Ghostfinders 01 - Ghost of a Chance

JC took a moment to crouch on the rocking steel floor and get his breath back. His head was spinning, he was shaking all over, and his heart felt like it was trying to leap out of his chest. It was at times like this that JC really wished he went to the gym more often. Or at all.
    He forced himself back onto his feet, and looked around. The car was empty, its light surprisingly normal. And then a bitterly cold wind blew up out of nowhere and slapped him bluntly in the face. The cold soaked into him, biting at his bare hands and face, stealing away all sensation even as it numbed his brain and slowed his thoughts. This was the cold of the space between worlds, untouched by the warmth of suns, cold enough to blast the soul. One of the many faces of Hell; a taste of what was to come. A slow certain knowledge came to JC then—that if he insisted on going on, if he persisted in his attempt to rescue Kim . . . he would die. And his soul would be trapped on the hell train forever, or at least until such time as the Institute sent a team to exorcise it and him. JC knew that, as surely and certainly as he knew anything, and didn’t give a damn. It might be true, or it might not; you couldn’t trust anything on a hell train. But even if someone he trusted had told him he was doomed, and damned, he would have gone on anyway. Because Kim needed him. So he thrust his face into the bitter cold wind, stamped his frozen feet, and forced himself down the length of the car, one hard step at a time. Forcing himself on, against everything the train could throw at him.
    Because in the end that’s what love is. To go on, despite everything, driven by hope and faith alone.

    The door at the end of the car opened abruptly before him, then the door into the next, and he stepped through into the crimson hell glare of demon territory and the company of Hell. Dozens of the creatures filled the car from end to end, packed in tight, facing him with anticipatory smiles, with teeth and claws and long, barbed arms with too many joints. Foul, horrid things with inhuman needs and appetites made clear in their misshapen flesh, all the better to inflict suffering upon the living. They laughed in JC’s face and stamped their cloven hooves upon the steel floor.
    JC laughed right back in their awful faces, and the demons actually paused a moment, taken aback. They weren’t used to being so openly defied and mocked, in the face of certain torment and slow death. The sight of them was usually enough to drive mortals out of their minds. JC struck a studiedly casual pose and addressed the waiting host of Hell with contemptuous disdain.
    “I don’t know if you really are demons called up out of Hell or only living extensions of my unseen enemy; and I don’t give a damn. It doesn’t matter what you are. You stand between me and my Kim; and I am here to rescue her. Get in my way, and I swear I will strike you down like the hammer of God.”
    The cold, certain implacability in his voice held the demons motionless. And in that long, extended moment, JC took out a heavy brass knuckle-duster and slipped it onto his left hand. He reached down with his other hand and drew from a concealed ankle sheath a long, rune-etched silver dagger. He showed both weapons to the demons and laughed as they seethed uncertainly. JC took a glass phial from his inside coat pocket, pulled out the rubber stopper with his teeth, and spat it away. And then he poured some of the holy water over his silver blade and some over the knuckle-duster. He drank the rest, tossed the empty phial aside, and smiled a really nasty death’s-head smile at the demons assembled before him.
    “All right, you ugly pieces of shit. Let’s do it.”
    He strode forward, weapons at the ready. Not to punish the demons, or to take vengeance for all the missing commuters, or even to strike them down for what they were. He was doing what was needed to reach and rescue Kim because that mattered more to him than life itself.
    To fight with demons, your intent must be pure. And even then, there’s no guarantee you’ll win.
    The demon host rose up before him, and he hit them hard, lashing out with his silver blade and punching in misshapen faces with his brass knuckles. The silver blade sliced cleanly through demon flesh, opening them up like garbage bags. They fell screaming and howling to the floor, their steaming insides spilling out even as they tried to stuff them back in. The brass knuckles shattered