Hierarchy Of Terror -e

Arbiter Series, Vol 4.

By Matthew Schoonover

Incubus-Detective Gus Pilot is pitted against a demon. Can his vampire friend, Moineau, help him in a battle against evil? In the forth Arbiter, Matthew L. Schoonover again prooves he's master of cross-genre thrills. Mystery, suspense, police-procedural, horror—tale your pick. When the demons of the Third Heirarchy descend on Gus's town, Pilot is determined to put an end to their evil.

ISBN 1-59431-096-3 Horror/Mystery/Paranormal

Cover Art/Maggie Dix.

Also available in RTF and HTML formats.





Prologue

Washing down the gutter between his legs, lapping against his left ankle, was the last of his meager meal for the day, carried on rain water already black with city dirt and grime to the nearest drain.

He looked up. The rain hit his face causing streaks of dirt and grime to etch it like a macabre mask. He opened his mouth and took in some water, gargled and spat it out. He wiped his mouth on the torn remnants of his shirt sleeve and forearm.

The sky rumbled and he looked up again, staring against the rain to see beyond the lights of tenement windows which surrounded him. The sky was black, black as pitch. Black as a void. Black with their rain; gorged, and now disgorging.

Black as he felt his soul must be.

A sound, not unlike the rumble of the sky, came from the alley behind him. He heard ash cans tumble, a dumpster shift against its metal wall, and the squeal of a cat caught suddenly by surprise. He looked down the street both ways. Nothing.

And no one.

He knew his van was nearby and was tempted for one desperate second to flee. But where could he go that he would not be found?

No answer came to mind.

He stood slowly, steadying himself on wobbly legs.

As he pulled his Glock from its holster and turned, the cat--a gray streak in the blacks and grays splashed on the walls by the weak light from nearby windows and the stronger darkness around him--tore from the alley, ignored him, and shot across the street.

He pulled back on the Glock's breech and verified that a round was still in the chamber. Snapping it shut, he faced the alley, arms now down by his side, pistol gripped expertly in his right fist, safety off, finger on the trigger.

"Life or death," he said, surprised by the sound of his own voice. "What the hell. I've had enough of life."

Slowly, he walked into the alley. "Let pain be your guide," he said in a mocking tone. Then laughed. "Lead on, 0 faithful companion."

The sky rumbled again, but still no lightning flashed.

And the alley swallowed him up.

CHAPTER 1

"No pain, no gain, ladies. Keep it moving!"

Danny Rodriguez continued the steps, up and down and up and down, until she thought her legs were going to fall off. Already, she could see the lady to her left, a slightly overweight woman of middle-age with teenage makeup, slowing down. She watched the woman, trying to keep her mind off her own throbbing legs, the muscles protesting with every fiber of movement.

"We're almost there, ladies!"

The Tammy Faye wannabe slowly collapsed to the floor.

No one stopped to help her. Music continued to blare an upbeat, cheerful kind of music from the CD player.

Danny looked around. The wide floor space, bright with overhead lighting and sparkling from a mirror finish, was awash with leotard-clad women of varying shapes and sizes. If she looked beyond the instructor, she could see the whole class in the wall mirrors behind him. There were a couple of others who had slowed but no one was giving up.

She caught Kathy Devereaux smiling at her through gritted teeth. The look in Kathy's sapphire blue eyes was far from sympathetic but, she admitted to herself, Kathy wasn't the sympathetic kind. She was competition oriented, just like Danny herself. But that was where the similarity ended.

Kathy was more the buxom beauty kind. Her tall, lithe frame flowed to the motions of the music and her flaming red hair bounced with a body and exercise all its own. Kathy was swinging sweat and arms with equal vigor, her white, almost alabaster skin showing no blemish or irregularity--not even a damn freckle! After twenty grueling minutes, Kathy's flaming red curls still held their body.

Danny felt as if her own dark tresses were flat and stringy. She knew she was good looking--had been told so many times in the past but had never been able to accept such compliments on their face value (considering the sources). For one thing, she was too short; only five-six, whereas Kathy stood a good six-one. Her dark skin--a strange mulatto combination of her mother's Black heritage and her father's Hispanic origins, gave her a tone that was neutral brown (she'd never have to worry about a tan), and pleasing to any eye.

Her one drawback, Danny told herself, was her tummy. She had a small pooch-belly that she could never get rid of, no matter how hard she tried. Men told her it was perfect; that it was hers and fit her like a hand and a glove, but none of that mattered. To Danny, that was her one flaw in a body men called gorgeous; a body any other woman would have been envious of.

Anyone except Kathy.

From their inseparable teenage years to their companionable college years, Kathy had never stopped reminding her who was the more perfect in stature; who was the most desired of the two. Sometimes, Kathy could become competitive beyond all reason.

Like now.

Kathy wants me to quit, she realized, looking at the redhead's smug face. Anger flared. It was always the same with Kathy. Just because her own father knew Kathy's father, Adrian Devereaux, they had been associated with each other for years. There once was a time when she thought of Kathy as a friend. But that time had passed.

Kathy took great pleasure in considering Danny her rival, ever since college when they roomed together and were known as the salt and pepper team. Kathy loved to compete. Danny knew from experience that Kathy could be as ruthless with beaus as her father was said to be in business. In college, Kathy had once boasted that her goal was to be the female Errol Flynn, a great actress and a great lady with the men. Danny stopped thinking of men as objects d'art around her college years, but she suspected that Kathy never would. Kathy was nothing but a--

She shook her head to clear the thoughts.

Danny concentrated on her breathing, on the beat of the music, on anything and everything except Kathy. She tried to make her mind a blank, but that only brought the pain in her legs and chest to the fore. She looked at the instructor instead. He was a svelte young man with blond curly hair and ocean blue eyes. She tried to think about him. His name was Henri. Henri Something. She shook her head and watched the muscles on his buff frame flow under the tanned skin. Even the thin layer of sweat on his limbs looked good; a thin veneer of moisture, almost a stratum of oil, glistening and rippling. God, she thought, I'm starting to think like one of those women who read Romance Novels.

Still, he was handsome in a Grecian sort of way.