He stifled another cry as he pushed himself to his feet with excruciating effort. His wounds were still bleeding, and he considered it a miracle that he had managed to stand. It galvanized him, confirming that God was with him and guiding him toward the confrontation with the beasts that had dared to invade this holy site. A terrible evil was growing inside the chapel, and he was the only man left standing. Barely.
Slowly, he commenced his long, pain-filled march toward the chapel. The house of worship seemed to be a million miles away. Each step was an exercise in agony, his chest on fire, his lungs barely able to fill with air.
Yet he persevered.
What awaited him inside the chapel was a scene from a nightmare and far worse than he could’ve possibly imagined. Amon and his soldiers had formed a ring around Nicole, their eyes burning with a demonic fire. The apocalypse soldier loomed over the supplicants of darkness, a monster perfected by the foul forces inside of him. Worst of all was the sight of the soldier named Mark, now crucified in a terrible mockery of the sacrifice that symbolized Father Cabrera’s faith. Nicole stood among them, and even though six of the entities had found new humans to possess, the original demon from eight years ago had chosen to remain inside Nicole.
The soldier weakly looked over. The eyes inside the mask of blood lit up with hope. Seeing the soldier’s strength return, despite his terrible predicament, gave Cabrera more motivation to go on.
Remember your training, Nicole, he thought as he turned his gaze on her. The demon was active inside of her but he had also spotted a glimpse of the true Nicole in there. Emboldened by this, he raised the holy relic of the saints and bellowed out with all the force he could muster.
“Demons, I hereby cast you out of this house of God.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
The monstrous darkness inside of Nicole was evacuating her body. One by one, the dark entities passed through her and sought out their new hosts. The horror seemed never-ending, a cycle repeated until she thought she couldn’t stand it. The violent purging affected her on a near cellular level. Each time she ejected one of the monsters, it was the pain of childbirth amplified to infinity. She felt like she was being torn apart from the inside out.
But as the ritual wore on, the agony became slightly more bearable, the strain less pronounced. Expelling these monsters was torture on her body but was fortifying to her soul. As each demon departed, she gained more control.
And then it was over. Her body felt stretched and torn even though outwardly there were no visible scars. To her surprise, death didn’t follow the horror. One demon had chosen to stay behind. This entity had old scores to settle. The beast enjoyed her torment too much to let go of her, even though one of the soldiers might make for a stronger physical host.
What the remaining demon didn’t know was that Nicole had trained with Cabrera for the last four years. When she had first showed up at the exorcist’s church, he’d advised her to live a good life and avoid temptation. By denying the demon power, repossession would become more difficult.
But Nicole had been looking for something different. She had wanted to be able to face the demon on her own terms if it should return, wanted to control any future possession the way Cabrera had.
At first Cabrera had refused to help her, but she had worn him down. He had finally conceded and given her a crash course in how to perform exorcisms. In essence, an exorcist possessed the possessed, gaining control over the demon so he could cast it out. Through prayer, meditation, and study of the ritual, Nicole could achieve that same degree of control. Cabrera had explained to her that only the most adept exorcists could control a demon from within, but with the proper determination and right degree of focus, it was achievable.
She was determined. She was focused.
In a perverse way, she was glad that her old demon had remained inside of her. She’d been looking forward to a rematch for eight years. Today would be her chance.
She could feel herself growing stronger, the whispers inside of her dying down, her own thoughts becoming predominant again. She was back in the driver’s seat. After sharing her body with seven other entities, having one demon inside of her felt almost normal.I know what you’re up to, the demon hissed inside her mind. It won’t work.
We’ll see about that.
Approaching footsteps pulled her out of her internal dialogue with the creature. She turned toward the man who’d shown her how to fight the darkness, who’d taught her not be afraid to walk among the shadows.
Thank God, Father Cabrera’s alive.
Then she noticed that his robes were stained with blood and his face was pale and drawn. But he still had returned to the chapel, once again prepared to battle demons.
