Silas Robb: To Hell and Back: Silas Robb, #3

By Erik Lynd

"There's no place like home" takes on a whole new meaning if you're from Hell…

 

One hundred and fifty years ago, the Reverend Longmire tracked Silas down and almost sent him back to Hell for good. Silas turned the tables and Longmire ended up in that infernal prison. Now, Silas' old nemesis has returned with a few new tricks up his sleeve and looking for revenge. Working alongside an ancient Chinese cult bent on freeing a powerful demon, Longmire plans on trapping Silas in the one place Silas hates more than a Celine Dion concert.

 

With Silas gone, it is up to his mortal team of associates to track down this religious cult and stop them from unleashing Hell on earth. Meanwhile, Silas must work with allies new and old to fight his way back in time for band practice… and sure, help his friends save all of humanity.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Broken Gods Press
• Release date: Jan 16, 2021
• ISBN: 9781943069309

Book preview

1

Clean, trendy, probably sells fruity drinks with clever names. Not really my kind of place , thought Silas. I bet it doesn’t even smell like stale beer inside. If this is Mort’s idea of buying me a drink, then this will definitely be the night I kill him.

This is not the usual way I like to spend my Friday nights, Silas said.

Alcohol, drugs, women, music? This is exactly the way you spend your Friday nights except that this place doesn’t have multiple health code violations and multiple… stains, like the quaint little dive you call home, Mort replied.

There is no way they play real music at a place like this, Silas grumbled. Real music has guitars in it, not computers and cool lighting.

As though in defiance of Silas, bass thumped rhythmically from the building and through the limo.

They sat outside in a limo gazing out at New York’s hottest new nightclub named, ironically enough, Hell’s Retreat. It was a massive black wall lining the bottom of a high-rise, extensive LED lighting gave it the effect that it was burning. Large double doors, embossed with flames and lit up with red lights, dominated the front. A long line held off by a velvet rope waited outside. The crowd was filled with short dresses, suits, glitter, and shine.

It made Silas sick. Most of the bars he frequented didn’t have crowds out front unless they were watching two drunks beat the shit out of each other.

Silas groaned and sat back in his seat. Although they were in a stretch limo, Silas still felt it was a tight fit for his six foot five, 270-pound frame. The top of his almost shaved head scratched the ceiling. Space was made even smaller by all the high-tech surveillance gadgets Mort had installed. Not for the first time he missed his Harley.

Mort was Silas’ liaison to the Vatican, but Silas liked to think of him as tech support. He sat hunched over his computer across from Silas, deliberately avoiding Silas’ glare, using his standard hunt and peck method of typing. Seeing his typing, nobody would ever suspect Mort was a computer whiz and top-notch hacker. The way he looked, however, was a dead giveaway. Silas liked to describe it as emo-accountant chic, with maybe a little hipster thrown in. The glare of the laptop reflected back from the glasses perched above his nose and a short beard. He just screamed ‘I know a lot about computers and absolutely nothing about women.’

But then, who did?

Mort was in stark contrast to Silas’s leather jacket, t-shirt and jeans. Silas had been told on multiple occasions that he looked like a street thug or biker. He took this as a compliment. Seemed appropriate for a demon.

Silas opened the bar cabinet and pulled out a bottle of tequila. He preferred bourbon, but he had already drunk that. He took a long swig from the bottle. Maybe the limo did have some advantages over the motorcycle.

Why are you here Mort? Silas asked. This isn’t an Inquisition mission. I’m doing a favor for Mikey here. He wants me to look into something, probably nothing. Silas nodded at the kid who sat next to Mort.

Damn Silas, you know I hate it when you call me that, Michael said. And I’m telling you something is going on. The streets talk and a handful of kids have disappeared, babies suddenly missing from shelters. It ain't just my buddy Isaac that’s gone.

Michael was a former street kid who was technically a ward of Father DeLuca, a mutual friend, but he spent an annoyingly large amount of time hanging out with Silas. Silas hated kids, he hated all humans for that matter, but for some reason he didn’t understand, he tolerated Michael.

They also recently discovered he was a Changeling, straddling the Veil of the Pale, one foot in the mortal realm, the other in the supernatural. Another reason to keep an eye on him.

