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  Fallen Hunters – Bacchus

  An eRed Sage Publication All Rights Reserved Copyright © 2016

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  ISBN: 9781603100540; 1603100547 Fallen Hunters – Bacchus

  eBook version

  Published by arrangement with the authors and copyright holders of the individual works as follows:

  Fallen Hunters – Bacchus © 2016 by Monica Owens

  Cover © 2016 by Fiona Jayde Media

  Printed in the U.S.A.

  ebook layout and conversion by jimandzetta.com

  Fallen Hunters - Bacchus

  ***

  By Monica Owens

  TO MY READERS:

  A whole new world is opening up: the Fallen Hunters. Check out these men that roam the world seeking to destroy evil and finding their matches along the way!

  READER ALERT!:

  Love the Roaring Twenties? Then come meet some mobsters that don’t hesitate to kick ass and take what they want!

  For Bacchus, whose broken heart saved his life;

  And for Michael, who mended my broken heart.

  Bacchus

  Known as the Roman god of wine, his orgies are so infamous that the Roman senate ultimately banned his cults. However, he was originally an archangel and used his wiles and powers to influence the Romans in the belief that he was a god. When he fell, he was not the only member of any pantheon to do so, since Bacchus was not the only one to fool Humanity. Along with the rest of his, and other, pantheons, when they left Hell, they chose to go their separate ways and hunt random demons and soldiers. The pantheons became the Hunters.

  Chapter One

  St Louis, Missouri, 1922

  This speakeasy had shit liquor. Shit. It was amazing that none of these hicks were blind. I asked for another one, but I sure as shit didn’t want to drink it. I tossed a ten on the bar and the old barkeep snapped it up. Like this kerosene was worth ten bucks. He grinned at me, showing brown teeth. So that’s what this moonshine did to you. I didn’t grin back.

  I turned away and looked over the underground bar. There were card games going on in almost every corner. A stage lined the back wall, a sad piano player plunking away on a shiny grand piano. A couple of brass instruments were resting near the piano, so I assumed there’d be livelier music later. There were a bunch of factory workers, even a pocket of well dressed men drinking something red. I should’ve ordered that. Flappers were everywhere and some of them were working girls.

  I didn’t see the person I’d come to see.

  One of the flappers sidled up next to me, her face a thick cake of makeup. Her hair was dark curls pressed tight against her head. The dress she wore was too big, the strap falling over her shoulder.

  “Hi, honey,” she said with a smile. Missing teeth. She must be addicted to the kerosene they were peddling.

  “Hi,” I told her, trying not to make eye contact.

  “You looking for some fun, honey?” She asked as she used a shiny fingernail to follow a pinstripe in my suit.

  “Not tonight, sugar.”

  “You sure?”

  I sure didn’t want to be mean. This girl was young, troubled, and probably riddled with some disease. I wasn’t dipping in that.

  “Sorry, sugar. Maybe some other time.”

  “Sure thing, honey,” she answered, her eyes already wandering past me before she moved off.

  I pretended to sip the foul liquid in my glass while I continued to look over the bar. Maybe I’d gone to the wrong speakeasy? This had been the one all of my information had said was the right one….

  The crowd parted and I saw a flash of white. I moved to my right and there he was, the man I’d been hunting for weeks now.

  Long time ago, there were bastards that fell alongside me. I’m not saying that I wasn’t doing bad shit, but there were some bastards doing worse shit than me. Creating war and killing innocents. I wasn’t into all that. Worse thing I did was fuck a lotta women and encourage everyone around me to do the same. Taught humans the best way to make alcohol, not this cheap shit, and kept them addicted to it. Made them think I was some god they needed to worship.

  Then Gabriel and Michael came and cleaned house. Followed all of us to the ends of the earth to do it, too. Tossed us over the side and told us that if we led humans astray, then we had no right to be on this earth protecting them.

  Fucking spent a thousand years in Hell just for teaching some jackasses how to make wine and get fucked for it.

  Look, I’ve fucked up. No doubt about it. But I sure as shit shouldn’t have been sent to Hell to poke people with a pitchfork. I had orgies, I didn’t have melees. So the second I could, I hitched my wagon to a dragon and got the fuck out of Hell.

  Some of the fallen angels stayed.

  I was looking at one of them right now. I knew him as Plutarch. Handsome son of a bitch, but not real bright. Probably how I found his ass. People are going to do what people do, having their free will and all, but they sure as shit didn’t need this bastard influencing them.

  I set my glass down on the bar and weaved my way through the flappers and the gents that wanted to buy their services. I started this hunt in Miami, following the wide swath of death and deterioration that Plutarch had sneezed out over the country.

  I got to the table and put both fists on it, leaning down over the three men who sat around it, Plutarch in the middle. “Hey, Plu.”

  He blanched. He fumbled his cigarette and it went end over end onto the floor. Plutarch danced in his seat, but who gives a shit. This fight wasn’t going to be fair.

