Raymond Cruz: Demon Hunter

Raymond Cruz: Demon Hunter 

 Chapter 26

March 7, 2025 — 5:04am. Elevator doors swing open, and a dark, quiet man steps out. His beard as black as his sport coat and slacks. His tan-coloured face, his solemn hazel eyes turn into a shifty stare  as he surveys the cold concrete hallway.  At the end of the way, a young bus boy in a red bow tie holds open a steel door to let in his collection of garbage bags. 

The dark, quiet man suddenly calls out: ‘Hold the door, please!’ the young bus boy motions to him to come over. The dark man hauls two thick, industrial-sized garbage bags out of the elevator and waddles over to the bus boy at the steel door with them in hand.

The bus boy holds open the door to reveal a tiled alcove that smelled of putrid waste. In the center, a greasy-rimmed hole that led to a dark, seemingly-bottomless Pitt. The man stares.

‘Garbage chute,’ the bus boy says, smiling at him. He continues to stare into the bottomless Pitt.

‘Don’t worry it all goes down there truck comes and picks it up.’

The dark man smiles warily. ‘That’s how it works.’

‘Sure is.’ The bus boy chuckles.

The dark man toss both heavy bags into the chute and a moment later a loud thud is heard as they hit the bottom. He turns to the bus boy and the two get into a staring contest.

‘Okay, now.’ He says to the bus boy. ‘Goodbye.’

The young worker eyes him curiously as the dark man quickly grabs the exit to the staircase. Walking up the staircase, his phone vibrates in his pocket and he checks to see who it is. Annoyed to see who is texting him, he grumbles to himself and he steps through the door one floor up and out into a beautiful hotel lobby.

He drowns in the light of the epic crystal chandelier  hanging over the center of the floor. The sounds of a grand piano echoes in the piece which is illuminated in a warm golden glow. The security desk, with a tired old black security guard  behind it, sits at his left.the dark man turns to the security guard, motioning for a writing apparatus.

‘Can I get a pen to sign out?’ The dark man asks the security guard.

‘It’s okay’, the man says with a wave of his hand, preoccupied with his phone call. 

Outside the luxury hotel, the dark man stares up at the light snow falling gently from the dark sky. He pulls a cigarette from his pocket and searches frantically around his person for a lighter.

‘Excuse me,’ a soft voice calls out from beside him. ‘You need a light?’

The dark man turns and sees a beautiful woman of his age in a black dress with a lady’s winter coat draped over her shoulders; cigarette in hand, smiling coolly at him with warm eyes connecting with his. The dark man asks accepts that she light him up and quickly thanks her. He all but turns to walk away.

‘I know you,’ she says suddenly.

‘You do?’ He stares at her curiously.

‘You’re Raymond Cruz. You went to JFK High School. I’m Lisa.’

The dark man called Raymond Cruz smiles politely at her and draws from his cigarette. ‘Yea I remember you.’

She laughs and comes closer, flicking her cigarette. ‘You look good. We came a long way since math class’

Raymond Cruz grows exponentially shy. ‘Uh huh. You still sing?’

‘I do. You still play guitar?’

‘Yeah.’

‘We used to play together at lunch. You on the guitar and I would sing. Your girlfriend was that Maya girl. And I drove you two all the way home after your car got two flats.’

Raymond coughs. ‘Yeah I remember.’

Lisa tosses her cigarette butt as she eyes a black steel crucifix at the end of a chain around his neck. Raymond eyes the necklace on her. A black steel crucifix at the end of it. Then he unintentionally eyes the beauty mark on her left breast. He looks away, back at her eyes. Awkwardness ensues.

‘We have the same cross,’ Lisa says, smiling.

‘Heh. Yeh.’

Raymond coughs again and looks away.

‘You should totally come up and have a drink in my room. Maybe a coffee. Maybe something else.’

‘Lisa, I’m sorry. I’m married.’ Raymond steps back.

Lisa is visibly devastated. She looks down at the ground. ‘I didn’t see a ring.’

‘Yea I don’t wear it when I work.’

‘Baby?’

‘Expecting.’

‘Expecting a baby. Wow ok. So embarrassing.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘It’s okay. I’m sorry.’

‘Don’t be sorry. Don’t be embarrassed. It’s not your fault.’

Lisa, no longer pretending to be polite, turns away in disappointment. Raymond breaks the silence.

‘I’ll just go.’

He quickly walks down the front steps of the luxury hotel. A fat old Russian man calls to him from his car. ‘Taxi.’

‘No.’ Raymond continues past him and halfway down the block on the wet, snowy street.

