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The sun was just starting to set as the two men made their way down the street. Even in the darkening light, the two still wore their sunglasses. The two men nodded to people as the passed, but no hellos were said or given to any. The people of the projects and tenements knew them, and those that didn't know them, knew of them. They were the Saints. The ones that held back the things that went bump in the night. And by the set of their faces, they were not to be messed with on this night.
"Conner?" asked one of the two men.
"Yeah Murph?" replied the other.
"Why is it we're out here?" asked Murphy.
"Because we're daft fools Murph," said his twin.
Murphy paused and looked over his glasses at his brother, a wry grin on his face. Shaking his head he reached into his pea coat and pulled out a pack of smokes, offering one to his brother and then taking one for himself. With a quick flip of the Zippo from his pocket, he lit the cigarette and took a drag off of it before returning to the conversation.
"Now, being daft fools aside, that wasn't the question. Why is it were out here and not at McGinty's or the Green? I mean it is….."
"I know, I know," snarled his brother. "I know exactly what day it is, ye need not go reminding me. I don't like being out here any more than you do. But something been killing over in the projects near Jamaica Plains, and from what the word on the street has been, it's something we're more prepared to handle than the cops."
Shaking his head, Murphy took a final drag off his cigarette before dropping it on the ground and crushing it beneath his foot. It was days like this that he wondered if saving the lass had been a bright move. Since their return from the west coast, their lives had entered an almost unending cycle. Work at the plant during the day, return home, arm up, and hunt for a few hours when night fell, McGinty's or the Green after that for a few beers, then back home for some sleep. Then the cycle started over.
"Should we at least call Sharpe and his cronies?" asked Murp as he fell into step next to his brother who had started walking again.
"Tried that already," shrugged Conner. "They're arseholes to elbows right now. Said that if it got touch and go to call'em back andhe'd send some of the lads to help, if he could find any sober enough. But for the moment it's just us."
"I'm really starting to hate this job Conner," said Murphy.
"Aye," replied his twin.
Dusk had come and gone, leaving night in its wake, the blackness hanging across the land like a sheet of black velvet. The streets of Jamaica Plain were empty when the boys arrived, its citizens holed up in their apartments and homes, hoping that whatever monster that had come into their neighborhood would stay away from them for the night.
The two men let their eyes sweep across the houses and they slowly walked down the barren wasteland that was Boston after dark. Where people should have been, all they found was silence and stillness. Conner thought for a moment he caught an old woman peeking out from behind the blinds, but as quick as a flash, she was gone.
"Fun part of town you've brought us to Conner," said Murphy with a sarcastic tone to his voice.
"I was thinking the same thing there Murphy," shrugged Conner. "So where do you reckon we should start looking?"
A scream of pain filled the night and both men spun and began to run down the dark streets. Rounding a corner into an alley, the two brothers came to an abrupt halt as they took in what was before then.
"I'd say we've found what we're looking for, Murph," Conner said with wide eyes.
"Aye," was Murphy's only response.
Before them stood a beast nearly 9 feet tall with legs that looked to be almost green and scaly with a lizard like tail swishing behind the monster. Its torso and arms were covered in dark matted fur, with bits hanging from them their neither man dared want to guess what they were. Neither of the two could see the beasts face, but they could make out the sharp pointed horns jutting out of its head.
Before the beast, they could see an Italian looking man swinging what remained of a pallet back and forth, attempting to keep the monster away from a woman lying on the ground. With a nearly primal scream the man lashed out as the giant reached out to grab the downed woman, breaking the board across the arm of the beast.
The twins looked at each other and nodded. Moving in a nearly precise and identical motion, the two drew out their shotguns and moved to fire on the monster. The shotguns barked, throwing the payload out toward the beast and both men smiled as it staggered clutching its side and fell down to its knees.
"Take that ye bastard! No one gets away with munching on people in our town," smirked Murphy.
Both men paled as the monster turned its head slowly and fixed its gaze on them. Where pain should have been in its twin yellow eyes, there was nothing but hatred. It stood up and straightened its shoulders and turned toward Conner and Murphy, a snarl on its lips.
"You will suffer for meddling with me manchild," it said in a low gravely voice.
"Oh shite," said Conner and Murphy at the same time.
The beast lashed out with one of its massive fists, trying to swat at the twins. The two scattered, each trying to stay out of the beasts reach. Murphy ducked behind it attempting to fire off another round at the monster flank only to discover that he had forgotten about the tail. With one strike of the tail, the Irishman took to the air, landing on top of a dumpster with a thud.
Conner was fairing no better as the massive monster lumbered after him, its fists lashing out but failing to make contact with him. Ducking and weaving, the man dodged the hits the giant tried to land, with each fist seeming slow compared to his sparing with Faith. His attention was momentarily taken away from the monster as the Italian tried to enter the fray again, hitting the beast and Conner with a poorly aimed garbage can. The moment was all that the monster needed and Conner suddenly found himself airborne as one of the mighty fists connected, sending the Irishman down and out of the alley where he landed with a thud.
