Chapter 7: Death Disco

Higher Hell

 

Chapter 7: Death Disco

 

　

I rematerialized in the alley behind La Villa Blue.

I was early to meet Gamygyn. I hoped he’d be early too. I had a lot of questions for him.

I was clueless.

How could there be two Joe Biancos?

He seemed to have been expecting me, but how’d he know I was coming? Hell, he shouldn’t have even recognized me! Sure, he’d seen me in Human form once, for a few seconds, but I shouldn’t be that noticable. I looked totally different in my suit and shades than in my punky goth getup. At least, I thought I did.

And he knows who I am, or at least what I’m after, so why wasn’t he the least bit scared? The last time he was scared shitless. This time, he laughed at me!

They laughed at me.

I just couldn’t get my head around it.

I wonder if Joe lived there when Gabby did? If so, maybe she’d know if he had a twin.

No. I don’t want to bring up anything about that place to her again. I don’t want to make her think about that. Too painful.

Damn it, Gamygyn. Where are you?

I could hear the thumping music from inside La Villa Blue pounding through the walls.

Maybe I should wait in there. Maybe have a drink.

Ugh.

No!

Just the thought of having a drink still made my stomach turn. I don’t know how people can do that every week.

I leaned against the wall and kept watching for Gamygyn.

What went down back there, it had to have something to do with whatever Gamygyn was on about earlier. Joe Bianco wouldn’t have a twin. I’d have been told about that. Gamygyn said the rumour was that either a demon or an angel or something had contacted Bianco. Did he really have a gaurdian angel helping protect him from me? I can’t believe the Old Man would want to help a scumbag like Bianco. But then, even as an angel I never understood what the hell he wanted. None of us did.

Bianco said he didn’t need to hide from me.

What’s that supposed to mean?

Damn it.

This mission just keeps getting to be more and more of a pain in the ass.

When Gamygyn showed up at Gabby’s place, I thought he was there to tell me to hurry up and take care of Bianco. I’m sure the Big Guy’s getting impatient by now. He’s gotta be pissed.

And then there’s that Freaky Guy! What the fuck does he want anyway?

Well, as long as he has a problem with me and not Gabby, then he’s the least of my worries. I can handle one messed up Human, no problem.

I thought I heard something moving in the dark farther down the alley. Like something slowly scraping the ground. I listened to it getting closer for a minute.

“Gamygyn? That you?”

No answer.

Maybe it’s that drunk I saw back down the alley the first night I was here.

I walked towards it, just to kill some time.

It just looked like a shadow on the ground at first. Then I realized what it was.

“Gamygyn!”

I dashed forward and knealt beside him.

What the fuck?!

“Your wings! Gamygyn! What happened to your wings?!”

He was in his normal demonic form, but his wings were gone! Both of them had been ripped from his back. All that was left were two bloody knobs of bone poking out of the holes in his flesh.

“What happened to you?”

With a huge, agonizing effort, he rolled over and looked up at me.

“Oh, shit!” I gasped.

One of his milky, blind looking eyes was missing, gouged out of his skull. There were slashes across his face, and a gaping gash across his chest poured dark, almost black, blood out onto the ground. There were assorted scratches and deep looking puncture wounds stabbed into his arms and legs.

“Casmiel.”

Gamygyn’s voice was little more than a strangled whisper. His one good eye was focused on me.

“Mish- mission…ch- changed…”

“Mission changed? I don’t care about my mission! Who did this to you?”

“Ssscur- scir- linn…Bi-Bianco…Not…Ta- targ-get…”

I could hear the blood gurgling in his throat when he spoke, but I couldn’t make out half of what he was saying. I was totally freaked out. I’d never seen anything like this with one of my own kind before.

“I don’t understand.”

He closed his good eye and took a slow painful breath. He grimaced with the effort to concentrate what energy he had left.

“No deal.” He hissed.

“No deal? What deal?”

Gamygyn shuddered, his breathing turning more and more into a gurgle every second.

“Come on, buddy, stay with me. I still don’t get what happened. Where’s the guy who did this?”

“Ssskkkllln…na- nath…yell…Bianc-co…”

He didn’t make any sense, and he obviously didn’t have long to live.

“Listen, Gamygyn. I’m gonna take you back to Hell. Maybe the Big Guy can help you.”

He groaned and tried to shake his head.

“No…no…save…fr- frien-d…n- no…t-ime…”

It was killing me to see and hear Gamygyn like this. I think it was the first time I’d actually heard him call me his friend.

