Chapter 11

Caleb got a text message every other day with standard check-in info. No locations. Nothing other than "going to bed" or "checking in." He spent a lot of time at the office. He was knee deep in research for John. On the phone with John every other day. He'd taken to sleeping there as well. John had not taken the information well that he'd been host to a possessed Caleb for three days following the Daeva attack. Still, they were onto something. Seals. 666 seals but it wouldn't take near that many to unleash an unholy horde on the world. Just 66 and it would be all over. The most important of those would be the hardest to come by and Caleb didn't know how in the world a righteous soul went to hell in the first place.

The texts were old. They were in languages that made his head spin and it was slow going. So slow going. He had to pack up the lot to go to Jim's. He stopped at a payphone in Fort Dodge to check in with his girls. He could tell Claire wanted him to join her but she wouldn't ask. "Just stay safe."

"I will and you… you stay safe." Claire breathed into the phone. "You sure… it didn't do anything to her…"

"I'm sure." Caleb could still remember that thing hold his daughter with his hands, just terrified what it was going to do next. He just wondered what it had been waiting on. "How is she?"

"Not loving the time in the car but she's okay. She keeps looking around for you."

"I just hope this will all be over soon."

"Me too."

Caleb set the phone down and climbed back into the car. He got the books to Jim and waved off any questions about his girlfriend and daughter. "I just came to leave the books. I'm knee deep in this stuff and I'll get in over my head soon enough."

"What's wrong, son?"

"I'm running scared, if I'm honest. Managed to get myself possessed and I'm lucky I'm not burying the two of them right now." Caleb shifted from foot to foot. "It's all I can do not to go chasing after them but I made her promise not to tell me where she was going."

"Probably smart."

"I'm worried."

"She left loaded."

"Yeah, Made her take everything I could spare."

"She's smart and sure. She'll take care of your girl. You just… focus."

"I brought what I could. I need some codex you got. I can't remember the name." Caleb walked into the house and found the library. He picked it off the shelf and waved at the pastor on his way out.

It was late when he got home. The house was empty and it depressed him. Packing up some clothes, he jumped back in the car to get to his office. He sat up with the books and burned the lamps until the air turned pink. Then he collapsed into sleep on his cot.

When he woke, he got some oatmeal in his gut and back to the books. The better codexes helped. 600 seals, not 666. Too on the nose. Still that righteous man in hell business was troubling. Then he got to diagrams and figuring out how such a thing was possible. Book after book on Hell. Inferno and a stack of bibles… and he was close, he knew it. Selflessness would have to be the only way but how. Why?

It wouldn't be simple. No jumping in front of a bullet. No matyrism. That wouldn't lead a person to go to hell. Then he hauled out the trustee volume he'd been given by Pastor Jim years ago. Sins. There were sins. Seven deadly ones. There were commandments. There were venial sins, forgivable on all accounts. There were mortal sins… And a mighty list of them. As he was running through them, he felt like it was a lost cause to even consider. Most people would go to hell and that was just inside of the first nine. By the time he got to masturbation, he was very sure he was going to hell but he didn't feel like it was enough. A seal like this would most likely be broken already if that was the case.

"I'm doing this all wrong." He got up and splashed water on his face. "What does a man do to damn his soul without damaging it? What makes a man righteous but still able to condemn his soul? Not what a discouraged or evil soul does… what does a good soul do to … No good deed goes unpunished. Sure. Maybe. Road to hell is paved with good intentions… but that's a spiral…" He splashed more water on his face and paced. "No more idioms you idiot."

Caleb collapsed on his cot and hauled out his wallet. He didn't have a lot of pictures but he had some. His blonde girls. He would do anything for them. He would keep them safe. He would sell his soul to make sure they were okay. Every bad thing he'd done in his life, he'd done in the protection of others… mostly. That one dealer he'd capped in the ass had that coming. Fighting with John over a girl was just life. Killing a man to put him out of his misery… that was God's work… if one believed God gave a shit. Caleb was not sure the original Father of all was even paying attention.

Getting up, he did a few jumps and punched an invisible enemy before sitting down to his computer again and began his search anew. He had no idea how much time had passed, hours or days when his phone rang. He picked it up and stared at it. No idea who that number belonged to. A quick conversation later, he was out the door. He went directly to the morgue. The cops were waiting.

"I was a… student of Pastor Jim's." Caleb nodded to the cop. "His novice called me."

"I'm afraid I can't share details of the case with you." The cop shook his head. "Where were you 12 hours ago?"

"At home. In Nebraska."

"Had you spoken to the deceased recently?"

Caleb hauled out his phone. He ran through the history. "We spoke just the other day. I came to trade some books with him."

"Nothing bothering him? Did he seem scared?"

"No. Pastor Jim was a good man." Caleb motioned to the fridge. "Can I see him?"

