"When Thousands Fled In Terror"
Feb. 27th, 2023 06:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dochermes"When Thousands Fled In Terror"
5/4- 5/5/2013
I.
Just before midnight, Johnny Packard pulled his Harley into the garage next to the Provenzano's venerable Oldsmobile and pulled the sliding door down so it locked into place. Having a secure place to leave his bike was one reason why he had chosen this house to rent a room. He stretched and sighed wearily, left his helmet hanging from a handlebar and grabbed his black Stetson out of the saddlebag. He would never leave it out of sight. The cursed Darthan token still tucked in its beaded hatband was what made him the Brimstone Kid in actuality as well as name.
Standing five feet five in his boots and weighing no more than a hundred and fifty pounds, Johnny was a wiry energetic man. He seemed to be about thirty, but exposure to the elements and a rough lifestyle had given him a weathered look. The shaggy red hair and deepset green eyes gave his lean face a distinctive look. When he had pulled in off the street, he had seen that no lights were on in the house, meaning Mr and Mrs Provenzano had gone to bed for the night. That was fine with him. He was in no mood to sit and chat with them.
Memories from his previous life had started coming back.
Walking as quietly as he could, the Kid went through the connecting door, across the kitchen and into his rented room at the rear of the house. This had been the room of the Provenzano's son Charles before he had gotten married and moved out of state. It was close to both the downstairs bathroom and the kitchen, which Johnny had been given free use of. He closed the door behind him and did not turn on the light but simply sat down on the bed which was within reach.
In the darkness, the Brimstone Kid tugged off his boots and unbuttoned his denim jacket. He had been wearing two gunbelts across his chest in an X under that jacket, each holstering a heavy Colt .45 revolver. Getting them off was a relief. Dropping the jacket on the floor next to the bed and placing the gunbelts on top of it, he groped for the nightstand and placed his hat where he could instantly grab it.
Finally, Johnny stretched out on top of the covers and folded his arms behind his head. All day, he had been getting images in his head and they were connecting now into a narrative. This had happened several times since his Preincarnation, and he had always welcomed remembering what he still regarded as his real life. But this time, he was uneasy and apprehensive without knowing why.
Lying in the dark, letting thoughts wash over him without resisting, Johnny felt that the time in his memories was after the turn of the century, a decade after 1900. He caught a reference to the war about to break in Europe, which meant maybe 1913 or 1914. He himself seemed to be about fifty, wearing Eastern clothes including a bowler hat he found himself toying with.
Where was he though? Not New York City, not even the Northeast. Maybe Missouri? St Louis seemed right. He began to remember running down dark streets where gas lampposts were scattered far apart, he felt again the pain of a bruising brawl with two big men who tackled him from a shadowy doorway. There were images of bright gunflashes in the night. What had been going on? He had gotten his fool self in hot water all his life. Was this how he had died?
Then, sharp and horribly vivid, came the sight of a skeleton in a coarse burlap robe, moving about as if alive, grinning with skinless jaws and clapping bony hands together. No. Wait. He had one better glimpse as the apparition held up a torch. In that light, the contours of a normal body could seen as a vague outline. The monster was a human being, but somehow every part of him except the bones was invisible.
Johny shuddered. Now he could remember. The Skeleton. A deadly sorcerer, responsible for many deaths and much misery. He saw himself standing over the horror's outstretched body with bright arterial blood spreading out on the robe. Johnny felt himself holstering one of his Peacemakers beneath his Colt, its barrel still hot. "Yore done for this time, amigo, make no mistake about that," his voice said.
"You fool!" came a hollow ghoulish voice in reply. "The final victory shall be mine. I had time to lay down my most powerful curse. It is Darthan magick of the darkest kind, drawing on that which suffers beneath the Burning Pyramid..."
"What'dya mean by that, ugly?" he had said. "Talk sense."
A wet coughing spell convulsed the warlock. The skull spat up blood and struggled to speak. "You will not be around to see it, hellbound one. My spell will grow and deepen for a full hundred years. Then the world of Humans shall fall. Every last one will die as they deserve!" He gasped and wheezed.
"Godammit, NOW yore gonna die? When I need ya to talk? Skeleton, what curse? What are yuh talking about?"
The skull coughed up more blood, turning to one sides. "The Wall Between the Worlds. A fiend from Hell itself, freed at last.. in one hundred years from this night... Blood will run in rivers..." Then the grisly head lolled to one side and the death rattle sounded.
Suddenly sitting up in the dark, breathing heavily, Johnny Packard rolled over and leaped to his feet. He had to go. Right now. He would leave a note for Mr and Mrs Provenzano and grab only a few needful items. The nearest airport was in Denver, he could get there in a hour and see what the next flight to New York City was. He would find his former teammates in the KDF, and the Dire Wolf, warn them of what he had recalled. But he had a sinking feeling even they would not be able to stop the coming disaster.
II.
Without warning, Angelina Delgado burst into their office, out of breath after running from Washington Square. "Miss Colt! Have you been watching the news?"
"I have indeed." Behind her desk, a tall woman in her later thirties put down her tablet and leaned back in her swivel chair. With the golden blonde hair to her shoulders and the finely cut features, Elizabeth Colt was certainly attractive enough. But the cool appraising stare from those dark blue eyes was enough to unsettle most people. "I've been skipping from one news source to the next."
Ten years younger and six inches shorter, Angelina had a flowing mass of curly black hair down her back and a slightly round face with an appealing overbite. Like her boss, she was wearing a black pantsuit with a cream-colored blouse and Angelina had added a fine-linked gold chain under the collar. "It's crazy! Absolutely crazy! Every way out of the city is clogged so nothing is moving. People are walking across the bridges. Police have set up barricades and are keeping people from trying to escape through the Lincoln Tunnel on foot."
"Sit down for a minute," Colt told her younger partner. "You're making me nervous, take a few deep breaths. As far as I can tell, absolutely no one has any idea why this is happening. The people themselves don't know why they're evacuating Manhattan. When anyone asks them, they get agitated and won't talk. It's very strange."
"Are there any rumors of, I don't know, a nuke being reported in the city? Anything like that?"
"Not that I've heard. My guess, if I have to provide one, might be that some toxic gas has been released. Maybe it's natural element, released from Con Ed digging somewhere. A gas could make everybody feel unsafe enough that they have an instinctive urge to get as far away as they can."
Angelina jumped to her feet again and began pacing across the office. The dark wood paneling, the bookshelves jammed with legal reference volumes, the framed diplomas and certificates, even the bronze bust of Jane Austen...usually these were reassuring sights of stability but now she found no comfort in them. "I'm getting a little apprehensive and I don't mind admitting it. Maybe they know something we haven't heard about! Do you think we should get in the van and try to escape, too?"
"I tried calling Jeremy Bane," Colt admitted.
Stopping and swiveling her head around, the younger partner said, "And?"
"All I got was a voicemail to leave a message. No help at all. This seems to be exactly his sort of problem to tackle, too."
"Yeah. It's funny, when we first met him and his friends, we both thought they were either crackpots or grifters. But a few brushes with the Midnight War changed our minds."
