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Well, wasn't this just the perfect ending to her day, and to her life in general? It was just so...mundane. She'd just been introduced to the world of demons, pagan gods, and hellhounds, and here she was, being blown away with a shotgun. Though it was a shotgun held by the King of Hell's super pissed-off girlfriend, so in the afterlife, when she met all the other gunshot victims, she'd have something to set her apart.
If there was any sort of afterlife besides Hell. Which, Raleigh reckoned, there might not be. After all, she hadn't seen any angels. Crowley'd made that crack about Gabriel and the Virgin Mary, but maybe that was just demon humor. So it was entirely possible there was no heaven, purgatory, or any realm besides Hell, and in that case, boy, she was going to be pissed! Especially if her mother-
Wow, dying was really taking a long time and allowing her one sprawling, weird internal monologue. It also didn't hurt anywhere near as much as she expected.
Raleigh opened her eyes... And came face to chest with Sun Wukong. She had instinctively tried to duck down and curl up, and for reasons she couldn't begin to fathom, the Trickster had done something that had actually stopped the pellets.
He'd put himself between them and her.
Raleigh straightened up and looked at Sun Wukong's face. He was trying to smile, but his features were pulled back into what far more resembled a snarl.
"How the hell are you not dead?!" Raleigh demanded.
Sun Wukong gave a harsh laugh that was probably supposed to sound carefree but failed miserably. "Of the four of us, I'm the one in the least danger from that chick and her shotgun."
"But what about Crowley and-"
"Do me a favor, and just look for yourself. I gotta rock back and forth and cry for a little bit."
Raleigh did as she was told and peeked over the Trickster's shoulder—a shoulder that suddenly wasn't there as Sun Wukong slid to the ground. Ahead of her she could see Crowley kneeling over...something. Something that was partially invisible, but partially painted in blood.
"Holy shit, is that the dog monster?" Raleigh asked nobody in particular. "Why can I see its blood? How the hell does that make sense?!"
Crowley might have been able to explain it, but he was just a little too busy applying pressure with Raleigh's denim jacket to the source of his pet's blood loss. Growley had taken the brunt of the shotgun blast, and while Crowley didn't believe it was a mortal wound, his beloved Hellhound had been laid low. Meg, the heartless (even by demon standards) bitch had played dirty and sunk to the level of a bloody hunter.
She'd loaded the shotgun with rock salt.
And now Growley was bleeding profusely, and Crowley could feel, beneath his own skin, the grinding burn of several salt fragments. Which he ignored. He was the King of Hell. A little seasoning wouldn't do any lasting damage.
While Crowley performed first aid, Growley languished, Sun Wukong writhed, and Raleigh alone remained unscathed, Meg retreated inside the gun store. That wasn't something Crowley could just ignore. He had no idea how many other guns she had loaded with salt in there, or what other tricks she'd picked up from the Winchesters. She had to be stopped.
But so did Growley's bleeding.
Crowley looked at his unwilling accomplices. Then he shouted at them.
"You, Donkey Kong, don't just lay there! Get after her! And you, North Carolina, come here!"
Sun Wukong flopped onto his belly. "I've been shot."
"With salt! You're a pagan god, not a demon or a ghost! Catch the bitch or I'll drag you down to Hell in her place!"
The Monkey King considered his options. Going after Meg meant entering an armory in a country where everything short of a bomber plane was legal to own. Scampering off would earn him a few days of freedom, though it would be a freedom full of paranoia, and would no doubt end with Crowley burning him alive. Slowly. Piece by piece.
It was not a good day to be Sun Wukong.
It was not a good day to be Raleigh, either. She, being human and having no magical defenses whatsoever, felt less able to resist Crowley's orders. The demon, while he didn't at first look very threatening, had a voice that could command kings, never mind exhausted truckers.
"What do you want me to do?" Raleigh asked.
"Do as I bloody told you and come here! Next to me. This spot! And what are you waiting for? Do you want me to serve chilled monkey brains at my next soiree?"
Muttering "that movie's racist" under his breath, Sun Wukong got to his feet. Crowley glared at him, and the Trickster finally acquiesced.
