Seven Come Eleven

Chapter Thirteen

The building vibrated. Lightly at first, then the vibration picked up slightly, growing stronger. A trailing vine growing by the window in a hanging basket began to sway and plaster from the ceiling peppered the top of Jake’s desk.

“Earthquake?” Alan said over the roar. “I don’t recall there ever being one here in Vegas.”

“There hasn’t been for a long while but that’s all we need right now.” Jake pulled Nadia closer to him and she seemed to burrow into his strong chest. She was at her wits end, grasping at the final straws of her sanity. She wanted to be angry at her dead husband for making this mess, but somehow she couldn’t.

On the lower floor, the slot machines rocked dangerously in the earthquake, the sound of the coins inside clinking like tiny bells. The glasses behind the bar crashed to the floor, shattering on the hard floor like a hail storm of crystal. TV’s mounted on the wall around the bar smashed down as well, spilling their electronic contents across the tables and floor.

Jake let Nadia go, the shaking had stopped. He was sure that had something to do with the guys downstairs. It was a scare tactic. Still, he thought. It had been effective.

“The hotel won’t take much more of that,” Alan commented, nodding towards the cracked dry wall behind Jake and Nadia. “We need to make our move.”

It was then Nadia noticed the coolness in the room. She moved to the broken window and gazed out upon rolling storm clouds quickly covering Vegas and sending tourists below into the casinos to seek shelter. “There’s a storm coming.”

“Next will be a damn plague of locusts,” Alan commented, also noticing the rapidly darkening sky. Lightning zinged by the window and thunder roared in the clouds.

“Don’t even say that, you might curse us.” Jake snapped. He felt the cold wind from the storms sudden rush of wind. “Somehow I don’t think this is a normal storm.”

Nothing else had been normal, Nadia thought. So why would something as common as a summer storm be normal? She watched another bolt of lightning hit a light pole by the front of the casino and run to the ground. She turned away before she saw the being that materialized in the small cloud of dust and sparks kicked up by the bolt.

“I’m going to head into my suite and shower, get dressed.” Jake started for the door. “I want to look together. No fear. All business. You and Nadia sneak down the back stairs and get out of the casino. Get Father Cresson and get back here. Meet me with the case and the Father by the bar. I don’t know how long this will take.”

“I understand,” Alan nodded and watched his friend go. But he was far from okay, the feeling of dread that he hadn’t shaken in the past two days was choking now. “What if-”

“Do it.” Jake kissed Nadia’s cheek and shoved the heavy couch aside as if it weighed nothing.

Nadia didn’t speak at first, But after a few moments she exhaled. “I hope he knows what he’s doing.”

“Loaded dice, how is he gonna lose?” Alan chuckled, hoping to calm her and himself with his words. But it didn’t work. Plenty could go wrong and they both knew it. This was a dangerous game.

“What if— what if he loses? What if we die?” Nadia crossed her arms across her chest to hold back the panic that was rising.

Alan pursed his lips together. “I’d rather die trying. Wouldn’t you? Come on.”

The being that materialized in the lightning strike suddenly appeared in the bar behind Griffin and Richard. Bruce was, like them, a hunter of souls. He had lost Nadia and Jake in Sedona and in any other situation he’d have forgotten about it. But the scar left by the Holy water Nadia had tossed at him was visible on the left side of his face and he had a bone to pick.

“We’ve had them holed up in the office on an upper floor for a while now. They can’t stay there forever. Humans can’t take the heat or go without food and water that long. We’re planning to wait them out.” Richard explained, sipping a martini from a fluted glass. “You can wait with us, there are three of them.”

“I didn’t know the other man and the woman had a pact,” Griffin replied, stirring his drink lightly with a glass stir stick, the clinking of glass on glass was incredibly loud in the silence of the bar, which was void of it’s usual white noise.

“I think you underestimate him,” Bruce tapped his fingers on the bar. “He has already proven to be a worthy opponent, and he’s already given you two the run around.”

It was true, because of the spiritual protections used along the hallway they were staying on, the demons could not follow them into that space. They had to wait for Jake to come to them.

As they sat conversing and waiting for the next move, the elevator door opened with a sharp ding. Jake stepped off the elevator dressed in his best suit, but nothing in his hands. His hand caressed the dice in his pocket to reassure himself. The red set was loaded, the white set was not.

“Good afternoon, gentlemen,” Jake spoke with a baritone that rang across the bar, and showed no sign of fear. “Nice weather we’re having, eh?”

Thunder crashed above them and a bolt of lightning lit up the gaming room through the higher windows so that Jake could see the damage. His felt sick, this would cost a fortune to fix if it even could be.

