Raw Power: An Urban Fantasy Novel (Demon-Hearted Book 1) (19 page)

Pacing over to the yawning chasm in the floor of the tunnel, I chuckled. In the ghostly firelight, the paleness of my face was all too evident, however. “S-so, this friend of yours... she a mole person?”

Rather than dignify that with a response, Kubo took me by the arm and shoved me through the trapdoor, into the abyss.

I fell through the floor of the tunnel into an unnatural, impregnable darkness. And I screamed the whole damn way, never knowing whether I'd reach the bottom.

When I managed to open my eyes, however, I found that I was not only standing on two feet, but that I wasn't tumbling into an unlit abyss after all. I was standing at the doorstep of a small, dimly lit cottage couched between two rain-soaked footpaths. A dense forest crowded the structure on all sides, with only a small ring of overgrown grass acting as a clearing near the door.

I turned and found Kubo standing nonchalantly at my side, striking at the door with his meaty fist.

Let me break that down for you.

We walked down an alley next to a Chinese restaurant, and from there, we entered a really long alley that shouldn't have even existed. At the end of that alley, Kubo had summoned up ghost fireballs and opened a door in the ground, which we'd jumped through. Instead of falling into the center of the Earth, though, we'd ended up standing outside of a quaint little cottage in the middle of a pine forest.

I didn't have the slightest idea of how we'd gotten there, but I felt pretty sure we'd broken every law of physics along the way. Hell, physical laws that hadn't even been discovered yet had been broken.

Blinking at the door as it eased open, I pinched myself.

Still awake.

Kubo walked in and looked back at me expectantly, waiting for me to join him. Glancing over my shoulder at the misty woods, I scampered into the cottage behind him, unwilling to face the bizarre, metaphysical ramifications of our surroundings.

The door closed with a creak behind me and I found myself standing in a dingy room crowded from floor to ceiling with shelves. And on those shelves were glass and metal containers of all shapes and sizes. Many of them contained liquids of varied colors, while others held questionable things suspended in said liquids. Small potted shrubberies were peppered throughout the space, exploding across the shelves and invading the nooks and crannies with their long, searching growths. There were shelves sagging with ancient-looking books, and just beyond, what I fancied to be a collection of cages, from which emerged the strangest, most disconcerting sounds.

Kubo's friend evidently had some weird hobbies.

From the right-hand corner of the room I caught sight of someone stirring. It was an old woman, her face so wrinkled it looked like a slumping stack of pancakes. Two bushy, white eyebrows and a shock of white, frizzy hair topped it all off, and the creases of the woman's face churned as she glimpsed Kubo, indicating either happiness at seeing him, or else severe gas pains. It was literally impossible to tell. She was an aged creature, older than anyone I'd ever seen. Older, even, than the witches in Mater Agatha's employ.

Still, the woman moved towards us from across the room with great, almost alarming swiftness, winding through the shelves and stacks with the grace of a serpent.

And as she stationed herself before Kubo, extending a stubby, withered hand to shake, I could see why.

She was only human from the waist up. In place of legs, she had a long, greenish length of muscled flesh that extended several feet behind her in a segmented taper.

I'd been bullshitting with Kubo before, asking whether his buddy was a mole person.

Turns out she was closer to “snake-person”.

 
I was completely caught off guard by this, disgusted, if we're being honest, but I tried to hide it by looking away from her coiling, olive-green lower half.
Don't stare at it
, I told myself.
It's rude to stare. Maybe she's self-conscious about it.

What constituted proper etiquette when dealing with monstrosities like this one? Was it a faux pas to stare at the lengthy tail that dominated her lower body? Was it proper to discuss her affinity for gobbling field mice, or to discuss the outcome of her most recent molt? In the end, I just shut up and let Kubo do the talking.

With more charm than I'd seen him use up to that point, Kubo took her hand and shook it graciously. “It's good to see you again, Mona. You're looking well.”

 
Looking well?
I thought.
Seriously? I knew you were into some weird shit, chief, but your taste in women is completely beyond me.

The serpent lady, Mona, peered over Kubo's shoulder, rising up on her coiled lower body, and shooting me one of those pudgy, indecipherable looks I took to be a smile. “And who is this you've brought with you?”

