by Lily Luchesi
Danny lowered his head, unable to meet the witch’s gaze. He felt worse than ever for doubting her again, and he wished he could squeeze Leander’s head until his eyes popped like hot grapes for making him doubt her.
Mark went about his business while Danny spent the day in the library with Harriet, searching old texts for a way to summon Leander.
“Usually a summoning takes place around the things the demon you want likes,” Harriet said. “Does anyone know what he likes?”
“Vincent Cross,” Danny replied, thinking about the broken heart Vincent claimed the demon had been nursing over the hunter-turned-vampire.
Harriet laughed. “Come on, it’s not like we can get him here when he’s in Hell’s maximum security section, can we?”
“I wouldn’t recommend it,” Danny replied, turning a page in the book he was reading. “He likes death. He always has. If he had any hobbies, the only person who would have known is Brighton...unfortunately.”
“Wait...you said he left demonic residue in Angelica’s car?” Harriet said, slamming a book shut and putting it back on the shelf.
“I could smell it, not to mention see it,” Danny replied, wondering where she was going with this.
The witch jumped up and went for the door with Danny trailing behind.
“When demons leave behind sulfuric residue, it is as unique as a human’s DNA,” she said, pulling out a cell phone. “Angelica, if you get this message before you leave, bring your car here. With any luck, we can get Leander tonight!”
Danny allowed a little hope to fill his heart at her announcement. He had never been a vengeful person— revenge was Angelica’s forte —but now he couldn’t wait to watch Leander die.
Now there was nothing to do but wait. Harriet prepared an unused office for the summoning, and Mark still had work to do with the rest of the PID agents, but Danny had no cases, and therefore all he had to do was sit, wait, and worry.
Fifteen minutes after the sun set on the city, Danny felt the familiar aura of his love as she made her way to Mark’s office. He smiled as she glided into the room, many of his earlier doubts forgotten. She didn’t do it on purpose, and probably would be shocked if he brought it up, but she always made an entrance. Walking into a room for her looked like a superhero entering the scene in a film. She was larger than life, and ever since her turning, she seemed even more striking.
She bent down and kissed him before turning to Harriet. “What the Hell was that message about?”
Danny stood up. “When I went to get in my car this afternoon, I noticed demonic residue in yours. Was it Leander?”
Angelica looked down at her boots before looking back at him and saying, “Yes, I’m sorry I didn’t say anything. I just didn’t want to worry you all.”
“No one is mad,” Mark said. “In fact, we’re bloody ecstatic.”
“Explain,” Angelica said, crossing her arms over her leather jacket.
“I finished the trap for Leander. It took a phone call to Egypt and a something I saw in a metal magazine you had in your office, but I did it,” Harriet said excitedly. “Thanks to your pretentiously overpriced sports car and the fact that you never throw anything away, we’ve got what we need to summon and trap him.”
“Because I’m so excited, I’m going to ignore the insults. What the Hell are you waiting for?” Angelica tossed her keys to Harriet. “Go get it! I parked in my usual spot. Can’t miss it.” As soon as Harriet was gone, Angelica went into a cupboard and started reloading her guns. Danny noticed that no one had gone into the armory since Bart’s death two days ago. He didn’t think Angelica would ever go in there again. Chances are, neither would he.
Danny decided he better reload as well and he went to the cupboard with her, reloading both guns with the consecrated bullets when Harriet came back, a glass vial filled with the yellowish residue Leander left behind.
“Okay, I just need to set up the ritual...but I need to give you some news you’re not going to like, Angie,” Harriet said.
Danny felt Angelica’s frustration as if it were his own as she sighed. “Okay, hit me. What the fuck is wrong now?”
“Nothing. But the trap will trap multiple entities, not just demons. You can’t kill Leander, because if you walk into that room, you’ll be trapped, too.”