“I guess you could say that,” Bruce replied. “What is it you want? Where is the case?”

“I left it in my office until I talked to you fine gentlemen.” He began, watching as the three demons moved closer, their eyes growing bright with excitement.

“Very well, bring the case and we will be done with this. No harm comes to your friends,” Richard said.

Jake knew that was a lie. He was quite certain Alan and Nadia would not make it out of here alive if he wavered. He cleared his throat, the voice pouring forth was smooth and confident. Jake felt no fear at all, even staring into the dark black abyss eyes of three demons. “We’re in Vegas. In a casino. Come on, boys, what fun would it be if we didn’t gamble a little? So, here’s my proposal. How about we roll some dice for it? If you win, I go with you.”

“What about the contracts?” Bruce raised an eyebrow. Surely this human wasn’t that simple. Did he really think to gamble with those who could manipulate so well?

“If I win, I get them.” Jake met Bruce’s eyes, or rather the dark voids.

Bruce was taken aback by the lack of fear in this man. There was something different about him. “We already own you-”

“Deal or no deal?” Jake demanded. “I can just as easily have my friends set the papers on fire. Then you lose it all.”

“You wouldn’t dare do that. You think that will free the souls in Hell?” Bruce laughed. “Not a chance. It will free them but they will quickly be consumed by and turned into demons unless they are immediately purified. That would require you having a priest at the gate of Hell when it opened.”

Glenn and Richard laughed, both of them had been trapped into this life in just that way. They scarcely recalled their humanity anymore, what it was like to be mortal, to feel anything.

“I know all that,” Jake rolled his eyes. “I still want to play a game.”

Bruce and Griffin exchanged glances of confusion and Richard spoke for them all, “What sort of game?”

“Well, how about a game of craps, winner take all?” He smiled lightly at the demons, his eyes sparkling. “Unless, of course, you are concerned about losing to a human.”

“There’s no way a mere human can beat us.” Griffin chuckled and shook a mixer filled with ice and a mixed drink concoction.

“Craps you say? I am a craps man,” Richard said, turning towards the tables. “Let’s go.”

“Not with you,” Jake said with a half smirk. “I want your boss.”

“My-” Richard looked around in alarm. He couldn’t be serious, could he? He wanted to challenge the devil himself at a dice game? “Are you mad?”

“I said what I said. That’s what I want.” Jake’s eyes scanned the three demons as they stood looking at him as if he were crazy. He could feel their confusion, and he found it amusing.

Bruce laughed. “Okay, very well. I will see if he will indulge you this ridiculousness.”

Richard, Griffin, and Jake watched as Bruce closed his eyes and seemed to telepathically contact the one in charge. He opened his eyes with a smirk, “He won’t come. He cannot leave that realm. But his son can.”

Jake gave a half nod, “I suppose that will do.”

A bolt of lightning lit the casino bar up again and to Jake’s surprise the light overhead popped on with a sizzle, illuminating a dark figure that seemed to appear. The figure wore a dark robe with a hood that fell behind him, his hair and eyes were just as dark. Jake was surprised at how messy the newcomers hair was, he had expected the son of the devil to be a bit more svelte, not a punk rock reject.

“You have summoned me for a game?” He said with a slight growl that sounded like a moody teenager being awakened for school.

“I did.” Jake replied. “Dice. I assume you know how to play?”

Meanwhile Nadia and Alan arrived at the church where Father Cresson was. Alan's car had provided them shelter but the dash from car to church left them soaked. Alan gasped, the rain so heavy it was hitting his face like a shower and stinging his eyes. He could barely get a breath without inhaling water. Nadia sputtered and spat the water out as it soaked her face and hair.

Inside the church, Alan looked around in the silence. “Father?”

Startled from his prayers, Father Cresson looked up from praying and glanced around his office. He heard it again and this time he hurried to his feet and out into the front room.

“Hello?” He called to the soaked visitors. “Can I help you?”

“Jake sent us to get you.” Nadia panted out the words. “He’s making deals with the devil and-”

“Say no more,” the mans elderly face creased with his smile. Pride filled him, Jake was doing what he was meant to do. He retrieved a small bag from his altar and quickly followed them out into the rain.

It was a little after sundown, but the storm clouds were so dark that it appeared to be later in the night. The air was chilled from rain and wind, causing the heated pavement and asphalt to release steam as it cooled down quickly. The thick clouds and fog drifted down the boulevard in waves, concealing cars parked along the street and the buildings as it rose.

Alan’s car wouldn’t start. Rather it was dead battery, no gas, or if too much water had gotten inside somehow, Alan was unable to tell. He angrily slammed his fist into the wheel.