"Fools," growled the beast as he turned back toward the Italian and the downed woman. "We have some business to finish."
Conner groaned as his mind came back online. Glancing around he could see that the beast had the Italian pinned to the wall, its massive hand holding the man off the ground. Quickly he searched for his twin, but the twin was no where in sight. With a moan, Conner dragged himself to the edge of the alley and propped himself up against the edge.
Glancing around the corner he could see the demon talking to the pinned man, but both their voices were to quiet for the Irishman to hear from his position. Searching the alley a second time, Conner could barely make out Murphy lying behind the dumpster he had landed on. His twin seemed to be trying to get his breath back as well before reentering the fray.
"What the hell do we do now?" he muttered to himself. "What would the lass ……"
With an evil smile Conner dug his hand into his pocket and pulled out a cell phone. Hitting the speed dial the man prayed into the phone and waited as the phone rang.
"Lass, thank god," he said into the phone. "Listen, Murph and Me are in a bit of a crunch right now."
Listening for a moment he wincing as the voice on the other end began to get louder.
"Aye lass, I know what day it is, but as Harper say 'When duty calls me, I must go' and all that shite. So we'll get to it later. Listen it's about nine feet tall, scaly on the bottom and hairy on the top, horns, and some yellow eyes, how the hell do we kill it?"
Conner listened for a moment and then stopped and pulled the phone away from his ear and stared at it. Shaking his head he put the phone back against his head.
"What do you mean, 'what color blood does it have?' We canna even dent it. The shotguns only seemed to annoy it."
He listened some more and glanced around the corner. The demon had dropped the man and was now interrogating the woman, whom had the misfortune of waking up.
"We've got to what?" he demanded into the phone. "Alright lass, if you say so. Right, we'll call you when this is all through. Right, bye lass."
Conner hung up the phone and stared at it a moment, shaking his head.
"Bloody hell," he growled as he dragged himself upright.
"I ask you again, where is my money bitch?" demanded the demon. "You were warned when you bought your drugs from my men that if you didn't pay, I would collect personally."
The woman shook her head back and forth, tears streaming from her eyes. Her and tried to pry open the massive hand that had her pinned to the wall as she sobbed and wailed.
"Would you like me to kill your man first," demanded the demon. "Perhaps then you will give me what you owe me."
A rumble filled the alley and the demon turned to see an old green car enter the alley. The demon frowned and narrowed its eyes as it realized that the man whom he had thrown out of the alley earlier was sitting behind the wheel, grinning manically.
Punching down on the accelerator, Conner drove the old machine down the alley with an unerring and extremely lucky precision, catching the demon with the hood but narrowly missing the girl. Mashing the accelerator down even more Conner raced the speed up before he stomped the brakes and tossed the demon down the alley and into a wall at the end, stopping the car barely feet from the end.
"How'd that feel, ya bastard!" he yelled as he climbed out of the car.
Murphy appeared next to the car as his brother climbed out of their now dented ride and stared at his brother in shock.
"What the hell where you thinking?" he demanded as Conner turned and opened the trunk.
"The lass said to use the old standby to take the demon out," he replied as he rooted through the trunk and pulled out a sword they had found at a yard sale.
Tossing the blade to his twin, Conner searched around the trunk some more and pulled out combat knife retrieved from their west coast trip as well as a hammer. Digging around some more he pulled out a bottle of something and headed for the body.
"So what?" asked Murphy. "We hack him to pieces now?"
"Sort of," nodded Conner. "Preferable before he gets up."
Looking decidedly green for a moment Murphy stared at the sword, then his brother. Conner shrugged and moved toward the downed demon, trying to figure the best way to approach the method for the beast's demise as handed out by Faith. The demon groaned and Conner kicked it head, hoping to keep the beast unconscious.
Murphy stared as his twin walked around the downed demon and studied it from various angles as if he was trying to size up a putt on a golf course.
"What the devil are ye doing?" Murphy asked, his had gripping the sword a little tighter.
"One moment," said Conner as he poked at the demon with his knife.
Nodding to himself, the Irishman cut on the demon for a moment, shaving away the demon's smelly foul hair. Murphy's eyes widened as a gem, embedded in the demon's back began to appear as Conner cut away the matted fur.
Sighing to himself, Conner quickly cut the gem out of the beasts flesh. Popping it loose with the tip of the knife, he watched it land on the ground and roll around before coming to a stop. Setting the knife down, Conner picked up the hammer and smashed the gem to pieces, turning it to dust with several quick successive bashes.
"Well, that's done," he said after a moment.
Murphy looked at his brother for a moment with his eyebrows raised. Then he looked at the sword. Then he looked at his brother again.
"So what the fuck did ye give me the sword for?" asked Murphy.
Conner put on a wry grin and smirked at his brother for a moment. Undoing the top off the bottle of water from the trunk, Conner took a hefty swig and stood up and moved toward the car.
"That's for ye to cut off its head with," he said as closed the trunk and moved toward the couple.
"Yer an ass Conner!" shouted Murphy as he stared at the downed demon, trying to figure out the best approach for his task.