Angelica sighed again. “Son of a whore. All right. Fine. I can’t change what I am.” She turned away from Harriet and faced Danny, taking his one free hand in hers. He looked down into her dark eyes, eyes he could get sucked into and be happily lost forever. The Claiming bond connected them in the most primal of ways, and he felt that connection, that love, more deeply now than he ever had.
“Danny, I am counting on you. More than ever before.” She squeezed his hand, never losing his gaze. “I never counted on anyone before, and I know I put a lot on you. You went into Hell twice for me. You gave up your ideals for me. You sacrificed a normal life for me. And—”
“Angelica.” Danny’s voice was soft, and he nearly forgot that they weren’t alone as he spoke to her. “I love you. And that means I will do anything for you. I promise I will not let someone who killed our friends and threatened your life— someone who ordered his underlings to harm you —get away.” He raised her cold hand to his lips and kissed it. “I don’t regret one second of the time I’ve spent with you and what I’ve done for you. I’d do it all over again if asked.” He bent down and kissed her.
As they broke apart, the entire building shook and they heard what sounded like a distant explosion.
Danny’s first thought was that it was an earthquake— they had had some violent ones in Chicago in the past —and his second was that it was a bomb. But when his ears started to ring and his body felt weak, he knew exactly what had happened.
He gripped his head and groaned, leaning against the wall for support. “Demons!” he said, trying desperately to clear his mind so they would not affect him this way.
“The portal!” Angelica cried.
“I thought this place was warded,” Mark said, his face as white as Angelica’s.
“I warded the outside, not the inside,” Harriet said, her green eyes wide. “Isn’t the portal already warded?”
“Apparently not well enough! Mark, get everyone you can to come here. We need backup,” Angelica ordered, grabbing her guns. “Danny, stay here till you get your head screwed back on straight. Harriet, get the summoning ready. This will not distract us from our goal! Get Danny when it’s ready.” She turned toward the door. There were distant screams echoing. “Dear God, I think we might be too late.”
***
Angelica had been tortured, hunted, beaten, and had seen her mother torn apart. Never before had she felt such fear as she was feeling now. Her nerves were singing with it, and her heart was hammering in her chest. One thought was at the forefront of her mind: We’re all gonna die. She wasn’t a pessimist, she was a realist, and right then the reality looked pretty damn bleak.
She and Mark went into the hall. There was no one on this floor, but the screams had not been close. And they had been numerous. As she and Mark raced to the staircase, she had another scary thought: they had lost Brighton, and Danny was needed elsewhere. They had no way to tell where the demonic essences sat in each vessel. They had no way to be one hundred percent sure of their kills.
As soon as they got to the next floor, she smelled the blood. The floor below the director’s (she had an entire floor for herself, Danny, and Mark, formerly for Bart as well) was where most of the other operatives worked, writing up various reports, getting information, and many other things. At any given moment, it was the most populated area in the building.
If they survived this, she was going to need severe reconstruction and a lot of memory alterations performed on the mortals who rented space in the building: there were apartments, stores, and restaurants in there. If any of the mortals were still breathing, anyway.
They got to the next level and she knew Mark was on the verge of fa
inting. Angelica had seen a lot of bodies in her life, but she had never been in the center of a massacre before this night. The closest had been all the demons she, Danny, Mark, and Brighton had had to kill at Wrigley Field the previous January.
Bodies were torn apart. Heads were rolling. Guts were strewn on cubicle walls. An arm was draped across a computer screen. Limbs were still spasming. It was like Satan’s personal decorator had decided to drop by unannounced.
These were people she knew. Trusted. People who helped her keep the city safe. And she failed to protect them. Now she would avenge them.
Demons came at them, possessing mortals, werewolves, and vampires alike. Angelica and Mark wasted no time, charging at them and hoping that decapitation and bullets to the chest would keep the demons inhabiting the bodies down for a while, long enough to get Danny to tell them if they had dispelled the essences or not.
“We’re going to run out of ammo,” Mark said, double-tapping a possessed shifter.