He turns into an alley, where a black sedan waits for him, the engine running. He gets into the driver’s seat.

His hands are semi-frozen. He puts them on the heater vent. ‘Stupid.’

He sighs. ‘Fuck man, too much awkward for one night.’ Suddenly, Raymond receives a phone call on his Bluetooth car speaker.

‘Yes, Al.’

‘Nice to hear you answer now finally.’ The raspy voice belonging to an overweight old man coughs and spits.

‘I was working, Al. What you think?’

‘You activated voice command, Ray. who was that?’

‘Nothing . Smoking a cigarette with someone I knew from high school.’

Al moans. ‘What, Al?’

The overweight man moans louder. ‘Old cheerleader girlfriend wanted to recreate high school days exchanging cooties under the bleachers? I don’t like.’

‘Huh?’

‘You need to quit smoking Ray. You’re gonna be a dad now. And be good to your wife. She needs you. She needs you in good health.’

‘I know. Don’t worry.’

‘Speaking of which, smoking is not the only threat to your health. Did you get the SNVP-3?’

‘Getting it this week.’

A moan rumbles over the speaker once again. Raymond Cruz grows frustrated and worried. ‘What IS it, Al?’

‘Your injection is coming up.’

Raymond is a little upset. ‘I was BUSY. I’ll get it.’

‘Without the SNVP-3 I can’t make no BrainFormium-D, Ray. And I need time to prepare the formula.”

‘Fuck, Al, my last injection was Jan 9, next injection is April 9. It’s been 2 months. I have a month to get this stupid formula.’

“Okay. I trust you. Anyway, when we have our supply for one year I won’t pressure you anymore. I care about you, Ray.’

Raymond grumbles back at him.

‘I’m serious . I don’t want to see you become a vampire again.’

‘Okayyyyy’

‘We kill vampires. And you’re one of the best, I’d hate to have to put you down because you become one of them.’

Silence. Ray stares angrily into space.

‘Get your condition under control, Ray. You’re going to be a dad and there’s not a lot of people in your profession to come by. You’re much needed, alright?’

‘Fine. anything else?’

‘Yes. I have an emergency and time is a factor here.’

Ray is surprised. ‘Emergency…at sunrise?

‘I’m messaging you since before, God damn it. You don’t answer your phone?’

‘Al, it’s Friday. It’s the weekend. It’s sun up. If that message is anything other than a message saying I got my transfer of 1200 dollars, that’s 400 dollars a head times 3 vampires, then I don’t wanna—‘

‘Where’d you leave the bodies?’

‘In the garbage chute.’

‘We need to Be careful and find a new solution with that Ray. These vampires are breaking out into the day now, last thing we want is for one to come back to life in the middle of the city dump in the middle of the day.’

His eyes sinking into his skull, his anxiety ever-increasing, Ray lights another cigarette. Only this time it is a marijuana cigarette, which the intention to sedate his consciousness into accepting one final grueling task for the night. ‘We need to find out why these vampires are breaking out into the day.’ He says, taking a savage haul. What the old man would say is he knew he was smoking on the job.

‘We do. We do need to find out why they are breaking out into the day time now. Til then we just keep doing the best we can to kill them before sun up. And today’s sun up is at 6:21, so you got time to go in your messages and put the address I sent you in your little GPS there.’

‘I don’t wanna take another contract, I wanna go home.’

‘One last contract Ray. You’re looking for apartments with your pregnant wife. you need the money.’

‘How much per head? How many vampires?’

‘3 vampires at 120 per head.’

‘Al! What the fuck! You want me to take a contract when I’m tired at 120 per head?!’

‘There’s a fourth head, Ray. This last one is their leader, a much older vampire, and the bounty is 4500.’

‘Wow okay you got my attention.’

‘This leader is old Ray. He’s a demon demon. Straight from hell. Sent by Satan himself. This isn’t some for the weak of heart shit.’

‘Uh-huh. Al, this address is in the east. Some poor trap house demons?’

‘Hurry. You have one hour to sun up.’

‘And I want the transfer right away, Al. Don’t make me wait,  alright?’

‘You have 59 minutes.’ Al hangs up. Raymond doesn’t leave right away, he finishes his marijuana cigarette. 

The radio music depresses him. He laughs in the mirror. ‘Why do I need my injection? Put me down, Al! I’m too old for this shit.’

The robotic GPS voice comes to life over the speaker. ‘Take a right.’ 