"I know, I know," Colt said. She picked up her coffee mug, saw it was empty and frowned at it reproachingly. "I'm an atheist, Angelina. I'd describe myself as a secular humanist with no room for the supernatural in this world. But I have to accept what we have seen ourselves this past year. The nightmares still come back once in a while, but at least I don't wake up sweaty and breathless anymore. Dead people should go their rest demurely, they should not come crawling in your windows before dawn."
Without being asked, Angelina picked up her boss' mug and went with it to the kitchen down the hall. The Vigilance Investigation Agency, of which they were the only employees, occupied the entire two-story building on Bleeker Street. Their quarters and a guest room were upstairs. In a minute, she hustled back in with fresh coffee for Colt and for herself.
"Thanks, Angelina," Colt said, taking a sip gratefully. "I can't see anything we can do about this exodus. We make a living by catching criminals, gathering evidence, solving ancient Cold Cases. Dealing with thousands of people fleeing a city for no apparent reason is beyond our job description."
Dropping down behind her own smaller desk against the wall to Colt's left, Angelina emptied her coffee mug in a gulp and set it down. Her desk was covered with bundles of papers, folders, and a few newspapers, with her laptop usually hidden beneath the debris.
She began tidying up without seeming to realize it. "Miss Colt?"
"Yes, dear?"
"I was brought up a good Catholic girl and my nan told me lots of scary stories about the old country. Witches, ghosts, nosferatu. She wasn't kidding either! So when we stumbled into this Midnight War business, I didn't have much trouble accepting it."
Giving her partner a wry smile, Colt said, "Where are you going with this?"
"We worked twice with the Dire Wolf's teammates, Sheng and Sable and that Unicorn girl. I was at their building up on 38th Street. Maybe we could see what they know?"
"Sorry. Already tried, got the same results." Colt drained the rest of her coffee and leaned forward, arms crossed in front of her on desktop. "I'm more than a little annoyed with the whole useless bunch of them. When you really need experts on the unexplainable, they're nowhere to be found! Some heroes."
Before Angelina could reply, the front doorbell rang twice and then once more. Both women rose quickly, but Colt raised a hand. "Let me answer it. You stay back and be ready. Who knows what else is going on today?"
Angelina remained in the office, peering out through the open door with most of her body protected by the wall. The compact little .32 she favored was in both hands and she thumbed off the safety. When her boss glanced back at her, Angelina nodded to indicate she was ready.
Striding out in the hallway, Elizabeth Colt had unbuttoned her suit jacket and reached behind her to place a hand on the grip of her own snub-nosed Detective Special holstered on her belt. She peered suspiciously through the tiny viewport in the door, took a deep breath and swung the door open. As she did so, she had to swerve aside to avoid the redheaded young man who fell face down at her feet without trying to catch himself.
III.
Similar dramatic entrances had in fact been made at their door twice before. Colt and Angelina had worked out a response. Gun in hand, Elizabeth Colt leaned out through the doorway, peered out at the empty sidewalk to either side and then slammed the door shut and drew its deadbolts. While she did this, Angelina crouched over the unresponsive man and made a quick appraisal of his condition.
"He's got a pulse," she said at once. "He's breathing. His jacket has blood all over it but I don't think it's his. Miss Colt, I think he took a serious thrashing but he wasn't shot... or cut."
"I don't recognize him," the older partner responded. "He's dressed like a cowboy. The black Stetson, Levis, those boots with the heel and pointed toe. And look at these." Colt pulled open the visitor's unbuttoned jacket to reveal twin Peacemakers strapped on either side of his chest. She immediately confiscated them and placed them in a cabinet on the wall behind her, which locked automatically.
"He's stirring," the younger detective observed. "I think he'll be conscious in a second."
Colt grabbed the dazed man under the arms and started to lift him. "Get his legs, will you? We might as well make him as comfortable as we can under the circumstances."
Their office was furnished with the two desks, several plain wooden chairs, a counter where food and drink could be laid out, and a globe of the Earth with a five foot diameter. There was also a long couch upholstered with brown leather and covered with a wildly mismatched assortment of cushions. The two investigators laid the young man out carefully and stepped back just as he began to mumble and try to sit up.
Colt restrained him with a palm to his chest. "Whoa, hold still. Listen, you're safe. You're with friends. Take a deep breath."
Green eyes snapped open under heavy red brows, looked around frantically and then came to rest on the pale oval of the face in front of him. "I made it then! You're Elizabeth Colt, the detective?"
"Right the first time," she replied, standing up and moving back a step. This is my partner Angelina. It seems someone didn't want you to get here safely."
"I reckon that's true enough, ma'am." The redhead propped himself up on his elbows, saw Angelina holding his hat and stretched out his hand. She gave it to him readily enough.
"I was bushwhacked by some low-life no-account vermin that calls themselves Those Who Remember. But they found out it ain't how tall a man stands that counts in a fight."
"You're going to have some serious bruising," she told him. "But let's get your story told, beginning with your name, shall we?"
Now he managed to sit up, not without a grimace and a groan. "Whoo-ee. If'n my ribs ain't broken, it's not because them polecats didn't try. Ma'am, my handle is Johnny Packard. I know about you and your amiga because I used to work with a fella name of Bane. Jeremy Bane."
"The Dire Wolf."
"That's what folks call him. He told me about the five or six folks in this town that know about the Midnight War." Johnny toyed with his Stetson, rubbing his finger on the front of the Navaho beaded band and feeling that the Darthan coin was still there. It was still hours to sunset, though. "Been trying to reach him but no luck. I can't find hide nor hair of him, nor his team the KDF neither."
"So you came to us," Elizabeth Colt said. She walked over to fetch one of the chairs and lowered herself to sit facing him, nodding at Angelina to do the same. "Why are you looking for Bane?"
"Aw, that there's a tale that might make you think I'm pulling yore leg, begging your pardon. Lemme see, I can tell you straight that something mighty bad is fixin' to bust open this city today. Something worse than a natural disaster like a hurricane or a tornado. I don't know if we can do anything much to stop it, but we purely has got to try. New York'll be digging graves for years if'n we don't act fast."
Colt frowned. "You're talking about the supernatural."
"Yes, ma'am, that's surely so. One hunnerd years ago, this sort of male witch started a spell before he bought the farm, so to speak. This curse grew and got stronger for a full century and now it's ready to bloom like a weed from Hell."
"Go on," she said simply.
"I don't know how much about the Midnight War you've heard tell of. Next door to our world, walled off from us, is an actual inferno called Fanedral, and it's ruled by Draldros. He's a badman like no other. Think of an evil god like the ancient pagans worshipped, who has been aching to attack us and wipe us all out since the beginning of time."
Screaming and bellowing outside claimed their attention. Colt and Angelina sprang to different windows on either side of the door and peeked through the heavy curtains. After a long moment, they reluctantly turned back toward their visitor.
"It's getting worse out there," Colt said. "The street is full of people running, carrying whatever they could grab. They look like refugees from a warzone. A few of them are getting trampled and fights are breaking out."
Angelina kept glancing back at the windows. "It's awful. Tell us, Mr Packard. Is that panic out there connected to the danger you're trying to explain to us?"