“This is Lucy,” replied Kubo. “He's new, and he got himself into a bit of trouble with Agatha's crew. I was hoping you might be able to help him.”

Mona appraised me carefully, then retreated into the depths of her cluttered abode. The sound of rattling glass bottles could be heard. “I see he's been marked,” she uttered. “Agatha's magic is powerful, I grant her that. From one witch to another, she has my compliments. Nothing a little ingenuity can't dispel, however.”

 
While Mona busied herself with her things, I stood next to Kubo and leaned in. “Wait a minute... Mona's a witch? Why are we working with her?” I asked, voice low. “I thought we
killed
witches.”

Kubo looked at me like I was the dumbest man alive. And, in this little world we now inhabited, it was a definite possibility that was the case. “Not all witches. The Veiled Order only goes after those craft users or denizens of the Beyond who insist on meddling in human affairs.”

Apparently snake-people were A-OK, too.

Mona returned a short while later, having moved some stacks of old books out of the way and created a magic circle on the floor in chalk. “Come here,” she said, pointing to me with one of her stubby fingers. Her hands and arms seemed thoroughly atrophied, and while I initially suspected it might've been due to some illness or deformity on her part, it now seemed more likely that they'd simply shriveled up due to disuse. That is, she was becoming more snake than woman.

Kubo and I walked to the circle, the open spaces between the intricate symbols filled with bunches of dark, leafy herbs gathered from her numerous potted specimens. These herbs were lit, and produced a good deal of odorous smoke. She pointed to the center of the circle and instructed me to stand within it for what she called a “cleansing”.

I hesitated.

Well, excuse the hell out of me for being a little gun-shy where magic circles are concerned. I'd stepped into my fair share over the past couple of days, and every time it'd been bad news. I'd been immobilized by these things, had spikes driven through my body by them, and wasn't exactly looking to add to the experience. When Kubo impatiently nudged me towards it, I gulped and paced around its perimeter before cautiously stepping inside. Thankfully, no spikes erupted from it, and I could still move freely within.

So far, so good.

“Young man,” said Mona, reaching over the edge of the circle and touching my arm.

I recoiled.

“You've been marked by one of those witches. A spell has been cast upon you, which allows them to track your whereabouts. I will now clear it and you will walk free, however you should be very careful from this point on. A tracking spell is a common thing, but it is not often that a spell of this particular complexity is encountered. There are not many, save for the caster, who could hope to dissolve the stuff of this spell. You should be happy that Takeshi is so well connected.” The folds of her face parted in a toothless grin. I saw the edges of a forked tongue escape her lips, tasting the air before she fell into a series of chants.

 
I smirked, looking to the chief as small clouds of smoke billowed up from the burning herbs. “I really owe you one,
Takeshi
.”

Kubo rolled his eyes and paced around the room, scanning the objects on the shelves and peering into glass jars narrowly.

“It is important,” added Mona, pausing in her chanting, “that you breathe in the smoke.” She motioned towards the burning herbs with the tip of her green tail, effectively sending a shiver down my spine.

I did as I was told, taking in a few lungfuls of the smoke until I coughed. Certain of the herbs produced sweet-tasting smoke, others acrid. I wasn't sure what combination she was using, whether these herbs even existed in the world I knew, but I kept on sniffing at the smoke until, some minutes later, her chanting finally ceased.

“It is done,” said Mona, inviting me to leave the circle.

“T-thanks.” As I rushed over to Kubo's side, I tried my best not to look at the old serpentine witch. It wasn't that I was ungrateful. I just couldn't stand the sight of her.

“No problem.” She leaned against an exposed counter and nodded towards me. “This isn't the first time we've met, you know.”

I turned to face her, trying to focus on anything but her fat, squirming tail, which playfully slapped a beat against the floor. “What do you mean?” I don't usually hang with half-snake, witchcraft-practicing ancients, so I felt pretty sure she was lying. Meeting Mona was not something I'd just forget, that's for sure. Already I was sensing that I'd have a hell of a time scrubbing every trace of this bizarre encounter from my mind.