  I grabbed him by the collar and dragged him over the table. The men with him made half-hearted attempts to stop me, but come on. I’ve got the strength of an angel on earth. Plu started to fight a little, but one fist to the face got him to stop that shit. I plugged him good, too, right in the nose, making blood gush out on his white lapels.

  He snorted blood out at me and several people around us started moving away. One of the flappers semi-screamed when she saw the blood, but fuck it. I found my man and I wasn’t taking any crap.

  “Bacchus, Bacchus, stop!” Plutarch yelled.

  I stopped, my hands still fisted in his jacket and shirt. “Tell me why I should.”

  “Look, brother, we’re on the same side—”

  “I’m not on your side.”

  “Bacchus—”

  I punched him again for good measure, mostly just to shut him the fuck up. I swung him around and looked over at the two guys he’d been with. “He give you money? Drugs? Contacts?”

  One held up his hands, his beady eyes narrowing. The other simply shook his head.

  I knew they were lying.

  Gangsters do that a lot.

  When Prohibition started, my hunting became focused on these sons a bitches. Lotta fallen angels that hadn’t left Hell with the Exodus were swarming over these thugs. Helping them. Giving them money and contacts in the underworld. I’d already stomped a few back into the ground. Plutarch just happened to be the latest one.

&nb
sp; These two gangsters were the real thing, too. They weren’t just fucking around trying to make money the easy way. They were in this for the long haul. I looked them over, from their expensive fedoras, over their pinstripe suits, down over their Italian loafers.

  There was no way these two could be saved.

  “We can make a deal,” one started to say.

  “I’ve made enough deals in my life,” I interrupted. I glared at him, at his fleshy face, his beady eyes, and fish-like lips. “I ain’t making a deal with you.”

  “It would be beneficial to both of us, I’m sure,” he said with a shrug.

  I swung Plutarch around and advanced on both the men at the table, dragging the agonized Plu with me. Neither of the men backed down. In fact, the fat one pulled out a cigar, nicely showing me his piece at the same time.

  “I’m not buying what you’re selling, fucker,” I spat. “I’ve already been where you are and let me say, it wasn’t fucking worth it.”

  “All the drink, all the drugs, all the pussy you want?” he asked.

  My mind flashed on when Cupid had run into my room to warn me that our shit was over, three women crawling all over me, my very own personal orgy. Right behind him was Michael, as in, God’s Michael, and shit hadn’t been the same since.

  “Had it,” I sneered. “Paid for it.”

  The man shrugged and adjusted his tie. “Anytime you change your mind, come on up to Chicago. I like your style.” He swept past me, his friend following behind him. “Hope you take out the trash,” he laughed.

  The crowd swallowed him up and Plutarch and I were left with a bunch of flappers and gents staring at us.

  “This place got a back door?” I asked.

  They all pointed toward my right and I dragged Plu that way. He blubbered, something about did I know who I just pissed off or something. Like it mattered. I yanked him down a hallway, a big green door at the end. Using my foot, I smashed the door open and tossed Plutarch through it. He hit the ground just as I let the door slam behind me.

  “Do you know who that was?” he demanded.

  “Don’t know, don’t care.”

  I went to reach for him, but he held up a hand. “Bacchus, please….”

  “It ain’t Bacchus anymore,” I said through clenched teeth. “You can tell the Devil that for sure.”

  I pulled Plu to his feet and threw another right into his jaw. He turned and spit out a tooth or two. He sagged in my grip.

  “Tell him it’s Arcangelo de Bacchio. Got it?”

  Plu moaned.

  So I sent another fist flying into his face. “Got it?”

  “Yeah, yeah. But you don’t understand who you just—”

  I pulled my staff out of my jacket. Looked like a conductor’s wand, until I shook it and it flared open. Ivy wrapped around my hand and ambrosia dripped off the end.

  Plu moaned again.

  With a flip of my wrist, I grasped the staff and sent it spinning into Plutarch’s chest. He combusted into a frill of sparkly glitter that rained down on me and the alley.

  Another shake and the staff was small enough to put in my inside pocket again. I walked off down the alley, whistling.

  Time to find another fallen.

  Chapter Two

  Chicago, March, 1930

  Prohibition was secondary news when the stock market crashed. I’d headed north after St. Louis, made my way through Philadelphia and New York, taking out trash. The last five years, I’d made my home in Chicago, where the underworld had gotten out of control and the city crawled with gangsters. New York, St. Louis, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Miami, all the big cities, were wallowing in the shit these gangsters were wielding. All us Hunters were sitting tight until we were told otherwise.

  Not used to being in one place for so long, I was uncomfortable at first. Then my instincts kicked in and I decided to make some money. Using the Hunter network, its money and connections, I opened a speakeasy. No swill liquor here. I didn’t allow any gangsters inside, but everyone assumed that I was one. No reason to disabuse them of that notion.

  Pretty much every day I headed down to work through the streets of Chicago, sidestepping the kids panhandling and the businessmen who took the easy way out.

