Demon's Debacle, John Stormm [best summer reads of all time txt] 📗

of a karmic snowflake in hell. Neither you or I can save a fool from themselves. You implied a year and I gave almost two. Not that I begrudge a moment of it but I was her friend, not her fool. If her chosen friend, Lam Bing, and brother An Nam can’t help her, she can’t be helped. I will not stop the collection of a lawful debt, though I feel that I am owed one.”

“I will pay you whatever is in my power, cousin,” Khu Lim acquiesced.

“I didn’t mean you,” Storm replied, tossing the crumpled note in a trash bin. “I seem to have lost that piece of paper and can’t remember what was written on it anyway. The Kuei and I may have to work some things out later.” Stormy eyes flashed ominously, and distant thunder rumbled.

* * *

     Another month had passed and Yin’s work was suffering from her preoccupation with Lam Bing. Storm had just walked into the men’s lounge when he noticed the activity. Lam was collecting a gambling debt from Tiny and lurching around the men’s room chanting: “Like a Salvation Army drum, baby!”

Storm already knew what that meant. Yin’s time was short and the Kuei’s appetite was ravenous. Martin approached him later that day.

“Lost your little yellow girlfriend, eh, old man?” Martin cooed. “Now maybe you’ll see things my way. No more rubbish about ’love conquering all?’ Only in cheap movies, my friend.” Storm’s eyes were flashing like strobe lights, and his voice hardly more than an animal growl.

“I’m not your friend,” the wizard growled menacingly. “You collect your debt, and I’ll collect mine. Neervallat. It will not go well for you, corpulent one.”

Martin moved away with a puzzled frown on his face. It didn’t last long. Yin was coming over to work late on the digital line with Lam tonight. The thought of the night’s festivities made him drool on his shirt. He hastily wiped his mouth on his sleeve and sought out Tiny and Tito for some overtime tonight. They were to help him move out two truckloads of digital cameras. Tito’s connections would pay off for all of them.

* * *

     It was late and the pack center was nearly abandoned. Yin and Lam were finishing their last pallet of digital cameras. Lam would wrap the pallets and roll them into the warehouse on a pallet jack. Tiny would pick them up with a forklift and load them into the awaiting trucks. Martin was transferring accounting data back and forth in the computer to lose the truckloads of cameras and the overtime hours in the system. He was looking forward to the celebration when the trucks were loaded. Khu Lim watched in tears, knowing what was coming.

Yin was finishing writing her line sheets on the cameras they packed when she noticed that Lam had left without her. Tito was letting him out the security carousel and looking in her direction smiling. She grabbed her coat and tried to catch up to Lam, when Tito’s muscular arm shot out and dragged her with him into the warehouse. Yin fought and screamed but it was useless. In the warehouse Tiny came forward and tore off Yin’s coat in a single swipe of his powerful arm. Her Snapix Corp. tee shirt tore off with it. The men stretched her across a pallet of corrugated cardboard and began cutting off her clothing not caring how much skin they cut with it, their distorted features leering at her bloody nakedness. Yin cried, panic stricken.

“What you guys doing?” she sobbed. “I done nothing to you. Why you got to do this to me for?”

A naked Martin Gorge stood before her as the men held her down, obscene rolls of blubber quivering in anticipation. His mouth drooling uncontrollably.

“It’s obvious, my sweet,” he gloated, “because I can!”

Khu Lim stayed through to Yin’s last breath. She would not let her die alone. Her demonic fury quenched itself, knowing Storm was just as passionate about collecting his own debt. If what she had surmised about the wizard was true, none of these creatures would see the sunrise intact.

* * *

     The men were in high spirits as they climbed into the big rigs. At thirty thousand dollars, wholesale value, a pallet, and forty pallets per truck, the pay off would be almost two and a half million dollars free and clear. Tito’s connections would distribute the expensive little cameras. Fortunes would be made this night. Martin climbed up into the rig with Tito and they were about to pull out. A flicker of lightning flashed and rain began to fall on the windshields. The trucks were engaged in first gear but would not move forward. The men looked at each other puzzled.

“CHOCKS!” Tito said. “I forgot to remove the wheel chocks. That’s all.”

Tito and Tiny climbed down to inspect their wheels only to find that not just the trailers but ALL the wheels had been wedged tightly with chocks.

“Whose idea of a joke is this?” Tiny grumbled, trying to pull the chocks loose.

“That would be mine,” a voice came from a large dark figure standing in the open lot before them. “I’m funny that way.” A black clad figure in a broad brimmed hat and long, black leather duster strode forward in the rain into the truck headlights.

“See how much you like this, funny guy!” Tito exclaimed as he pulled a nine millimeter Glock out of his jacket to fire. The figure whirled to fox the aim. A metallic click and the shriek of razor sharp steel whistling through the air came in rapid succession. Tiny looked quickly at Tito only to see that his forehead had suddenly sprouted a wicked looking triple hook bladed knife and Tito’s eyes rolled back into his head as he slumped to the pavement. Glancing quickly back to the leather clad wraith, his own gun in hand, Tiny looked up into Storm’s face. The wizard had already closed the distance and a powerful left hand pushed his aim wide as a rigid right index finger buried itself in his eye socket up to its knuckle and into his brain. Tiny’s body went rigid and fell to the ground in a paroxysm of spasms.

Martin had climbed out of the big rig into the rain. He didn’t like getting wet, not with cold water anyways. He had a gun in one hand, and a white gold necklace with a glowing star pendant clutched in the other as he noticed Tito’s corpse. Turning to the right, he spied Tiny’s twitching form on the pavement. The lightning was raging. It’s bright strobe making it difficult for Martin to pick out a dark figure moving towards him. Martin fired three rapid shots at the deadly wraith.

“I’ve come to collect my debt now, Martin Kuei,” Storm’s voice came out of the darkness and pouring rain.
Martin saw him standing in the truck’s beams and began firing wildly. The big black duster billowed in the wind as the wizard leaped at him. A steel hard left foot kicked out and broke his wrist making the gun tumble from his grasp. A hard right knee slammed out of the night sky, shattering his left collar bone and knocking the huge man onto his back. The dark Sidhe crouched over the quivering fat man for only a moment.

“I was collecting my lawful blood debt!” Martin squealed. “Why do you have to take this so personal? It has nothing to do with you!”

Lightning flashed in eyes hidden in the darkness beneath the broad brimmed hat and echoed in the stormy night skies above. A voice, only remotely human thundered:

“BECAUSE I CAN!”

* * *

     The tiny corporate soul of Martin, and the larger Kuei spirit hurtled their separate ways through space and time to the Lower Planes. The cosmic trash heap, Gehenna, for Martin, and the dreadful waiting place, Tartarus, for the Kuei. Khu Lim went back to her temple to reflect on eternal things. Held tenderly in the palm of her hand was a tiny, glowing, white star pendant on a white gold chain with the luminescent pearl of a human soul in its center. It was all she could do.

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Publication Date: 01-29-2010

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