Work Text:
Kurtis was sitting on a couch, eating a sandwich. It was a shitty couch, lumpy, uncomfortable and kinda smelly if he put his nose too close. Luckily there was a bed to sleep in. An equally shitty, lumpy bed, but slightly less reeking. Shame the whole tiny hotel room carried faint, pervasive stench of its own. It was seeping from the greasy curtains that did little to keep the sun out, the worn out carpet of uncertain colour underneath all the dirt, and the walls covered with the ugliest wallpaper he’d seen in… eh, at least a year or two. He’d been to way too many shitty hotels in that time.
Oh and the sandwich sucked too.
But Kurtis was tired and hungry so he slowly chewed the food while he watched the news on a small ancient TV, bored by the troubles normal people had. He didn’t precisely want to claim other people’s problems were insignificant, but at this moment he didn’t give a damn, really. His life sucked and he had the right to wallow in misery and feel sorry for himself.
He yawned and his vision blurred with tears. He should go to bed; he didn’t sleep last night and very little the night before that, but the demon he was hunting was crafty and unpredictable. A few contacts promised to call if there was anything suspicious – even though they wouldn’t know it was supernatural – and Kurtis didn’t want to risk being too deeply asleep to hear the phone.
He reluctantly reached for his cup of coffee. If anyone asked him which of the shitty things in this shitty room was the shittiest, he wouldn’t need to think for a second. The repulsive dark liquid that was keeping him awake should have been considered a bioweapon.
He took a gulp, grimaced, spent a moment to wonder if splashing it on the demon would kill it, and then bit into his sandwich to replace the nasty taste with something tasteless instead.
The news anchor was talking about the legal fights over some property where the city wanted to build a parking lot. If Kurtis had the energy to roll his eyes, he would have.
The man on TV paused then, frowning, he was getting something interesting from his earpiece for sure. Interesting for him at least, Kurtis wasn’t gonna get his hopes up about something exciting if it only ended up being a car accident causing a traffic jam.
The news anchor stuttered a bit, surprised and confused: “We’re – we’re getting news from Egypt.” Kurtis blinked. Well, that was half a world away, what could be so important to interrupt the broadcast?
“The city of Cairo has been… has been overrun by locusts. And there have been sightings of crocodiles in the streets. Some people even claimed… monsters,” his bafflement grew as Kurtis’ stomach dropped. Oh no please don’t let it be something relevant to his job. He didn’t have time to fly to Egypt.
“There are also reports of the sky turning dark in the middle of the day. We should have a visual soon.” Locusts? Darkness? Honestly sounded more like The Plagues of Egypt. Was it even part of his job description? Dammit, it wasn’t not like it was an official job, so what was he doing? He could sit back and ignore whatever natural catastrophe happened to-
Kurtis’ thoughts came to a halt when the screen changed from the studio to a bit shaky but sharp picture of a city far away. It resembled a horror movie. Streets nearly deserted, a few people running around trying to hide as locusts – what else could the swarms be – swept the streets. There were fires in several places with no clear explanation for them. And the sky – dark, green and hella ominous. Loud breathing of the person holding the camera didn’t completely cover the strange echoing hum, almost like whispering… whatever it was that replaced normal signs of city life.
Kurtis clamped his mouth shut when he realized it had been hanging open, and then took another sip of the “coffee” to take his mind off of this apocalyptic scene.
This wasn’t natural. Either someone decided to attack Cairo with an elaborate combination of animals, some sort of gas to cover the sky, people secretly starting fires around the city… or it wasn’t the work of humans. Who would want to attack Cairo anyway? Okay so his knowledge of the political climate over there wasn’t great, but what the hell? That would be the weirdest attack in recent history for sure.
Kurtis stared at the images on screen a while longer, trying to find a human explanation for all of this, but unless it was some rich guy’s city-wide prank that the city itself was in on…
Or it was an elaborate trailer for a movie and the news station got a lot of money to pretend it was real. That sounded illegal, not that enough money wouldn’t breach such barriers.
