Judgement Read online

  “Your gear,” he said. “It’s on my desk. Good luck.”

  I nodded my thanks and left.

  The police station had become a war zone.

  Tables and desks were upturned and used for cover, and every single person had their firearm drawn. The usual noises — buzzing of people chatting, ringing of phones, rustling of paper, sliding of chairs and desk drawers — were now replaced with the deafening cracks of gunfire and the screaming of police officers as they hit the ground and cried in pain, clutching their wounds.

  And in the middle of it all was just one person.

  One guy wearing a pitch black suit, immaculate and pixel perfect, with slicked back hair and a pair of Ray Bans covering his eyes. Slung across his shoulder was a silver long-barreled rifle with intricate patterns running along the barrel. In each hand he held a revolver, silver like his rifle, and etched with the same patterns.

  He was firing with ease and laziness, almost as if pressing buttons on a game console rather than pulling triggers and ending people’s lives.

  Two cops sneaked up behind him with taser guns and one of them managed to zap him. The guy turned as if he had just been accidentally poked and kicked the cop in the face.

  Now, I’ve been kicked before and I also did my fair share of kicking. I know a good kick when I see one — usually because it tended to leave a mark. If done correctly, kicks used all of the leg’s muscles as well as the hip, making for a really devastating strike.

  But if my kick was a shotgun, this guy’s was a freaking cannon.

  The cop’s face was torn completely off and grey matter flew from the liquefied skull. His buddy froze halfway through trying to taser the gunman and watched in horror as his friend fell to the ground, effectively decapitated.

  The guy in the suit smiled and threw a front kick into the second cop’s chest. The cop was sent flying into the adjacent wall, but the gunman fired after him just to be sure.

  I lifted my guns and fired.

  As I said, regular weapons can’t handle my magic. I’ve been through countless guns over the years before customizing my current one, and that only happened once I took down a Behemoth and had Amaymon infuse its ectoplasm into the weapon. So blasting off with these Berettas was out of the question.

  However, ever since taking on Abi as my apprentice, I had refined my control over my powers and the flow of magic. Each of my bullets had just enough magic in it to add to the punch but not cause it to break down on a molecular level.

  The gunman must have sensed me because he leapt high into the air, reached the ceiling, and cartwheeled. Upside down, he fired off a couple of rounds and kicked off from the ceiling. He landed feet first against the wall, ran up a few steps, and spun in the air.

  I saw him look straight at me, and despite the sunglasses, could feel him challenging me. And I was never one to back down from a challenge — especially not since he had spent all twelve bullets in his revolvers and I had half a clip left in each gun.

  I fired as I advanced.

  The gunman cocked his head, avoiding my bullets as if they were tennis balls. He kicked a desk over and the piece of furniture spun in the air as it fell towards me. I ducked, all the while keeping my eyes on the target.

  Then I saw one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen a person do in my life — even if it was the bad guy.

  The gunman flicked his revolvers downwards. Both guns broke forwards, like old Civil War era revolvers, and he flicked them upwards, sending both cylinders into the air. I barely saw his hands move as he reached into his jacket pockets, threw two new cylinders in the air with bullets loaded in them, and watched as they landed perfectly inside the revolvers.

  The gunman smiled at me, knowing that I was impressed, and snapped the guns back in place.

  “Holy crap,” I said as I threw myself behind a sturdy-looking desk for cover. Bullets whizzed past my head and I could feel the desk shudder with every bullet it caught.

  I felt something burning my hands and saw the two Berettas smoking. The acrid smell of burnt rubber and steel filled my nostrils. I threw away my guns, knowing my magic had destroyed them from the inside.

  I heard sobbing next to me. A young cop, no more than twenty years old, was sitting with his knees pulled up and his firearm held tightly with both trembling hands close to his chest. White as a sheet, he had yet to acknowledge me crouching next to him.

  “Hey,” I said.

  The young cop jumped slightly and looked at me.

  “Do you have a back-up weapon?” I asked.

  He shook his head with a lot of nostril flaring and erratic shaking.