He’s right Silas, something is going on, Mort said. Besides, you remember the last time we had people disappearing off the streets. That was no walk in the park.

Silas just grunted and took another swig of tequila. No, Mr. Webb had been no walk in the park. I really don’t think there’s anything supernatural going on. Probably just some run of the mill human trafficking. I go in, check it out, then you turn everything over to the cops so they can take care of it. Easy-fucking-peasy, no skin off my back or the Inquisition’s.

Well, Father Moreales—you know, our boss—doesn’t think it will be ‘easy-fucking-peasy,’ Mort said with a raised eyebrow.

Has anybody ever told you how much you don’t look like Spock when you do that? Silas asked. You know, in case you were going for that look?

Silas leaned back with an exasperated sigh. Of course Moreales was involved. Father Moreales was in charge of the Inquisition Project, a secret group within the Vatican that had summoned Silas from Hell to work for them. They bound him with one of the most convoluted binding contracts he had ever seen. Which was saying a lot since Hell is known for its loopholes and fine-print-ridden contracts.

Now he was forced to work for them until he had paid off his account. The work generally involved protecting ignorant humans from the forces of the supernatural seeping into their world from the Pale, with the ultimate goal of staving off Armageddon and the end of the world.

Frankly, Silas would rather be singing rock and roll in a bar and doing his damnedest to get drunk.

Okay Mort, just stay out of my way. This is a side gig until we confirm there is a threat from the Pale. If it turns out there is a supernatural threat…well then, I’ll beat the crap out of whatever monster it is this time, and you get to mail off the report to your keepers at the Vatican afterward. Sound fair? Silas didn’t wait for an answer, Mikey, you sure this is the place?

Michael pressed his face up against the glass and took a long hard look at the black building and neon sign. Yeah, some people I know saw three men enter that place the other night with younger kids, maybe ten or eleven. Long after it was closed.

That young? Why would they be taking little kids into a closed nightclub? Mort asked.

I don’t know? Why I am sitting across from a demon? Why do grownups ask stupid question? Some things we’ll never know the answer to. Besides, it ain't just little kids. Some kids I know scored fake ID’s and got into that place. Never came back out, Michael said.

Silas chuckled. Now he remembered why he let Michael hang out with him.

Well, now that that’s settled, I’m going to get a drink, Silas said and reached for the door handle.

Wait. You can’t go in there dressed like that, put this on, Mort said. He pulled a suit out from the back of the limo. It was dark gray with a distinct shine to it.

You’ve got be kidding me, Silas said. This isn’t Studio 54.

That’s a new A-lister nightclub, there is no way they are going to let you go in there dressed like a street thug. You look like you came straight from prison.

Mort, in all the years that you have known me have I ever worn a suit?

Well no, but…

Did you know James Dean used to wear suits almost exclusively until I possessed him? Next thing you know, everybody was wearing jeans and t-shirts and leather jackets.

Okay Pony Boy, I’m just saying…

I’m not wearing the suit. They’ll let me in, Silas said and stepped out onto the curb. Because I’m Silas-mother-fucking-Robb.

You can’t get in buddy, the bouncer, only slightly smaller than Silas, said as he approached. You’ll have to go to the end of the line like everyone else. And change into something that shows some style.

He was looking at his clipboard and not at Silas. Silas let some of his demonic fury leak through into his aura.

Oh, you wouldn’t want that. My style is way more haute couture, sort of soaked-in-the-blood-of-my-enemies chic. It’s very avant-garde.

Silas had once possessed a fashion mogul until he’d been shot. But he didn’t like to talk about it.

The man paused and then looked up. Terror spread across his face. His mouth opened to scream, but nothing came out. His jaw worked up and down as though it was not sure if it should be closed or saying something. A wet spot formed at the bouncer’s crotch.

Let me in, or I’ll tear your soul apart, Silas said. He had always preferred the Hellraiser lines, they were so much better than what demons actually said. A very unimaginative bunch, demons were.

The bouncer said nothing, couldn’t say anything. He just stepped aside as Silas shoved his way past.

The guy standing at the front of the line, clad in a gray, shiny suit, protested. Hey, what the hell? He has to wait like everybody else. Silas gave the guy a quick punch in the gut, doubling him over and sending him back into the patrons behind him. The people in the front collapsed like dominoes and tumbled to the ground in a pile of lace, sequins and short black dresses.