"Yes, missy, it is. Them folks is right to be terrified out of their minds. Even though they don't know it consciously, all their instincts are warning them they're in deadly danger. The barrier keeping Draldros outta our world is breakin' down."
IV.
Johnny was given a glass of ice water to drink. He had gotten to his feet and tried walking back and forth. "Thunderation but I'm sore. I been through worse, I'll be fine in a minute. Ma'am, I must ask you for my irons now."
"Not yet," Elizabeth Colt responded. She had turned on the TV set up in a cabinet where both she and Angelina could see it from their desks. Every broadcast channel was showing the panicky flight out of Manhattan. Neither the mayor nor the governor had anything helpful to say, but commentators were speculating with more desperation than insight.
"Go back to Channel 2," Angelina suggested. "There. The view from a helicopter. It's scary but doesn't it look as if everyone is moving out from a common spot?"
"You're right," said Colt. "Yes. The southern end of Central Park. That area is completely deserted now. Even the cars you always see 6thed along the streets are gone."
Johnny Packard stared up at the screen, then swung around to face the two women. "It 'pears to me that whatever is spooking these folks is right there. That's where I calculate this Draldros snake is showing up."
"We should see for ourselves." Elizabeth Colt went over to her desk and took a few items to stow in her pockets, included a cartridge box. "Angelina, how are your nerves?"
"A little jumpy, to be honest, but I want to see what's going on." She turned her dark eyes over to their visitor. "And you, Mr Packard?"
The Kid flashed a crooked grin and hooked his thumbs into belt loops. "I hail from the border town of Brimstone, Texas. Never yet ran from man nor woman nor beast. Even if this Draldros is a no-fooling devil from Perdition itself, I intend to spit in his eye."
Staring up at the screen again, Colt said, "I doubt if it's worth even trying to take our car, Angelina. How far is it to Central 6th, three miles?"
"More like five."
"Hmm. We're both in pretty good shape. If there aren't any problems along the way, we can easily get there in less than an hour and twenty minutes. It sure seems as if everybody is going the other way, maybe we'll have a clear path."
A bit of an edge had crept into Johnny's voice, "I'm fixing to mosey up there myself, ma'am. And if you don't see fit to return my hoglegs, well I will simply break a store window and snatch up a pair of convincers on the way. Today, no one's gonna try to stop me or even notice."
Without speaking, the senior partner went over to the cabinet by the door and handed Johnny his pistols. The Brimstone Kid nodded as he accepted them, examined them prudently and then slid them back into the holsters under his armpits. "Much obliged."
"We should leave now," Colt told them. "It's still light out. Who knows what jungle this city might turn into tonight?"
IV.
The long walk uptown was surreal. Under black storm clouds hanging low, late afternoon seemed like twilight. After a few blocks, the three walkers found themselves hiking through a deserted city that was usually hectic at all hours. Clothing and other personal items littered the streets where they had been dropped by people fleeing some fear they could not name.
I have never seen the city so empty and quiet," Colt said. "Not even on New Year's morning when it was ten below zero. This is such a bad sign."
Obviously, not every single person had left. There would have been such a jam that no progress would have been made for hours beyond a glacial trickle out of the city. Sometimes, Colt or Angelina would catch a glimpse of a horrified face peeking out of a window, or a lone individual could be seen wandering aimlessly between buildings. But so many New Yorkers had fled that it was deeply unsettling.
At the intersection of 48th Street and 6th Avenue, the wreckage of a brand-new Nissan Sentra sat entangled with the yellow taxi it had rammed from the side. Oil and coolant pooled beneath the vehicles, which had been left with their doors open. Angelina felt compelled to check for occupants and sighed in relief that no injured or dead had been left behind.
The power was still on. Traffic lights gestured to empty streets, signs in windows still blinked on and off. When they reached 54th street, the Brimstone Kid thumbed back his black hat and pointed at the open door of a bistro called AVALON. "Smell them burgers cooking? I don't know about you ladies, but I ain't et in a dog's age."
Angelina glanced over inquisitively at her boss. Elizabeth Colt barely hesitated. "Under the circumstances, I vote we help ourselves. These are emergency circumstances," she said, stepping over to the door and peeking inside.
Two chairs had been left lying on their sides, half-eaten meals sat forgotten on plates. On the tables along one wall, a few scattered newspapers and jackets remained. Elizabeth went behind the long counter and turned off the grill on which five hamburgers sizzled. "I expect there will be more than a few fires today," she grumbled. "Ovens and stoves left on by people running away, no one to notice."
Dispirited despite their hunger, the three of them silently ladled hamburgers into buns, squirted on ketchup and mustard from plastic bottles and chewed away. A coffee machine still steamed, and they each drank a cup before moving on again. As they left, Johnny took a patty wrapped in napkins and tucked it into his jacket pocket for later. Angelina surreptitously left a twenty dollar bill next to the cash register, thinking she was too honest for her own good.
Along the way, in answer to their questions Johnny recounted his strange life story. Born in 1858, he had wandered through the Southwest working as a ranchhand or cowpoke for spells but always moving on restlessly, getting in and out of trouble. The elderly shaman Machingtok had gifted him with a gold coin older than history. This was a cursed sigil from the Darthan Age and wearing it at night had transformed him into a darker demonic version of himself, stronger and more violent and nearly impossible to harm. The Brimstone Kid.
Colt and Angelina listened without comment except to prompt him to continue. Their own encounters with the Midnight War had broadened how they regarded the supernatural. Johny believed he had died about 1920. Then, in the year 2000, he had awakened to find himself ressurected. The cult of Preincarnators under Leopold Vidimar had drawn his spirit from the gulfs to inhabit the body of a modern person, a body which quickly reformed to exactly resembled Johnny's original form.
The cult had wanted to use him as a weapon, but for whatever reason the Preincarnated Kid would not bend to their will. He had rebelled, fought his way free and had resumed his footloose ways in this modern world. For a few years, he had stayed with the Kenneth Dred Foundation and helped them on cases. But he had not joined the team. Johnny remained too restless and solitary to ever stay anywhere for long.
"So, the KDF pays me a monthly stipend to come a'running if'n they call me," he continued. By now, they were approaching 59th Street and could see the lower edge of Central Park ahead. "And once in a while, they point me to where some critter of the night is killing folks and say, 'Go gettim, boy.' I don't mind. It's enough to scrape by on, I don't need much."
"This is a lot to take in," Colt responded mildly. "So, you just don't dress like a cowboy, you actually ARE one."
"That's the Gospel truth, ma'am. I'm a shootist and a brawler and a rambler. Never gonna change." He glanced over at the tall blonde woman and shrugged. "Lately memories of my first life have been surfacing inside my head. That's what sent me running here today."
"Maybe just in time to help," Angelina offered. She had been studying the Kid in uneasy facination. "I wonder if you were meant to go through all that for a reason."
Johnny smiled over at her, touching the brim of his Stetson. "I don't claim to know the ways of Providence, miss."
Standing on the corner, looking out over deserted streets, Angelina crossed her arms defensively in front of her. "Is anyone else finding it hard to breathe?"
"The air IS getting oppressive," her senior partner said. "It's stuffy and warm. I feel like a storm is about to break. And doesn't there seem to be a reddish haze? What's going on?"