  I grabbed his shoulder. “It’s gonna be okay,” I said. “I promise you, kid. Just give me your gun and everything will be okay.”

  I heard more gunfire behind me and knew the desk wouldn’t hold for much longer. Meanwhile, the young cop just stared at me blankly.

  “To hell with this,” I said.

  I snatched the gun from the kid’s hands and elbowed him in the face. The young cop immediately fell over unconscious and released his grip on the weapon.

  Look, I’m not proud of what I did. But in retrospect, I figure that a broken nose is better than a bullet to the head. That kid would grow up to be a better cop because of this, but in order to grow up he had to survive this day — this enemy — and he did not have what it took to survive. Me knocking him out might have been the best thing I could have done for him. When he woke up he wouldn’t remember any of this. That was good. Regular people shouldn’t have to deal with monsters.

  That was my job.

  I fired off two shots as I came out of cover, both aimed at the enemy’s legs. I figured that if I couldn’t put this guy down in a fair duel, I’ll go for dismemberment.

  I don’t play fair — I play to survive.

  The gunman lifted his leg and flicked it forwards. I saw a spark as my bullet bumped against something hard and was deflected into the ceiling. The gunman put his foot back down and my jaw dropped with it.

  The guy had no shoes. Instead, poking out of his expensive Dolce & Gabbana trousers were a pair of hooves.

  I looked at the guy. He cocked his head, smirking the entire time, before gently lifting his gun and pulling the trigger. I ducked but not before feeling something blow up in my hand.

  He had shot my gun!

  I threw what was left of my weapon at him and dove sideways. My stunt caused me to skid headfirst into a desk and saw a familiar leather-wrapped handle sticking from beneath another desk.

  Djinn.

  I grabbed the sword and channeled magic into it, just as I saw the gunman’s hooves clomp closer. Djinn’s blade glowed blue and I flicked it upwards, cleaving through Roland’s desk.

  The gunman jumped backwards and I blocked one of his astray shots with the blade. I yelled in effort and stabbed forwards. Djinn’s blue blade extended impossibly and shot like a spear towards the guy’s face. I felt the blade make contact and the guy spun.

  His shades fell on the ground and shattered. I looked at his face. He was clutching his left eye but I was more enthralled by the sheer amount of facial hair that appeared on his face.

  And the pair of ram-like horns that extended from his forehead along his skull.

  A second, smaller pair of horns jutted from his temples and when he removed his hand, I got a glimpse at his eyes. The pupils were long and narrow but were set in a horizontal position like a goat’s. They were also ember-yellow in color and bore a familiarity.

  The eyes of a demon.

  The gunman leapt back. I swiped my sword after him, charging a spell, and sending an arc of energy at him, but he literally somersaulted over it and kept running towards the exit.

  I looked down and saw my own gun lying on the ground.

  “Eat this,” I spat as I pumped magic into the gun and pulled the trigger three times in succession. I could feel the certainty of my magic sending the bullets after him like homing missiles.

  The guy abr
uptly spun and fired his own guns three times, shooting my bullets out of the air with his own. He fired a fourth time and I was too slow.

  The bullet met my shoulder and drilled through.

  I’ve been shot countless times before and thanks to my magic, I’ve always walked away from it.

  But this was something else.

  I screamed my lungs out as pain radiated through my body. I felt as if every single one of my cells was being torn apart, and my blood had been replaced by molten lava. My vision clouded and shadows burst from my body. I could feel my magic working overtime to heal the wound, to push the bullet out, but the more magic I used, the worse the pain got.

  Tendrils of black writhed around like whips, slashing and smashing everything around me. I had to control them, but at that moment, I could barely form a thought, let alone muster the effort it took to hold back my powers.

  So I did the one thing I could.

  I spun Djinn and drove the tip into my shoulder, after the bullet. I could say I felt a fresh wave of pain, but I was pretty sure my nerve endings were already fried. I wedged the tip of my short sword beneath the bullet and wrenched upwards.

  The bullet fell on the ground, smoking and hissing.

  All that pain suddenly receded and my shadows went along with it. I dropped Djinn on the ground and vomited next to it.