Usually Silas would stop to enjoy the chaos, but this time he ignored his handiwork and stepped into the club.

An explosion of sound and light hit him. Silas winced at the overpowering kick drum. The kids today have no taste in music. The smell of vaping and overly perfumed bodies washed over him like a wave of nausea.

The place was huge and open. The ceiling three stories above and the pillars lining the dance floor that supported it were all designed to look like the roof of a cave. Ground lighting throughout the club was tinted orange and red. Silas didn’t think it could get any more cliché when he saw the carved statues of little demons with pitchforks.

Small tables spread throughout the club accommodating three or four at a time, although larger groups crowed around many of them. Larger booths were against the walls and pillars. Some of these had curtains pulled closed for privacy.

The dance floor was packed full of sweaty bodies swaying and jumping to the emotionless, mindless music blasting from the massive clusters of loudspeakers. At least half the crowd look like they were high on drugs. That was a good sign, maybe Silas could score some good shit and make this little outing worthwhile.

A waitress walked by with a tray of drinks above her shoulder. Silas deftly snatched what he hoped was bourbon on the rocks off it as she went past. He took a moment to watch her walk away. The waitresses were almost as scantily clad as the patrons. Watching an ass like that made Silas begin to think this may not be such a bad place after all. He downed the drink in one gulp—Scotch, not bad at all—and set it on a nearby table, ignoring the looks from those sitting around it, and made his way to the bar.

Demons don’t get drunk easily, and they don’t stay drunk long, same with drugs. This was the only thing Silas hated about being a demon. Well, that and being confined to hell unless summoned. Hell was boring. So, on the way to the bar he snatched two more drinks, shots. By the time he bellied up, he finally had a mild buzz going on, which was good; he was now in a state to get some work done.

He ordered a bourbon and turned once again to case the place. Silas doubted he’d find much out here in the open, so he noted the doors behind the bar and three more towards the back, behind the DJ stage.

He was about to poke his head through one of the doors and snoop around when he caught a faint whiff of something. Something unfortunately familiar. It was gone as quickly as it had come, but he knew the smell. Something Unseelie.

His hand slipped into his jacket pocket and closed around the vial inside. It was a cylindrical container about four inches long and an inch and a half in diameter. The iron powder inside made it heavy in his palm.

His eyes, now alert, slid over the dancers and patrons at the bar. He shifted his vision, focusing on seeing past the veil that separated reality from the Pale.

Nothing.

That couldn’t be right, something was going on here; it was out of phase with the world outside.

Then he caught a shimmer out of the corner of his eye. Something not right with one of the workers, a busboy. Silas watched his skin shift and slide in a way that, even given the chaotic lighting of the club, was not normal. He was hiding something, using an actual illusion rather than just relying on the Veil to protect him. Which meant he wasn’t just hiding from mortals.

Maybe this was going to be more interesting than he had thought.

In fact, as his gaze roved the room, it looked like there were a rather large number of busboys, and busgirls for that matter. And it wasn’t just the number that was unusual. These kids were not just busing tables. Silas observed several wiping down seats repeatedly using a spray bottle of some sort while others were wiping down the walls in the darker corners.

A few darted out onto the dance floor randomly to scrub quickly on the ground, only to pop back up and jog off the dance floor.

Why this obsession with cleanliness?

Silas stepped closer to one of the busboys to get a closer look. Whatever illusion they were using was powerful. Seeing past illusions became easier once you knew it was fake and a being as experienced as Silas should be able to see through it, especially this close. But whatever magic was hiding the truth was holding firm.

Then he caught a whiff of that smell again, and it occurred to him where he had smelled it before.

Goblins, Silas growled under his breath.

The smell was unmistakable, but out of place. And then it was gone. The illusion covered even olfactory senses. Powerful indeed.

It didn’t make sense. This was not the kind of place you find goblins. Not true Fey, goblins lived on the fringe of both mortal and Fey society, hidden from the former and persecuted by the latter. Tribes banded together in sewers and other convenient subterranean locations far from the prying eyes of mortals and most other supernatural beings. A fancy nightclub was not a natural habitat for these disgusting creatures.