"It's the beginning of the end," snapped an old man's voice from a store doorway near them.
V.
Both Colt and Angelina swung around with their guns in hand, but Johnny had recognized that voice. He raised a hand in greeting. "Bleak, you miserable old coot! Howya doing?"
Stepping out of the doorway recess onto the sidewalk came a slightly built man with a thick shock of white hair over a sour face. He was wearing black slacks and a white dress shirt without a tie but mostly covered by a cardigan. "Johnny Packard, of all people. Aren't you living in Montana?"
"Arizona. But I was called here by the unholy commotion underway. You know everything about the Midnight War, Bleak. What the hayll is up anyway?"
The old man called Bleak gave a cold appraising stare to the two women. "I know we haven't met before but you ladies have an impressive reputation. Elizabeth Colt and Angelina Delgado. Good to meet you at last. Let's not get any closer to the Gateway just yet."
Lowering her revolver, Colt tilted her head. "DO you have answers for us, Mr Bleak?"
"Hard and unwelcome answers," replied the bitter voice. "But that's the way the truth often is. I've been watching the local coven of Those Who Remember. They've always been determined to unleash the Sulla Chun for some moronic reason, but this time they've shifted their goals. They're actualizing a spell to open a Gateway to the realm of
Fanedral and to let Draldros enter our world."
"That's what my memories was warning me about last night," interposed the Kid. "It started with this witchman called the Skeleton back a hunnerd years ago."
Bleak was watching across the street where a dozen men in dark clothing had begun drifting together at the waist-high stone wall which encircled that part of Central Park.
Just out of sight over a rise, red fog was swirling and twisting into a tornado. "Those fools! Do they think Draldros will reward them? Or even spare them? He has hated the Humans for more than thirty thousand years."
"But what can Draldros actually do to the modern world?" insisted Angelina hopefully. "With our weapons and technology, how much of a threat can he be?"
Both Bleak and Johnny gave the saddest and most reproachful look to her. "He could sweep the planet clean of life, reform continents or melt the Earth into a blot," said ?Bleak. "Or he might merely unleash a series of plagues. Or send vast armies of winged Kulan demons to hunt and feast on people. He can perform any change he desires."
Staring anxiously at the increasing number of robed men gathering at the Park, Elizabeth Colt straightened her shoulders and stood up straighter. "I wish I could doubt you, Bleak. I wish I could dismiss what you say as nonsense. But... What do we do?"
"I'm not happy about our prospects," the old warrior said. "That spell is powered by Darthan magick, extremely potent. It draws on the force of a captive Sulla Chun. Only two things in the Midnight War might be able to disrupt its course. One would be Eldar magick, which we don't know have, the other might be another form of Darthan magick, also unavailable."
Feeling the ancient coin in his hatband burning painfully against his forehead, Johnny Packard could not suppress a low, ominous chuckle.
VI.
Four walked together across the street, Johnny in the lead with Colt and Angelina spreading out to either side and slightly behind him. Bleak brought up the rear. Each held their particular gun down by their side where it would not be as obvious.
As they neared the paved area in front of the entrance, one of the cultists caught a glimpse of them but did not slow his pace. All thirteen of Those Who Remember were stomping their feet in rhythm as they moved counter-clockwise over a small statue set up on a marble pillar. The robed and cowled men and women chanted a single refrain repeatedly, in a sibilant language that sounded like hissing.
"That's a Darthan invocation," Bleak muttered to his new colleagues. "They're welcoming the Dread One to his new domain."
"So they think!" snorted the Kid. Thirty feet away, Johnny planted his feet and fired with his right hand Peacemaker to blast the idol spinning away into the night. For a long moment, Those Who Remember were too stupefied to react, a few stumbling into each other as their procession halted.
"This party's over! I'm warning you devil-worshippers to clear out now while you're still alive to do it!" The Brimstone Kid's voice sounded deeper, hollow and sepulchral. Proximaty to the gralic portal was triggering his transformation early.
All of the cultists whipped out identical long wavy-bladed knives from inside their robes and sprinted toward the interlopers. The one in front barely made three steps before a heavy .45 slug punched into his chest and drove him backwards onto the man behind him.
A second later, another cultist spun around as a bullet tore into his abdomen, bringing him to his knees to bleed out. Elizabeth Colt had not hesitated. She knew how quickly a knife wielder could close in on even a ready person.
The group froze, hesitating. One took another hesitant step forward and was instantly flung over backwards with a tunnel drilled his forehead.
"Run while yuh can!" thundered the Kid in his cursed voice. That was enough. Those Who Remember broke from an apocalyptic sect into terrified individuals pelting off into the night as fast as they possibly could. Johnny roared with laughter.
"Is that the end of all this?" asked Angelina, her voice trailing off as she got a closer look at Johnny Packard. His body noticeably taller and broader now, his face had become angular and tormented. Under bushy eyebrows, those green eyes had turned a deep lambent red. Angelina let out an audible gasp.
Bleak said, "The spell has gone too far," as he trudged up the small hill from while seething red fog was streaming. "Look. Don't get too close."
All four of them stared down into a pit that extended for hundreds of yards. Fog hot as steam hissed up and spun into the sky. Outlined against hellish crackling flames was the immense head and shoulders of a giant wearing plate armor. The helmet rose to two points on either temple.
"Oh dear God!" said Angelina. "I can't stand it. I'm going to have a heart attack."
"This is not meant for mortal eyes to ever see," Bleak told everyone. "I'm having trouble catching my breath. We have to get away from here."
A deep bellow echoed from the tunnel, so strong that the ground beneath their feet trembled. Triumph was in that roar.
"What can we do? Is there anything we CAN do?" Colt demanded.
Johnny Packard raised both revolvers and stepped up to the edge of the tunnel. "Only Darthan magick can break Darthan magick. Reckon it's my turn to give all I got."
"Wait," said Angelina. "There must be..."
"Naw. Ease up, amiga. I been dead before, tweren't so bad. Mebbe I'll come back someday for a third life." The Brimstone Kid crouched and leaped into the tunnel, firing both Peacemakers downward as he fell. For an instant, the ancient coin in his hatband flared up bright as the Sun.
The entire world turned white and silent. When normal reality returned, all three survivors were sprawled around the opening, too dazed and bruised to move. The earth around the gaping hole began to loosen and tumble in, falling more rapidly until in another few minutes to the tunnel would be gone and only dry scorched dirt showing where it had been.
With infinite effort, the three struggled to recover. Their ears were ringing and their sight blurred to the point that half an hour passed before they could be sure they were all alive and present.
"It's over now," Bleak managed to say. "I don't see how it can happen again. The Darthim aren't as powerful as they once were, and neither are Human sorcerers. I can't get up yet."
"Look at our skin. All red and peeling like we're sunburned. Everything hurts." Elizabeth Colt propped herself up on one elbow. "I think my brain is broken, I can't process everything that happened today. We came so close.. to the end of the world."
It was Angelina Delgado who first forced herself up into a sitting position. "I will grateful every day from now on just to be alive. Ow. What's today? May fifth? Listen, I swear on my mother's grave that every year on this date, no matter what, I will place a rose right here in Johnny's memory."
