Of Heaven and Hell Read online

  Published by

  Wayward Ink Publishing

  Unit 1, No. 8 Union Street

  Tighes Hill NSW 2297

  Australia

  http://www.waywardinkpublishing.com

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the authors’ imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Corruption Copyright ©2015 by Kim Fielding

  Purgatory Copyright ©2015 by M.C. Rayne

  Sin To Get Saved Copyright ©2015 by Michael P. Thomas

  Cardinal Sins Copyright ©2015 by Mann Ramblings

  21st Century Demon Copyright ©2015 by Asta Idonea

  Purgatory Pink Copyright ©2015 by Eric Gober

  Fade To Light Copyright ©2015 by Nephy Hart

  Guardian Copyright ©2015 by Eddy LeFey

  Drawing Dead Copyright ©2015 by S. Zanne

  A Wolf In The Fold ©2015 by Jana Denardo

  Dripping in Sin Copyright ©2015 by Kassandra Lea

  Illustration by: Danny Phillips

  Graphicst by: Jay’s Covers by Design

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the Publisher, except where permitted by law. To request permission and all other enquiries, contact Wayward Ink Publishing at: Unit 1, No. 8 Union Street, Tighes Hill, NSW, 2297, Australia.

  http://www.waywardinkpublishing.com

  ISBN: 978-1-925222-52-4

  Printed in Australia

  First Edition

  June 2015

  eBook edition available

  Paperback ISBN: 978-1-925222-53-1

  CONTENTS

  Corruption by Kim Fielding

  Purgatory by M.C. Rayne

  Sin To Get Saved by Michael P. Thomas

  Cardinal Sins by Mann Ramblings

  21st Century Demon by Asta Idonea

  Purgatory Pink by Eric Gober

  Fade To Light by Nephy Hart

  Guardian by Eddy LeFey

  Drawing Dead by S. Zanne

  A Wolf In The Fold by Jana Denardo

  Dripping In Sin by Kassandra Lea

  Chapter One

  THE CROWD was restless tonight. Men reeked of sweat and liquor as they shifted on the creaking wooden seats. Rough voices whispered, and sometimes one of the men called out. Demanding words, angry words. Tenrael knew that by dawn he’d be bruised and bleeding. His back to the audience, he tried to stand straight despite his fears, tried to keep his breathing steady. But he couldn’t stop the slight tremor of his wings. A black feather drifted down and landed near his foot. His owner would collect it later and sell it to someone for a dollar or two.

  The air inside the tent was sultry, and sweat trickled down his bare skin, making him want to twitch. He would have liked to wipe the stinging saltiness from his eyes. But Davenport preferred to begin the show with Tenrael bound, his wrists shackled overhead and his ankles tethered to the stage. Even his neck was kept in place, a tight chain fastening his collar to a metal support. The chains weren’t necessary—Tenrael couldn’t flee—but they gave him a mystique of danger, which excited dark fantasies in the marks’ heads.

  Davenport began his usual patter, punctuating his words with occasional slaps of his cane against Tenrael’s body. The blows were calculated to make impressive noises more than to hurt, although the stings made Tenrael flinch.

  Tenrael didn’t listen to Davenport’s words; he could easily have recited them himself. He stared at the wall of the tent, imagining figures in the stains on the dirty canvas. One splatter of mud resembled a soaring bird, another looked like the moon rising over faraway mountains, and a third was the crest of an enormous wave.

  “That ain’t no demon!” yelled a familiar voice from the crowd, interrupting Davenport midsentence. “Them wings are fake.” As intended, the rest of the audience rumbled agreement.

  Davenport whacked Tenrael’s ass; then he poked his cane tip into the narrow space on Tenrael’s back, between his wings. “I assure you, this is the genuine article. But perhaps you’d like to come closer and see for yourself, my good sir.”

  As the crowd cheered and clapped its encouragement, the caller—in fact, Davenport’s employee, Ford—stomped forward. Tenrael fought not to tremble as Ford clomped onto the small stage. The man wouldn’t do him much damage now, not while he was playing the part of a mark. His favorite time for torment was very late at night, when Tenrael was already raw from whatever the marks had done to him. Ford was an artist. He knew that in those cold, dark hours it would take only a few well-placed touches with a blade to set Tenrael screaming and begging. Sometimes not even that—sometimes it took only a few well-chosen words.