  A bookstore fronted my establishment. I nodded to the little old lady who ran the place for me. She narrowed her eyes at me, especially when I blew a stream of smoke throughout the store. Even though she knew I was her boss, she didn’t care. She didn’t like me. The only thing keeping her from ratting us out was the money I was paying to help her son, still shell shocked from the war, stay in the hospital.

  I went into the office and opened the floor to ceiling wall safe. It wasn’t a real safe, but a hidden door to get from the bookstore to the speakeasy.

  A couple women were cleaning up and the bartender restocked the shelves as I came down the stairs. We bought our liquor at top dollar, and truth be told, it tasted like ass. Good thing I used to be the god of wine. One touch to that muck and it flowed like fucking ambrosia. We were making money hand over fist.

  Helped us keep the lady upstairs’ son well, helped us with the kids panhandling outside. Kept a few families of those coward businessmen in their homes a little longer.

  I went behind the bar and nodded to the bartender, a young guy named Deats. His father committed suicide the night the stock market crashed. After shooting his wife, Deats, and Deats’ younger brother and sister. Plucked him out of the hospital and put him to work. Tried to help him through the loss of his whole family.

  “Hey, Angelo.”

  “Busy last night?” I grabbed an ashtray and put my cigarette out, then dumped the tray’s contents in the trash.

  “Yeah. Big night. They’re counting in the back.”

  “Any trouble?”

  Trouble for us came in a lot of forms: police, fights, other gangsters. Anything really. We had the best liquor around. Granted, I didn’t touch every barrel, but we were still known for good shit.

  Deats shook his head. “Couple scuffles, but the twins took care of it.”

  The twins. Freakishly big, we called the brothers One and Two. They showed up at our back door one morning and never left. Never told us their names, either. Some bad shit surely followed them. But they were the best bouncers in Chicago.

  I nodded to the two ladies cleaning up. “They good?”

  Deats looked over at the women cleaning. “Yeah. No one touched them.”

  We have a motley crew around here, but we all look after the girls. Neither of them were whores, but some patrons assume that all the girls in speakeasies were. Dottie came to Chicago with her husband, a cop, and now she was a young widow with a five-year-old son. Fern didn’t talk about her life so much, but from what she had said, it hadn’t been pretty. Both girls lived upstairs, two floors above the bookstore, one floor above One and Two.

  There are other girls, too. Ones that don’t live here. Ones that we hire that need easy money and have already made their choices. But Dottie and Fern weren’t ever going to be two of those girls.

  “All right,” I told him. “I’m gonna go help the guys.”

  When you’re trying to outsmart gangsters, it helps to employ gangsters. My guys had been chosen carefully, all were trustworthy, and all thought I was the shit. Worked for me.

  They knew I had a soft spot for people who were weaker or couldn’t handle their lives. They all had that same soft spot. Not to mention they were paid well and knew the nitty-gritty of this work.

  I heard them laughing long before I made it to the counting room.

  “She took her damn time, man. Last time I promise a woman I’m getting her off before I do myself.”

  I let myself in and whistled low. “Marty, you know how to get a woman off?”

  Marty Mangenello looked over his shoulder at me as I came through the door. “Fuck off, Angelo.”

  I grinned and took my hat then jacket off. “Who’s this new broad?”

  “What makes you think i
t’s a new broad?” Joe Carrier asked.

  “Who’d fuck him twice?” I asked.

  They laughed uproariously as I rolled up my sleeves. The table they sat around was piled high with money. Each had a glass of clear amber liquid at their elbow. Smoke billowed over their heads as each puffed on a cigar. I took my place at the table and nodded over to Mick O’Brian. “Hand me a glass, would ya?”

  “For your information, Angelo, I’ve been with this one for two months,” Marty told me.

  “Two whole months?”

  “Yeah.”

  “That’s a record.”

  The other guys laughed. “Maybe,” Marty acknowledged. “But she might be the one.”

  “There is no ‘One,’” Joe responded. “Unless you’re talking about the bouncer.”

  Marty whipped his hand back, feigning a backhand hit to Joe’s face. More laughter. Marty turned to me, though, and lowered his voice. “So I got a favor for you, Angelo.”

  I took a swig. Ah, the good stuff. “Yeah? What is it?”

  “My girl….” He glanced at the other guys, but only sighed noisily and kept going. “My girl’s got a new roommate.”

  “Yeah, and?”

  Marty rubbed the back of his neck. “Well, she’s straight off the train from Nebraska….”

  “She a farm girl?” Joe asked.

  “Yeah,” Marty nodded. “My girl says she’s not doing so well here.”

  “Why not?” Mick asked.

  “Green,” Marty answered with a shake of his head. “My girl got her a job and she ain’t pulling her weight, if you know what I mean.”

  I looked at Mick, then Joe, then Marty. Marty had his arms crossed and leaned on the table. Both Mick and Joe had paused like I had.

  “She like Dottie and Fern?”

  “No, no, nothing like that. My girl thinks that she didn’t know what she was getting into, that’s all. The whole idea was for her to come here, make money, and then send it home.” Marty shrugged. “She didn’t expect extracurricular activities.”