“We will walk then,” Father Cresson got out of the car. “’Tis only the devil trying to keep us from our job.”

“I don’t know about that,” Alan murmured as he climbed out of the car into the downpour. Just then a bolt of lightning jumped between clouds and then slammed into something down at the end of the boulevard, knocking out every light on the strip.

In the pitch darkness, rain rushing up to their ankles as the streets began to flood, they rushed down the sidewalk towards the casino. Lightning popped overhead, showing them the way and that there was not another living soul out on the strip at the moment. Everyone had taken cover, even a blacked out casino was preferable to being in the weather.

Nadia kicked her waterlogged sneakers off on the sidewalk. They were stretching out with the water and her feet kept slipping out of them anyway. It helped, and she was able to keep up with Alan and the priest. From the glass doors of the casinos, people crowded to watch the intense weather. Alan took them along the parking lot side of the casino and lightly opened the back door.

From inside they could hear voices, so they slipped in silently and Alan made sure the door closed with no noise. The warmth of the casino was welcomed for the time being as the rain chill trio moved along the wall under the emergency lights towards the bar and grille. There, Jake faced off against a dark being on the opposite side of a craps table. It appeared they were negotiating.

Finneas listened to Jake’s proposal curiously. He wondered how it was the other three didn’t see the faint glow around this human. Jake was not the run-of-the-mill human they could deceive and collect. This wasn’t going to be easy.

He raised a dark brow, “So you want to gamble for the contracts and if you win you get those souls? Am I right? You are aware you cannot revive the dead? You are no necromancer.”

Jake felt the energy around him tighten and pulse. He recognized immediately that Finneas was trying to manipulate him. Hoping to cause fear to pour into him to such a degree it would drive him to madness and make him lose focus on the task at hand. The warmth light within Jake spun again and pushed the darkness away, causing Finneas to narrow his eyes.

“That is what I want.”

“If you loose, I am taking you and your two friends back with me. Those are the terms here.” Finneas watched the others eyes, realizing what he was seeing around the other “I have never seen a light worker in the flesh.”

“What is that light around Jake?” Alan hissed to Father Cresson, the three of them were crouched behind the slot machines just outside the bar area.

“Your friend is a light worker,” Father Cresson whispered back. “I was able to awaken that in him and here it is.”

“Is that safe?” Nadia asked from the other side.

The priest nodded.

“Damn it,” Alan whispered. “I forgot the briefcase. I’ll go get it.”

Nadia and the Father stayed by the machines as Alan ran hunched over and he thought unseen to the back stairwell to get up to the office. The other demons had sensed the audience they had but they made no move to let them know they had been discovered.

Finneas nodded. Just because he couldn’t manipulate the man very well didn’t mean the dice wouldn’t be easy to control. He tapped his fingers on the edge of the table, “Very well. We need dice.”

Jake tossed the dice on the table, holding his red pair back. “There you go.”

Griffin went first, he shook the tiny white dice in his hand a few times as Jake, Richard and Finneas placed their chips on the pass line. All eyes on Griffin, he needed to roll nine. If he rolled seven, he lost, and it was Richard’s turn. Sure enough the dice landed on seven and Griffin was out of the game, which didn’t upset him at all. He preferred to drink and watch. He passed the pair to Richard.

Leaving chips on the pass line, Richard shook the dice and tossed them against the opposite table wall. They rolled nearly halfway back to him before landed on a nine. Griffin, who had assumed role of the pit boss, moved the dealers puck to the number nine.

“Nine is the point, guys,” Griffin took another drink of the martini still in the shaker.

Jake set down two chips behind his pass line chip. “I want to double down on the next roll. If I lose you let my friends go, they have nothing to do with this.”

Richard smirked and shrugged, there was nothing for him to worry about as he was manipulating the dice easily. “Sure, I’ll take that a bet.”

Jake’s fist closed tightly, pressing the dice into his palm. The small red squares bounced back to him and landed squarely on seven. Jake let out a breath of relief disguised as a chuckle. “You lose.”

“There is no way!” Richard stared at the dice in Jake’s hand. He had manipulated the red dice, or so he thought.

Finneas seized the dice, “There is no way that’s possible-”

Griffin and Richard watched Finneas toss the dice out onto the table. They rolled seven. They rolled seven a few times more before he looked up at Jake. “Do you think this is a joke?”

Jake’s heart nearly stopped. Something closed around his throat, but his light was able to push it away. For the first time Richard noticed his glow, he had never noticed it before. Jake was able to push his energy away only meant one thing. That the blood seal was somehow broken and the light worker abilities in him were awakened. It was the abilities that made Jake such a valuable catch. If that light were corrupted he would be invaluable in the underworld.

