or punched through their blackened skulls. Matt’s fingers flipped faster. It was the biggest pack of werewolves he’d ever found. They operated a brothel outside the city. The things he saw, the bodies, the torture. He’d seen many horrors, but that house was seared into his mind forever, branded by the nightmares within. He’d sent those bitches to hell, even taking the last one down with the blade affixed beneath Dämoren’s barrel. Once finished, and whatever evidence of his presence removed, he’d burned it down. Police, the FBI, even private bounty hunters, hired by the girl’s families, all worked the case. Many, no doubt, still did. And now, one had found him.

Without making it even a quarter through the packet, he jammed the pages back into the file.
His finger fumbling, he tied it shut, then swung back to the ladder and hurried back down. Maybe they didn’t know he was here yet. Maybe they thought that he had killed Rachel Fidell and the other women. And where was the aswang? In his rush, he didn’t see the little curl of rusted metal peeling out from the ladder rung. It bit into his palm and Matt winced, clenching his teeth. Blood oozed freely, but it didn’t appear to be serious. Cursing, he continued down, leaving wet smudges on every other bar.
No time to clean them now
.