Judgement and Wrath jh-2

  Judgement and Wrath

  ( Joe Hunter - 2 )

  Matt Hilton

  Judgement and Wrath

  Matt Hilton

  The seventy-first spirit is Dantalion. He is a great and mighty duke, who governs thirty-six legions of spirits. He appears in the form of a man with many countenances, all men's and all women's faces. Dantalion knows the thoughts of all men and women, and can change them at will.

  The Goetia: The Lesser Key of Solomon the King

  A Crowley Hell is empty and all the devils are here'

  The Tempest 1.2 William Shakespeare

  Prologue

  Caitlin Moore opened the door to her living room and stepped into Hell.

  Or that's how it seemed to her for the remaining three minutes and twenty-seven seconds of her life.

  The clock began ticking when she pushed the door to with a nudge of her hip and reached for the light switch with an expertly aimed elbow. It was the usual Friday evening routine. Coming home from Collinwood High School with her arms filled with books and test papers for marking, she could hit the switch every time.

  Except this time blackness prevailed.

  'Goddamnit,' she muttered under her breath, swinging round to place the papers down on the sideboard next to the door.

  It was the creaking of the easy chair by the TV that made her pause.

  'Are you awake, Nate? How about giving me a hand here? The power's down.'

  Nathaniel Moore was also a teacher at Miami's Collinwood High. But Caitlin's husband was a track coach and didn't have to attend the Friday evening tedium of the faculty meeting. He always got away three hours earlier, picked up Cassie from the sitter and went home. Once Cassie was tucked up in bed, and a couple of Jack Daniels were residing in his belly, Nate would doze in front of the wide screen with the Discovery Channel doing its best to cover his snores.

  Routine.

  'Nate?'

  But tonight's routine was blasted into smithereens.

  There'd be no supper. No cuddling on the couch while watching a late movie. No fondling their way to bed where a rejuvenated Nate would prove he was still a jock when it came to stamina-based sports.

  'Hello, Caitlin.'

  The voice was soft, but still enough to shock her to the core. She jerked, her spine knocking on the sideboard, papers spilling from the pile. That wasn't the voice of her husband.

  It wasn't the voice of anyone she knew.

  The easy chair creaked again, and there was a shifting of the darkness around her. The mystery voice was on the move.

  She almost turned for the door.

  Then she remembered Cassie.

  Eight-year-old Cassie would be asleep in her room. If she ran, what would happen to Cassie? What had happened to Nate?

  A flashlight was thumbed on, the beam stark in Caitlin's eyes. She croaked, throwing an arm across her face.

  That rush of movement again and a hand clamped on her throat. The fingers were long and slim, but they felt like steel where they dug into her flesh. Caitlin's lungs bucked in her chest.

  She had no way of resisting. Air gone, she didn't have the strength or the will to fight. She was turned in a lazy circle then ushered to the centre of the room. Sparks popped and fizzed behind her eyelids. Without air she'd be unconscious within seconds. Then the fingers were gone from her throat and she was retching: gag reflex on overdrive.

  'Hello, Caitlin,' the voice said again.

  'Who are you?' Caitlin gasped. 'What do you want?'

  The light was still in her eyes. She couldn't make out the figure behind its beam. Did she know the voice after all?

  'I want to give you a choice.'

  The torch went off and darkness slapped its hood over Caitlin's head. Around her a breeze eddied. The stranger was on the move again. Caitlin swung with the breeze, trying to determine where the stranger was now.

  'Do you love your family, Caitlin?' The voice was barely more than a whisper.

  'More than anything. Please! Don't hurt them. I'll do anything you say.'

  'Anything?' the voice sounded strangely disturbed. 'You'd debase yourself for them? You'd lie down and give yourself to a stranger?'

  'Anything,' Caitlin sobbed. 'Money! You want money? I'll get you money.'

  'I don't want money, nor do I want your body.'

  'Then, what?'

  'I told you. I want to give you a choice.'

  There was a metallic click above her: a bulb being turned in its socket. Pearlescent light bathed the room.

  And Caitlin saw the figure and knew that her life could be counted in seconds.