In a burst of speed he had seemed incapable of while rolling in the dirt, Sun Wukong launched himself at the door to the gun shop. Not surprisingly, Meg had locked the door. And again, not surprisingly considering what it had to protect, neither the lock nor the door were flimsy hunks of discount junk.
The door took round one, but Sun Wukong was a determined god. He dusted himself off, backed up, and leaped at the door again. This time there was an ominous creaking, though the lock remained stubbornly intact. One more long-jump ought to do it.
While the Trickster turned himself into a battering ram, Raleigh crouched down beside Crowley. Whatever she thought the demon might want, him grabbing her wrists was nowhere in the picture.
"Let me go or I am going to kick your balls into your tonsils!" Raleigh shouted, pulling away.
Crowley's fingers were stout like the rest of his body, and even without any supernatural strength the physical appearance of his hands suggested his grip would be a difficult one to escape. Given that he was the King of Hell and he was not in the mood for anyone's crap, Raleigh would have had better luck breaking free from a black hole.
"Try it, and you'll be pulling your toes out of storm drains," Crowley replied. Without another word, he shoved Raleigh's hands against the heaving, partially invisible and partially blood-soaked side of his Hellhound.
Raleigh had never been one to utter girlish shrieks when confronted with bugs or varmints (her typical reaction was a guillotine stomp of her boots or a one-hit-KO swat from any handy magazine), but being recruited to play vet with a demon dog was enough to make her yelp. Forgetting the lesson of seconds before, she tried again to yank free of Crowley.
"I can't leave the monkey to do the King's job. And I need someone to staunch the bleeding. That's you. Don't let my precious pet bleed to death. If I find you've run off, I- I don't really need to bother making threats, do I? No, didn't think so."
Crowley released Raleigh's wrists and stood up. This time Raleigh kept her hands firmly in place.
"You owe me a new denim jacket," she said weakly as Crowley turned away.
"You owe me thanks for ridding the world of that unsightly throwback to the 80's," Crowley replied.
Raleigh frowned and turned her attention to said denim jacket. It was entirely saturated with Hellhound blood. Even if she could somehow hose it clean, there was no way she'd ever be able to wear it again. Some things couldn't be cleaned with all the bleach in the world.
Trusting his favorite pup to Raleigh's reluctant hands, Crowley joined Sun Wukong in the quest to open a very stubborn door. While in myth the monkey god had been capable of leaping for miles, the slow erosion of time, the lack of worship, and the general clearing away of bullshit proved that while he would have been able to make the best human Olympian long-jumper die of jealousy, he wouldn't be hopping the Grand Canyon or kicking his way into Fort Knox.
"Almost got it," the Trickster panted. And he did. The door was bent inward at the top, and any enterprising individual who could really suck in his gut might have been able to squeeze through.
That wasn't good enough for Crowley. For one thing, he wasn't built for crawling through small spaces. Maybe back when his calves (and the rest of him) were more athletic, but not in this meat-suit. And, much more important than the physical issue, was the issue of his dignity. The King of Hell didn't desperately try to wiggle into a place. He knocked the damned door down!
Or burned it down.
Or, because he was a demon with telekinetic powers and control over fire, maybe he did both.
Sun Wukong stood well back as Crowley unleashed his fury on the resilient door. The sturdiest steel was no match for the blazing wave of psychic energy the demon slammed into the door, and the hinges snapped. The door fell inward and landed heavily on the floor of the store.
"After you," Crowley said.
Sun Wukong peered into the gun store. Either Meg had turned off the lights, or Crowley's incinerating attack against the door had blown them all. Whatever the reason, it was as gloomy as a rainy evening in the building.
The Trickster had better night vision than a human, but he was still nervous to step into the gun shop. A cursory glance failed to find either Meg or a trap, but one or both were probably in there somewhere. Sun Wukong grimaced. He was still smarting from the shotgun blast, and was not looking forward to Meg springing out and putting a larger hole in him. Even if it wouldn't technically kill him, having a hole the size of a watermelon in his gut would leave him wishing he was dead.
Crowley poked him in the back with a flaming finger. Sun Wukong hooted and jumped.
"Alright, alright, I get the message," the Trickster said. He inched a foot over the threshold. The foot wasn't blown off. He dragged the second foot inside. He still had ten toes.