Raymond shifts into drive. ‘Vampires in the day. I sleep in the day, I guess that doesn’t make me a vampire, Al. I’m gonna be a dad not a fuckin vampire…’

He makes his drive down the Boulevard to his destination, his mind drifting further away in the opposite direction.

chapter 27

5:46am. Parked. Raymond continues to talk to himself. ‘What am I good for if the demons come out in the day now? Do they not care? Do the demons not give a shit how things work?

He tosses his final cigarette butt out the window and does the sign of the cross with his right hand as he looks at his sunken eyes in the mirror. He grabs a blade from inside his coat and holds it close to his face and kisses it. The dagger is all black, with a cross engraved in the black pewter handle.

‘I love you Jesus. One more contract for the night. One more contract before the sun comes up. The vampires need to be killed for now they try to break into the day. I will kill them because I am the contract vampire killer.’

He looks down and eyes his phone. 7 percent battery left and he curses the device.

‘Fuck! I didn’t charge my phone. Stupid shitty charger. Doesn’t stay charged. Need to buy a new one not a shitty one from the gas station.’ He puts the phone in his pocket and steps out the car.

The house is a dilapidated one-story bungalow with boards on the windows, but a pink light piercing through the cracks of the wood indicate that the house is yet lived it.

Fence unlocked, door unlocked, Raymond steps inside quietly. He heads straight for the Kitchen. The house is a disaster. Looks like a tornado passed through the kitchen and into the living room.

Raymond removes a charger wire from his pocket and proceeds to plug his phone into the wall, removing centuries-old tin cans and dirty plastic bags to make space on the counter.

THUD! He hears a noise and proceeds to the hallway, hand moving deeper into his coat.

An ominous black door stands at the end of the hallway. Pink light leaks out onto the floor from underneath. He could hear faint feminine laughing coming from inside the room. He gulps, hand in his coat; puts his left hand on the door and slowly pushes it open.

The room is bathed in hot pink light from the TV which has fallen to the floor carelessly onto a pile of dirty clothes and rags. Two naked women with blood running from their mouths down to their bony chests look up at him lazily. They smile devilishly, revealing their sharp fangs.

A third naked woman covered in blood lays to their left on a bloody mattress propped up against the wall. Her stomach large, but somewhat deflating, an umbilical cord stretches out from her bloody genitals, a deceased baby connected to it stiff on the floor in a red mess of afterbirth on the ground. The mother, also a vampire, flashes a sharp-fanged smile at Raymond as she clasps the decapitated head of a man and drinks his brains from the severed hole.

Raymond slowly steps closer. The three vampire women moan. He stops.

The mother vampire starts playing with the umbilical cord sticking out of her. She spins and twists the organic cord, moaning with pleasure.  ‘you here to eat with me, or feed me?’ She says to Raymond. The vampire hunter says nothing.

She waves a hand at him and makes a demand. ‘Fuck me.’

Raymond’s black steel cross flies off his neck. The mother vampire catches it, dips it in the blood of the severed neck; she then moves the cross down to her mangled genitals and proceeds to pleasure herself with it.

‘Fuck me!’ Her demand grows more adamant.

The two other women begin to laugh.

Ray pulls out a gun; aims it at the mother with her dead baby, grips tightly to the black cross engraved into the handle. ‘You a vampire?’ He asks her.

Suddenly, a tall skinny pale man with long grey hair steps into the room from a side door. He has no clothes except for a pair of baggy ripped up slacks. His white torso covered in sores. His eyes even more sunken in than Raymond Cruz’s eyes. He smiles ominously at the vampire hunter. His voice breaks the silence.

‘The one who does what is sinful is of the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the beginning.’ He looks at the women on the floor, pointing at Ray as they look up at him in admiration. ‘The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work.’

Raymond chuckles. ‘John 3:8. Bible quotes huh? You going to try to spin them verses for the Devil?’

From the kitchen, they can all hear the ring tone of Ray’s cellphone as he receives a call. It’s echoes through the kitchen and the hallway to them. 

Ray shoots at the demon man, aiming for his head. The demon evades the bullet with demonic speed and is hit in the shoulder.

The vampire women pull on Raymond’s trousers, attempting to seduce him as the demon leader escapes the room. The mother vampire levitates to her feet, thrusting her naked body upon him and attempting to kiss him. Raymond pulls his black blade from its hidden sheath and drives it into the vampire woman’s chest, dragging it down to her belly and ripping her open.

He is then jumped by the two other vampires. Grabbing onto his leg, one of the vampires trips him to the ground. The other sits on his face and coos fiendishly at him.

