by N. P. Martin
At the top of the stairs we came to a door, and when I tried the handle, I realized it was locked. I was about to boot the door when Hannah stopped me. “I can do it,” she said, her Visage almost enveloping her.
“Wait,” I said and handed her one of the flash grenades, getting ready with one myself. From inside, we heard voices, though it was hard to tell what was going on. Hannah then slammed one hand against the door and used her power to break the heavy wooden door off its hinges, sending it flying into the room.
A second later, I tossed my flash grenade into the room to a chorus of screams. Once Hannah had thrown her grenade, we both flattened against the wall until we heard the loud bangs going off inside the room.
Shouldering my weapon, I went in first.
Inside the large room, a group of naked females were crouched over or lying on the floor, their hands clamped over their ears, disorientated from the flash-bang grenades. Over by a large window there was a bloodstained altar, the surface covered in gore. Behind the altar stood a woman wearing dark red robes. She had braided blond hair and wide blue eyes that stared right at me, no sense of fear in them.
“Nobody fucking move!” I shouted.
“You have no right breaking in here,” the woman behind the altar said, who had to be Gretchen Carmichael. She was well-spoken, obviously well educated, and had the arrogance of someone who had never wanted for anything in her life.
Ignoring Carmichael for a moment, I stared around at the naked girls, most of whom seemed to be young, all in and around Clare Jenkins’ age. There were over a dozen of them, each of them covered in blood like they had been rolling around in the stuff before we got here. I also noticed the look in their eyes—hatred and aggression. Some of them looked like they wanted to attack us.
“Don’t!” I warned them, backing up a little.
Most of the girls were on their feet now, standing together like a bunch of crazed killers. Then out of nowhere, one girl vomited, puking up what appeared to be pure blood and bits of flesh that slapped wetly onto the wood floor.
“Hold it in, girl!” Carmichael shouted. “What you hold in your belly is precious!”
I didn’t have to ask what was going on here. We had just walked in on a Drencher Host Ritual, which Clare Jenkins had told us all about.
The girls were covered in blood because they had just eaten some poor guy on the altar.
But if that was the case, where was what remained of him; the so-called drencher, the demon that had taken over what was left of his body?
A few seconds later, I had my answer as something landed in front of me, having just dropped from the ceiling. Backing up slightly, I stared in disgust at the thing that had landed on the floor. It was the top half of a young man barely into his twenties, ribs exposed as his guts trailed the floor. The thing held itself up by its arms, and from its coal-black eyes, it was clear this monstrosity was a demon, having hijacked the body of the young man, or what was left of him.
As Carmichael and the girls watched on, the drencher advanced toward me, and as it did, I fired a burst at it. But the thing was fast and was able to jump to the side with surprising ease, considering it was maneuvering on just two arms. As I swung round to fire again, the drencher leaped at me, propelling itself off the floor so it flew toward me with wild eyes and a screeching open mouth.
Next thing I knew, its bloody arms were around my neck, and its head was leaning in as it tried to bite my face.
“Fuck!” I shouted as I held the thing by the neck, taken aback by how preternaturally strong it was. It was like trying to wrestle with a slippery ape, and before long, it was using one hand to punch me on the side of the head continually. One of its punches caught me clean on the chin, and a second later I saw stars as my vision began to black out and I toppled over with the drencher still clinging to me.
When my vision cleared, the drencher’s head was above mine, bloody saliva drooling from its open mouth over my face as its black eyes peered down upon me.
Then it said in a raspy voice, “I…will…eat…you.”
As it gnashed its teeth at me, I jerked my head away from it. So instead, the thing bit down on my chest, its teeth biting into my flesh as I roared in pain. The drencher then pulled its head up sharply and came away with a lump of my flesh in its mouth. Despite the pain, a rush of rage went through me as I gritted my teeth and jammed my thumb into one of the drencher’s eye sockets, pushing forward as I sat up and finally shoved the creature away from me.
When I stood up, I saw Hannah standing a few feet away. Her eyes were almost full amber, and there was a cruel smile on her face.
Fucking Xaglath.
“A little help?” I said.
In no hurry, Xaglath turned to face the drencher as it was pulling out the eyeball I had crushed with my thumb. Using her demonic power, Xaglath telekinetically lifted the drencher off the floor and flung it at the wall. The drencher screeched as it bounced off the plaster, sounding like its neck had broken.
When it landed, its head was tilted at an odd angle as it stared at us. Perhaps seeing it was now at a disadvantage, it went bounding across the floor on its two arms and leaped up onto the altar. As a shocked Carmichael jumped aside, the drencher then leaped off the altar and crashed through the window, disappearing into the night.
At that point, the Hellbastards entered the room, their eyes ogling the naked flesh everywhere. “Jackpot, boys,” Scroteface said, rubbing his hands together and inhaling deeply.