  What the hell was that? I thought. Never in my life had I felt pain like that, not even when I tried using magic.

  By the time I could see properly again, the goat-demon-gunman was long gone.

  I stared at the bullet, a tiny shard of scrunched silver, and saw it had a pattern engraved on it. I picked it up and put it in my pocket, before grabbing Djinn and using it as a crutch to get back up to my knees.

  From the wreckage that was once the Eureka Police Department, I fished out my coat from beneath what was left of Roland’s desk and holstered my weapons.

  “Freeze!”

  I turned and saw half a dozen cops with their guns trained on me.

  “Hands in the air, you son of a bitch,” screamed one of them.

  I saw the fear in their eyes, as they tried to make sense of what had just happened here. I saw the rage as I stood unharmed while their buddies lay dead on the ground.

  I understood it all.

  But I had to get out of there.

  “Stop.”

  Roland appeared by the doorway of the lobby and faltered. I wanted to rush to his side and help him, but any sudden movements would have gotten me shot and I really had my fill of bullets for the day.

  “Call him an ambulance,” I said as gently as I could.

  The cop who yelled at me turned his gaze from Roland back to me.

  “Call an ambulance,” I repeated.

  “You’re under arrest,” the cop said.

  “I said enough,” Roland said. He managed to stand up with the aid of another cop. “If it wasn’t for Erik here, we’d all be dead.”

  Uncertain, the cop lowered his gun.

  Roland looked at me with hard eyes. “Go,” he said. “Go find that son of a bitch and make him pay.”

  I nodded and walked out, determined to hunt that gunman down and repay him in kind for all the suffering he had brought into my world.

  Chapter 6

  “So let me get this straight.” Amaymon rubbed his feline belly against my leg. “You’re telling me this guy had goat horns and hooves. And he somehow made it inside a police station without getting noticed.”

  “Yeah,” I replied. “And he had guns.”

  “So, we’re facing a goat-man version of John Wayne. An actual gun-slinging satyr.” He flicked his tail. “Why not? I live as a cat.”

  “And you’re very cute,” I said.

  “Kiss my ass,” he replied. “So what are we doing here?”

  I looked up towards the large sign that said Sun Tzu’s Noodle Shop, and sighed. This place always intimidated me. It wasn’t that there was anything scary, specifically: the proprietor, Sun Tzu — yes, that one — was as nice as any elderly Chinese guy could be. He smiled and nodded, hummed where humming was appropriate, and spoke almost entirely in fortune cookie riddles.

  I liked him for the mentoring and for being a good guy in a world full of monsters.

  Amaymon liked him for the free noodles.

  But like all ancient beings, Sun Tzu had his secrets, and his came with a side of terrible otherworldly powers.

  Then there were the rest of the patrons, an eclectic mix of hooded figures and god-knows-what-else, each of whom had their own bag of tricks. Sun Tzu could kick all their asses at once and his mojo came in handy in keeping his shop a safe neutral zone, but I survive on paranoia.

  I felt the silver bullet in my coat pocket, hard and cold against my fingers. If anyone could tell me where it came from, it was Sun Tzu.

  Sighing again and gritting my teeth, I pushed the front door and walked inside with my cat at my heels.

  When I entered the Chinese shop I felt like the protagonist of a western.

  Sun Tzu’s shop was usually empty, except for a few regulars, but this time every single table was occupied. As I walked in, every pair of eyes turned in my direction. I knew immediately there would be trouble — every human being can innately feel when shit’s about to go down.

  As I scanned the shop, I saw a large collection of individuals: anything from hooded monster hunters like myself, to humanoid creatures with a variety of features, ranging from scaly to beastly.

  Right at the very back, sitting where they always sat, were four Chinese men, playing Mahjong like they always did: the thin and wiry Long, which is Chinese for dragon; the stout and muscular Tiger; the stringy and attentive Phoenix; and the fat and jolly Turtle.

  I saw the four of them eyeing me, although I didn’t feel like they were sizing me up, unlike the other patrons. Turtle even gave me the slightest of nods.