‘Eat me. Drink me. Have some blood’

Raymond reaches up and drives his blade into her rib cage and drags it down, ripping her open. She falls to the ground, lifeless. The final vampire woman runs out into the hallway towards the kitchen. Raymond gets up and runs after her.

His phone once again vibrates and rings loudly.

Opposite the vampire and his phone, Raymond chases her around the center island counter until he makes it to the wall plug. He grabs his phone. The vampire woman attempts to lunge at him but he smashes her against a cabinet. She is frail and surrenders quickly. Raymond puts the phone to his ear.

‘Al, this is not the fucking time.’

‘Baby?’

Raymond is stunned to hear his wife on the line. ‘Karina. Baby.’ The phone drops to the ground and the call is ended. The vampire taunts him with her hands in the air. 

‘Karina! Karinaaaa!’

Raymond plunges his blade into her guts; she falls to the ground. Disgusted, he wipes her guts from his hand and picks up his phone and dials his wife. She answers. ‘Karina, sorry.’

‘Where are you?’ She says softly. A little sadness in her voice. ‘Why aren’t you home in bed with me? Why don’t you answer?’

‘Baby I was charging my phone. I’m working. What’s wrong?’ Using his blade, he quickly saws off the head of the vampire woman. The voice of his wife grows ever sadder.

‘I had bad dreams in the night. And I woke up and you’re still not here.’

‘Baby, you know you don’t need to call me because I’m busy at night. Do I need to repeat what I do for a living?’

‘You’re still working. I don’t believe you’

Raymond sighs. He collapses to the ground next to the vampire’s decapitated body. ‘Baby. Our fight has been killing me. I don’t want to fight with you anymore. I had the worst day in my life. I’m sorry for everything I said bad to you.’

Silence.

‘You’re still angry?’ Raymond’s voice broke. ‘You don’t want to forgive me for everything and start fresh?’

‘I just want honesty from you.’

‘Like how?’

‘What’s her name?’

‘You don’t trust me?’

‘If we can’t have relationship with trust, Raymond Cruz, I don’t know what we have for this baby on the way. I have bad dreams and you’re still not home.’

Raymond grows frustrated. ‘Because I’m working! How many times I say don’t call me when I’m working because it’s a distraction!’

‘But I don’t know what you’re really doing when you say you’re working.’

Raymond walks to the room at the end of the hallways and saw off the heads of both remaining female vampires. He looks around. The demon leader is nowhere to be found.

‘Now I tell you, Karina, my love, If we can’t have relationship with trust…’

‘It’s simple. I just need you to tell me the truth Raymond.’

Raymond gets mad, ‘Well how many times I have to tell you the fuckin truth before you believe me, Karina!’

The Demon walks into the room. Ray wipes blood from his mouth and gets a small taste of it on his tongue. Human blood. His eyes start to burn, a symptom of the vampire still refusing die inside him. How long til my injection? He wonders.

‘Fuck you! Don’t come home.’ Karina cries.

Raymond grows concerned about the deliciousness of the blood on his tongue. He snaps.

‘Fine!’ Raymond yells.

Silence. Raymond grows desperate. ‘I’m sorry, Don’t hang up. I want to be with you. I want to be a father.’ But she hangs up before he finishes his sentence.

The Demon smiles and points at Ray, ‘You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.’

Raymond looks up at him and sneers. ‘John 8:44. You have all the bible verses to provoke me huh?’

Raymond tackles the demon, but the creature’s supernatural strength is a wall of resistance for the vampire hunter. The demon grabs Raymond by the collar, lifting him up into the air; his sharp talons digging into Raymond’s chest and drawing blood.

‘The Lord Jesus Christ is my saviour. God is the father!’ Raymond yells. He pulls his gun, the demon is frightened and ready to toss his body to the side. Once again, the hunter only clips the demon in the arm.

His phone rings. 

‘Baby.’

‘Who the fuck is Lisa?’

‘Who?’ More blood drips to his tongue and he spits it out before the vampire in him can enjoy it.

‘She added you on Facebook. How long you been fucking Lisa?’

‘Baby!’

The Demon lunges at Raymond. He shoots the demon square in the chest. Screaming, the demon recoils, turns to the window and bursts through the glass and wooden boards to the outside.

‘Our father who art in heaven , deliver us from evil!’ He heads out the door to join the demon in the front yard.

6:21. Sun up. Rays pierce through the thick grey clouds. It isn’t night anymore.

‘Baby listen. She’s just a person from high school I saw downtown.’

‘And you gave her your Facebook. You couldn’t tell her you were married.’

‘I didn’t give her my Facebook. She tracked me down, even after I left her alone and told her I was married.’

