Free Hellhound on My Trail by D. J. Butler Page A

squeal that he recognized as the Baal’s. He spun and fired without aiming, bang! bang! bang!
    He thought he could smell the Baal’s meat-stink from across the synagogue.
    “Per Isidem lux!” Adrian shouted, and light exploded from behind Mike and flashed onto the charging Baal Zavuv and Hellhound. It was a palpable wave, like a flashbulb’s glare, and when it hit the Baal, the great gray demon lord shrieked in pain and crashed to the ground, flailing and dragging the Hound with it. Zvuvim fell from the sky like volcanic ash, stunned and writhing in surprise.
    But the light died in a single flash and Mike knew that the soft thump he heard immediately after was the sound of Adrian’s body hitting the floor.
    “Down the hole!” Eddie shouted. Mike fired off the rest of his clip for good measure, spraying fire all over the tangled knot of demon-flesh without inflicting any damage he could see, then stuck the gun in his belt, grabbed one of Adrian’s arms and, with Twitch pulling on the other side, dragged the unconscious wizard through the trapdoor.
    The first descent was insane, a sightless stumbling down steps that were irregular in every dimension, and several times Mike stubbed his toes or smacked his head or skinned his knuckles against the walls and ceiling of the passage, or landed bad enough that he thought he had twisted an ankle.
    When he was halfway down, the trapdoor above slammed shut with a clang! and Mike plunged into womb-blind darkness.
    Then he hit a smooth patch, a leveling out of the passage, and he and Twitch and Adrian fell together in a heap.
    “Are you alright, son?” he heard Twitch say in the dark. He thought she smelled a little horsey, this close.
    Adrian groaned, lying under Mike.
    “You can see?” Mike asked.
    Then a light snapped on above Mike, and after he blinked away the sting of it he realized it was a flashlight beam. The beam jogged down the stairs to Mike’s level as he stood up, and then a second beam snapped on near the first, and Eddie materialized in the white beams of illumination, pressing a crosshatch-gripped Maglite into Mike’s hands.
    “I don’t know how far we have to go,” Eddie muttered, “but I know that dawn ain’t nowhere near close enough to save us.”
    “What is that, just a bit of random encouragement?” Mike touched the back of his neck—the skin there felt crisp like cooked pastry dough, and stung fiercely at the contact of his fingers. “Just want to make sure my hopes are set at the right level?”
    “Exactly,” Eddie agreed. “I’ve got the back, Jim will carry Adrian and Twitch can lead the boy.”
    “The boy?” Mike swiveled around with his flashlight and found the kid, staring with big brown eyes at the rock band of freaks and lunatics from out of town that had burned down his synagogue.
    “We’re not leaving the boy,” Eddie explained. “Jim wouldn’t have it.”
    “The boy’s got the Left Hand on him?” Mike gulped, wondering what the kid could have done to be in such bad spiritual shape.
    But Jim shook his head no before he turned and bent over to pick Adrian up and sling the organist over his shoulders. Now that the reek of Rabbi Feldman’s pyre and the stench of the Baal Zavuv were gone, Mike could smell the scorched flesh of Jim’s hands. Or his own back and neck, he realized.
    “Nah,” Eddie chewed out the words while stretching his shoulders and neck. “Jim just likes pissing off anything and anyone associated with the Infernal powers.”
    “You mean Hell?”
    “I mean Hell,” Eddie agreed. “You take point.”
    The sound of something thudding against the trapdoor echoed down the stairs and kicked Mike into action, sending him shuffling ahead of Jim and Twitch and into the lead. The ceiling of the passageway was mostly over his head, so he gripped the Maglite in his teeth and thumbed shells into the pistol’s clips as he walked. The sound of loud clicks behind him suggested that Eddie might be performing a