  He was tall. Slim almost to the point of emaciation. His face was too pale, a wax mask that made Caitlin think of a reflection in a steamed-over mirror. His hair was silk-fine, as pale as his skin, and hung to his shoulders beneath the wide, circular brim of a hat. His coat was shabby: a long, ankle-brushing raincoat that was missing all but the topmost button. A thin silver chain looped from one side to the other, where something bulged in the pocket. On his feet were grimy deck shoes that were threadbare where his toenails pushed against the fabric.

  The stranger had a look about him that spoke of sleeping under cardboard, drinking from bottles concealed within brown paper bags, and ranting at alcohol-induced phantoms.

  But Caitlin knew: this was no street person who'd found access to her home. This man was the type that even the hardiest of the streetwise shunned.

  Two things told her.

  The silenced pistol he held loosely in his hand.

  And the stone killer intensity of his eyes.

  'I'm going to give you a choice,' the man offered again. 'Who will you save, Caitlin? Nate or Cassandra?'

  Caitlin followed his gaze. On the opposite side of the room, two wooden chairs had been dragged from the kitchen. In each of them sat the people she loved most in the entire world.

  Nate was bound and gagged. He strained at his bonds, his eyes huge. In contrast Cassandra was very still, her features lax.

  A wail swelled in Caitlin's throat.

  'Make your choice, Caitlin,' whispered the man.

  How could she? How could she? How?…

  'Cassandra has been anaesthetised,' the stranger said. 'If you choose Nathaniel she will never know. Do I kill her, Caitlin?'

  Nate's veins were standing out on his temples like blue ropes. He was shaking his head in denial. Caitlin met his eyes and he sank back in the chair.

  'Please,' Caitlin said, 'don't harm our daughter.'

  The stranger nodded. Then shot Nate in the forehead.

  'You made the best choice. Your child will be safe now, Caitlin. You can rest easy.'

  Then he lifted the gun to Caitlin's face.

  1

  Sometimes you make rash decisions that you instantly regret. Other times you just have to go with the flow.

  Like when I walked into Shuggie's Shack — a roadhouse north of Tampa, Florida — and parked myself on a stool at the corner of the warped and stained bar.

  Shuggie's is the kind of place that self-respecting souls avoid unless they're dragged inside by the hair. The tables are planks nailed to barrels, seats 1970s retro-vinyl from the first time around. The atmosphere is redolent with beer fumes and cigarette smoke, and the stench of unwashed bodies. Tattoos seem to be the order of the day. Muscles and hair, too. And that's just the women.

  You finish your meal of grease over-easy, and the kind of gratuity you offer the staff is thanks that you get out with your face still intact.

  I was made as a cop by every man, woman and beast in the place within the time it took me to catch the bartender's eye. Every last one of them was wrong, but I wasn't averse to letting them wonder.

  'Beer,' I
said. There didn't seem to be any choice. It was that, or chance the brown liquid masquerading as liquor in the dusty bottles arranged on the shelf behind the cash register.

  The bartender moved towards me reluctantly. He glanced around his clientele, as if by serving me he was betraying their creed. Not that he looked the type to worry about people's feelings. He was a massive man in one of those cut-off leather vests designed to show the size of his biceps. He had a black star inked into the rough skin beneath his right eye, and a scar that parted his bottom lip and ended somewhere in the braided beard on his chin.

  'Don't want any trouble in here, mister,' he said as he set down a beer in front of me. 'I suggest you drink up and get on your way.'

  Holding his gaze, I asked, 'Is that what you call Southern hospitality round here?'

  'No,' he sneered, 'in these parts we'd call that good advice.'

  Besides the long hours I'd already put in at the wheel since leaving Tampa, I could foresee a long night. A relaxing drink would have helped my mood. Maybe a little pleasant conversation would have helped, too. Didn't look like I was going to find either in here.

  'Thanks for the heads up,' I said.

  Flicking dollars on the bar top, I stood up and walked away, carrying my drink. It felt warm in the glass. By contrast, the barkeep's gaze on the back of my head was like ice.

