The Book of Bart Read online

  “You sure?” I asked. “Because here he comes.”

  His crew cut caught a glare from the sunlight piercing the window. He walked under the tail, then jumped ten feet in the air, ripping off part of the dinosaur’s vertebrae. In one swift move, he landed and swung the bone at Samantha.

  I caught it mid-swing. “You should introduce yourself before hitting a lady.”

  The boy snarled, drool spilling out of his mouth. “Out of my way. I want the girl.”

  I smiled. “Good to know you go that way, but why her?”

  The boy tried to wrench the bone from my hand, but he couldn’t handle my demon strength. “She’s the only one who knows. She can ruin everything.”

  I rolled my eyes. “You kids are so dramatic. Who put you up to this? Your mom?”

  His eyes glowed red. Hmm. Someone must have placed some sort of curse on Crew Cut here. Maybe the same entity that had gotten to Pierce got hold of this kid?

  “Having a party? Who else is in there with you?”

  “Get out of my way,” he said. “I won’t say it again.”

  “Could you repeat that? I didn’t hear you.” I glanced back at Samantha, who took several steps away from us. “Did you break somebody’s heart or something? Please say yes.”

  “No.” She quivered, wrapping her arms around her body. Her gaze glanced past my shoulder at the kid. “Just leave us alone.”

  The boy’s voice turned low and scratchy. “I guess I’ll have to kill both of you. Nobody will stop me from getting the Shard.”

  Shard? I opened my mouth to ask the obvious question when his face turned orange, like a near-molten piece of metal.

  A small group of children gasped at the sight of this boy, as if they’d never seen someone’s face turn that shade of orange before.

  “Boo!” I shouted at them.

  The children screamed. An adult with them shouted, “Run away.”

  Good thing they did. The last thing I needed was a group of little tykes getting mauled by this glowing asshole.

  “This world will be mine,” he said.

  “That voice doesn’t suit you at all. You sound like a drama queen.” I ripped the T. rex bone out of his hands and smashed his face, knocking him to the ground. “Use your normal voice. You won’t sound so starved for attention.”

  The boy spit out some blood and teeth. “We’ll meet again,” he said.

  His body trembled, as if he tried to fight off whatever possessed him. His face grew brighter and brighter, until his head exploded. At least I wouldn’t have to clean up that mess. A black cloud escaped from his body, lingering above the floor for a moment before floating away. Everyone dumb enough to still be near us cowered and shook as they watched the thing drift past them. Samantha lay on the floor with her hands over her head.

  I’d seen a lot of things in my day, but never a black cloud that made somebody’s head explode. Before security arrived, I turned the body over and took the boy’s wallet, stuffing it into my suit jacket.

  “What was that thing?” Samantha asked. All the color had drained from her face, leaving a pale and hollow complexion.

  “Not sure. We’ll talk about it during the rest of our little date here.” I reached down and took her hand to help her up. Something sizzled and my fingers burned. I jerked my hand away from Samantha.

  Getting burned by this girl’s touch meant only one thing. She worked for the Good guys.

  moved Samantha out of the museum ahead of me, making sure to keep my hand on her shirt. Feeling her bra strap under the thin cotton gave me a small rush.

  She looked back into the museum, eyes wide. “Are we safe?”

  I rolled my eyes. “The kid’s head exploded and a black cloud came out of him. Do you see a black cloud anywhere?”

  Samantha looked around us and up into the sky. “No.”

  “Then yes. For the moment, we’re safe.” I forced her to cross the street, but she stopped before moving through the intersection. “Though, that doesn’t mean we should stick around to see if that thing comes back.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “My place. It’s not far.”

  Samantha’s eyes narrowed. “That’s a little forward.”

  “Desperate times.”

  “My car’s parked about a block over that way.” She pointed. “No funny business.”

  I motioned with my hand in that direction. “By all means.”

  We passed a row of cars, none of which caught my eye. I hoped hers wasn’t much farther. Her keys jingled. She stood next to an old blue Volkswagen Jetta that looked like its best days happened back in 1993. The rust bucket needed a paint job, new tires, and who knew what else under the hood.

