Devil's Gambit Read online

  Nicholas Woode-Smith

  Copyright © 2019

  Kat Drummond

  All rights reserved

  This is a work of fiction. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior written permission of the publisher and the copyright owner.

  Cover Design By: www.derangeddoctordesign.com

  Website: https://nicholaswoodesmith.com/

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  Contents

  Chapter 1. Fire

  Chapter 2. Class

  Chapter 3. Citadel

  Chapter 4. Range

  Chapter 5. Patrols

  Chapter 6. Coffee

  Chapter 7. Demonology

  Chapter 8. Cranky

  Chapter 9. Archives

  Chapter 10. Necro

  Chapter 11. The Tablecloth

  Chapter 12. Dating

  Chapter 13. Party

  Chapter 14. Creeps

  Chapter 15. Morning Light

  Chapter 16. Faith

  Chapter 17. Revelation

  Chapter 18. Secrets

  Chapter 19. Recovery

  Chapter 20. Left Behind

  Chapter 21. The Trail

  Chapter 22. Showdown

  Chapter 23. Pride

  My Thanks!

  Afterword

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter 1.

  Fire

  Don’t play with fire.

  Simple lesson, but simple lessons are often the most important. Too bad I wasn’t following it myself. Well, give someone enough money and they’ll cuddle with a salamander. Lucky for me, I was just being paid to kill it.

  Still, that last streak of fire, shot out like llama spit, was a bit too close for comfort. This wasn’t my usual type of job. I’m an undead hunter. I specialise in exterminating the rotting and reanimated and those who brought them back. Had put down more zombies than I could count and even a human necromancer who had insisted on bringing the dead back to life. Had almost been arrested for that – but was let off. Killing monsters was my profession and humans are often the biggest monsters.

  Even with my specialty, I’d been very much out of my comfort zone recently. Exorcising ghosts, hunting vampires and tracking down filing cabinets with teeth. But even with such diversification, this salamander was still completely outside of my expertise. But a job was a job. And I always get the job done.

  I just hoped this particular job wouldn’t burn me to cinders.

  “Get behind it,” Treth, the incorporeal and otherworldly knight living in my head, ordered. He sounded inappropriately calm given the situation. We’d been in plenty of fights before, but never with this much fire. It wasn’t helping that my monster hunter get-up involved a sweltering bite-resistant thick scarf and a padded leather jacket.

  I peeked around the corner of a very flammable white wall in a suburban house. A currently burning suburban house, I might add. A gust of flames almost hit me as I pulled back.

  “Easier said than done, Treth,” I hissed through gritted teeth. The hilts of my recently repaired swords were getting hot. Made it worse that I was clutching them with enough force to crush an ogre’s handshake. It was even hotter underneath my mask. Was still better than my old one. I had to dump my old black and white polymer mask after a run-in with a vampire cartel that had abducted my friend, Trudie. My efforts to save her were not exactly legal and some vampires had enough public sympathy to start a manhunt for a person with my type of mask. The hunt was also the reason my swords had to be repaired. Usually, I’d buy some new blades, but these guys deserved a bit of care. They’d gone through a lot and earned me a fair amount of money. Even so, that altercation with the vampires had taught me their limitations.

  My new mask was more than an adequate replacement for the old. My friend, Pranish, a skilled wizard, had enchanted a metal face plate to be my new mask. He had made it translucent on one side, while solid on the other,allowing me to remain anonymous without sacrificing my peripheral vision. It was also a lot stronger than my old get-up. A zombie had broken its hand attempting to punch my face a few days back. I’d almost burst out laughing. Treth sent me his voiceless displeasure at my reaction, but I also sensed some amusement from him. We both hated the undead. Regardless of all our other differences, that simple thing kept us on the same path.

  Even with Pranish’s face plate, I’m not sure my face would survive a full fire blast from a salamander, though. Not much would.