But the fear of the reporter who finally appeared on screen, and the utter bafflement of the news anchor in the studio, once the camera switched back, either pointed to an Oscar-worthy performance or it was real as hell.
Oh yeah, great choice of words.
So if it wasn’t people, what was it? Kurtis sipped his coffee, mind too occupied by the enigma to perceive the taste. Starting fires, that was something any little demon or imp could do, even if they had to be careful due to the harm it posed to them. Unless it was a fire demon, a rare and incredibly annoying type of demon to fight. Or a fire wraith, that would be a less worrying option, he could deal with them the same way Dorothy dealt with the Wicked Witch.
Releasing swarms of locusts into the city sounded like something more mischievous creatures could do, even luring in the crocodiles. Creepy whispers? No problem either.
Of course, all of this could only happen if enough demons or other critters at once decided to accost the city. Go out into the open like this. That shouldn’t happen. That didn’t happen. Not unless something would lend them such boldness.
And what about the rest? He couldn’t recall any instance of a creature changing the colour of the sky, as far as the eye could see.
Kurtis set down the cup and rubbed his face with both palms. There was too much happening at once. Demons weren’t particularly great at cooperation, so someone would have to coordinate that.
He slowly lowered his hands. His stomach dropped as a chilling thought poked at his mind:
What if it was all work of one being?
An extremely powerful and versatile demon. Or something stronger than a demon.
Kurtis turned his eyes back to the screen; the man in the studio was now chatting with an entomologist, they were discussing the locusts.
Yeah, they were not going to explain that one with insect migration or overpopulation. That sky didn’t turn green because too many locusts farted at once.
Egypt… there were beings much more powerful than demons, and Egypt happened to be a country famous for it even nowadays. That didn’t mean they also had to be more active than in other parts of the world, but…
Kurtis stared at the TV, the conversation was still ongoing but the image switched back to the streets of Cairo.
Yeah. Kurtis could easily imagine that. Even if he’d never witnessed it before, only read about it. This really could be a god’s wrath.
“Well, fuck,” Kurtis mumbled. He had no problem admitting that people in that city currently had it worse than him. Was he supposed to go there? This wasn’t really in his job description, was it? Gods were a completely different level, you couldn’t just walk up to them and beat them up, and not only because you would be lucky to even meet them face to face. And “lucky” was a relative term because facing a pissed god meant death. Well, almost certainly. Kurtis really didn’t have any experience in this field. He just knew from stories that mortals who were victorious against gods had to be smart about it. Find an object that weakened them, trick them into getting trapped somewhere, these sorts of things.
Hell, there must have been someone better equipped for it than him, a demon hunter. A god hunter? Kurtis wasn’t sure those existed, it didn’t sound like a job one would survive for long.
Kurtis drained the rest of his coffee and grimaced. Maybe not confronting the god would actually be better, in case the god just got annoyed at the city, or even just someone living there. Aggravating them could mean more destruction.
Or it was just the beginning of a tantrum that was about to span continents.
Kurtis leaned on the backrest, let his head tip back and stared at the cracked ceiling. Would he be useful? Would he even get there in time? Was someone already dealing with the situation?
He heard the news anchor introduce a meteorologist.
Okay, was someone who had at least a slight idea what was going on dealing with the situation?
He supposed he could always go there to check, try to help, if only because he was aware supernatural causes were possible in the first place.
But he really really didn’t want to.
Kurtis got a thought so stupid it was funny. Would the Cabal consider it a rivalry? Would Eckhardt himself crawl from his alchemic den and go fight a god?
Kurtis was leaning forward, face in his palms once again, shaking with laughter. It actually wasn’t funny, not really. Just ridiculous. There was the Shadow War going on, as it had been for centuries, and now there might be a different threat to the whole world and the idea of these two threats dealing with each other instead was nice at first glance, but also terrifying in its potential for collateral damage. Facing a god or not, Eckhardt might have survived for a bit. Or he’d just aggravate the god.