  Amaymon turned his feline head to look up towards me. “Did you forget to book a reservation?”

  I ignored him — Sun Tzu had always welcomed me in his place, but now I felt like I had walked into a trap.

  “Erik!” An elderly Asian man wearing a storm-grey Chinese uniform walked out of the kitchen.

  As he walked past them, the people standing by the bar leaned out of his way, so no one would actually touch him. Even from this far I could feel his impressive aura, like a vast ocean hanging from the ceiling, threatening to destroy everything with a mere thought.

  Sun Tzu beamed as he came over and gave me a hug. “How have you been, old friend?”

  He knelt down and rubbed Amaymon’s head. “And how is little kitty?”

  “Little kitty ain’t too happy about being called that,” Amaymon replied as he rubbed himself against Sun Tzu’s hand. “But I’d be a little more concerned about what might happen if some genius here tried something.”

  Sun Tzu stood up and looked around. He inhaled deeply and I felt the entire shop coming to a standstill.

  “No one will try anything,” he said, addressing me but looking at the shop’s population. “This is a place of peace.” Then he beamed at them. “Please try today’s specials.”

  And like puppets on a string, they all turned back around and returned to their food.

  “Come,” Sun Tzu said. “Sit, sit. I’ll bring out some dumplings.”

  “Oh hell, yeah,” Amaymon remarked. He hopped on the table as I sat down. “So what did you do to piss off an entire shop?”

  “Get off the table,” I berated. “And I didn’t do anything.”

  He cocked his head, ignored my comment, and instead plopped his ass down on the wooden surface. At the same time, Sun Tzu came out carrying out a dish of dumplings.

  “Shoo,” he said, waving at Amaymon.

  The demon leapt off, transformed into his human self, and took a seat next to me. I could see a couple of people giving us the stink eye — even in the magical community, people hated demons.

  To be fair, they brought nothing but death
and destruction, so it wasn’t like I didn’t understand where that hate was coming from, but still, Amaymon was my familiar.

  “So, Erik,” Sun Tzu said. “What brings you to my shop today? Need more supplies?”

  “Just the opposite,” I said as I fished out the silver bullet from my pocket. I set the deformed piece of metal of the table in front of him. “I need to know what this is and who bought it.”

  Sun Tzu smiled. “I am not a gun shop owner. Perhaps the answers you seek lie elsewhere.”

  That stopped me in my tracks. In all the years I have known Sun Tzu, he had never said such words. He never said ‘no’ or ‘go away’. In fact, he always said something helpful, even if it wasn’t related to the case.

  I cocked my head and glanced behind me. I caught people staring at me again, who quickly snapped their heads down to their bowls when they saw me looking.

  “What’s going on here?” I asked.

  Sun Tzu stopped smiling and stared at me with dark grey eyes that matched his uniform. “Things have been set in motion, Erik Ashendale, and your presence here threatens to upset a very delicate balance.”

  “Let me guess,” I replied. “Angels? Demons? Seven Deadly Sins?” I shrugged. “Can’t be the Black Ring Society, I kicked their ass so hard their grandkids are gonna be sore.”

  “Nice,” Amaymon interjected. We fist-bumped each other.

  Sun Tzu was not amused.

  “You jest, young wizard, but there is a much greater power at play here,” he said. He cocked his head knowingly and I got the feeling he was trying to tell me something — something I was not getting. “Powers even greater than mine.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “Panda Express?”

  Sun Tzu sighed and picked up the bullet. “This is a very powerful spell,” he said. “The bullet itself has become a magical object with the properties of severing and binding.”

  I frowned at him. “What’s that, like destroying and repairing?”

  He shook his head and plucked a single chopstick from a small container at the side of the table. He snapped it in half and held up both sides.

  “If one were to break and repair this, it would become a perfect chopstick once more,” he said, pressing the two halves together. “But severing and binding are different in nature. The act of severing is to divide something, while keeping in mind that the end result is to have two different things of the same nature. Binding is the act of taking those two halves and forcing them to become whole again.”