9/22/2021
5/4- 5/5/2013
I.
Just before midnight, Johnny Packard pulled his Harley into the garage next to the Provenzano's venerable Oldsmobile and pulled the sliding door down so it locked into place. Having a secure place to leave his bike was one reason why he had chosen this house to rent a room. He stretched and sighed wearily, left his helmet hanging from a handlebar and grabbed his black Stetson out of the saddlebag. He would never leave it out of sight. The cursed Darthan token still tucked in its beaded hatband was what made him the Brimstone Kid in actuality as well as name.
Standing five feet five in his boots and weighing no more than a hundred and fifty pounds, Johnny was a wiry energetic man. He seemed to be about thirty, but exposure to the elements and a rough lifestyle had given him a weathered look. The shaggy red hair and deepset green eyes gave his lean face a distinctive look. When he had pulled in off the street, he had seen that no lights were on in the house, meaning Mr and Mrs Provenzano had gone to bed for the night. That was fine with him. He was in no mood to sit and chat with them.
Memories from his previous life had started coming back.
Walking as quietly as he could, the Kid went through the connecting door, across the kitchen and into his rented room at the rear of the house. This had been the room of the Provenzano's son Charles before he had gotten married and moved out of state. It was close to both the downstairs bathroom and the kitchen, which Johnny had been given free use of. He closed the door behind him and did not turn on the light but simply sat down on the bed which was within reach.
In the darkness, the Brimstone Kid tugged off his boots and unbuttoned his denim jacket. He had been wearing two gunbelts across his chest in an X under that jacket, each holstering a heavy Colt .45 revolver. Getting them off was a relief. Dropping the jacket on the floor next to the bed and placing the gunbelts on top of it, he groped for the nightstand and placed his hat where he could instantly grab it.
Finally, Johnny stretched out on top of the covers and folded his arms behind his head. All day, he had been getting images in his head and they were connecting now into a narrative. This had happened several times since his Preincarnation, and he had always welcomed remembering what he still regarded as his real life. But this time, he was uneasy and apprehensive without knowing why.
Lying in the dark, letting thoughts wash over him without resisting, Johnny felt that the time in his memories was after the turn of the century, a decade after 1900. He caught a reference to the war about to break in Europe, which meant maybe 1913 or 1914. He himself seemed to be about fifty, wearing Eastern clothes including a bowler hat he found himself toying with.
Where was he though? Not New York City, not even the Northeast. Maybe Missouri? St Louis seemed right. He began to remember running down dark streets where gas lampposts were scattered far apart, he felt again the pain of a bruising brawl with two big men who tackled him from a shadowy doorway. There were images of bright gunflashes in the night. What had been going on? He had gotten his fool self in hot water all his life. Was this how he had died?
Then, sharp and horribly vivid, came the sight of a skeleton in a coarse burlap robe, moving about as if alive, grinning with skinless jaws and clapping bony hands together. No. Wait. He had one better glimpse as the apparition held up a torch. In that light, the contours of a normal body could seen as a vague outline. The monster was a human being, but somehow every part of him except the bones was invisible.
Johny shuddered. Now he could remember. The Skeleton. A deadly sorcerer, responsible for many deaths and much misery. He saw himself standing over the horror's outstretched body with bright arterial blood spreading out on the robe. Johnny felt himself holstering one of his Peacemakers beneath his Colt, its barrel still hot. "Yore done for this time, amigo, make no mistake about that," his voice said.
"You fool!" came a hollow ghoulish voice in reply. "The final victory shall be mine. I had time to lay down my most powerful curse. It is Darthan magick of the darkest kind, drawing on that which suffers beneath the Burning Pyramid..."
"What'dya mean by that, ugly?" he had said. "Talk sense."
A wet coughing spell convulsed the warlock. The skull spat up blood and struggled to speak. "You will not be around to see it, hellbound one. My spell will grow and deepen for a full hundred years. Then the world of Humans shall fall. Every last one will die as they deserve!" He gasped and wheezed.
"Godammit, NOW yore gonna die? When I need ya to talk? Skeleton, what curse? What are yuh talking about?"
The skull coughed up more blood, turning to one sides. "The Wall Between the Worlds. A fiend from Hell itself, freed at last.. in one hundred years from this night... Blood will run in rivers..." Then the grisly head lolled to one side and the death rattle sounded.
Suddenly sitting up in the dark, breathing heavily, Johnny Packard rolled over and leaped to his feet. He had to go. Right now. He would leave a note for Mr and Mrs Provenzano and grab only a few needful items. The nearest airport was in Denver, he could get there in a hour and see what the next flight to New York City was. He would find his former teammates in the KDF, and the Dire Wolf, warn them of what he had recalled. But he had a sinking feeling even they would not be able to stop the coming disaster.
II.
Without warning, Angelina Delgado burst into their office, out of breath after running from Washington Square. "Miss Colt! Have you been watching the news?"
"I have indeed." Behind her desk, a tall woman in her later thirties put down her tablet and leaned back in her swivel chair. With the golden blonde hair to her shoulders and the finely cut features, Elizabeth Colt was certainly attractive enough. But the cool appraising stare from those dark blue eyes was enough to unsettle most people. "I've been skipping from one news source to the next."
Ten years younger and six inches shorter, Angelina had a flowing mass of curly black hair down her back and a slightly round face with an appealing overbite. Like her boss, she was wearing a black pantsuit with a cream-colored blouse and Angelina had added a fine-linked gold chain under the collar. "It's crazy! Absolutely crazy! Every way out of the city is clogged so nothing is moving. People are walking across the bridges. Police have set up barricades and are keeping people from trying to escape through the Lincoln Tunnel on foot."
"Sit down for a minute," Colt told her younger partner. "You're making me nervous, take a few deep breaths. As far as I can tell, absolutely no one has any idea why this is happening. The people themselves don't know why they're evacuating Manhattan. When anyone asks them, they get agitated and won't talk. It's very strange."
"Are there any rumors of, I don't know, a nuke being reported in the city? Anything like that?"
"Not that I've heard. My guess, if I have to provide one, might be that some toxic gas has been released. Maybe it's natural element, released from Con Ed digging somewhere. A gas could make everybody feel unsafe enough that they have an instinctive urge to get as far away as they can."
Angelina jumped to her feet again and began pacing across the office. The dark wood paneling, the bookshelves jammed with legal reference volumes, the framed diplomas and certificates, even the bronze bust of Jane Austen...usually these were reassuring sights of stability but now she found no comfort in them. "I'm getting a little apprehensive and I don't mind admitting it. Maybe they know something we haven't heard about! Do you think we should get in the van and try to escape, too?"
"I tried calling Jeremy Bane," Colt admitted.
Stopping and swiveling her head around, the younger partner said, "And?"
"All I got was a voicemail to leave a message. No help at all. This seems to be exactly his sort of problem to tackle, too."
"Yeah. It's funny, when we first met him and his friends, we both thought they were either crackpots or grifters. But a few brushes with the Midnight War changed our minds."