“It was in the hospital,” she continued, her tongue darting out once more as she approached me. “You're the Demon-Heart. When your body was brought in by the Veiled Order's strike force, it was me who kept your soul in place. I preserved the bulk of your bodily tissue, prevented further degradation, so that you could undergo the transplant.”

I massaged the back of my neck.“T-thanks for that,” I said. No sooner did the words leave my mouth did I question whether or not it was something I should be thanking anyone for. Technically, the Veiled Order had turned me into a monster. Was that really something to be thankful for?

“Takeshi, is there anything else I can help you with? It seems you only ever stop by these days when you need a favor! It's enough to make an old woman worry. You never even call.” Mona's eyes opened very slightly as she sported a grin, deep yellow orbs coming to light beneath the sloppy lids.

“I've been busy with work,” he replied, hands in pockets. “I promise we'll catch up again soon.” He pointed me towards the door, pacing through the room slowly. “As always, I owe you one, Mona.”

“Think nothing of it, dear. Take care of yourself.” Mona settled back into her corner, putting out the smoldering remains of the herbs as she went. “Oh, and it was very nice to meet you again, er... Lucy, was it?” She worked over it for a time. “What a strange name for a Demon-Heart.” The sounds of her hissing contentedly reached my ears as I neared the door.

“N-nice to meet you, too,” I lied.

Kubo opened the door and I leapt out before him. “Mona is a powerful witch with many centuries of experience. She's taught me an incredible amount over the years, and helped me hone my spell craft.” The door closed behind him softly.

 
I couldn't shake off the goosebumps. “Yeah, I guess that you've gotta be talented when you've got a body like
that
.” I shuddered. “Can we go back to the real world now? You know, where people
don't
slither around on their bellies and shit?”

Kubo grinned. It was a bigger smile than I'd ever seen him don, and it made me really uncomfortable. The man was a brute, capable of some real savagery, and never was I more reminded of that than when he broke his usual stoic expression to smile. “Real? Tell me, what about this world seems false to you? In some ways, this place we're now in is realer than anything you've ever known.”

I was through with the pseudo-philosophical talk and just wanted to get back to Detroit. Sighing, I glanced around, searching through the dense wilderness all around us from that dark opening we'd arrived through.

It was nowhere to be found.

“You're looking for the opening,” Kubo guessed. “You won't find it. Come, this way.”

There were two paths winding around Mona's place, each of them well-worn by the service of many feet over the years. We took the one on the right. I followed close behind Kubo, wondering how long it might take for us to get back.

And then, suddenly, we were standing on top of that wooden door in the floor of the alley.

I hadn't hardly blinked, hadn't even made it half-way around Mona's cottage, when the scenery suddenly changed. It'd been seamless, like a scene change in a film. I reached out and touched the cool walls of the tunnel, which were still faintly illuminated by the ghostly will-o-the-wisps. From there, we walked quickly to the adjoining alley, which ran alongside Yao's, and returned to the parking lot, where the SUV was stationed.

Stunned by our journey, I looked to Kubo and pointed back at the way we'd come. “So, there were two paths outside of Mona's cottage. Where does the other one lead?”

That brutal grin played across Kubo's face once again as he hopped into the car. His voice was muffled as he slammed the driver's side door shut, but I thought he said, “You're not ready for that.”

TWENTY-SEVEN

I declined the offer of a ride home. After all I'd seen at Mona's, I felt the need to decompress. Yao's wasn't so far from my place, so that I took my time in walking the streets, meandering over the course of hours towards my apartment.

It was a cool day, and it grew even cooler as the evening drew near. I palmed at my exposed arms and elbows, trying to bring a little warmth to them, but shivered all the same. Funny that the demon in me couldn't keep me from getting cold.

I looked into shop windows, toyed with the wares of downtown street vendors and bought myself a soft pretzel with extra cheese from a passing food truck. The hours wore on, and before I realized it, I was covering the same ground, walking circles around the same few blocks of downtown. Stopping in place, I peered up at the darkening sky and tried to decide what to do with the rest of my night. It was clear I was trying to put off my return to the apartment. After the awful hallucinations in the hall, it no longer felt safe. Mona's ritual had knocked the witches off of my trail, probably, but I knew those persistent mongrels weren't going to lay off so easily.