The priest held up the cross and threw down the gauntlet.
“Demons, I hereby cast you out of this house of God.”
The other entities had noticed him too. They shifted their attention toward Father Cabrera. Amon, a true demon now, began to close in on the dying priest. And he was dying, the demon inside Nicole pointed out, the gunshots having struck vital parts of his anatomy. Only his faith made him cling to life somehow and march into one last battle that he couldn’t win. Weakened by his wounds, without spiritual support, outnumbered and outmatched: there was no way he would walk out of here. And Cabrera clearly knew it too. This was the heroic act of a man who had nothing left to lose. Noble and desperate, all at the same time.
The cross that Cabrera held in his hand projected true power. What they needed was someone strong enough to wield it against this unholy army of darkness. A man who had battled monsters before.
They needed Mark Talon.
If she could gain control over the demon inside of her, she’d be able tap into its power. Power that included the ability to move objects with her mind.
Focusing, she started to siphon the demon’s abilities. She needed to proceed carefully so as not let the entity catch on what she was up to. She’d have to strike fast and hope Talon was up for the challenge. She suspected that he too would want vengeance against the unholy horde.
Her mind tore into the demon’s energy, and she focused on the noble soldier nailed to the cross.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Seeing Cabrera alive lifted Talon’s spirit and jarred him out of his semi-conscious state. Gathering his will, Talon pulled against the nails in his hands with all his strength, hoping that through some miracle he could break free. Pain exploded through his fingers and into his arms, and he slumped forward with a frustrated bellow. The nails still wouldn’t budge.
With a sense of helplessness boiling inside of him, he watched as Amon approached Cabrera. The priest was barely able to keep the cross steady in his quivering, blood-crusted fingers, his prayers a mere whisper. The damage from the bullets had sapped his life force, and he was too weak to channel the power of the exorcism ritual. He was facing a dragon armed with a dull blade. Amon towered over the broken man of God, amused by Cabrera’s hopeless charge.
What the exorcist needed was a miracle.
Talon felt eyes on him. He shifted his gaze and found Nicole looking at him. Not the demon. No, this was Nicole, the woman who’d faced the darkness and walked away from a battle with a monster eight years earlier.
A faint vibration passed through his hands. He could feel himself being pulled forward as some invisible force dislodged the nails from the cross. Encouraged, he yanked his arms with all his might. He couldn’t believe it, but this time the nails were coming free. His biceps bulged, a grimace distorted his features, and the muscles on his shoulders bunched up as he pulled both bloody nails out of the wooden beam.
Free at last, he dropped to the chapel floor, right behind the three soldiers that the darkness had found unworthy. Letting out a roar of triumph that echoed the savagery of Amon’s demonic transformation, Talon attacked.
Before the soldiers could bring up their AK-47s, he was upon them. He looked like a demon himself with the inverted pentagram scar e
tched on his chest, blood pouring from his stigmata. He spun around and raked the points of the nails, which were still sticking from the back of his hands, across the soldier’s bare throats and faces. It felt like he’d sprung claws of steel. Throats opened and blood sprayed.
Seconds later, he towered over the dead and the dying, his hands dripping gore, his eyes half-mad. Amon turned toward Talon and two pairs of eyes, both inhuman in their own way, met from across the chapel. The nails popped out of Talon’s hands, once again helped along by Nicole’s telekinesis, and plunked to the stone floor.
“Your savagery won’t be a match for us,” Amon said.
Talon was breathing heavily, sucking in oxygen in immense gulps as he steeled himself for what lay ahead. He knew Amon was right. The three dead men had been mortal. But now he was up against six demons. Seven if he counted Nicole—though she seemed to have a handle on her situation. Adrenaline couldn’t completely mask the surging pain, his throbbing hands on fire. He thanked his maker that the cultists hadn’t nailed his feet to the cross too.