"I know, I know," Colt said. She picked up her coffee mug, saw it was empty and frowned at it reproachingly. "I'm an atheist, Angelina. I'd describe myself as a secular humanist with no room for the supernatural in this world. But I have to accept what we have seen ourselves this past year. The nightmares still come back once in a while, but at least I don't wake up sweaty and breathless anymore. Dead people should go their rest demurely, they should not come crawling in your windows before dawn."
Without being asked, Angelina picked up her boss' mug and went with it to the kitchen down the hall. The Vigilance Investigation Agency, of which they were the only employees, occupied the entire two-story building on Bleeker Street. Their quarters and a guest room were upstairs. In a minute, she hustled back in with fresh coffee for Colt and for herself.
"Thanks, Angelina," Colt said, taking a sip gratefully. "I can't see anything we can do about this exodus. We make a living by catching criminals, gathering evidence, solving ancient Cold Cases. Dealing with thousands of people fleeing a city for no apparent reason is beyond our job description."
Dropping down behind her own smaller desk against the wall to Colt's left, Angelina emptied her coffee mug in a gulp and set it down. Her desk was covered with bundles of papers, folders, and a few newspapers, with her laptop usually hidden beneath the debris.
She began tidying up without seeming to realize it. "Miss Colt?"
"Yes, dear?"
"I was brought up a good Catholic girl and my nan told me lots of scary stories about the old country. Witches, ghosts, nosferatu. She wasn't kidding either! So when we stumbled into this Midnight War business, I didn't have much trouble accepting it."
Giving her partner a wry smile, Colt said, "Where are you going with this?"
"We worked twice with the Dire Wolf's teammates, Sheng and Sable and that Unicorn girl. I was at their building up on 38th Street. Maybe we could see what they know?"
"Sorry. Already tried, got the same results." Colt drained the rest of her coffee and leaned forward, arms crossed in front of her on desktop. "I'm more than a little annoyed with the whole useless bunch of them. When you really need experts on the unexplainable, they're nowhere to be found! Some heroes."
Before Angelina could reply, the front doorbell rang twice and then once more. Both women rose quickly, but Colt raised a hand. "Let me answer it. You stay back and be ready. Who knows what else is going on today?"
Angelina remained in the office, peering out through the open door with most of her body protected by the wall. The compact little .32 she favored was in both hands and she thumbed off the safety. When her boss glanced back at her, Angelina nodded to indicate she was ready.
Striding out in the hallway, Elizabeth Colt had unbuttoned her suit jacket and reached behind her to place a hand on the grip of her own snub-nosed Detective Special holstered on her belt. She peered suspiciously through the tiny viewport in the door, took a deep breath and swung the door open. As she did so, she had to swerve aside to avoid the redheaded young man who fell face down at her feet without trying to catch himself.
III.
Similar dramatic entrances had in fact been made at their door twice before. Colt and Angelina had worked out a response. Gun in hand, Elizabeth Colt leaned out through the doorway, peered out at the empty sidewalk to either side and then slammed the door shut and drew its deadbolts. While she did this, Angelina crouched over the unresponsive man and made a quick appraisal of his condition.
"He's got a pulse," she said at once. "He's breathing. His jacket has blood all over it but I don't think it's his. Miss Colt, I think he took a serious thrashing but he wasn't shot... or cut."
"I don't recognize him," the older partner responded. "He's dressed like a cowboy. The black Stetson, Levis, those boots with the heel and pointed toe. And look at these." Colt pulled open the visitor's unbuttoned jacket to reveal twin Peacemakers strapped on either side of his chest. She immediately confiscated them and placed them in a cabinet on the wall behind her, which locked automatically.
"He's stirring," the younger detective observed. "I think he'll be conscious in a second."
Colt grabbed the dazed man under the arms and started to lift him. "Get his legs, will you? We might as well make him as comfortable as we can under the circumstances."
Their office was furnished with the two desks, several plain wooden chairs, a counter where food and drink could be laid out, and a globe of the Earth with a five foot diameter. There was also a long couch upholstered with brown leather and covered with a wildly mismatched assortment of cushions. The two investigators laid the young man out carefully and stepped back just as he began to mumble and try to sit up.
Colt restrained him with a palm to his chest. "Whoa, hold still. Listen, you're safe. You're with friends. Take a deep breath."
Green eyes snapped open under heavy red brows, looked around frantically and then came to rest on the pale oval of the face in front of him. "I made it then! You're Elizabeth Colt, the detective?"
"Right the first time," she replied, standing up and moving back a step. This is my partner Angelina. It seems someone didn't want you to get here safely."
"I reckon that's true enough, ma'am." The redhead propped himself up on his elbows, saw Angelina holding his hat and stretched out his hand. She gave it to him readily enough.
"I was bushwhacked by some low-life no-account vermin that calls themselves Those Who Remember. But they found out it ain't how tall a man stands that counts in a fight."
"You're going to have some serious bruising," she told him. "But let's get your story told, beginning with your name, shall we?"
Now he managed to sit up, not without a grimace and a groan. "Whoo-ee. If'n my ribs ain't broken, it's not because them polecats didn't try. Ma'am, my handle is Johnny Packard. I know about you and your amiga because I used to work with a fella name of Bane. Jeremy Bane."
"The Dire Wolf."
"That's what folks call him. He told me about the five or six folks in this town that know about the Midnight War." Johnny toyed with his Stetson, rubbing his finger on the front of the Navaho beaded band and feeling that the Darthan coin was still there. It was still hours to sunset, though. "Been trying to reach him but no luck. I can't find hide nor hair of him, nor his team the KDF neither."
"So you came to us," Elizabeth Colt said. She walked over to fetch one of the chairs and lowered herself to sit facing him, nodding at Angelina to do the same. "Why are you looking for Bane?"
"Aw, that there's a tale that might make you think I'm pulling yore leg, begging your pardon. Lemme see, I can tell you straight that something mighty bad is fixin' to bust open this city today. Something worse than a natural disaster like a hurricane or a tornado. I don't know if we can do anything much to stop it, but we purely has got to try. New York'll be digging graves for years if'n we don't act fast."
Colt frowned. "You're talking about the supernatural."
"Yes, ma'am, that's surely so. One hunnerd years ago, this sort of male witch started a spell before he bought the farm, so to speak. This curse grew and got stronger for a full century and now it's ready to bloom like a weed from Hell."
"Go on," she said simply.
"I don't know how much about the Midnight War you've heard tell of. Next door to our world, walled off from us, is an actual inferno called Fanedral, and it's ruled by Draldros. He's a badman like no other. Think of an evil god like the ancient pagans worshipped, who has been aching to attack us and wipe us all out since the beginning of time."
Screaming and bellowing outside claimed their attention. Colt and Angelina sprang to different windows on either side of the door and peeked through the heavy curtains. After a long moment, they reluctantly turned back toward their visitor.
"It's getting worse out there," Colt said. "The street is full of people running, carrying whatever they could grab. They look like refugees from a warzone. A few of them are getting trampled and fights are breaking out."
Angelina kept glancing back at the windows. "It's awful. Tell us, Mr Packard. Is that panic out there connected to the danger you're trying to explain to us?"
"Yes, missy, it is. Them folks is right to be terrified out of their minds. Even though they don't know it consciously, all their instincts are warning them they're in deadly danger. The barrier keeping Draldros outta our world is breakin' down."