  I risked a glance at the creature. It was perched on top of a tiled kitchen countertop, hissing up a storm and salivating lava. It smelled like burnt popcorn and charcoal. On the face of it, it wasn’t nearly as ugly as my usual fare. I hunted rotting corpses for a living, after all. Couldn’t get much worse than that. This creature just looked like an orange, enflamed lizard. Just, it was only the size of a Great Dane. Not exactly ugly, but not kitten-cute either.

  My fixer, Conrad Khoi, had brought me on the case just before I was going to go running in myself. Had smelled the burning from my apartment and I wasn’t a fan of some rift-made monster setting my neighbourhood on fire. Don’t get me wrong. Wasn’t doing it out of the altruistic goodness of my heart. I just don’t want monsters lowering the property values of my neighbourhood.

  But, I rent…

  And if the property values go down, the rent will go down…

  Why am I helping again?

  Ah, yes. It’s my job. Forgot. Well, at least I’ll get paid. But as was often the case with my profession, I now wondered if any pay day was worth it.

  Running in was a bad idea, I now realised. I wasn’t equipped to fight a salamander. My clothing was flammable, very much so. Can you blame me? Not many people own flame-retardant outfits. Lucky for me, this salamander was small for its size. A juvenile. While it had already immolated the lounge’s couch, armchair, rug and part of its flat screen TV, it was struggling to set the walls alight. Hope City houses were a disparate mix of wood and brick and, while this house had plenty of wooden interior walls, it also had plenty of brick. So, I was still alive. Alive enough to hear Treth complain.

  “This isn’t our type of fight, Kat.”

  I opened my mouth to reply but, instead, dodged as a golf ball-sized sphere of fire exploded where I had been standing moments before.

  “Ours is the type of fight that pays, Treth,” I replied, eying possible angles of attack.

  I felt him roll his eyes. I never saw his gestures or expressions, but always felt them, like some wordless inclination. Treth could see my body language, so it was only fair. Well, not completely. I didn’t know what he looked like. Knew very little about him except that he’d come to Earth from a medieval world after being killed by his lich brother. While I didn’t like that my family was dead, at least they weren’t undead. Some consolation.

  The salamander stopped its tirade of fire and scuttled off the counter, around the corner and out of my sight.

  “What’s the blighter doing now?”

  “Wouldn’t be having to think so hard if we were purging the undead.”

  I rolled my eyes this time. Treth and I both hated the undead, but we were both monster hunters first. But Treth always made undead hunting a higher priority on the monster hunting menu. I’d tend to agree, seeing as my parents had been killed by undead and necromancers, but I also needed to eat. Undead just weren’t paying as much in bounties these days.

  I used to be a bit squea
mish about killing non-undead, but after killing a human necromancer and then swathes of sentient vampires, I’d lost a bit of respect for the sanctity of life. And undead or not, this salamander was a monster. And as I will remind you a lot: I slay monsters.

  “Well, go after it,” Treth said with irritated resignation.

  “Why so grumpy today?” I asked, proceeding forward in a combat stance, ready to use my dual swords violently and efficiently if the salamander doubled back on me.

  “I don’t like the heat and I don’t like distractions from the crusade.”

  Treth’s crusade/destiny/quest was a vague goal of eliminating the endless hordes of undead and evil creatures that now infested Earth and the other planes. In general, I agreed with him about it, but I was also a tad less idealistic, or specific, about what I should kill.

  “This salamander’s a monster, Treth.”

  “Not like an undead.”

  “It is burning these people’s house down.”

  I peeked around the corner down a hallway. Flaming claw-prints marked the way, veering around a juncture at the end of the hall. I stepped over the tracks carefully, as every track spat fire inches high. Didn’t want to damage my new boots. Yet, at least.

  “Can’t blame it. It is in its nature. It cannot not burn things.”

  “A salamander expert now?” I chided. “And isn’t it the nature of the zombie to consume? Why not give it amnesty?”