Nor did they have the power to uphold such a strong illusion. Magic wasn’t one of their strong suits. Eating human and other sentient flesh was, however.

How’s it going in there? Mort spoke over Silas’ ear piece. It was really creepy having Mort suddenly speaking in his ear when he had forgotten all about him.

Fuck, Mort. Warn me before you do that? Silas whispered back.

How would you like me to do that exactly? Mort asked. Am I supposed to tell you when I am just about to speak to you?

Silas indulged a quick fantasy of his fist pounding through Mort’s skull.

Something’s going on here, Mort.

Are you trying to say I was right? Mort asked.

Yep, this is going to be the day Silas killed him. The Inquisition Project has nothing in its database on this place? Nothing in the area?

No Silas, nothing. What exactly is going on?

They are very clean, Silas said.

Well yes, I can see how you would think that is strange, but you have to understand most of the world doesn’t live in a basement, hang out in a roach-infested bar, or only shower once a week.

Fuck you, Mort. I shower more than once a week. No, this is different. They have an army of busboys cleaning every nook and cranny. And they obviously have some sort of illusion around them. Silas made his way to a dark corner he hadn’t seen cleaned since he started paying attention. Also, I smell goblins.

That can’t be good.

Only for a restaurant that serves human flesh. And has good ventilation.

Silas peered into the corner searching for—well he didn’t know, but suspected he would know it when he found it. Unfortunately, it was spotless. He was just about to go back to observing the busboys when he noticed a tiny shape growing out of the corner where the wall met the floor.

After glancing around to confirm nobody was looking, he ducked down and plucked it from the ground. Then held it up to the light.

It was a mushroom, and not the fun psychedelic kind. This was a boring old toadstool. Was this what they were cleaning up? A fungus infestation?

It was odd. The place was not damp or moldy. Why were mushrooms popping up so quickly that they had to continually clean them up? Then it came to him.

Goblins. Powerful illusions. It was a Fey ring. Suddenly Silas had an idea of what would be found in the basement of the building.

Goddammit Mort, Fey again, Silas slammed his fist down on a nearby table. It shattered under the force. Those seated nearby looked at him concerned, but the club was loud enough that his destruction went mostly unnoticed.

Unfortunately not completely.

One of the doors across the dance floor marked ‘VIP’ opened and a man poked his head out to stare directly at Silas. He was a short, hunched over man, but his looks didn’t matter. It was all an illusion anyway. His suit was also out of place, anachronistic. It would have been the height of style in early twentieth century, the same with the rounded hat he wore.

Hey, at least this time it's not my fault. This show belongs to you and Michael all the way.

The man looked to the left and right, silently signaling to several bouncers around the room.

Cover’s blown. They spotted me and it doesn't look like they will settle for a dance fight.

What cover? You are probably the most under-dressed person in the room. But too bad about the dance-off, you would have killed it.

You know it. Remind me to tell you about the time I possessed a break dancer back in the eighties. But later. Right now I got to kick some goblin ass.

Silas was striding across the dance floor making for the VIP door.

Try not to tear the place to the ground, Mort said, but his tone said he didn’t have much hope.

Of course. Mort, you know I’m not one for wanton destruction.

He picked up a small table at the edge of the dance floor as the first disguised goblin lunged at him. In one smooth motion he lifted the table and slammed it into the monster's chest.

The goblin’s jaw, lined with thin, pointy teeth snapped shut as it flew back into the mass of dancers writhing on the dance floor. The illusion was finally crumbling.

A second goblin was on him. He held up the table again like a tamer holding off a lion, but he didn’t hit this one with any force. He needed them closer.

The illusion was completely gone now, for Silas at least. He could now see the true lanky, slumped forms of the goblins. He could see their large, slathering mouths, over-sized noses dripping with mucus, and their ill-fitting clothes—tent-like suits draped over hunched bodies—hanging over their thin, yet powerful shoulders.

Though Silas could see them, he knew the Veil would still confuse the mortals’ minds. They would remember it as a bar fight, maybe some sort of gang confrontation. Who knows what a mortal’s mind will dream up to protect them from the truth?

As long as the encounter with the supernatural was brief and their minds able to rationalize their memories afterward, the Veil should hold. Only if they are pushed to a breaking point, where their capacity to lie to themselves is exceeded, would the Veil tear. This would cause a whole new set of problems, most of which would lead to the end of the world.