Richard growled. “You knew already didn’t you, Finneas? That he was a light worker, and the seal on him has been broken! That I could do very little to him without the seal!”

Bruce turned on Finneas as well, eyes flashing red. “You planned this out all along. Didn’t you? So you could get the credit for his capture, move up the ladder and impress daddy. Am I right?”

While the demons turned on each other, Jake grabbed his phone, texting as fast as he could to Alan: Burn the chase

Alan glared at the phone. This was a bad time for auto correct to attempt to help. Alan tossed the phone across the room and jerked out the drawers in Jake’s desk roughly, spilling the contents everywhere. His panic was fueled by the text, if Jake was telling him to do this it was probably a sign things were going wrong. Or very right.

Alan found the matches an extended lighter for lighting grills in the jumbled collection of random items Jake kept in the drawers. His fingers shook so much that it was difficult for him to open the briefcase, let alone strike one of the matches. Finally one caught, the flame leaping up and then settling back down. He ignited one corner of the thin paper, annoyed when it caught but then only smoldered.

“Dammit.” Alan used his teeth to pop the stopper out of the lighter. Spitting the taste of the fluid out of his mouth, he emptied the lighter onto the paper. He scowled as he did, “I hope this ain’t some weird demon paper that won’t burn.”

The flames caught this time, dancing across the paper so fast that Alan almost didn’t move his fingers in time to avoid being burned. The papers were consumed with a soft crackle, spilling smoke upwards in a thick cloud. Alan heard a whirring noise, and before he realized what was happening, the sprinklers reacted to the smoke and heat, and they began raining down on him. With a curse, Alan dove across the room for the umbrella he kept under his own desk for when he patrolled outside the building in the rain. He opened it over the fast drowning flame.

“What the--” Jake looked up, a smile curling his lips. The sprinklers meant fire and fire meant the papers were burning.

The three demons had started to brawl as Jake and Finneas watched, smashing slot machines and breaking furniture. The remaining hell hound attacked Bruce, but he flung it away with a bolt of energy that caused it to crash into and explode against the wall behind them. A bright green splatter stained the wallpaper, oozing down to the carpet.

The falling water interrupted the fight. Bruce looked up, angrily wiping the water from his face. “What the hell is going on?”

“There must be a fire,” Hollingsworth looked around for the source of flames. Seeing nothing he whirled on Jake- there was that energy, stronger and brighter swirling around the human. His eyes flew wide open, but the light was too bright. He covered his face with his arm, hissing. “What have you done?”

A bright light made the casino bright as day. The pulsing oval grew larger, and Father Cresson made the sign of the cross over himself as he stepped forward. Already shadowy forms were moving out into the casino among the gambling machines and tables.

“No, that can’t be--” Richard began to panic, looking around as if there was some sort of help nearby. “Surely not!”

“While you idiots were busy fighting over some loaded dice, the humans set the papers on fire. It’s too late now, the blood seals are gone. The souls are free.” Finneas explained, his face the picture of amusement. His dark eyes seemed to laugh as well.

“Why didn’t you stop them?” Griffin rushed forward as if to grab Finneas, he bounced off as if he had hit a glass pane.

“You’re the son of the Master himself!” Bruce yelled over the hiss of water falling. “Why would you allow this to happen?”

“Because it amused me.” Finneas shrugged. The water seemed to be missing him while it drenched everyone else. “My father is not concerned with decades old pacts. Have you not seen the news lately or paid attention? He has moved on to bigger things. These souls are hardly a loss, he really wanted the light worker but that was only possible if he were bound by blood, which he isn't.”

Thunder crashed outside, lightning and rain whipped the building. Finneas raised his hand, and a second oval of light opened in the floor just large enough to engulf the other three. They screamed, hurling curses as they fell into the eternal pits below. Then the light closed and left no trace it had ever been there.

Jake walked over to the place it had been and poked the floor with his toe. “Thank God, I wasn’t sure how I would explain that to my insurance.”

Finneas clapped him on the shoulders. “Well played. Well played. If you ever want a job, just call. We could use someone like you on our side.”

Jake smiled weakly, “I’ll keep that in mind.”

Jake watched him as he left, his long black coat swinging at his heels. The sound of his boots on the hard floor of the foyer suddenly stopped as if he had just stopped walking. A sudden wash of energy, maybe second wind, propelled him to the control box where he flipped off the sprinklers. He threw the main switch and the lights and cooler came back on with a bang and some grinding. The sound of Fleetwood Mac’s “Rhiannon” began playing through the speakers.