“Really, Dr. Watson? What brought you to that fucking brilliant deduction?” Angelica snapped, slicing through the neck of a vampire she had personally trained sixty years ago.
They fought long and hard, but every time they killed a demon, two more came to take their place. They were Legion, and their boss was pissed.
Mark was covered in the blood of his colleagues, and Angelica wasn’t faring much better. Her survival instinct made even her craving for blood take a backseat. Usually being covered in blood was something she enjoyed, but not this night.
“The library is warded,” she said to Mark. “If we can get there, we can be safe for at least ten minutes.”
“What about any other survivors?” Mark asked, following her.
“If there are any, I’ll stake myself,” she replied darkly. They made it into the library, the demons on their tail, but unable to cross the threshold. Angelica had wanted the room warded so no one could discover the secrets within. If some of the books they had here were ever let into the wrong hands, they could have the actual Biblical Apocalypse on their hands.
Angelica caught her breath sooner than Mark and wished she had some blood to drink. She needed rejuvenation, and the only vein there was Mark, and he needed his strength. She leaned against one of the shelves and noticed a book she had not yet read.
Hidden Powers of The Undead.
She pulled it off the shelf and scanned the index. Zombies, ghouls, and vampires. She flipped to the vampire section, her gut telling her to do some speed reading. When it came to trusting her gut, Angelica was an old expert.
“Are you shitting me? You’re reading?” Mark hissed.
“Silence,” she said, unaware she was even speaking. How had she never read this before? It seemed to know about the prophecy, and had rumors of how the first vampires, the Emperor and Empress, had abilities normal vampires didn’t have.
They could repel magic, disarm demons, and banish spirits. Angelica knew she could repel dark magic. She had done it when she was fighting Fiona in their final battle. She read the section on disarming demons, and it seemed similar to how she could repel magic, but this one required an incantation. None but the Emperor or Empress could command this spell, fusing a simple exorcism spell with their unique Undead energies.
“Angelica, for crying out loud, what are you thinking?” Mark cried.
“You impatient bastard,” Angelica snapped, taking a photo of the incantation. “I found a spell. A way for the Emperor and Empress of vampires to keep demons in line. I guess we vamps really were the dominant species way back when. The only problem is...how do I use it? As soon as I go out there, they’re going to attack and I won’t be able to read the exorcism in time.”
“You could record it,” Mark suggested.
Somewhere in the building there were more tortured screams, and they both winced.
“What if an electronic voice doesn’t work? Can we risk it?” Angelica wondered.
Mark shook his head. “What you need is a distraction. Something to buy you time. Any chance you can pull the holy water thing with the sprinklers in here?”
It was her turn to shake her head. “No way. I’ll be killed if I do that.”
Mark sat and thought. “How many bullets do you have left?”
Angelica checked. Her 9mm was completely empty, and she had used her second magazine. In her HK-forty-five there were three bullets left, and she had another magazine in her inner jacket pocket. “Just thirteen for my forty-five,” she replied. “I have an extended clip, otherwise I’d only have nine.”
He checked his guns, tossing his nine mil to the side. Evidently that was empty as well. “That’s seventeen bullets in all, and my sacred knife. I think I can keep them sufficiently busy until you can use your vampire voodoo on them.” He smiled.
“Are you mad? They’ll slaughter you, Mark!” Angelica cried, unable to believe what she was hearing. “Why is everyone in such a hurry to die around here? Haven’t we lost enough?” She gestured to the door, meaning the countless bodies of the PID employees the demons had killed instead of possessed.
“More are dying right now. Innocent humans. I know you can feel it, and I definitely know you can smell their blood. It’s written all over your face. So tell me, Angelica, is my life worth the dozens more who are going to die if I don’t do this?”
