Chapter 20.

(Frank O'Brien. Monday, July 18th, 1966; Outside Club Seventy-Nine.)

Distracted by the commotion behind them, Zac and Beefy spun around, as if forgetting Frank, and froze. Frank dug it, his own blood also running cold. Because the leather-clad skeleton horde dismounted their dragons on the side streets flanking Club Seventy-Nine, falling into formation and brandishing their swords, lances, and battle-axes, a chilling sight.

On his dragon, smoke and the hint of flames curling from its nostrils, Thin Man hovered. “To victory,” he said in a gravelly voice, raising his fist to the air. The horde cheered, the sound loud but bodiless, like a million vinyl records spinning on a million turntables without amplification. Thin Man motioned forwards, and the skeletons in black leather began a methodical march towards Frank’s side of the street.

Fuck, he thought, a shudder creeping along his spine.

As the horde advanced, Thin Man pointed at Frank and the men huddled around the bleeding chef and dug his heels into the dragon, which climbed over a hundred feet into the air before swooping. Zac and Beefy ducked for cover behind an awning and fired at the beast, missing.

It didn’t matter, though, since the dragon ignored them. Instead, Thin Man’s dark eyes fixated on Frank, who searched for an escape, finding none.

Fuck.

Without thinking, Frank settled on a last-ditch ‘plan,’ if you could call a gut-reaction a plan. He baited the dragon, feigning to be frozen with fear. Thin Man took the bait, spurring the dragon into pouncing. At the last second, Frank leaped behind a row of rancid aluminum garbage cans set curbside. The dragon swooped and missed. Undeterred, it loped past, rising over the street’s roof and tree-line and banking in a graceful arc. From his perch atop the beast, Thin Man surveyed the street, his hat at the perfect, rakish angle. Even from the distance, Frank saw the hint of a grin spreading across Thin Man’s heretofore expressionless face as his gaze locked on Frank.

Fuck.

Though Frank’s heart skipped, imagining the dragon’s talons sinking into him, he kept his wits. Options flashed like lightning through his mind. His best, and perhaps only chance, lay running through the horde, past Eliot Ness, and into the adjacent maze of narrow back alleys and backyards. He snorted at the absurdity of running through the horde, but they pressed tight. God willing, he’d be able to weave through with them being unable to swing.

“Here’s to the luck of the Irish,” he said to Ness’s image, before smashing through enemy lines. He wove through the skeletons like Jim Brown through a defense, evading their grasping hands. Sure enough, the skeletons couldn’t swing their weapons or even move sideways, packed tight as they were. So he wove, ducked, and scrambled through them, his progress slow but steady.

A few feet across Hough, though, the bodies pressed so tight that he couldn’t move. Fear thudded in his ears as he gazed into the dark, empty eye sockets of a skeleton biker raising his lance to strike.

Fuck.

Frank tensed, raising his arms to protect his head. But the demon didn’t strike. Instead, it stood, arms raised, lance twitching and head swinging side-to-side. The thing looked confused. Frank reckoned it wanted to snuff him, but didn’t want to hurt its mates. Frank reckoned that wouldn’t last, since he doubted demons had a code of ethics.

He’d have to move.

Skeletal demons filled in the swath he’d cleared behind him. All around him, they swiped at with their free hands. One snagged his pant leg for an instant before Frank jerked free. He wouldn’t last long standing still. Given time, one demon would worm around and get a firm grasp. That would be game over.

“Move it, grunt,” he said aloud to himself, his voice resolute. Because, with all due respect to Saint Peter, Frank wasn’t ready to meet him at the pearly gates yet. To hell with that. And he lowered his shoulder and lunged into the lance-bearer’s ribcage. To Frank’s shock, the damned thing shattered, being naught but bone and air.

His jaw gaping, Frank surveyed the wreckage. A grim, gleeful grin tightened his cheeks and narrowed his eyes as he snagged the lance. If slaying one demon proved that effortless, he reckoned, the others would, too.

Thus liberated by a burst of hopeful adrenaline, Frank stood tall, pressed forward and, like a farmer reaping with a scythe, swung the lance in a wide, sweeping arc. Dozens of skeletal demons fell with each swing, shattering into leather, dust, and bones.

It seemed odd that defeating them proved this easy. They had demolished Metatron’s Morons in Frank’s backyard earlier. A competent soldier would have recognized the enemy’s weakness. Should have. And yet despite this, Metatron ordered his Morons to stand pat, allowing the enemy to take lethal full swings?

What an idiot.

Now, Frank wasn’t Metatron. He was a battle-hardened soldier, a GI survivor of Patton’s march across Europe. He’d seen ungodly shit fighting the Krauts and Vichy French as they foot-slogged towards Hitler in Berlin. Hell, he’d done ungodly shit to stay alive. Soldiering was a rotten job, but he’d learned its lessons well. So, unlike Metatron, he pressed the advantage. He smashed and bashed his way from the sidewalk to the center lane, leaving a pile of bones and stunned skeletons cowering and pressing backward to avoid his blows.

Frank ruled the skeletal biker trash until a hot wind and a sulfuric brimstone stench behind him caused him to halt. Adam’s apple bobbing, Frank glanced over his shoulder. Thin Man’s dragon descended towards him slow and steady, its claw-like talons extended.

Fuck.

He turned back to the alley, estimating the enemy soldiers between him and the alley, and sighed. He’d never make it before the dragon pounced.

Fuck.

He glanced right, then left, searching for an escape. He saw none. Thin Man would corner and kill him. He was running a suicide mission, fighting a lost cause.

Fuck.

As reality sank in, Frank’s shoulders slumped, sapping the fire from his soul. It was over. He’d never see Peggy perform, never see Maddy, never see his children and grandchildren again, never fish again, never bend elbows over a smokey bar with Umberto and boots again, never cross swords with Howard again, or whatnot.

Never.

Fuck.

The desire to lay aside his weapon, surrendering to the inevitable, burned deep in his soul until a thought roused him. An ember of purpose lodged between his eyebrows.

If he had to die, he’d at least slay as many evil-doers as he could manage.

It was the right thing to do. It was what the Morons did, their hearts running plum-upright despite their idiotic tactics. And perhaps, what he’d done, goose-stepping Krauts and hairy-ass Frenchies on the battlefield while fighting un-American fascist filth.

Regardless, he had to balance the scales in his favor. He’d done a lot of evil in his time. Even murder and looting, like these rioters, albeit Uncle Sam and the Geneva Convention sanctioned his crimes. What nonsense. His fireteam had killed women, children, priests, elders, and whatnot. He’d destroyed churches and schools and small farms and ransacked villages all across Europe. Peter would judge him for that, weighing that against the good he’d done. He doubted the smooth-talking muckety-mucks, with their euphemistic “collateral damage” nonsense, would help him much come Judgement Day.

Perhaps killing demons would help him answer Saint Peter, saving his tail from purgatory or hell for his sins? Perhaps. Regardless, it seemed the sort of upright, selfless action Father Klein always prattled on about in his homilies. So he howled an ecstatic war cry and, feeling like an ancient Celtic warrior, redoubled his effort, wading into the horde. With a grim glee rising to his eyes and tightening his cheeks, he swung, raining holy terror on the cowering skeletal horde.

Because fuck that scrawny, evil asshole, fuck his horde, and fuck his goddamned dragon. Today is a good day to die.