Page 2 of Sinistram
“Now!”
Brent fired his shotgun into the billowing dust, igniting it in a fireball around the old tower.
“Run!” Travis had gone a few paces before he realized Brent wasn’t behind him, still keeping his gun trained on the cloud of spirits. He ran back and grabbed Brent by the arm. “Come on!”
They nearly made it to the gate before they heard a thunderous crack and the old tower split, collapsing as the flames engulfed it.
Much as Travis wanted to stop and catch his breath, he knew that they needed to be long gone before the police showed up. He and Brent piled into his old Crown Victoria, a car he chose because of its powerful engine and enough room in the trunk for a body. Travis didn’t burn rubber, but he got them back on the main road headed in the opposite direction in record time. They pulled off their masks and shoved them under the seat.
“Talk to me. Can you breathe? Are you okay?”
Brent nodded. “Yeah. Although if we get stopped, we’re probably covered in cement dust. You are, so I’m betting that I am too.”
Travis glanced at the rearview mirror. “Shit. There’s a box of wipes under the seat. Maybe we can at least clean up enough not to get noticed.”
Brent laughed as he reached for the box. “And we’ll smell ‘powder fresh.’”
“Shut up.” Travis could tell from his reflection that his grin had the slightly maniacal ‘we lived through it’ edge that came with cheating death.
Travis was thirty-four and six-foot-two, with solid lean muscle, chin-length black hair, and green eyes. The cement powder in his hair and eyebrows made him look like he had suddenly aged decades.
Not too very long ago, Travis had been a member of a secretive order of warrior priests who used magic and arcane knowledge from the Vatican archives to fight demons, malicious hauntings, vampires, and other infernal creatures, the Sinistram. The Sinistram reported to Cardinal Vasylyk, one step away from the Pope, and considered itself to be the “left hand” of the Holy Father, fighting the monsters in the dark.
Not all of the Cardinals approved of the Sinistram’s secrecy, hubris, or tactics. They called the organization by another name:Filios Tenebrarum.The Sons of Darkness.
Internal politics, corruption, and cynicism led to Travis’s highly controversial resignation from a role that was supposed to be for life. He left the Sinistram, left the priesthood, and left the Church, although the Sinistram refused to accept his decisions and made periodic “invitations” to return, which Travis always rebuffed in no uncertain terms.
Instead, Travis now ran the St. Dismas Outreach along with his helpers, Matthew and Jon, a halfway house in a rough part of Pittsburgh that served the homeless and fought paranormal dangers on the side. Named for the believing thief on the cross, it gave a wry nod to the protecting and healing parts of his past vocation that Travis had never renounced.
He drove them back to Brent’s office on the South Side.
“Do you think that will stop the hauntings?” Brent asked as they parked, and Travis followed him inside.
“Hope so, although Poole certainly wasn’t the only fatality,” Travis replied. “Dangerous work is one thing, but cutting corners on safety features is evil.”
“Happens every day.”
“Doesn’t mean I have to like it,” Travis said.
Brent’s office was in a converted house, so it had a full bathroom where they could shower, handy in a line of work that often left them covered in dirt, blood, and gore. Travis usually left clean clothes at the office for just such occasions.
“Go ahead and get the first shower. I’ll make a fresh pot of coffee and see if we’ve got cookies.” Brent waved Travis ahead of him.
Brent was in his early thirties, with short blond hair and a muscular build. His first brush with the supernatural came when demons killed his parents and his twin brother, Danny. He barely escaped a demon attack that claimed most of a village when he was in the military, causing painful injuries that flared up at the worst times. Angry and ready for revenge, Brent swore he would find a way to avenge his family and atone for surviving.
Now, Brent was ex-military, ex-FBI, and ex-cop, finally opening a private detective agency that specialized in paranormal cases. That put his supernatural experience to good use and addressed problems that regular law enforcement wasn’t prepared to handle. It also gave Brent more schedule flexibility on days when painful old injuries from the military or demon hunting caused problems.
Like Travis, Brent had seen enough corruption, denial, and cronyism to be disillusioned and angry, but he was too stubborn to abandon what he thought of as his core mission: stopping the things that went bump in the night.
Travis had met Brent on a case where they were both hunting the same demon and decided to team up. It wasn’t like the television shows about fearless monster hunters, which Travis and Brent were fond of watching to poke fun. Nights like tonight reminded Travis how much fiction and reality differed.
Travis took a quick shower, letting the hot water sluice over him, making sure the dust didn’t clump since he had no desireto try to get cement out of his hair. He breathed deeply, letting the delayed reaction of mortal terror drain away as his heartbeat slowed to normal.
Monster hunting wasn’t a career choice with a retirement package. More like penance, not so different from making a vow to a holy order or swearing allegiance to an army. But as he and Brent often remarked over coffee or a “glad-we’re-still-alive” beer, it was a dirty job someone had to do, and they were uniquely qualified.
The vision came on suddenly, between one breath and the next.He saw a concrete entrance into a hillside with huge steel doors. The doors swung open of their own accord, but it was too dark to see inside. In the next breath, all-consuming fire obliterated the entrance and the hillside.
“Hey, leave me some hot water!” Brent banged on the bathroom door, only partially in jest. “I’m too old for cold showers.”