“I gotta do something, buddy! I can’t let you die here. Not like this. Not in this World. Let me try to get you to Hell.”

He shook his head again. His voice was so faint now, I had to lean my ear close to his mouth to hear him.

“You…dan-ger…sscurlnn- n-n-athelll…fr- fr- end…”

I’m in danger? I’m not the one drowning in my own blood!

His good eye went suddenly wide with fear. He struggled to take a rattling breath.

“N-n-na…yell…curl…in-n…powfl…Byon- Bianc…co…”

His eye half closed. He wasn’t moving or breathing.

Gamygyn was dead.

I stood up, shaking all over. As I looked down on the body of my friend, smoke began to hiss out of his wounds, his mouth, his eye sockets.

The smoke grew thick, and then in a quick flash of flame, Gamygyn became nothing but a pile of ashes.

I stood there staring at the ashes shifting on the ground in a gentle breeze.

I didn’t know what to do.

My brain felt frozen. I was numb.

In all my years in Hell, I’d seen Human souls being tortured and tormented in every imaginable way, but I’d never seen anything like this. Not with another demon.

What or who could’ve done this to him? If he’d been in demonic form when he was attacked, only someone from Heaven or Hell could’ve hurt him. But if he’d been attacked in his Human body, anybody could kill him.

Just as hard to understand was why he was attacked.

Gamygyn never would’ve done anything to bring this on. He wouldn’t have fought anybody.

So why was he attacked so viciously?

I had rage building inside me.

It felt weird.

I never felt that strongly about anything. I’m a lazy demon, remember. I don’t give a shit about anything enough to get really pissed off.

But I was shaking with fury now. The pounding of the music inside the night club echoed the wrath pounding through my body.

I’d get the fucker who did this. I’d make him suffer like Gamygyn suffered.

And I knew who was going to feel my rage first.

The only name I’d gotten out of Gamygyn.

　

The Trafalgar Building.

Now that I knew where to go, I rematerialized directly into that museum-like foyer.

Joe Bianco wasn’t getting away this time. I didn’t care if there were a hundred of him in there, they’d all pay.

This ain’t business anymore, it’s personal.

I took a deep breath and clenched my fists. I took my demonic form.

I tried the carved oak doors. They were locked.

Good.

I can make a more impressive entrance.

I pulled back and slammed my hand into the door. The long sharp nails of my fingers sank deep into the wood and I yanked the whole lock and door knob out.

I booted the doors in.

There was a wide expanse of luxurious furniture and expensive trinkets, but I had no interest in them.

My eyes were focused on only one thing.

Joe Bianco, well tanned and smug looking, sitting alone on a couch going over a bunch of papers. A few neatly stacked piles of cash stood on the coffee table in front of him.

He had looked up, startled by the banging of the doors against the inner walls.

I spread my wings, pointed a long sharp-nailed finger at him, and put on my most menacing look and voice.

“JOSEPH BIANCO! SINNER! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!”

I crossed the room in a flash, threw the coffee table out of the way, and glared down at him, fangs bared.

Hundred dollar bills floated to the floor around me.

“Scum of the Earth! Scourge of this World! You will pay for your crimes with your filthy soul!”

He opened his mouth to speak, but I grabbed him roughly by the throat before he could say anything. I lifted him up over my head, slammed him onto his back on the couch, and leapt on top of him. His hands scrambled to try to pry my fingers from his throat. I tore open his fine white silk shirt sending buttons flying. Finally, I released his throat and raised a sharp fingernail to scratch the pentagram into the flesh over his heart through which I could extract his soul.

I stopped.

My hand was frozen in the air above his heart.

What?

There was already a pentagram there! Not scratched, but burned, branded into his tan skin.

What the hell is this?

I caught a flash of movement out of the corner of my eye. I looked up and saw Joe Number Two running across the room at us.

But as he leapt the last few feet to dive at me over the back of the couch, he changed.

That well tanned face with wavy black hair morphed into a long, narrow skull, like a crocodile, or a dinosaur. Barely any skin covered it. His eyes burned red.

It was another demon!

He slammed into me, knocking me off Bianco. I rolled across the thick carpet, then jumped to my feet in total shock.

The other demon was crouched between me and Bianco.

“What the fuck’s going on? Who the hell are you?”

The demon didn’t answer. Bianco did. He had an arrogant, triumphant grin on his face.

“You idiot! You can’t kill me!”