"You can see him at the funeral."

"Fraid I can't. I… uh… I have business to attend to and I can't." Caleb walked over to the fridge and waited. After a long moment, the coroner opened it for him. It was Jim. Caleb was okay until he saw the man. Throat was cut. The smell was pungent. "You treat him with something?"

"No." The coroner shook his head.

"Smells like sulfur."

"Bodies sometimes pass gas after…"

Caleb motioned that he was done. Sulfur. He left and went directly the church. The cops were still crawling all over. The novice was nervous, wringing his hands and pacing. Caleb got the young man seated on a pew while Caleb got a look at what he could around everyone else. The smell was still in the air. He gathered a few items of Jim's from the novice and jumped back in his car. He stopped halfway to call John. He could hear the moisture in the older man's voice as he relayed the news. "There's another thing I've been thinking, John. I think that this… righteous man in hell thing… it's the thing. What could a righteous man do that was heinous and also not so damning to tarnish his soul?"

John didn't answer for a long time. "Righteous man does a righteous thing that lands him in hell."

"Yeah."

"You're a genius, Caleb."

"What did I figure out?"

"There's not a lot of things on that list. Course… no one would be dumb enough to do it."

"What's that?"

"Sell their soul. I mean… that act… not evil. Heinous. It's not evil."

"Wait…"

"It would depend on what a person soul their soul for." John cursed to himself. "I gotta tell the boys."

"Call me later. We'll spit ball some more."

"Yeah." John cleared his throat. "I got the gun. The gun."

"No shit."

"I'm gonna this thing. No one else. I swear it."

"Jim." Caleb sobbed.

"Jim." John repeated and hung up.

Caleb breathed through the next ten minutes as his eyes filled with wet that just wouldn't pour over. Then he was back on the road. He was back in his office by dinner. He was reorganizing based on his conversation with John. He thought about what could and would come after Jim. Had to be demon but inside the church would be high-level stuff. John had the Colt. No one had thought that thing really existed but it gave him hope. This could be beat. Caleb stared at his phone on the edge of the table. He opened it and took a long look at the last few texts from Claire. He sent one word to her. Hide. He didn't know what made him do it. He reset the phone to the factory defaults and tossed the phone on the cot. He couldn't let anything happen to them.

Tucking his wallet into his pack, he checked his barriers and set another pot to brew. When he turned there was a little blonde girl staring at him. She hit him in the head with one of his own guns and the lights went out. When he woke, he was tied. She stared at him. "You hunters. You just don't get it."

"Kill me. Don't care." Caleb shook his head.

"I'm going to. I need you to call John." The girl growled at him.

"Phone's right there." Caleb jerked his chin at the table.

"It's empty." She jabbed him with one of his own knives. "You all think John is doing such a great job but he can't beat us. We've got him beat."

"Sure, if you say so." His mind kept coming back to the fact that John had the gun.

"You've got a lot going on here." She flipped through his work. She lifted a sheet. Fuck. It had two works on it. The Colt. "That's cute."

"I need a new one."

"That's not what this means." She crumpled it up and laughed. "You think you can stop it? We're only getting started."

"John will."

"What's his number?" She backhanded him across the face. Her eyes were black. "I'm gonna kill everyone of you." She got in his face. "I'll start with that little girl you and John been fighting over. Where you got her stashed? She at the farmhouse? You got her headed to Jim's? Think I wouldn't backtrack?"

"I'll tell you." Caleb clenched his jaw. John could defend himself. The numbers rolled off his tongue. It wasn't John but maybe it would buy some time. She gagged him as she dialed.

"You just keep that mouth shut." She cleared her throat as the phone rang.

"Hello?" The voice came out of the phone.

"Sam?" She grinned.

"Who is this?"

"Think real hard. It will come to you." She licked her lips.

"Meg. Last time I saw you, you fell out of a window."

"Yeah, no thanks to you. That really hurt my feelings, by the way."

"Just your feelings? That was a seven-story drop."

"Let me speak to your Dad."

"My Dad. I don't know where my Dad is."

"It's time for the grownups to talk, Sam. Let me speak to him now."

"This is John."

"Howdy John. I'm Meg. I'm a friend of your boys. I'm also the one who watched Jim Murphy choke on his own blood… still there John-boy?"

"I'm Here."

"Well that was yesterday. Today, I'm in Lincoln. Visiting another old friend of yours. He wants to say hi."

She pulled the gag off and held the phone to Caleb's ear. "John, whatever you do don't give…"

She yanked the phone away and put her finger to her mouth. John's breath was harsh. "Caleb?" He breathed out. "You listen to me. He's got nothing to do with anything. You let him go."

"We know you have the colt, John."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Oh Okay. Listen to this."

Caleb didn't have a chance to react before the blade was cutting through his skin. He could hear John calling his name as it went dark.

TBC