That was a good start.
The burning fingertip found the nape of his neck this time.
"Stop doing that!" Sun Wukong shrieked, clutching the back of his neck.
"Find that conniving harlot or your entire body gets the same treatment!"
Being burned to cinders would probably kill him, so the Trickster accepted a potential gunshot as the lesser of two evils. He stopped lollygagging and started walking. He turned all his senses as high as they would go, and like a baboon that knew a lion had entered its territory, prepared to fight or flee at the smallest sound or movement.
His initial impression that the gun shop was deserted continued to hold even as Sun Wukong approached the counter. The glass counter had been cracked by Crowley's door-smashing heatwave, but it looked like the pistols and other small armaments contained within the case were still there.
Which made sense. Nobody, especially not someone as desperate and pissed off as Meg, would try to shoot down the King of Hell with a pea-shooter. That was fine for human tiffs, but Meg needed the big guns.
A cursory glance at the racks secured behind the counter confirmed what Sun Wukong suspected. Meg had gone for the greatest firepower. Judging by what guns were still in their racks, and how much stopping power they possessed, Meg must have chosen the guns capable of bringing down dinosaurs, mammoths, and alien invaders.
And Tricksters, Hellhounds, and her fellow demons.
"Anything?" Crowley hissed.
"I want a bulletproof vest," Sun Wukong said.
"Not in the budget."
Sun Wukong looked at the wall of guns. "Probably wouldn't be enough, anyway," he said sadly.
Still fully exposed, Sun Wukong hopped over the display counter. To the left, at the very end of the room, there was a closed door. The Trickster reported this to Crowley.
"Open it," the demon ordered.
"Yes, your Highness. Do me a favor, and have my remains shipped back to my home country, alright? It shouldn't cost much. I'm sure whatever's left of me will fit in a Tupperware container. And it's not like I'm going to care if you ship me priority mail or not."
"Here's the deal: the quicker you open the door, the better your carcass travels."
Sun Wukong slunk towards the door. He considered putting his ear against it and trying to hear any movement on the other side, but the mental image of his head exploding stopped him. He instead crouched down, making himself as small a target as possible, and turned the handle. The door opened and swung inward.
A gunshot as loud as the eruption of Krakatoa rang out before the door fully opened. If Sun Wukong hadn't had the good sense to duck, his explorations would have come to a gory end. As was, he was left intact, except for a painful ringing in his ears.
From his lowly position, the Trickster was able to see the simple but effective trap Meg had laid. She'd rigged, apparently with her meat-suit's shoelaces and some strips of duct tape, a tripwire that was triggered when the door was opened. When the tripwire was pulled, it squeezed the trigger on one mean shotgun.
Through the ringing in his ears, Sun Wukong heard something else. He stood up and turned around. Crowley was pointing at the now-open door and mouthing something.
"I hate demons," the Trickster muttered.
Resuming his crouch, Sun Wukong entered the rear of the store. It was even darker here, as there were no windows to let in light. He felt around for a light switch, located one, and flipped it to no avail.
"I really hate demons." If by some miracle he survived this, he was changing his ways. No more selling or dealing his centuries-old traps and tricks to any hellion that walked through the door. He was going to stick to being an honest restaurateur.
"Found her yet?" Crowley called from the showroom.
"If I do, believe me, you'll be the first one to know!" Sun Wukong shouted. Then he clamped a hand over his mouth. What the hell was wrong with him?! He couldn't announce his position any louder if he covered himself in glow-in-the-dark paint.
The Trickster covered his head and waited for Meg to pump him full of lead. When it didn't happen after a full minute, he uncovered his head and peered around. His eyes were adjusting to the darkness, and he was able to make out a desk and computer, several shelves of gun paraphernalia, a filing cabinet, and a step ladder. There was a conspicuous lack of Meg.
Just to satisfy Crowley, Sun Wukong poked around under the desk and in the filing cabinet. Definitely no Meg back here.
"She's flown the coop!" the Trickster reported, exiting the back room.
"Then where is she?" Crowley replied.
"If I knew, I'd tell you."