  That shut him up.

  I reached the end of the hallway. No sign of the salamander, but definite signs of its passing. The cream carpet was pockmarked with scorched clawed footprints, dotted with little tiny flames. Just to add insult to injury, the creature had also scratched metre long slashes into the walls, right through some paintings.

  “Such vandalism! Such chaos! I’d say this creature is evil, Treth,” I said, imitating his lecture voice and then grinning. I’d been grinning in life-threatening situations a lot more lately. A coping mechanism or oncoming insanity, I’m not sure. I’m just glad Trudie wasn’t here to see it. Would definitely double her nagging.

  The molten tracks stopped at a shattered glass sliding door. The rubber between the frame and the glass was bubbling. I frowned. I hoped that my swords would be okay. Steel didn’t melt that easily, but they could still be scorched. Extreme heat wasn’t that good for most things.

  The creature had gone outside, into the grassy backyard. Instead of disparate flaming footprints, a trail of fire led directly up to it, as it looked right at me and shot a fireball the size of a microwave. It probably expected me to run away at the display. I don’t run away.

  I dove under the flaming projectile, rolled and jumped back onto my feet. The salamander was shocked for a second, and then ran, setting fire to a lavender bush. It was a cowardly little bastard, thankfully. I had only caught a glance of its claws, but they looked as long as steak knives. I’m glad he didn’t feel confident enough to use them. Well, to be fair, my swords were longer.

  “Kat, he’s running circles around us. He’s going to surround us in flames.”

  Nonsense, he’s just retreating…

  Oh, wait.

  A wall of flame wreathed a scorched circle around us, radiating heat. I was struggling to find my breath.

  Well, drat.

  “Any smart ideas? Something other than we should have gone hunting wights.”

  “Never fought a salamander, Kat.”

  Of course, he hadn’t. Salamanders weren’t from his world or mine. They came to Earth through rifts – portals from different worlds.

  “But,” he continued. “If a salamander is fiery, then it must hate water.”

  “So, I throw a glass of water at it?”

  I felt Treth’s glare.

  The salamander had stopped to examine its handiwork, as I was pinned by a waist high wall of flame. Just behind it was the house.

  This must have been a nice garden before the salamander got to it. My landlady, Mrs Ndlovu, also had a nice garden. She watered it constantly.

  I grinned.

  “Brace yourself, Treth,” I said, needlessly. He was a spirit. He couldn’t be hurt himself. Only felt a bit of what I felt.

  “What are…”

  He stopped speaking as I sprinted full throttle and leapt over the top of the waist-high fire fence. I felt the intense warmth of the fire, but only for a moment. My feet landed with a thud and I felt the shock in my knees. I didn’t give myself time to recover. There was a green hosepipe and a brass tap just ahead. And there was a hissing salamander just behind me.

  I bounded to the tap in seconds, stabbed my swords into the dirt, aimed the hosepipe’s pistol grip at the charging salamander, currently cultivating a flaming booger, and switched on the tap.

  Steam and both the pained hisses of the creature and the hisses of water on fire filled the air. I let the water blast it at full throttle and, when I could no longer see its orangey glow through the stream, I drew my swords from the dirt and charged it.

  The creature was an extinguished black, breathing hoarsely. I could see ivory white teeth in its maw. It was still salivating lava onto the lawn. Its chest heaved painfully as it lay prostrate, its limbs twisted unnaturally.

  “Some monster, Kat.”

  I wasn’t grinning any more.

  Treth was right. Some monster…

  I still smelled burning. There were open flames in the house. I doubted it could be repaired. A family’s life had been ruined.

  “Pity the monster, Treth,” I said, as I hovered my blades over the creature’s head. Its eye, yellow and white, looked up at me. It held no hint of recognition. It was in too much pain for that. “But it is a monster all the same.”

  I brought my swords down in one, harsh, thrust.