  But now, Ford simply followed Davenport’s urgings to test Tenrael’s authenticity. He prodded the wings and yanked a feather free, laughing as he held it up for the crowd to see. “Damn! That really was attached!” Then he walked slowly around to face Tenrael’s front. The audience hadn’t seen that side of him yet, and Ford pretended it was his first glimpse too. His eyes widened, his jaw dropped, and he pretended to stagger back. “Holy shit! Them eyes! Ain’t nothin’ human about them!”

  Of course, the audience clamored loudly, wanting to see for themselves. Davenport worked the creaky pedal to turn the little platform on which Tenrael was bound. The platform moved slowly. Tenrael didn’t close his eyes—that would only earn him punishment—but he kept his head bowed as deeply as he dared, his gaze unfocused. He didn’t need to see the men who gasped at him, at the small red horns that protruded from his black hair, his orange eyes, his hairless torso devoid of navel. He knew they wore battered brimmed hats, sweat-stained shirts, patched and threadbare jeans and overalls, old boots that needed resoling. He knew their faces had reddened with excitement as they realized the creature they’d paid fifty cents to see truly was a demon. He knew some of them eyed his flaccid cock and hairless balls, hanging so vulnerably between his legs, just as they’d no doubt been staring at his ass before Davenport turned him.

  Ford hurried off the stage and resumed his spot in the audience, while Davenport stroked his cane and beamed. “So you see?” he crowed. “I present to you tonight the genuine article, plucked from the depths of hell itself!”

  That was a lie. Tenrael had lived atop sheer cliffs, not in any depths, and he’d flown night skies, bringing nightmares and troubling thoughts to sleeping humans. So long ago. And it wasn’t Davenport who’d captured him; the bastard’s grandparents hadn’t even been born yet. Another man had laid a clever trap; then he’d ensnared Tenrael with spells and incantations and the mark he’d branded onto the soles of Tenrael’s feet. Eventually that man had grown bored and sold him, and later his second master lost him in a card game. And so it went. Tenrael didn’t know how many years Davenport had owned him. It didn’t matter.

  Davenport blathered smoothly onward, spinning tales the marks swallowed eagerly. How the demon had been vicious and terrible, deflowering virgins, ruining men, eating babies for dinner. The more violent Davenport’s stories became, the more frenzied the marks grew, roaring their approval every time the cane struck Tenrael.

  Finally, Davenport boomed, “Thank you for your attention this evening! For only fifty cents, you now have a story to tell your grandchildren. But perhaps a few of you wish there was some way to exact vengeance on this creature for the great wrongs it has committed.” He dropped his voice very low, forcing the marks to grow silent and strain to hear him. “We can make private arrangements for such
a thing—at the cost of fifteen dollars.”

  The marks grumbled loudly at that. Fifteen dollars was a week’s wages. On cue, Ford stood, a sheath of grubby bills clutched in one hand. “I’ve got ten!”

  While the marks waited anxiously, Davenport appeared to consider. Finally, he nodded slightly. “Well, since you have been an excellent audience... a discount, just this once. Ten dollars.”

  It was still a lot of money. Most of the men filed out of the tent, chattering to each other in excitement. They would find cheaper entertainment, which would also profit Davenport and the carnival. Perhaps a sandwich from the booth next door for ten cents, and watery beer or a shot of bad liquor for two bits. Or they could pay another fifty cents for entrance to the largest tent, where more items from Davenport’s collection were on display: the tattooed lady, the lobster boy, the two-headed snake. If they had two dollars, they could dance with a painted woman to the sounds of a scratchy phonograph, and for three dollars more she’d take them into a small curtained enclosure, drop to her knees, and suck their dicks.

  But six or seven men remained in the tent with Tenrael, their eyes flashing. Ford wasn’t with them, but they didn’t notice. They eagerly handed their money to Davenport, who took it with a small bow and slid it into his pocket. “Just give me a few moments, gentlemen,” he cooed.