The demon soldiers, features distorted by the darkness raging inside them, closed in. Talon faced the approaching horde, knowing it would be a short battle. But at least he’d go down fighting instead of being a helpless spectator. He was ready to meet his maker.
As he bent down to scoop up an AK-47, the second miracle occurred. Once again, he was pretty sure Nicole was the one who was pulling the strings behind the scene. Chanting voices began to rise in the chapel, growing in volume with each passing second.
The demon soldiers paused in their approach, startled.
Talon spotted the source of the voices. The laptops had all come back to life, and the six exorcists were back online. The chanting and powerful prayers filled the church, weaving an invisible power. Talon remembered Cabrera’s earlier words: The ritual is to make the demon vulnerable, the cross drives them out, and the blade severs their link to our reality.
As soon as the thought passed through Talon’s mind, Cabrera’s cross flew from the priest’s hand, shot across the nave of the church, and landed in Talon’s bloody left palm. His crimson fingers closed around the holy relic and found the switch that sprang the blade at the bottom of the cross.
He faced the horde, the crossblade in on hand, an AK-47 in the other, and a savage smile on his face. The odds were still against him, but he was armed now with both steel and magic.
Before he could close the distance to the demon horde, a loud thumping sound rattled the giant skylights in the chapel. A large shadow fell over the windows, blotting out the sun. It was a sound all too familiar to a soldier. The buzz of an approaching helicopter could mean only one thing: Agent Doyle!
The next moment the skylights shattered and a team of gasmask-wearing SWAT team members in heavy tactical gear exploded through the chapel’s windows on rappel lines, submachine guns blazing.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Agent Doyle kicked open the doors to the chapel and joined the battle. Smoke from an onslaught of gas grenades was everywhere. His breathing amplified by the gasmask on his face, he flashed his weapon, ready for some payback. Three SWAT officers flanked him, sporting the same take-no-prisoner attitude. The red beams of their laser-sighted guns speared the dense smoke and found their targets.
It was the mirror image of another raid that had changed his life forever twenty-two years earlier. Back then, he was just a scared kid—and he hadn’t had the luxury of wearing a gasmask. His mom had told him to press a wet towel against his face, but he’d still struggled with each breath while a terrifying cacophony of gunfire and screams had filled the ranch. During those horrific minutes of the FBI assault, young Doyle had become convinced the apocalypse their cult leader had foretold was upon them. As much as he had detested cult life on the ranch, Armageddon had seemed a far more terrifying alternative.
Doyle forced himself back to the present by unloading a number of rounds into the AK-47 wielding cultists. The apocalypse soldiers went down in a shower of red. Unleashing an unrelenting stream of bullets, Doyle advanced deeper into the chapel. After the assault on the police convoy, no one as taking any chances. Their objective was clear-cut: take out these bastards with as little collateral damage as possible. The barrage of automatic fire continued for another minute and only died down after all the cultists were on the ground.
Doyle approached one of the downed soldiers. The chest of the man was shredded, his AK-47 laying impotently next to him in a pool of blood. These terrorists had taken out over twelve police officers, and Doyle felt nothing for the bastards.
He was about to turn away when the bullet-riddled corpse stirred. The figure sprung to its feet with preternatural speed, eyes behind the ski mask flashing red.
Before Doyle knew what was happening, the figure launched into him. One blow sent his submachine gun flying, and it vanished in the lingering carpet of smoke. The next punch sent him flying. He crashed into a wall with a bone-rattling crunch, slammed to the ground, and lay still. The world went fuzzy around the edges, swimming in and out of focus. Damn it, he couldn’t allow himself to pass out. Not now. Not in the midst of a conflict between life and death.
He gasped for air, centered himself, and his vision cleared. He blinked and saw that the same horror was repeating itself throughout the chapel. The gunned-down cultists were rising from the dead and striking back at the FBI agents with inhuman savagery. AK-47s cut a bloody swath through the team. It was a replay of the terrible freeway attack. A slaughter of good men.