He held open his ruined shirt to expose the mark on his chest.

“Never seen that before?”

No. I hadn’t. I didn’t understand any of this.

“I made a new deal with the Devil, you see. I’m untouchable!”

I shook my head. That didn’t make any sense. How could he have? Why would the Big Guy do that after sending my here?

“It’s true.” the demon said with an oily, hissing voice. “He has cut a bargain with my Master. I am here to stop you taking his soul too early.”

He was one of the ugliest demons I’d ever seen.

His skeletal frame was covered with tight leathery skin. He stood with his bony knees bent in a crouch, his arms hanging loose at his sides. He had a long tail of bone with dry strips of scaley reptillian skin clinging to it. The wings folded behind him were black and thin, like a bats wings. His jaws were lined with long yellow fangs.

“Who are you? I’ve never seen you in Hell before.”

“I am Scirlin.”

Scirlin?

Ssscurl- in?

That’s it!

Gamygyn was trying to say his name!

“Gamygyn tried to tell my about you! What happened? Who attacked him?”

“Ahh. That was most unfortunate. I heard about it from my Master just before you arrived.”

Scirlin’s words sounded saddened, but the look in his eyes was still vicious and unfeeling.

I didn’t like this guy.

“Apparently, he was set upon by two Human thugs. He never had time to transform before they struck. Gamygyn’s loss is a terrible one indeed.”

My shoulders slumpped. I could feel the weight of Gamygyn’s death like a huge boulder on me.

I’m so sorry, buddy. You were only there to tell me Scirlin was protecting Bianco from me.

He’d died because of me. Because I’ve been such a screw up.

“Gamygyn said my mission had changed. What do I do now?”

“You are to remain in the World of the Living. Your mission will become clear soon.”

What kind of answer was that?

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“My Master gave me only that message to give you.”

Great! I’m just supposed to hang out and wait for my mission to fall into my lap?

“If you’ll excuse me,” Scirlin said with a slight bow. “I must return and report to my Master.”

Scirlin disappeared.

Bianco was watching me, smug as ever, with a cocksure grin on his face.

What a sleazy motherfucker. I just lost my friend, and he’s all smiles.

“What could a piece of shit like you have offered the Big Guy that would make him let you keep your worthless soul?”

“That’s between me and your boss.”

“Listen, fucker, my friend died tonight, and it’s all because of you and all the criminal shit you’ve-”

Wait a minute.

Two Human thugs?

That’s who Scirlin said attacked Gamygyn.

My mind flashed images of La Villa Blue.

Two thugs.

Bianco had two guys gaurding his office at the nightclub.

And there’d been even more of them here earlier tonight.

I took a step toward Bianco.

“What did you do to Gamygyn?!” I shouted in his face.

“Who?”

“Gamygyn, asshole! Another demon! My friend! You sent your men after him, didn’t you?”

“I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.”

“Liar!”

I grabbed Bianco and threw him over the couch. He scrambled to his feet, backing away from me.

He was scared now. Beads of glistening sweat were breaking out across his face.

Apparently, he thought I wasn’t capable of hurting him. He believed that little mark on his chest was a golden ticket of protection.

Big mistake.

So I can’t take his soul. I can still take my anger out on him.

“Wait! Just wait! I really don’t know who the fuck Gamygyn, or whoever, is! I swear! I’ve only ever seen you and the demon that just left.”

“Why should I believe a scumbag like you?”

I jumped the couch, grabbed Bianco, and threw him hard against the wall. He fell in a crumpled heap to the floor, wincing in pain.

“I’ve got good news and bad news, Joe. The good news is, you get to keep your slimy soul. The bad news is, you’ve caught me in a really shitty mood, and I’m gonna have some satisfaction.”

Before he could get up, I’d grasped him by the throat again and lifted him off his feet against the wall.

“First, I think I’m gonna give you a nice scar across your face to remember me by. Then, I’ll wait right here for your boys to show up and…” I gave him a malicious grin. “Well, their souls won’t be enough to pay for Gamygyn’s, but they’ll make a good down payment.”

I heard footsteps on the marble tile floor of the foyer. I turned and glared at the ruined doorway.

Looks like I won’t have to wait for Bianco’s flunkies after all.

Perfect.

And then the demonic glare morphed into what was probably a completely comical look of total bewilderment.

Gabby!

Gabby was standing nervously right where I’d kicked the doors in.

“Cas? What are you doing with my Father?”