  She opened the door and halfway climbed in. “You coming?”

  “In that thing? You must be joking.”

  Sam pulled in her legs and closed the door. The Jetta’s engine wheezed to life.

  I fought back the urge to projectile vomit on the car and got in, using my arm to sweep fast food wrappers off the seat. I slammed my door, hoping the window would shatter. No such luck. This just wasn’t my day.

  “Unbelievable. Not only are you working for the other side, now you’re making me ride around in this disgusting excuse for an automobile? I key cars like this when I’m drunk. I wouldn’t let a janitor ride around in one of these things.”

  She started the car and pulled out onto the street. “Sorry it’s not up to your standards. We go for practicality, not show.”

  “You’re not even going for that in this thing.” We stopped at the red light at the next intersection. I rubbed my temples. “Okay. First things first. Who are you?”

  “I told you. I’m Samantha.”

  “No shit. I need to know a little bit more than that, and I’d prefer it if I didn’t have to play twenty questions to get the answer. My patience tends to wear thin after one.”

  The light turned green and we accelerated through the intersection.

  “I need your help,” she said.

  A laugh escaped my lips. This just kept getting better and better. “Since when do you yokels need a demon’s help? And why me? I’d just gotten used to getting my ass raped in Hell. Now Pierce is down there, probably telling everybody I’ve gone rogue or found Jesus or something crazy like that. I haven’t been out a day and already whatever remained of my reputation has been ruined.”

  Samantha looked in the rearview mirror and sighed.

  “I’m not sure what to tell you. I said I needed help. You’re what they came up with. Are you not happy to be out? Do you want to go back to Hell and get… taken advantage of some more, because it can be arranged.”

  I clasped my hands together. “Could I? Pretty please?”

  Reason No. 734,906 why I couldn’t stand angels. So uppity and sanctimonious they can’t even say the word ass. Or rape. Or any of the fun words, really. I didn’t know how they got by without going crazy.

  Samantha looked up in the rearview again. “Oh, gosh.” She gripped the steering wheel so hard, I thought her knuckles might pop through her skin. “It’s back for more.”

  I peered behind me and saw the black cloud approaching us, flying over cars. I dug my hand into the seat. “Just pull over. There’s no way in Heaven we’re getting away from that thing. Not in this soapbox of a car. Just pull over and let me out. Maybe I can sweet-talk it into leaving us alone.”

  “That thing will swallow you whole.”

  I shrugged. “And?”

  The car’s engine whined as Samantha tried to speed up, weaving around other vehicles on the road. “I can’t let that happen.”

  “And why not?”

  “If you go back, if we fail, you don’t return to the Seventh Circle. You go down to the Ninth. That’s the deal we made to get you out.”

  And there it was. The rub. The Seventh Circle I could handle. There, I got to catch up with a lot of demons I wouldn’t normally have seen. But the Ninth? Nobody could handle that. Spending eternit
y with Judas the whiner, that obnoxious nimrod Hitler, and the others? Forget about it.

  “And I can’t go back. I’m not an angel. Well… archangel. I’m in training.”

  I slapped my forehead. “You’re not an angel? They didn’t even pair me up with an actual angel?”

  The humiliation. This… peon was so far beneath me it was pathetic. The fiery blood in my veins burned like napalm.

  “If this isn’t proof everything is a cosmic joke, I don’t know what is.”

  Still, she’d put a trip to the Ninth Circle on the table, meaning I needed to be part of the solution, no matter how degrading it made me feel. “Take a right here. If we don’t get on the Beltline, we’re done for.”

  The Jetta’s tires screeched as Samantha jerked the steering wheel to the right. Part of me hoped she would panic and we’d crash into a hotdog stand. Chases were always more fun with hot dogs flying around. The black cloud turned the corner sharply, disintegrating the part of the building it sideswiped. I’ve seen all of David Lynch’s films, and this cloud thingy ranked as one of the strangest things I’d come across.