IV.
Johnny was given a glass of ice water to drink. He had gotten to his feet and tried walking back and forth. "Thunderation but I'm sore. I been through worse, I'll be fine in a minute. Ma'am, I must ask you for my irons now."
"Not yet," Elizabeth Colt responded. She had turned on the TV set up in a cabinet where both she and Angelina could see it from their desks. Every broadcast channel was showing the panicky flight out of Manhattan. Neither the mayor nor the governor had anything helpful to say, but commentators were speculating with more desperation than insight.
"Go back to Channel 2," Angelina suggested. "There. The view from a helicopter. It's scary but doesn't it look as if everyone is moving out from a common spot?"
"You're right," said Colt. "Yes. The southern end of Central Park. That area is completely deserted now. Even the cars you always see 6thed along the streets are gone."
Johnny Packard stared up at the screen, then swung around to face the two women. "It 'pears to me that whatever is spooking these folks is right there. That's where I calculate this Draldros snake is showing up."
"We should see for ourselves." Elizabeth Colt went over to her desk and took a few items to stow in her pockets, included a cartridge box. "Angelina, how are your nerves?"
"A little jumpy, to be honest, but I want to see what's going on." She turned her dark eyes over to their visitor. "And you, Mr Packard?"
The Kid flashed a crooked grin and hooked his thumbs into belt loops. "I hail from the border town of Brimstone, Texas. Never yet ran from man nor woman nor beast. Even if this Draldros is a no-fooling devil from Perdition itself, I intend to spit in his eye."
Staring up at the screen again, Colt said, "I doubt if it's worth even trying to take our car, Angelina. How far is it to Central 6th, three miles?"
"More like five."
"Hmm. We're both in pretty good shape. If there aren't any problems along the way, we can easily get there in less than an hour and twenty minutes. It sure seems as if everybody is going the other way, maybe we'll have a clear path."
A bit of an edge had crept into Johnny's voice, "I'm fixing to mosey up there myself, ma'am. And if you don't see fit to return my hoglegs, well I will simply break a store window and snatch up a pair of convincers on the way. Today, no one's gonna try to stop me or even notice."
Without speaking, the senior partner went over to the cabinet by the door and handed Johnny his pistols. The Brimstone Kid nodded as he accepted them, examined them prudently and then slid them back into the holsters under his armpits. "Much obliged."
"We should leave now," Colt told them. "It's still light out. Who knows what jungle this city might turn into tonight?"
IV.
The long walk uptown was surreal. Under black storm clouds hanging low, late afternoon seemed like twilight. After a few blocks, the three walkers found themselves hiking through a deserted city that was usually hectic at all hours. Clothing and other personal items littered the streets where they had been dropped by people fleeing some fear they could not name.
I have never seen the city so empty and quiet," Colt said. "Not even on New Year's morning when it was ten below zero. This is such a bad sign."
Obviously, not every single person had left. There would have been such a jam that no progress would have been made for hours beyond a glacial trickle out of the city. Sometimes, Colt or Angelina would catch a glimpse of a horrified face peeking out of a window, or a lone individual could be seen wandering aimlessly between buildings. But so many New Yorkers had fled that it was deeply unsettling.
At the intersection of 48th Street and 6th Avenue, the wreckage of a brand-new Nissan Sentra sat entangled with the yellow taxi it had rammed from the side. Oil and coolant pooled beneath the vehicles, which had been left with their doors open. Angelina felt compelled to check for occupants and sighed in relief that no injured or dead had been left behind.
The power was still on. Traffic lights gestured to empty streets, signs in windows still blinked on and off. When they reached 54th street, the Brimstone Kid thumbed back his black hat and pointed at the open door of a bistro called AVALON. "Smell them burgers cooking? I don't know about you ladies, but I ain't et in a dog's age."
Angelina glanced over inquisitively at her boss. Elizabeth Colt barely hesitated. "Under the circumstances, I vote we help ourselves. These are emergency circumstances," she said, stepping over to the door and peeking inside.
Two chairs had been left lying on their sides, half-eaten meals sat forgotten on plates. On the tables along one wall, a few scattered newspapers and jackets remained. Elizabeth went behind the long counter and turned off the grill on which five hamburgers sizzled. "I expect there will be more than a few fires today," she grumbled. "Ovens and stoves left on by people running away, no one to notice."
Dispirited despite their hunger, the three of them silently ladled hamburgers into buns, squirted on ketchup and mustard from plastic bottles and chewed away. A coffee machine still steamed, and they each drank a cup before moving on again. As they left, Johnny took a patty wrapped in napkins and tucked it into his jacket pocket for later. Angelina surreptitously left a twenty dollar bill next to the cash register, thinking she was too honest for her own good.
Along the way, in answer to their questions Johnny recounted his strange life story. Born in 1858, he had wandered through the Southwest working as a ranchhand or cowpoke for spells but always moving on restlessly, getting in and out of trouble. The elderly shaman Machingtok had gifted him with a gold coin older than history. This was a cursed sigil from the Darthan Age and wearing it at night had transformed him into a darker demonic version of himself, stronger and more violent and nearly impossible to harm. The Brimstone Kid.
Colt and Angelina listened without comment except to prompt him to continue. Their own encounters with the Midnight War had broadened how they regarded the supernatural. Johny believed he had died about 1920. Then, in the year 2000, he had awakened to find himself ressurected. The cult of Preincarnators under Leopold Vidimar had drawn his spirit from the gulfs to inhabit the body of a modern person, a body which quickly reformed to exactly resembled Johnny's original form.
The cult had wanted to use him as a weapon, but for whatever reason the Preincarnated Kid would not bend to their will. He had rebelled, fought his way free and had resumed his footloose ways in this modern world. For a few years, he had stayed with the Kenneth Dred Foundation and helped them on cases. But he had not joined the team. Johnny remained too restless and solitary to ever stay anywhere for long.
"So, the KDF pays me a monthly stipend to come a'running if'n they call me," he continued. By now, they were approaching 59th Street and could see the lower edge of Central Park ahead. "And once in a while, they point me to where some critter of the night is killing folks and say, 'Go gettim, boy.' I don't mind. It's enough to scrape by on, I don't need much."
"This is a lot to take in," Colt responded mildly. "So, you just don't dress like a cowboy, you actually ARE one."
"That's the Gospel truth, ma'am. I'm a shootist and a brawler and a rambler. Never gonna change." He glanced over at the tall blonde woman and shrugged. "Lately memories of my first life have been surfacing inside my head. That's what sent me running here today."
"Maybe just in time to help," Angelina offered. She had been studying the Kid in uneasy facination. "I wonder if you were meant to go through all that for a reason."
Johnny smiled over at her, touching the brim of his Stetson. "I don't claim to know the ways of Providence, miss."
Standing on the corner, looking out over deserted streets, Angelina crossed her arms defensively in front of her. "Is anyone else finding it hard to breathe?"
"The air IS getting oppressive," her senior partner said. "It's stuffy and warm. I feel like a storm is about to break. And doesn't there seem to be a reddish haze? What's going on?"