No, Kurtis wasn’t still sure this was a god’s doing, but working with the worst possible scenario often served him well, to be prepared.
Prepared. For a destruction on a godly scale.
Holy shit.
Kurtis wasn’t laughing anymore, but cradling his head in his hands was still a pretty fitting position for his current mood. And for the headache he now remembered having.
The meteorologist on the TV was rambling, baffled, an occasional stutter in his speech. The news anchor was trying to ask reasonable questions that would calm down the public but it was nothing but empty platitudes. Neither knew, and both were using their imagination.
Kurtis also wanted to be sitting around, discussing this situation like a soccer match. Wouldn’t that be just-
His phone started ringing.
Kurtis stilled. He opted out of swearing aloud, but he was sure some god somewhere – maybe not the god currently ravaging Cairo – hated him.
He reached for the phone with one hand, groped around a bit because he refused to raise his head and look. Finally he found it and answered.
“Yeah?”
“Vance,” a male voice gasped, out of breath, “you were right, something weird is happening.” A pause, and the breathing and muffled sounds hinted at the man being at a run. “The garages at Stanford Street got all doors busted. I don’t know what did it, like if they used explosives or whatever. It looks so weird man! Kinda creepy like, it’s like there’s some weird gas around them, or like fog or-”
Kurtis was listening to the worried man, gun in one hand, keys in the other. He spared a split second to turn off the TV, taking one last look at the poisonous green sky.
Oh well, he had trouble to deal with much nearer now. The world better not end in the meantime and make his efforts against the demon meaningless.
Kurtis opened the creaky door to his hotel room, slowly. He was dragging his feet, yawning and wincing whenever one of his new gashes got pulled at. He wasn’t going to enjoy the shower but he really, really needed it.
He locked the door after himself and sighed. So he didn’t manage to save the guy, he’d come too late. But early enough for the demon to be still around to get blown to pieces.
Yeah, that was the easy part.
Asshole managed to regrow itself from any of the pieces. Pieces which it had left all over the city . No wonder Kurtis had had so many sightings he finally decided to get a room somewhere in the middle; the demon could just disintegrate its body and appear elsewhere.
Unwillingly, Kurtis turned his head to look at the clock. The tiredness almost knocked him out as the time shaped itself into something more concrete. Over a whole. Damn. Day! Chasing a slippery bastard of a demon for more than a day without pause before Kurtis could be really sure he got him, every last piece.
He fell on the couch, but ass first, so he counted it as sitting down. His eyes closed.
Shower. He should get a shower.
A large yawn forced tears into his eyes. When he blinked them away, there was a bleary rectangular shape in front of him. Right, the TV.
Shower. Sleep.
But hey, he was curious. If the end of the world was coming from Egypt so all that demon-chasing had been for nothing, he was gonna face the god himself and rip the fucking deity a new one.
The remote was where he’d left it, so Kurtis willed one of his hands to move and reach for it, then to press one button. A herculean undertaking at the moment.
Ha, herculean. He was really leaning into the gods and myths thing, wasn’t he? He better not be doing some twelve labou-
Kurtis stared. It was still the same studio and the same news anchor, and there was a small screen at his shoulder showing a live broadcast from… Cairo.
There were still cars turned over and a few fires being put out but the sky was blue, people were milling about, already repairing damages.
The man in the studio talked in a professional, relaxed tone. There was no panic. Just some confusion, still. Kurtis did his best to turn his focus on the meaning of the words.
It was… over. As quick as it came, it disappeared, whatever it was.
Kurtis nearly crumpled, the last dredges of stress, reasons to stay awake, falling off of his tired mind and body. The nasty smell told him his nose was close to the couch – oh, he dropped sideways on it. So, so tired. Shower… later. Sleep now.
The news anchor was still talking; other parts of Egypt also suffered mysterious damages. Aggressive animals, some reported unnaturally large, had mauled people. Huge sinkholes had appeared across many roads. The Great Pyramid’s main entrance had collapsed and buried someone inside.
Kurtis fell asleep before he heard their name.