  They milled around, watching as Davenport released Tenrael’s chains. He collapsed to the floor when his arms were freed—he’d been bound in place many hours—and the marks grunted with surprise and scrambled back. But then Davenport attached a leash to Tenrael’s collar and tugged hard. “Come!” he commanded.

  The brands and spells were stronger than any chains, robbing Tenrael of the ability to refuse his master. He staggered to his feet and followed Davenport through the flap at the back of the tent, into a smaller space that reeked of blood and sweat and semen. Davenport didn’t even have to order him then. He just pointed with his cane, and Tenrael meekly bent over the metal framework that awaited him. Davenport shackled him in place, keeping Tenrael’s arms bound downward, his legs stretched wide, his ass raised high. Tenrael hung his head so he wouldn’t have to look at the objects on the nearby shelf—objects the marks would soon be using on him and in him.

  In a parody of tenderness, Davenport stroked Tenrael’s lower back. “Give a good show tonight, boy. Scream nice and loud so I don’t have to bring Ford in to liven things up.” He laughed and slapped Tenrael’s ass.

  Tenrael screamed very loud that night. Ford came in anyway.

  EARLY THE next morning, Tenrael lay curled tightly in his cage, pretending the metal bars gave him refuge. His eyes still closed, he heard the roustabouts chattering lazily as they struck the tents and packed everything away. He grunted in pain when some of the men lifted his cage, carried it across the hard-trodden dirt, and shoved it roughly into the back of a truck. He was glad for the false sense of privacy as they covered the cage, despite the odor of the mildewed canvas.

  Soon afterward, the truck motor roared to life, and Tenrael felt the familiar bumps and jostles, each one bringing new agony to his broken body.

  It wasn’t the pain that bothered him most. It would pass; he would heal. It wasn’t the constant humiliation, the total loss of dignity, the unwanted invasions of his body... those tortures were familiar now too. He was as accustomed to shame and degradation as he was to his shackles and cage. What hurt most were the memories of flying, fierce and proud and free. And the knowledge that his future contained only endless towns full of rubes eager to hand over their money to Davenport.

  In the musty darkness of his cage, with the sounds of the engine, creaking springs, and rolling tires as camouflage, Tenrael wept.

  Chapter Two

  THE CHAIR squealed a protest when Townsend plopped himself down behind his desk. His fine gray hair was oiled carefully into place, but his face was florid, and he was overflowing his expensive suit. “Got a job for you, my boy,” he announced.

  Charles Grimes took a seat on the low chair in front of the desk and waited. He knew his boss would take his time spilling the beans. Townsend liked an audience. He’d once had aspirations in politics, until he’d realized nobody was ever going to elect a guy who’d spent his younger years hunting monsters. So now he contented himself with orating at his underlings.

  With slow, deliberate movements, Townsend splashed a few healthy inches of scotch into a glass. He didn’t pour any for Charles. Then he removed a cigarette from an elaborate silver holder and lit it with a gold lighter. He inhaled deeply, puffed the smoke out, and swallowed almost half the liquor at once. Then he smiled. “This one’s right up your alley.”

  Charles stretched out his long legs and raised his eyebrows questioningly. He didn’t say anything, though. Two could play this game. He wasn’t in any hurry.

  Finally, Townsend huffed. “Got a call from Kansas.”

  “That’s the Chicago office’s jurisdiction.”

  “Yeah. But they ain’t got a specialist. We do.”

  Charles narrowed his eyes and crossed his arms. “What specialist?”

  Townsend drew deeply from his cigarette; then he blew a perfect smoke ring before stubbing out the cigarette in a silver ashtray. He drained his glass, seemed to consider refilling it, but shrugged instead. “According to our sources, there’s a demon in Kansas.”

  “A demon.” Charles wished he could smoke too, or down a generous slug of booze. But repeated experience told him trying either would only make him ill. He uncrossed his feet. “A demon in Kansas?”

  “Yeah. Apparently, someone summoned the fucker and now it’s in a carnival freak show.”