Crowley growled and joined Sun Wukong on the other side of the counter. The demon sparked a little will-o-wisp that served as a lantern as he entered the back room.
"Yeah, that would have been really useful," the Trickster muttered, watching the flame do its job.
With his light source, Crowley was quickly able to locate where Meg had gone. There was an unobtrusive back door set into the wall. The demon reached for the knob and swung the door open. Sunlight flooded in.
Crowley tried to step into the light, and was disgruntled when he discovered he couldn't. Frowning, he looked down at the floor. It was unmarked. He looked up.
"Bugger."
Pulling another page from the hunter's handbook, Meg had scribbled a Devil's Trap onto the ceiling with a black marker.
Sun Wukong peered at the sigil, and hoped Crowley wouldn't smite the crap out of him for missing it.
"Do you want me to do...something?" the Trickster asked.
"Chew Meg's face off!" Crowley snarled. "A chimp like you can manage that."
Sun Wukong didn't bother pointing out that chimps were African apes, not Asian, or that biting faces really wasn't his thing. Some times and against some demons, there was no point asking for or expecting political correctness.
The Trickster ducked around the trapped Demon King and left Crowley to his own devices. Once he was outside, Sun Wukong took in his surroundings. The rear door of the gun shop opened on a small parking lot, most likely the employee parking lot. There was one car, a relatively new and clean sedan. Sun Wukong wondered if it belonged to Meg's meat-suit, and decided it probably did. There had been no signs of other employees, and if any had been in, they certainly would have driven off the minute their boss showed up with black eyes and a vendetta.
If the car did belong to Meg's meat-suit, Sun Wukong wasn't sure how to interpret it. Logically, Meg should have driven away as fast as possible in the car. It wasn't a powerhouse of a car, but it was sure as hell quicker than running. And less conspicuous than smoking out. Maybe she couldn't find the keys.
Or maybe she was lurking in the tree line, just beyond the parking lot!
"I see her!" Sun Wukong cried.
"Hurt her!" Crowley replied.
Sun Wukong loped across the parking lot, directly towards Meg. She waited in the shadow of the treeline until the Trickster was one bound away. Then she revealed her explosive trick.
There was no time for Sun Wukong to completely avoid the shotgun blast, but he was able to twist his body and duck his head so his back instead of his face took the brunt of the damage. He fell to the asphalt, his shirt shredded, blood pouring from him. If he'd been human, made of normal flesh and bone, he would have been a goner. His demigod status saved his life, though riddled with buckshot as he was, he was not going to get up anytime soon.
No matter how much Crowley cursed and threatened him.
Having disabled the Trickster, Meg turned to face Crowley. He glared at her. She gave him the finger. Then, smirking, she trotted past the bleeding Monkey King and towards the front of the building.
Growley shifted beneath Raleigh's hands and she looked around desperately for the dog's master. She had no idea what she was doing, never mind what she would do if the Hellhound tried to stand and started pouring blood everywhere.
"Please, please, for the love of God or Satan or that crazy-ass guy with the red eyes, don't kill yourself," Raleigh pleaded.
Growley snorted and, despite Raleigh's pleas, the dog hefted his massive bulk. His paws scratched in the dirt, and, with some whining and struggling, he managed to wrench himself to his feet.
Raleigh fell back on her tailbone. She stared in awe as the Hellhound stumbled, snarling, rendered partially visible by the patch of blood on his side, toward some goal Raleigh couldn't see from her position. Whatever it was, though, Raleigh figured it must be damn important. She got to her feet, and peered in the direction Growley was moving.
A man turned around the corner of the gun shop. Raleigh had only gotten a momentary glimpse of the man who'd fired at them earlier, but this looked like him. She decided she wasn't going to put up with that again, and turned to run for her truck. Screw monsters, demons, and all that. She was getting out of here.
"Come on," Meg muttered as Growley lurched towards her. "Come and get me."
Growley was more than happy to oblige. He used his last reserve of energy to throw himself at Meg.
As the Hellhound's claws scrabbled at the meat-suit, Meg smoked out. Growley was too engrossed in tearing into his prey to notice. The incorporeal cloud of demonic essence poured into the air.
And directly into Raleigh's mouth.
TBC