  Samantha steered the car onto the Beltline. She squealed as we narrowly avoided crashing through a steel barrier. The car vibrated like it was falling apart piece by piece. I would have volunteered to take the wheel if we’d had the time.

  She whipped the car around a minivan, almost nicking it.

  “Sorry,” Samantha said. “I’m not used to this kind of evasive driving.”

  “I would’ve guessed you weren’t used to driving, period.”

  She yanked the wheel hard to the left, making my head bang against the window. “Aren’t you funny?”

  It didn’t matter how much Samantha’s driving improved in the next few moments; we weren’t going to outrun whatever chased us. This called for something drastic. I racked my brain for an idea. Then, it hit me. “There’s a church right off this next exit. Go there.”

  Samantha’s eyes grew to three times their normal size. “What? You want to go to hallowed ground?”

  “I believe that’s what I said, yes. The exit is up ahead. Take it.”

  “But won’t you burst into flames?”

  I smiled. Normally a Hell-bound entity like myself couldn’t set foot on hallowed ground. The dildos upstairs thought the poor, pathetic humans needed a sin-free safe zone. But I had a hunch about that.

  “Either I burst into flames or the cloud evacuates me straight out its anus and right down to Hell. We don’t have time. Do it.”

  Samantha shook her head and steered onto the exit. The light at the end of the ramp turned red.

  “Run the light. Just go straight for the church. Don’t stop.” I grabbed the Volkswagen’s oh-shit handle. If I wasn’t right about this plan, I’d be saying how do you do to Mr. Hitler in about sixty seconds.

  The car’s engine made a high-pitched shriek as Samantha pounded on the accelerator. Cars honked at us as we flew past them. A few drivers even flipped us off. I casually smiled and waved at them.

  “I’m so sorry,” Samantha said. As if the drivers could hear her. Duh.

  We sped through the intersection as cars darted by in either direction, like the most intense game of Frogger ever. I saw the church at the right corner of the intersection. My side mirror showed nothing but black smoke. We’d be cutting this one pretty close.

  Samantha shrieked as we crashed through the iron gate surrounding the church. A spike caught the rear of the Jetta, bringing the car to a rather abrupt halt. Since I didn’t care about mortal wounds, I hadn’t bothered with buckling up. The momentum threw me through the windshield and onto the hood of the car. The shattered glass ripped my clothes. Another outfit down the drain. The cuts across my hands and face healed quickly.

  The black cloud tried to give chase, but the church’s property lines acted like an invisible fence, blocking its advance.

  I stood on the car’s hood, unbuckled my pants, and mooned the Black Cloud of Death. “Fresh meat, come and get it.”

  A guttural moan came from the cloud, angry about having lost this round. I pulled up my pants as Samantha stumbled out of the car and onto the grass. She had a bleeding gash on her forehead.

  She put her hand against the wound. “Are you okay?”

  I chuckled at the absurdity of the question. “Of course I am.”

  As an added bonus, Samantha now needed a new car. Preferably not another Jetta. I fished my lighter and smokes out of my pocket, then popped a cigarette into my mouth. I lit it, and took an extra-long huff. “Don’t I look it?”

  “And what about when you hop off the car?”

  I exhaled. “Right. Well, I have a theory about that.”

  “What is it?”

  I jumped off the car and onto the grass. I wiggled my toes, feeling the uppers of my shoes through my socks. I didn’t burst into flames, which confirmed my theory. Yes, this was a slightly better situation than being sent to the Ninth Circle, but that didn’t say much. The anger rose up in me so fast my horns nearly pushed out of my head.

  I glanced up at the crucifix lording over the church. “You sneaky little bastard. I’m your agent.”

  his non-angel didn’t need help with some run-of-the-mill quest. Nope, she was on a full-fledged mission from God. I flicked my still-lit cigarette into the bushes, hoping the bush would ignite and set the church on fire. It was the least that could go my way.

  Sirens wailed in the distance. The popo. I didn’t feel up to explaining to the coppers why we tried to get away from a black cloud and then I exposed myself on church grounds, so we left, making our way toward a parking deck on our right.