  ***

  A crowd of onlookers was surprised to see me as I left the crackling house, pulling the dead salamander with a chain and hook. The only person who wasn’t surprised was a sleazy looking gentleman with dark skin, slicked back hair and a blue business suit.

  Conrad Khoi. My monster hunting agent. He found me the jobs, made sure I got paid, and made my life a lot easier in a bloody profession. I had learnt to stop caring about his less than becoming façade a while ago. Conrad may be in it for the money (like me, to an extent) but he was a good person at heart. I felt I could trust him.

  Conrad grinned widely with a row of pearly whites and brought his hands together to clap. Some of the bystanders, a bunch of firemen, cops, neighbours and the distraught family, looked askance at him. A few people instinctively joined the applause but stopped when nobody else joined. Conrad stopped clapping and put his hands in his pockets. With one final heave, I pulled the salamander in front of us.

  “Gratz, Kat!” he said. “First drake kill?”

  I nodded. Drakes were a subset of fire breathing reptiles. They ranged from salamanders, like this one, to titanic dragons.

  Conrad squatted down by the beast and gazed intently at the salamander. I’m not really sure why. Was he making sure it was dead? I sure hope it was dead. I stabbed it in the head with two sharp blades. Well, I’d done the same with the vampire barman at the Quantum. Even cut his head off. He appeared on TV only a few days afterwards. Some monsters are really hard to kill.

  “You didn’t damage the hide,” Conrad said. I heard a hint of respect in his voice.

  “Clean kill – after I gave it a wash.”

  Conrad stood. “I had a freelancer back in the day. First guy I hired. A sorcerer with an affinity for axes. He killed a salamander straight out of a rift as well.”

  I shifted my weight. My muscles ached from the exertion. At least I didn’t have any severe burns.

  “This guy, we called him the Spell-Axe, took the salamander’s hide and had it turned into a coat.”

  “A benefit of hunting drakes. Imagine if I was to skin and wear the skin of my usual prey.”

  Conrad laughed. “Wouldn’t provide much in the way of protection.”

  He reach
ed out and touched me. I didn’t flinch. He was feeling a piece of my leather jacket, which I now noticed had been burnt. Only the internal padding had stopped the burning completely, but it was now crumbling. Wouldn’t take a wight’s blade or even a zombie’s claw in its current state. Would need to replace it – again!

  “Howabout I take this fella.” He indicated the salamander as one might a dog. “And get a coat made for you?”

  I raised my eyebrow. “Cost?”

  We usually sold the corpses of monsters for an extra paycheque. Drake corpses were especially valuable. Scientists were still trying to figure out what made them tick, alchemists needed them for potions and magicorps liked to sell the parts to both the former.

  “Still gonna sell the insides. Don’t worry about the rest of the cost. I’ll cover it.”

  That was a shock. Conrad, the money grubbing fixer who didn’t do a thing without money involved, getting a gift made for me?

  “Not like you, Conrad. Getting sentimental?” I snickered.

  “Let’s say I am,” he said, seriously. “I’m sentimental about my investments. And you are an investment that has paid well. Might as well double-down.”

  “Well, thanks…” I said in a mock offended tone. I wasn’t insulted. Was actually flattered. If I was a good investment, it meant I was doing a good job. I was proud of my work.

  The onlookers had begun to disperse, except for a few firemen and the family. An ash-covered woman was weeping, her son trying to comfort her. He was too young to really understand how bad things were and a child always hated to see their parents cry.

  I didn’t speak to them. I always hated speaking to the victims. Had to do it a lot and it never became any easier, or useful. I didn’t expect thanks from them either. The deed had been done. I couldn’t stop the salamander from destroying their home. Couldn’t stop the zombies from eating that man’s family. Couldn’t stop the mysterious Necrolord who now dominated the slums of my city.

  “Conrad…” I began.

  “This about the Necrolord?”

  He reading my mind? He was getting as bad as Treth. Was I really that open?