Silas didn’t want that because finding a good drink during the rapture was going to be a bitch.

He could sense another goblin coming up behind. This one was a little smarter than his buddies and approached warily. He was clever, but not clever enough. As soon as he was within range, Silas lashed out with his foot in a blazingly fast kick to the goblin’s chin.

Its head twisted to the right, further than natural, even for a goblin; its body was forced to follow and the goblin spun around before falling. Silas didn’t have a chance to see if he was still conscious before the first goblin was ducking under the table.

Silas lifted the metal table and brought it down like a hammer. It smashed into the ducking goblin’s head and drove him down, slamming him into the concrete floor.

That seemed to be the trigger point. Chaos erupted on the dance floor. Most of the patrons scattered looking for safety in the tables. They weren’t running for the exit just yet. Why would they? It was just a bar fight, and the floor show was about to begin.

Silas took two steps before three more goblins were charging at him. They were larger than the others and actually had some girth on their otherwise spindly frames. More were flowing out from the rear doors.

Silas felt a strong breeze, and that gave him an idea. He altered course making a wider sweep of the large, and now cleared, dance floor. The charging goblins adjusted course to pursue.

Silas swept past the mortals watching from the edge, letting the goblins form up behind him in pursuit. He tried to act like he was running for his life, but it’s hard to fake fear when you’ve never experienced it.

As he ran past the crowd, he could see the Veil was cracking. As the pack swung by, the humans reacted as they should with monsters in their midst. The screaming and mad dashes for the exits started as the crowd broke.

Hopefully, by tomorrow the memory would be awash in an alcohol hangover and the Veil would be back in place.

That is if Silas didn’t fuck things up any more than they were. Unfortunately, that was kind of Silas’s thing.

A fan was positioned near the DJ stage—sans DJ at this point—and angled out to the room. The goblin pack was just behind him. A screeching, slobbering, and generally disgusting sounding pack.

His plan better work. He could take on a lot of goblins, but a group of ten posed a significant challenge.

He ran straight into the air stream of the fan and reached into his pocket to pulled out the vial. He kicked the bottom of the fan and it tilted upward in its frame so that it pointed to the ceiling. He popped the cap off the vial and turned to stand next to the fan.

Silas smiled at the grinning, triumphant faces of the goblins. Then he poured the contents of the vial into the spinning blades. A black cloud shot into the air over the heads of the goblin pack.

They paused, confused and maybe a little wary. They were right to be. The cloud hung in the air for only a moment before the iron powder fell, swarming the pack in a back mist.

The screams started almost immediately. The inhuman howls of pain rose above the humans’ sounds of escape. Where the iron touched, the goblin's skin blackened and smoked. The sparse clumps of hair on their molted heads burst into flame.

They fell back from their charge and into each other. Flesh bubbled and boiled before igniting. The screams and howls turned abruptly to coughs and wheezes. The goblins had inhaled the iron mist, and it went to work on their lungs, cooking them from the inside out.

The leader of the pack fell to his knees in front of Silas and started coughing up blood, ash, and the occasional gout of flame.

Silas glanced at the vial in his hand. Potent shit. It wasn’t normal iron, of course; that wouldn’t do this kind of damage to goblins. Regular iron is just an annoyance to these fey. This was cursed iron, much more potent.

Silas had once possessed an apothecary of dubious morals. Working out of Cheyenne, Wyoming at the turn of the twentieth century. He was little more than a drug dealer, deriving concoctions consisting mostly of opioids, cocaine, and the occasional hallucinogenic mushroom. He claimed these magic elixirs and tonics could heal just about anything.

Basically, he was a snake oil salesman, without the wagon. Unsurprisingly, he got a lot of repeat business. He made quite a good living since he had the discipline to never use his own product. That is until Silas possessed him. Because where is the fun in that? Besides you can’t put a kid in a candy store and not expect him to nibble a little.

While the apothecary’s means for making a living were questionable, his heritage was not. He was descended from a long line of alchemists who dabbled in the mystic arts. His grandmother had taken it upon herself to train him in the way of the family business.

As a youth, he was accomplished at making true potions, rare earths, and capturing essences. He could have become a master alchemist, but there was a lot more money to be made in narcotics.