"It's the beginning of the end," snapped an old man's voice from a store doorway near them.
V.
Both Colt and Angelina swung around with their guns in hand, but Johnny had recognized that voice. He raised a hand in greeting. "Bleak, you miserable old coot! Howya doing?"
Stepping out of the doorway recess onto the sidewalk came a slightly built man with a thick shock of white hair over a sour face. He was wearing black slacks and a white dress shirt without a tie but mostly covered by a cardigan. "Johnny Packard, of all people. Aren't you living in Montana?"
"Arizona. But I was called here by the unholy commotion underway. You know everything about the Midnight War, Bleak. What the hayll is up anyway?"
The old man called Bleak gave a cold appraising stare to the two women. "I know we haven't met before but you ladies have an impressive reputation. Elizabeth Colt and Angelina Delgado. Good to meet you at last. Let's not get any closer to the Gateway just yet."
Lowering her revolver, Colt tilted her head. "DO you have answers for us, Mr Bleak?"
"Hard and unwelcome answers," replied the bitter voice. "But that's the way the truth often is. I've been watching the local coven of Those Who Remember. They've always been determined to unleash the Sulla Chun for some moronic reason, but this time they've shifted their goals. They're actualizing a spell to open a Gateway to the realm of
Fanedral and to let Draldros enter our world."
"That's what my memories was warning me about last night," interposed the Kid. "It started with this witchman called the Skeleton back a hunnerd years ago."
Bleak was watching across the street where a dozen men in dark clothing had begun drifting together at the waist-high stone wall which encircled that part of Central Park.
Just out of sight over a rise, red fog was swirling and twisting into a tornado. "Those fools! Do they think Draldros will reward them? Or even spare them? He has hated the Humans for more than thirty thousand years."
"But what can Draldros actually do to the modern world?" insisted Angelina hopefully. "With our weapons and technology, how much of a threat can he be?"
Both Bleak and Johnny gave the saddest and most reproachful look to her. "He could sweep the planet clean of life, reform continents or melt the Earth into a blot," said ?Bleak. "Or he might merely unleash a series of plagues. Or send vast armies of winged Kulan demons to hunt and feast on people. He can perform any change he desires."
Staring anxiously at the increasing number of robed men gathering at the Park, Elizabeth Colt straightened her shoulders and stood up straighter. "I wish I could doubt you, Bleak. I wish I could dismiss what you say as nonsense. But... What do we do?"
"I'm not happy about our prospects," the old warrior said. "That spell is powered by Darthan magick, extremely potent. It draws on the force of a captive Sulla Chun. Only two things in the Midnight War might be able to disrupt its course. One would be Eldar magick, which we don't know have, the other might be another form of Darthan magick, also unavailable."
Feeling the ancient coin in his hatband burning painfully against his forehead, Johnny Packard could not suppress a low, ominous chuckle.
VI.
Four walked together across the street, Johnny in the lead with Colt and Angelina spreading out to either side and slightly behind him. Bleak brought up the rear. Each held their particular gun down by their side where it would not be as obvious.
As they neared the paved area in front of the entrance, one of the cultists caught a glimpse of them but did not slow his pace. All thirteen of Those Who Remember were stomping their feet in rhythm as they moved counter-clockwise over a small statue set up on a marble pillar. The robed and cowled men and women chanted a single refrain repeatedly, in a sibilant language that sounded like hissing.
"That's a Darthan invocation," Bleak muttered to his new colleagues. "They're welcoming the Dread One to his new domain."
"So they think!" snorted the Kid. Thirty feet away, Johnny planted his feet and fired with his right hand Peacemaker to blast the idol spinning away into the night. For a long moment, Those Who Remember were too stupefied to react, a few stumbling into each other as their procession halted.
"This party's over! I'm warning you devil-worshippers to clear out now while you're still alive to do it!" The Brimstone Kid's voice sounded deeper, hollow and sepulchral. Proximaty to the gralic portal was triggering his transformation early.
All of the cultists whipped out identical long wavy-bladed knives from inside their robes and sprinted toward the interlopers. The one in front barely made three steps before a heavy .45 slug punched into his chest and drove him backwards onto the man behind him.
A second later, another cultist spun around as a bullet tore into his abdomen, bringing him to his knees to bleed out. Elizabeth Colt had not hesitated. She knew how quickly a knife wielder could close in on even a ready person.
The group froze, hesitating. One took another hesitant step forward and was instantly flung over backwards with a tunnel drilled his forehead.
"Run while yuh can!" thundered the Kid in his cursed voice. That was enough. Those Who Remember broke from an apocalyptic sect into terrified individuals pelting off into the night as fast as they possibly could. Johnny roared with laughter.
"Is that the end of all this?" asked Angelina, her voice trailing off as she got a closer look at Johnny Packard. His body noticeably taller and broader now, his face had become angular and tormented. Under bushy eyebrows, those green eyes had turned a deep lambent red. Angelina let out an audible gasp.
Bleak said, "The spell has gone too far," as he trudged up the small hill from while seething red fog was streaming. "Look. Don't get too close."
All four of them stared down into a pit that extended for hundreds of yards. Fog hot as steam hissed up and spun into the sky. Outlined against hellish crackling flames was the immense head and shoulders of a giant wearing plate armor. The helmet rose to two points on either temple.
"Oh dear God!" said Angelina. "I can't stand it. I'm going to have a heart attack."
"This is not meant for mortal eyes to ever see," Bleak told everyone. "I'm having trouble catching my breath. We have to get away from here."
A deep bellow echoed from the tunnel, so strong that the ground beneath their feet trembled. Triumph was in that roar.
"What can we do? Is there anything we CAN do?" Colt demanded.
Johnny Packard raised both revolvers and stepped up to the edge of the tunnel. "Only Darthan magick can break Darthan magick. Reckon it's my turn to give all I got."
"Wait," said Angelina. "There must be..."
"Naw. Ease up, amiga. I been dead before, tweren't so bad. Mebbe I'll come back someday for a third life." The Brimstone Kid crouched and leaped into the tunnel, firing both Peacemakers downward as he fell. For an instant, the ancient coin in his hatband flared up bright as the Sun.
The entire world turned white and silent. When normal reality returned, all three survivors were sprawled around the opening, too dazed and bruised to move. The earth around the gaping hole began to loosen and tumble in, falling more rapidly until in another few minutes to the tunnel would be gone and only dry scorched dirt showing where it had been.
With infinite effort, the three struggled to recover. Their ears were ringing and their sight blurred to the point that half an hour passed before they could be sure they were all alive and present.
"It's over now," Bleak managed to say. "I don't see how it can happen again. The Darthim aren't as powerful as they once were, and neither are Human sorcerers. I can't get up yet."
"Look at our skin. All red and peeling like we're sunburned. Everything hurts." Elizabeth Colt propped herself up on one elbow. "I think my brain is broken, I can't process everything that happened today. We came so close.. to the end of the world."
It was Angelina Delgado who first forced herself up into a sitting position. "I will grateful every day from now on just to be alive. Ow. What's today? May fifth? Listen, I swear on my mother's grave that every year on this date, no matter what, I will place a rose right here in Johnny's memory."
9/22/2021