  Passing a group of men sitting at a table, I inclined my chin at them. They looked back with the dead eyes of men wary of the law. One of them shivered his overdeveloped pectoral muscles at me and they all sniggered.

  In the back corner of the bar sat a man as incongruous to this setting as I was. A small bird-like man with nervous eyes and a way of oozing sweat through his hair without it moisturising the dry skin on his forehead. His right hand was in continuous motion, as though fiddling with something small in his palm. I may have caught a flash of metal, but his hand dipped to his coat pocket and it was gone.

  Without asking his permission, I placed my beer on the table and took the chair alongside him. The barrel made it awkward to sprawl, so I leaned forward and placed my elbows on the planks. I turned and studied the man but he continued to watch the barroom as though fearful of who might walk in next.

  'When you said I'd know you when I got here, I see what you meant,' I said. 'You don't strike me as the type who hangs out in biker clubhouses.'

  'We agreed on this place for that very reason,' the man said. 'It isn't as if anyone I know is going to be here.'

  'It wasn't a good idea,' I told him. 'If you wanted anonymity, you should have chosen somewhere where you'd blend in. Where we'd blend in. Check it out; we're on everyone's radar.'

  Maybe the bartender's advice wasn't so bad after all.

  'We should go,' I told him.

  The men gathered at the table further along had turned their attention to the spectacle we presented sitting in their midst. They didn't seem pleased, as if we spoiled the ambient testosterone.

  The man wasn't listening. He dropped a hand from the table and dug beneath a folded newspaper. I saw the corner of an envelope.

  'Everything you need is in there.' He quickly grabbed at his own drink, taking a nervous gulp. 'The balance will be paid as soon as I get the proof that Bradley Jorgenson is no longer a threat to me or any of my family.'

  Sighing at his amateurish game of subterfuge, I left my arms resting on the table. It gave me cover for when I dipped my right hand under my coat and caressed the butt of my SIG Sauer P228.

  'I'm not sure I want the job,' I said to him.

  The man stiffened.

  'I'm not who you were expecting,' I said.

  He finally glanced at me and I knew what he was thinking. Is this a set-up? Was I a cop like everyone in the damn bar thought?

  'You can relax, Mr Dean. I am Joe Hunter.' I folded my fingers round the butt of my gun, placing my index finger alongside the trigger guard. 'What I mean is I'm not a hit man.'

  'Jared Rington told me that you would help,' Richard Dean whispered harshly.

  'I will help,' I reassured him. 'I'll get your daughter away from Jorgenson. But I'm not going to kill the man without any proof that he's a danger to her.'

  Dean nodded down at the envelope. 'Take it. You'll see what I mean. All the proof is there.'

  There was movement among the men at the next table. One man with jailhouse tats stood up. He picked up his beer, held it loosely in his hand. He gave me a look that said we'd outstayed our welcome. He sniffed loudly, then jerked his head at the two men nearest him.

  Oblivious, Dean said, 'Please, Mr Hunter, I need you to get my daughter away from that monster. If it means killing him to do that… well… I'll pay you any price you want.'

  'Pass me the envelope,' I told him. 'Under the table. I've got your phone number. I'll be in touch with you, let you know my decision.'

  Dean had panic in his eyes. Whether it was about relinquishing the cash already in the envelope without a firm agreement, or because there was a real possibility I was going to do as he asked, the nerves got a grip of him. He wavered, his fingers plucking at moisture on his glass.

  'Two seconds and the deal is off,' I warned him.

  He quickly slipped the envelope into my outstretched left hand.

  'OK. Now go.'

  He opened his mouth and I gave a slight shake of my head. Suddenly he was aware of the Aryan Brotherhood approaching us. Coughing his excuses, he started from his seat, dodging round the tattooed man and his two compadres. They heckled him but allowed the little man to go.

  Pushing the envelope into my waistband, I stood up.

  'I'm going, guys. You can relax.'

  The man with the jailhouse tats barred my way. He lifted a grimy nicotine-stained finger to my chest.

  'You're not welcome here.'