Once his ‘potions’ caught on, that was all he had time for. All that valuable alchemist knowledge faded as his focus went to making and enhancing drugs. But one ancient recipe remained when Silas possessed him: the secret of making cursed iron.

It was a complex task involving the blood of innocents, the timing of moon cycles, and essences of an assortment of mostly mythical creatures. Way too hard for Silas to actually perform. But it allowed him to tell the real stuff from just the plain metal. He had picked this up at a quaint little store up on 64 th that sat above a porn shop.

As for what happened to the apothecary Silas had possessed, he had turned to cutting his stuff with some unsavory chemicals when his supplies were low. It turns out demons have a much higher tolerance for drugs than mortals. Silas accidentally OD’d the poor fellow. Of course, the real tragedy here was that Silas had to return to Hell. And Hell is really boring.

Silas tossed the empty vial aside and walked around the screaming, burning, bloody mess on the floor. The stench of burning goblin meat, not at all the same as bar-b-que, filled the air; the stench was more like a dumpster fire boiling an overflowing port-a-potty. They’ll never get that smell out of the furniture.

A goblin stood in the doorway marked VIP. As soon as she saw him coming, she screeched and slammed the door. Silas took that as a good sign he was on the right track.

The VIP door was locked, so Silas kicked it in with one well-placed blow near the doorknob. Behind him, the place had almost completely cleared out. Perhaps the fleshy bonfire in the middle of the room and the aroma rising from it did not fit with their upscale tastes?

The hallway was a short twenty feet long, and here the mushrooms were more numerous, sprouting from the floors and wall in random clusters. They still look like they were regularly removed, but the bussers were definitely less disciplined about this section.

At the end of the hall a small set of stairs wound down into a hole of old brick and exposed pipes, also thick with fungus. Silas heard footsteps retreating down those stairs. He followed.

The musky scent of mushrooms filled his nostrils as he descended. Faerie mushrooms were valuable for a multitude of magical concoctions and there was a small fortune growing from the floors and walls. He grabbed a handful as he passed, stuffing them into his pocket.

Silas could hear noise from below, loud enough to be a party. He heard laughter and glasses clinking, not yelling and running as he expected. They knew he was coming, but the party carried on.

Great, maybe he could have a drink or two before he had to kick some more ass.

At the bottom of the steps, a short hallway led to a large room. The hallway was virtually covered in mushrooms, and the doorway to the room was framed in a ring of toadstools that shimmered slightly.

Damn. It was a gateway. That meant the room beyond, though technically in the Fey realm, operated as a sort of DMZ between the mortal and the Fey. Either way, it meant no drinks for Silas, not if he wanted to come back to the human realm.

Good thing he’d brought a flask.

He stepped into the room and was immediately the center of attention. After a moment of mutual inspection, the occupants seemed to accept he wasn’t going to kill anybody right away—despite his jeans, leather jacket and slightly soiled t-shirt—and went back to ignoring him.

There was a quick, quiet burst of static in his ear and he knew he had lost Mort. Seems the range of their earpieces didn’t extent to the Fey realm.

The room wasn’t small and it didn’t match the club upstairs. It made Silas think of a hipster bar—exposed pipes, brick and old wood. Candles, tall and dripping long tails of wax, sat in various nooks in the walls and in elaborate chandeliers hanging from the ceiling. A fire hazard, certainly, but electricity was frowned upon in the Fey realm. Here in the border it would be accepted but not encouraged.

Silas liked bars where the wood was old and the pipes exposed because they couldn’t afford to fix things up and also keep the liquor cheap. Not because it was a design statement. He liked the smell of stale beer in those places, not candles and cologne.

But then again, it was all just a trap anyway.

A bar ran along half of one wall. Three bartenders worked behind the long wooden plank, dressed for an upscale establishment. They would have pulled the look off except for the metal collars that encircled their necks. That and the broken, lost looks in their faces. Chicly dressed waitresses and waiters circled the room, but none looked happy to be there.

It was the patrons, however, that surprised Silas. There were a handful of goblins, their human illusions firmly in place, mixing with humans and high Fey alike. The humans seemed oblivious to the monsters in their midst, but the higher Fey and goblins rarely