Free Death's Apprentice: A Grimm City Novel by Gareth Jefferson Jones K. W. Jeter Page A

the only vehicle. Which means you’re going to have to make your own way back to your barracks on foot.”
    “Don’t worry, I’ll manage it,” said Blake. “I’ve been stomping all over this goddamned terrain for months.”
    The Devil came closer. “But even so, it will be a long hike before you get to where you’re heading. And the nights out in the open are brutally cold in this part of the world. Call me selfish, but after freeing you, I’d like to make sure that you get home in one piece.” The Devil removed his overcoat and extended the garment toward him. “Here—take this. My coat will keep you warm on even the coldest night. And should you need it, its magic will help you in other ways, too.”
    “Its magic?” Blake set the M16 down. He took hold of the overcoat to examine it. “You’re kidding, right?”
    “Reach inside its pockets, and you’ll see.”
    Blake did what the Devil said, and drew out a thick, fist-sized wad of paper. It was cash, a roll of large-denomination bills secured with a rubber band.
    “Try again—”
    The same pocket yielded another roll of bills, even larger than the first.
    “All the money you’ll ever need. In whatever currency you like. A suitable end, I think, to such an eventful night.”
    “Wow…” There was no way Blake could keep from being impressed. He reached into the overcoat’s pockets and pulled out even more. Wad after wad dropped into a pile at his booted feet. “As much as I like?”
    “Exactly.”
    “Whenever I need?”
    The Devil nodded and took another step forward to hurry Blake up. “All you have to do is put it on.”
    Blake ran his hand across the coat’s immaculate lapels. It looked as if it would fit him perfectly somehow, even though the Devil was slightly taller than him. The sight of the money at his feet dizzied him.
    As the Devil watched, Blake slid his arms into the overcoat’s sleeves and pulled its lapels across his chest.
    And fell to the ground, scattering the pile of money, as seething pain burned through every fiber of his body. His fingers tore at the front of the coat; it felt as if the garment were on fire, charring the flesh beneath.
    He looked down at himself and saw the overcoat darkening with his blood. The fibers of its cloth writhed like headless snakes, burrowing into his flesh with an insatiable hunger. He could feel lacerating, fiery threads digging their way toward his vital organs. His pulse pounded with dizzying force as the reddened tendrils inched through the shivering chambers of his heart, seizing it in a knotlike grip.
    An agonized cry broke from his throat. As his eyes rolled back in their sockets, he had a nightmarish glimpse of the overcoat’s animate substance rippling and tightening across his raw flesh—
    He stumbled backward, barely managing to stay upright. His nails splintered as he fought to rip open the garment. Nothing happened but his own blood welling up into his palms. The overcoat had become one with him, fused to his flayed skin. He couldn’t tear it off, no matter how desperately he clawed at it.
    Pain overwhelmed him, driving away the last conscious fragment in his skull. He could hear himself screaming, and see the Devil smiling down at him. And then nothing else but darkness …
    He woke again hours later, only to find that the nightmare had just begun.
    The pain from the coat had ebbed, enough to be barely endurable. Blake managed to get to his feet, then stumbled back out of the farmhouse. And found something even worse.
    They were still there, arrayed on the ground: the corpses from the firefight in the dark. Eleven of them, each dispatched with a shot from the same M16 he dragged behind himself now. But they weren’t the insurgents who had captured him a week ago, and who had been getting ready to transmit his execution over the Internet. He found himself looking down into the blank, lifeless eyes of his own men, all eleven members of the alpha team that he had once led.
    He