‘Why would she do that? You flirted with her?’

‘No!’

‘Then why would she add you knowing you are married.’

‘Because she’s some sort of sociopath, apparently. I don’t KNOW why, baby!’

‘After all the problems we’ve been having I’m supposed to believe you’re not interested in your female friend from high school?’

Raymond wants to answer, but the job remains to be done. Weighing his options, he decides to put down his phone and take the utmost advantage of a clear shot he has to the center of the demon’s forehead. The demon falls backward into a pile of rubbish in the yard. Raymond pants and wipes sweat from his own forehead, and put the phone back to his ear.

‘Karina, my love. I’m dying.’ The blood is sweet in his mouth. The small traces taste good and Raymond could feel his body’s desire to convert into a vampire once again. Fearful, he resists the urge to let himself go and allow it to happen.

‘Stop it.’

‘I’m DYING, my love. I give up, I’m dying. You love me no more.’

A pause on the line. ‘Do you love ME?’

‘Yes! Don’t you love ME?’

Silence. Raymond begins to cry. The sky grows ever brighter with the light of the rising sun. Karina could hear his sobs. ‘Baby.’

‘What.’

‘baby…’

‘What is it, Raymond Cruz?’

‘I do much wonder that one man, seeing how much another man is a fool when dedicates his behaviours to love, will, after he hath laughed at such shallow follies in others, become the argument of his own scorn, by falling in love.’

‘Huh?’ She in confused at first, but then she digests his words. ‘Baby I love you.’

‘I love you too and it means the world to me having a baby with you.’

‘Me too, my love.’

‘Did you eat?’

The Demon rises. Despite the light from the sun, the demon is awake. He does not burst into a hail of flames and ash, but instead rises to his feet. Karina is on the line, oblivious.

‘I finished the other half of the tuna sandwich I made, I wasn’t very hungry.’

The Demon approaches.

‘Baby I know you’re not hungry but you gotta eat okay’

The demon’s eyes turn read, his voice deepens. ‘Now we take the day, consuming the light with darkness…’

‘…and you know I don’t like eating when I didn’t finish digesting my last meal…’

‘Baby huh uh…’

The Demon smiles. ‘For Satan…Satan is an angel of the light.’

Raymond frowns. ‘2nd Corinthians chapter 11. And I will keep on doing what I am doing in order to cut the ground from under those who want an opportunity to be considered equal with us in the things they boast about. For such people are false apostles, deceitful workers, masquerading as apostles of Christ. And no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light. It is not surprising, then, if his servants also masquerade as servants of righteousness. Their end will be what their actions deserve.’

He runs forward and swipes at the Demon’s chest with his blade. The demon grabs a hold of his arm and twists it, opening wide his mouth full of sharp fangs and attempting to bite Raymond’s shoulder. The hunter quickly grabs his gun and shoots the Lord of Hell in the face, blasting his skull to bits.

Karina continues on the phone, ‘I may as well get more bread since I’m headed to the store to get meat for today’s supper.’

‘Uh huh.’

He cuts off the head of the Demon and throws it into the garbage bag with the other heads. He notices Karina stopped talking. ‘Baby?’ She doesn’t answer. ‘Baby you still mad?’

She sighs. ‘No baby. I found an apartment I think. It’s a really good one fully furnished. One room for us one for the baby.’

‘Oh yeah baby? That’s great. Where?’

‘Downtown.’

‘Baby, downtown?’ He throws the garbage bag with the four heads over the fence and grabs the two large garbage bags for the corpses.

‘Baby I know you grew up downtown but homes downtown isn’t the same price as when we were kids. Downtown sounds a little expensive. 4500 per month? I just had a contract worth that. Uh much. How bout that. you think we can afford that?’

The rest of the bodies get sorted into the bags. A garbage truck passes down the street. Raymond waves down the workers. ‘Excuse me!’ 

He runs past the fence gates to them with the corpses in hand. ‘I have some trash. Thank you.’

He walks to his car, throws bag with the four heads in the back seat. ‘Baby I’ll call you back. I have the other line.

‘Yes, Al... Send me the transfer , I sent you the picture .’

He starts the engine and begins to drive away from the broken down neighborhood.

‘Vampire chick fucked herself with my cross. My chain. Just like exorcist, yea.’

He turns the corner.

‘I will go get the formula now, Al. Is that what you want. I have to pick up milk for my wife, I’ll go get this stupid formula at the same time.’

At the stop sign, he waits for a young mom to cross the street with her baby stroller then he continues to drive off into the horizon.

AtilA