  “Come with me.”

  “You are not stealing a car,” Samantha protested.

  “Like you could stop me.”

  “I could.” She glanced down at her hands.

  “That’s just silly talk. You’re not even a real angel.” I grabbed her arm and dragged her into the deck, not even caring that my hand burned. She wasn’t getting away from me. Not now. I marched her toward a stairwell and threw her inside. My fingernails extended into small knives as I wrapped my hand around her throat and squeezed.

  She clutched my wrists. The smoke coming from my flesh made her eyes water.

  “Don’t. Please,” she said.

  “What kind of game is this? That jack-off at the museum talked about the Shard.” I let my eyes go completely black for a second. “Is that why your boss busted me out? To go after the very thing that got me sent away?”

  Six years ago, I’d had it in my hands. The Shard of Gabriel. The last missing piece of Gabriel’s mirror. The idiot made it during the War for Heaven, thinking it would give his side the advantage on the battlefield. We shattered the mirror during the final battle. He’d been trying to recover the pieces for eons, but there was still one left. The Shard. Anyone who looked into it had the wisdom of you-know-who. Omnipotence. Want to know how to travel in time? The Shard holds the answer. Need to figure out how to perfect fusion energy? It will help with that.

  I still remembered how cold the Shard had felt in my hands, how the feeling of victory blazed through me. The memory made my blood run even hotter than usual. That blasted Shard got me into this mess. I increased the pressure on Sam’s neck. Her face turned a light shade of purple. Part of me wanted to see if her eyeballs would pop out if I squeezed hard enough, one-way ticket back to Hell be damned.

  She tried to speak, but nothing came out of her mouth except a phlegmy coughing sound.

  I shook my head. “This isn’t an oral exam. Just nod if your boss is the reason I’m up here.”

  Samantha nodded.

  I screamed and released her, fighting off the urge to smash my head through the cinder block wall. “This is… I have to hand it to the old man. I never thought he could be so sadistic.”

  “I’m sorry.” Sam coughed. “I didn’t know you and the Shard were so… personal.”

  “Come on. You knew,” I scoffed, pulling out a cigaret
te and tapping the filter against my hand.

  “I asked for someone with knowledge of the Shard. That’s all.”

  I opened the door leading out to the parking deck.

  “Well, congratulations. You won the jackpot on that front.” I motioned for her to leave. “Coming?”

  Walking down the sidewalk in search of a cab, I lit my cigarette and inhaled half of it in one breath. The smoke felt refreshing and calmed my nerves a little.

  “Since I clearly have zero choice in the matter, why have I been tasked by the All Crappy to help you?”

  Samantha wrapped her arms around her body. She tucked in her chin. She looked like she tried to keep from shaking, probably because I scared her so much. I half-smiled. The goody two-shoes deserved it.

  “Someone, we think on your side, wants the Shard. I tracked whoever it is to Raleigh, but it wasn’t long before I knew I needed help. Because if whoever wants the Shard gets it―”

  “Yes, I know. He who holds the Shard holds the world in his hands. Where do I fit in?”

  “None of the fallen will speak to me.”

  I laughed. The fallen. Got to love the old school names. “And you think they’ll talk to me? You think my comrades will see me walking around topside and welcome me with handshakes and Oriental massages?”

  Samantha stopped. “I don’t know. I asked for help, I got you.” She didn’t look up as she spoke. “You can help, or go down to the Ninth Circle. Your choice. These are the conditions that were laid out.”

  Of course they were.

  “Where’s the Shard now?”

  “If I knew, do you think I would tell you?”

  I doubted that. If I tried to force her to tell me, she’d bounce around the truth until I got angry and made a stupid mistake. “What about Pierce this morning? Was that some kind of test? Make sure I was up to the task?”

  Samantha played with her fingers. “No. I think he got turned by whoever wants the Shard. Makes sense they’d try to send you back to Hell.”

  This stunk. A lot. If whoever sent Pierce came from my neck of the woods, there would be a whole lot of Hell to pay when I got my hands on them.