Conner walked slowly toward the man and the woman, pausing only to pick up a shotgun one of the two had dropped. The woman sat in a ball, crying and shaking, her arms wrapped around her legs. The Irishman tried to soothe her, but she neither heard him or she didn't care.
Moving on, Conner checked on the Italian. The man groaned as Conner checked him over.
"Fuck me," moaned the Italian.
His eyes sprang open and he looked around the alley, searching for the monster that attacked him.
"We gotta get the fuck outta here!" he yelled, pulling on Conner sleeve. "It's gonna fucking get us!"
Conner winced as he heard some cursing and a wet chopping sound from the back of the alley, but avoided looking over his shoulder.
"The things gone, yer fine," he said, trying to soothe the Italian.
"I'll get ye for this Conner!" yelled Murphy from the back of the alley, the wet hacking sound continuing. "So help me I'll get ye for this!"
"Right Murph!" he shouted back as he helped the Italian up. "You two should be fine now. Go home, sleep it off, you'll be fine in the morning. This will seem like one big dream."
"You're joking right?" demanded the Italian. "That fucking thing is gonna kill us, or at least her. Stupid druggie bitch, I warned her about buying from the new guy up here, but did she listen, NOOOOO. Wait, what was that thing!?!"
Conner held his hands up and moved to block the Italian's view of the rear end of the alley. He knew the car hid most of what Murphy was up to, but he doubted the couple would want to see what his twin was up to.
"It's gone, that's all ye need to be worrying about," smiled Conner. "We ummm…. ran it over, I mean off. Shouldn't be bothering ye any more."
Rubbing his hands through his hair, the shell shocked looking Italian picked the woman off the ground and pointed her down the alley and toward the street. Conner could hear the two talking as they went, amazed how fast people tried to ignore the things that went on in the night.
"Your all right sweetheart, tell you what, how about we get you a cat," he said to the woman.
He stopped and turned around and looked at Conner a moment, his arm wrapped protectively around the woman.
"Thanks for your help. Name's Rocco," said the man. "I'll see you around. You need anything, just let me know. Anything, and I mean anything."
With that, he turned and led the woman off into the night.
Conner shook his head and headed toward the back of the alley. The chopping had stopped so he figured his brother was done. He had almost cleared the car when his phone rang.
"Hello, this is Conner," he said into the phone. "Oh, Hi Ma! Good to hear from you too. Same too ye Ma. No, No Ma nothing going on here."
He smirked as he cleared the front of the car and found Murphy, covered in a yellowish looking blood, a scowl on his face, and sword in his hand. 'It's Ma,' he mouthed as he listened to the phone.
"What do ye mean, what are we doing? Of course we're not fightin Ma. Murphy and I are being regular saints right now. We'd never harm a soul. Aye, Aye. Where's Murph, oh he's around somewhere. I think he's getting cleaned up from work, trying to scrub off all the blood ye know."
Murphy scowled a his brother and shook his head, heading to the car. He worked hard to resist the urge to poke his brother with the mess covered sword. Pulling off his shirt and pants, Murphy tossed them into a grocery bag and changed into cleaner clothing. Taking out a smoke he watched as his twin continue to talk with their mother.
"I, I know Ma," said Conner into the phone. "Aye, we were there too. Look Ma, we gotta go. Little bit more clean up to do before we can go out and hit the pubs. Aye, Love you too. Ma before we go, I gotta ask, which one of us was first. Ma? Ma?"
Sighing he closed the phone and put it back in his pocket.
"Fucking woman is crazy," he said after a moment as he sat down next to his brother and starting smoke of his own.
"Now can we go?" asked Murphy as he finished off his smoke.
"Aye," said his brother.
Clapping and shouts for the band playing on stage assaulted the two as they entered the 'Orange and the Green'. The twins nodded and shook hands with the regulars as they made their way through place and toward the bar. The bartender nodded and slide two pints down to the waiting twins, their mouths practically drooling as the Guinness slide their way.
Both turned toward the stage and smiled as the band began to play its next song, the lead singer having quieted the bar down.
Of all the money that e'er I spent
I've spent it in good company
And all the harm that ever I did
Alas it was to none but me
And all I've done for want of wit
To memory now I can't recall
So fill to me the parting glass
Good night and joy be with you all
If I had money enough to spend
And leisure to sit awhile
There is a fair maid in the town
That sorely has my heart beguiled
Her rosy cheeks and ruby lips
I own she has my heart enthralled
So fill to me the parting glass
Good night and joy be with you all
Oh, all the comrades that e'er I had
They're sorry for my going away
And all the sweethearts that e'er I had
They'd wish me one more day to stay
But since it falls unto my lot
That I should rise and you should not
I'll gently rise and softly call
Good night and joy be with you all
"Happy Saint Patties, Murph," said Conner as he tapped his glass to his brother's.
"Aye," replied his Murphy. "I'm still going to get even though."
"Right, Murph, Right," smiled Conner, all the while hoiping they never had another Saint Patties day like this one ever again.
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