  Charles hoped his wince didn’t show. When he was five or six years old, a man with a tall hat had knocked on the door of their modest house and offered to buy Charles for a thousand dollars. “I’ll make a star of him!” the man had proclaimed. Ma fetched her shotgun and told the man she’d pull the trigger if she ever saw him again. A few days after that, she and Charles had picked up and moved far away. For a long time afterward, the man haunted Charles’s nightmares. Hell, sometimes he still did.

  “If it’s been summoned, someone’s got it under control,” Charles said. “It’s not dangerous.”

  Townsend lit another cigarette. “Maybe not now. But what if its master decides to use it for something other than a sideshow? You remember that nasty business in Bakersfield.”

  “That was before I joined the Bureau.”

  “Yeah, but you heard about it. Everybody heard about it. There were goddamned newsreels about it. How many dead? Eighteen?”

  Charles worked his jaw. “Nineteen. The little girl died a couple months later.”

  “Right.” Townsend pointed his cigarette at Charles. “I ain’t gonna have another Bakersfield. Not on my watch.”

  “But it’s Chicago’s problem, not ours.”

  “Normally, yeah. But Chicago hasn’t got anyone like you, angel.”

  “I’m not an angel.” He wasn’t. His mother was human. And his father... well, maybe not. But there didn’t seem to be anything angelic about knocking up a pretty girl then skipping town. Anyway, Charles had given all that up. He couldn’t do much about his milk-white skin or strange eyes, but he dyed his colorless hair brown. And he’d had his wings removed when he turned eighteen. The stupid things were too small to lift him and a real nuisance besides.

  Faced with Charles’ glower, Townsend merely smiled. “Whatever you are, you wasted that fiend in Glendale after it killed three good agents, and you took care of a pair of ‘em up near Medford. So now you’re gonna get yourself to Kansas and destroy this one too. Should be easy if it’s under someone’s control. You can consider this a nice little vacation if you want.”

  “Nobody vacations in Kansas.”

  “You can start a trend. Maybe find yourself a sweet little farm girl and get yourself laid. You could use it, kid.” Townsend ground out his cigarette. “Now, go see Stella and she’ll get you all set up with the trave
l particulars. I’m expecting a nice thick report from you within two weeks.”

  Charles sighed. “It won’t take me two weeks to get to Kansas.”

  “Then get a couple of farm girls. Hell, get yourself a baker’s dozen. You gotta work that stick outta your ass, kid, or one of these days you’re gonna break. We’re in a tough business. Can’t take ourselves seriously all the time.” He winked and uncapped his bottle.

  They could have sat and argued longer, but Charles would eventually lose. He stood, collected his suit coat and fedora from the rack, and exited Townsend’s office.

  CHARLES KNEW that Stella kind of had a thing for him. She knew it was impossible because she was twenty years his senior, and he knew it was impossible because she was a dame. But neither of them minded a little harmless flirting now and then. Sometimes he even brought her flowers. When he had to go out on assignment, she always made sure he was well taken care of.

  This time she booked him a train compartment—a big one, with a private toilet and a drawing room with a couch—on the Super Chief. He spent most of the ride tucked away from the curious stares of the other passengers, reading or watching the barren landscape roll by. He slept well too; he liked the rocking motion of the train beneath him. So even though it was early in the morning when he arrived in Kansas City, Missouri, he felt refreshed.

  Normally he’d have rented a nice sedan. Back in Los Angeles he owned a plain old Chevrolet, but sometimes the Bureau gave him something flashier, like when he investigated that necromancer in Hollywood and got to spend a few weeks tooling around in a beautiful MG. But the current assignment called for something plainer, so he took a taxi over the state line into Kansas, where he found a dealer selling an ugly but serviceable Dodge pickup truck. Charles bought the truck outright; then he drove down bumpy dirt roads into the countryside until he found a small-town mercantile store. Ignoring the gaping locals, he bought jeans, three cheap cotton shirts, and a pair of dun-colored boots. He’d almost left the place before he remembered a hat, ending up with a plain straw number.