Yes, she wanted to say. Yes, because I care about you. Yes, because you’re a friend, and I can’t lose anyone else I love. That was her still lingering humanity. The tactical operative, the FBI agent, the paranormal detective, the vampire that she was, had a different answer. And that side of her was in control now. It had to be, or else it would literally be Hell on Earth that night.
“Listen to me, Angelica, please,” Mark said. “I got two chances at life. It’s more than anyone else gets. Some don’t get two minutes in this world. I’ve been blessed, and now I can do something useful with what I’ve been given. In my last life I died for shit. Let me go out like a hero...like Brighton did.” He closed his eyes and tears fell onto his cheeks. “Let me help you be the hero I always knew you were.”
Angelica furtively wiped her eyes, staining her hands with her blood tears and black mascara. Without warning— without thinking —she wrapped the small man into a warm hug.
“I’ll save you if I can,” she promised.
“Don’t worry about me. Worry about them.” He gestured to the window. “Worry about the people you’ve dedicated your life to protecting. They are what’s important now. They need you more than I do.” Mark took Angelica’s gun and nodded to her, smiling as he went out to meet what she knew was going to be a slow, painful death. A death she was knowingly sending him toward.
There were great things that came with being a leader of a government organization. There were also things she could not bear to do, and this was one of them. For a brief moment, she asked herself if this was really what she wanted to do with her life, send innocent mortals to their death on a daily basis.
Her hands were stained with blood, and so was her soul. She no longer had the desire to fight, to kill. She saved many humans, she gave new life to the paranormal community, but at what cost? Instead of making her cold, her newfound vampirism made her question everything she had ever done and hate herself for most of it.
However, that was neither here nor there. Right then, she had the Legion in her offices, and she needed to send them all back to the Pit, permanently, just as this exorcism promised.
She heard Mark scream and that was her cue. If they had him, they’d be too preoccupied to notice her. Gunshots were fired, and she heard the Unholy cries of dying demons. She smirked. We go down fighting or we don’t go down at all.
She pulled up the photo of the exorcism and opened the door, trying to block out the sight she knew was coming, the sight of more colleagues being torn apart.
Holding the phone in one hand and holding her free hand out, she began the exorcism: “Rupere reliquias reginae vocem abiturum. Natum per viscera mea ad inf
ernum exorcizatum in aeternum discutere et ecce!” [“Unholy remnants, hear the voice of the Empress and depart. By the Power born within me, I hereby dispel and exorcise you back to Hell for eternity!”]
As each word was spoken, Angelica saw every demon turn its attention to her. The two that had Mark in their clutches dropped him to the ground, blood leaking from a deep wound in his guts, and they all came for her.
The hand she held out felt thrumming with that same power she had felt when facing Fiona, and that power stopped them all in their tracks. They began to writhe and contort in their vessels, black sludge leaking from every orifice. She felt like she was being suffocated by the stench of sulfur in the room.
“Vade!” she commanded, and her eardrums were nearly shattered by the collective shrieks of each demon as the vessels could no longer contain their suffering. Many exploded where the essences rested, splattering and sounding like someone breaking open rotten melons with a hammer.
Blood, bone, and intestines were flying everywhere, but the demons were being forced back into Hell permanently. In the middle of the carnage, Angelica stood tall and proud, not just an Empress, but a war hero standing alone in the trenches, fighting the enemy back with all the force she possessed.
It was over. She’d won. But at that very moment, she did not feel victorious as she stood over the bodies of the innocent people she could not save. And one she was determined to save.
Mark was on his back, his guts torn open. Intestine was sticking out like link sausage and Angelica was not enticed by the heady scent and sight of his blood. She wanted to throw up as she sank down next to him, sinking her fangs into her own wrist. If she could not heal him, she could at least make him well enough to decide if he wanted to turn, so he could continue to have some sort of existence.
“Angelica.” His voice was so low she would not have heard him had she not been a vamp. “The pain...so bad I can't feel it.” He tried to chuckle and all that came out of his mouth was a spurt of blood. “Fucking funny paradox, huh?”