  'Didn't you just hear what I said?'

  'Can't say I did. What is that funny accent?'

  I get remarks like that occasionally. Comes with being English. And northern to boot.

  'Look, guys, you've caught me in an awkward predicament,' I said to Tats. 'You don't want me here; I don't want to be here. Truth is, normally I wouldn't sully myself by entering a shit hole like this. But here I am.'

  My words had the desired effect.

  I got a laugh.

  Stepping forwards, I found they parted for me.

  That should have been it. Playing on the paradox of self-deprecating humour, I should have got myself out of Shuggie's Shack without any injuries. The problem was two things got in the way.

  First, Tats' question: 'What did that little freak hand you under the table?'

  Second was the surly mood I'd been in when I arrived. Which wasn't helped by the bullshit Richard Dean had subsequently laid on me.

  'None of your fucking business,' I told him pleasantly.

  The jukebox was spitting out heavy rock music. Ear-jarring stuff, but expected in a place like this. It played on. If there'd been a pianist in the bar he'd have stopped at that moment.

  'You're in my place,' Tats pointed out. 'That makes it my business.'

  'Oh, so you must be Shuggie, then?' I swept my gaze around the barroom. Shook my head at what I saw. 'You know, place like this dump, you should be ashamed of yourself.'

  'I ain't Shuggie, asshole. And that's not what I meant.'

  'Yeah, I know what you meant.'

  'I own this place. I own what goes on under this roof.' He stuck out his grimy hand a second time. 'Hand it over.'

  I shrugged.

  'OK.'

  The SIG was between his eyes before the smirk had fully formed on his lips.

  Chairs scraped and there was a chorus of shouts as just about everyone leapt to their feet, pulling out guns of their own. A couple of the more delicate customers headed for shelter.

  It was like DefCon Five had just been announced and anarchy was the new world order.

  It kind of matched my mood.

  'This is how it's going to be,' I said. My words were for everyone in the ro
om. 'Everyone relaxes, puts away their weapons and gets the hell out of my way. The alternative is that Biker Boy will be throwing his very own wake in the near future.'

  'He's only one fucking pussy,' an anonymous voice shouted from out of the crowd. 'We can take him out.'

  'One pussy with a gun at your stinking boss's head,' I reminded the shouter. Turning my attention to Tats, I asked him, 'How would you like things to go? Bit of a party animal, I guess. Should be a good turnout for your wake.'

  'Put down your goddamn guns,' Tats yelled. 'Any of you muthas with itchy fingers, you're gonna answer to me!'

  Smiling at him, I grabbed a handful of his denim cut-off.

  'Me and you are going to walk out of here together,' I told him.

  He was shorter than I was, but bulkier in the chest. Slightly awkward for getting a hold round his neck. Making do with bunching his cute little ponytail in my left hand, I stuck the SIG under his ear. That way we moved towards the door.

  A man to my right maybe still had it in his mind that I was a cop. Cops will always warn before they shoot. He lurched at me, trying to grab the gun away from Tats' throat.

  But I'm not a cop.

  My sidekick found his knee. There was a tendon-popping twang and his leg now had a two-way joint. His face screwed around the agony, a good target for my elbow. He went down, but at least in his unconscious state he wasn't in pain any longer.

  In the fraction of a second that it took to take the idiot out, the SIG had never wavered from its target.

  'Any more of you assholes want to test me?' I growled.

  They hung back like a pack of hyenas, wary of the lion in their midst, starving but too afraid to try to snatch away its kill.

  Taking that as my cue, I dragged Tats backwards and out of the door. Arrayed along the road outside was a row of chopped and converted Harley Davidsons and other bikes I didn't recognise. I shot at a few of them, putting 9 mm ammo through their gas tanks. One of them went up in the air like the space shuttle, trailing fire and burning fuel that splashed most of the others. Rapidly I dragged Tats away from the conflagration, even as others began to spill out of Shuggie's. Suspended between their desire to get Tats free and saving their beloved bikes, there could only be one winner. I was able to bundle Tats into my Ford Explorer without anyone else trying to play the hero.