“Forget the fucking jackpot,” I told him, “and get after that thing that just jumped out the window.”
The Hellbastards looked annoyed that they had to leave the room with all its naked delights, but they did as they were told.
Although Cracka couldn’t help himself on the way out and stopped to talk to the gaggle of naked girls, who collectively stepped back, appearing freaked out by the little demon. “Cracka be back soon,” he said. “Keep those pussies warm!”
A few of the girls hissed at Cracka as he made his way to the altar. Once atop the altar, he turned and shouted, “Wocka wocka!” before leaping out the window after the others.
“You’ll pay for this desecration,” Carmichael said, now standing in front of the girls as if she was trying to protect her assets, which is what the girls were to her at the end of the day—hybrid-making machines.
Tossing away the HK, I took out my sidearm and pointed it at her. “You’re about to pay now, bitch,” I said.
In response to my threat, the thirteen naked girls all crowded around Carmichael, shielding her from me as they hissed and spat in my direction, making sure I couldn’t get a shot.
“Stand aside, bitches,” Xaglath then said, waving her arms as she used her powers to forcibly toss the girls to either side of the room, the girls screaming as they were lifted into the air and then flung away like so much trash.
“Don’t hurt them!” I said to Xaglath. “They’re innocents.”
“No one is innocent,” Xaglath said, now turning her attention to Carmichael, who for the first time now seemed afraid as Xaglath used her invisible force to lift her off the ground and hold her in the air as Carmichael kicked her feet in a struggle to get free.
Once more, I pointed my gun at her.
“You’ll never get away with this!” she screamed. “You can’t kill me! Do you even know who I am?”
“I know full well who you are,” I said, walking closer to her. “You’re a spoiled rich kid with a penchant for evil and too much time on her hands.” I took another step closer. “And now you’ll have all the time in the world once I squeeze this trigger.”
As I was about to shoot, however, I heard a noise from behind me. Footsteps were coming up the stairs. As Carmichael smiled, I turned around to see men in familiar black tactical gear storm into the room, hi-tech weapons raised and pointed in my direction.
A second later, I wasn’t surprised to see Eric Pike walk into the room, his face set in anger. “God damn you, Etha
n,” he said as he looked around the room at the naked girls lying everywhere, and then at Carmichael as she continued to be suspended in the air by Xaglath. “I thought we had a deal.”
“You thought that,” I said as I continued to point my gun at Carmichael. “Not me. Did you think I was going to let this bitch get away with everything, just so you could collect some new specimens for Knightsbridge?”
“Yeah, I did actually,” Pike said. “I thought you’d wised up over the years. Looks like I was wrong. You’re as much of a stubborn asshole as you always were.”
“And you’re fucking deluded if you think I’m letting this bitch go free,” I said.
“You’d better,” Pike said, looking at his team, all of whom had their weapons trained on me. “If you pull that trigger, it’s over for you, Ethan.” He took a step forward. “Why don’t you just put the gun down and maybe I’ll let you walk out of here alive. It’s not too late to salvage this situation.”
A tense silence descended upon the room. I looked over at Xaglath, whose face was worried enough for me to know that Hannah was in there somewhere, probably panicking that I would get shot if I didn’t comply, though she made no move to release Carmichael from her invisible bonds. From there, my eyes drifted to the girls lying around the room, most of whom looked lost and afraid now.
What if Callie was one of them? I thought. What if Daisy was one of them, her belly filled with human flesh and demon seed?
There was no way I could allow this to happen to any more innocent girls, nor allow anyone else to end up in the river like Clare Jenkins did.
There was also no way I would allow Blackstar and its puppets to tell me what to do.
“Ethan,” Pike said, his face changing now as he stepped forward again. “Think about this. Do you really want to sacrifice yourself to kill that stuck-up bitch? Come on, man. We both know there will always be more like her. You won’t change anything if you squeeze that trigger. You’ll just be dead along with her.”
My gun arm never wavered as I stood to the side, looking from Pike to Carmichael.
“Fuck you, Eric,” I said.
Then I squeezed the trigger and shot Gretchen Carmichael in the head.
22
After I squeezed the trigger on Carmichael, I closed my eyes for a second as I waited on a hail of bullets to hit me.
But none did.
“Fuck!” Pike shouted from behind me. “Ethan, you fucking asshole!”
I turned around to see that the guns were no longer trained on me. Pike muttered something into his radio and a moment later another team of operatives filed into the room. “Round up the girls,” Pike ordered. “We’ll take them with us.”
Once Pike gave the order, the operatives gathered up the girls, zip-tying the girls’ hands behind their backs before pushing them out of the room. Most of the girls looked frightened and confused by this point as they were led away, but a few still had smiles on their faces as if they had somehow won, now that their wombs were filled with demon seed.