For a moment, Doyle only made out shadows, the black-clad devil soldiers indistinguishable from the members of the SWAT team. The shrill screams of his men told Doyle that the tide of battle had turned.
What are we up against?
As soon as the question shot through his mind, he received his answer. A red-skinned, horned devil rose from the roiling smoke, his immense physique eclipsing a frozen SWAT officer. The demon’s clawed hand snatched out, closed around the SWAT member’s throat, and lifted him into the air. The officer jerked like a puppet. There was a sound of bones snapping, and the beast flicked the lifeless SWAT guy aside. The dead man vanished in the smoke.
Doyle was reminded once again of his years spent at the cult’s compound. No matter how hard he’d tried, those formative memories had been burned into his soul. Fire and brimstone speeches had dominated daily life with the cult. Demons and devils walked the earth, corrupting unbelievers and spreading sin, all in preparation of the impending apocalypse. Now, as the demon creature unleashed a bellowing roar, Doyle was eleven years old again and knew that the day had come.
The apocalypse had arrived.
The demon spun toward him, and Doyle snapped a fresh magazine into his submachine gun. His rounds struck the beast’s massive chest but did nothing to halt the slow, even steps. The muzzle flash of the spitting gun illuminated the advancing monster, revealing details that would haunt Doyle for as long as he’d live. Razor-sharp teeth gleamed in the monster’s open mouth, promising agony and death.
The monster’s shadow engulfed him, canceling out the desert light streaming through the shattered skylights. At the same time, crackling static broke over his mike, a soundtrack that underscored the horror show. The officers outside the church were asking for an update.
We’re being massacred by demons from hell, Doyle thought crazily. He wondered how that news would go over with his superiors. Part of him was almost relieved that he’d never have to fill out a report on this case.
Body rigid with fear, Doyle stared up at the beast and waited for certain death. The creature was almost upon him when it paused, its black eyes fixed on something to the right. Doyle craned his neck and spotted the reason for the demon’s hesitation.
A new yet familiar figure had arrived on the scene. It was the stranger who’d pulled him out of the burning cruiser. He was bare-chested now and armed with a machine gun in one hand, a large golden cross in the other.
The man who’d saved Doyle’
s life earlier that day raised his weapons and attacked the demon.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
The chapel had become a warzone. Bullets lashed the air as the SWAT team engaged the demon soldiers.
Talon’s heart thudded in his ears as he sought cover behind the altar, intent on not getting caught in the crossfire. There was a blinding flash of light and an intensely loud bang. Talon shielded his eyes and pressed his hands against his ears, but he still went blind and deaf for a few seconds. Even when his senses started to work again, he could only make out vague shapes and strobelike flashes in the billowing clouds of smoke.
At first it seemed that the SWAT guys were defeating the demon soldiers but appearances could be deceiving. Bullets might slow down these monsters, but Talon doubted they’d be sufficient to stop them. The demonic entities would protect their hosts. Only one weapon could truly destroy them, and that weapon was in Talon’s gore-smeared left hand—the crossblade.
His suspicion was confirmed moments later when the demon soldiers rose back to their feet and returned fire. The stunned SWAT guys were caught off guard and proved to be no match for these possessed soldiers of the apocalypse.
The team was being slaughtered. The time had come for Talon to join the fight. He scanned the chapel for Father Cabrera and Nicole, but they had vanished in the clouds of gas and human chaos. He hoped they were safe.
As he sprung to his feet, he recalled Cabrera’s description of Nicole’s exorcism back at the hospital. The cross drove out the entity while the blade destroyed its physical manifestation. Normally this meant pressing the cross against the bare skin of the afflicted victim, since the goal was to avoid harming the innocent host. But these soldiers weren’t innocent. Talon would be able use the knife with lethal force.
Occult Assassin: The Complete Series (Books 1-6) Page 27