“Where the hell are you taking them, Pike?” I said.
“Shut up, Ethan,” Pike said, pointing his finger at me. “The only reason you’re not full of bullet holes right now is because, for some unknown reason, Wendell said not to kill you. If it were up to me, I’d shoot you my damn self.”
“I’m sure you would,” I said, wondering why Wendell Knightsbridge should be so concerned with my personal safety.
Xaglath had lowered Carmichael’s body onto the bloodstained altar by now. When I turned to look at her, I saw a concern on her face that could only come from Hannah.
“What now?” she asked me.
“I’ll tell you what now,” Pike said, answering for me as he stared at Hannah. “You will get the fuck out of here before my men kill you, you demon bitch. My business with Ethan isn’t over.”
“Isn’t it?” I said, raising my eyebrows.
“Far from it,” Pike said, glaring at me, then turned to his men. “Get her outta here.”
As the operatives approached Hannah, she stood back with her hands out in front of her, ready to use her powers against them until I told her to stop. “Just go, Hannah,” I said. “Get Haedemus and go. I’ll catch up.”
Slowly, she lowered her guard. “You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
Still looking uncertain, she left anyway, showing no fear for the trained operatives who pointed their guns at her still.
When Hannah had left the room, Pike turned to me. “Carmichael might’ve been an uppity bitch, but she was the only one who knew what the fuck she was doing here,” he said. “Wendell’s going to be pissed we can’t make any more hybrids, at least not until we can find someone else to conduct the ritual.”
“My heart bleeds,” I said.
“Oh, you’ll bleed, alright,” Pike said, just as I noticed half a dozen of his men let go of their guns so they could pull out telescopic batons that I knew also delivered a shock of electricity with every blow given.
Nodding, I soon realized what was about to happen. “I thought Wendell said I wasn’t to be touched?”
“He said not to kill you,” Pike said. “He didn’t say anything about not beating you to a bloody pulp.”
“You always were a petty cunt, Pike.”
“And you were always an insubordinate asshole.” He threw a glance at his men. “Go get ‘em boys, and make sure he learns his lesson.”
To ensure I didn’t fight back, two other operatives shot me in the chest with rubber bullets that hurt like fuck and dropped me to my knees, hardly able to breathe now.
A second later, the other operatives with the stun batons were on me, raining blows and shocks of electricity down on me, relentlessly beating me as I did my best to cover my head with my arms.
With my eyes closed, I took everything that they gave me. As blow after blow impacted my body, I thought of Callie, and her smiling face, which was the last thing I saw before I fell unconscious.
When I opened my eyes, I thought I had landed in Hell. Above me was a carpet of dense, black smoke that smelled almost sulfurous. There was also heat. Intense heat that seared my face and dried my eyes out.
As my vision refocused itself, a horrific face came into view; a dark, elongated face with blazing red eyes.
A face I soon realized belonged to Haedemus.
“Wake up, Ethan,” he said, the smell of rotten meat on his breath. “You’re missing the fire show.”
“What?” I mumbled as I sat up and stared straight ahead.
I was sitting outside on the grass, and ahead of me was the boarding school, now ablaze. Flames raged all over the building, reaching through the roof, turning the sky above an infernal orange. Windows also blew out from the intense heat, the glass shattering as the flames forced their way out.
“They set fire to the place before they left,” Hannah said as she stood beside me, staring at the burning building, the flames dancing in her dark eyes.
“Oh Jesus,” I said, not because of the fire, but because of the pain that was itself like fire burning at every part of my body. My head hurt like fuck as well, though it took less punishment than did the rest of me. My back felt like a truck had run over it a few times, and my legs I could hardly move they ached so much. “Motherfuckers.”
“They killed the rest of the girls,” Hannah said in a somewhat distant voice. “The ones who weren’t pregnant yet. One man held a gun to your head and said he would kill you if I tried to stop them. They shot the girls and then set fire to the building.”
“How many?” I asked.
“How many what?” she said.
“Girls.”
“Does it matter? One is too many.”
Hannah was back. The pain in her voice at the girls’ deaths was obvious. “There’s nothing you could’ve done, Hannah.”
“I could’ve killed them, the men.”
“You should have.”
“Then they would’ve killed you.”
&nb
sp; “You should’ve let them. How is my life worth more than those girls?”
She stared down at me, a trace of anger on her face. Then she shook her head and walked away.
“Was it something I said?” I asked Haedemus.
“Who knows, Ethan?” Haedemus said. “You do have a way of pissing people off, though.”
“If you mention the beach, I’ll kill you.”
“Well, I wasn’t going to, but—”
“No,” I said, forcing myself to stand up. “Just no, Haedemus.”
“Not even if I tell you my surname?”
“You have a surname?”
“Yes, of sorts. My first Master gave it to me.”
“I don’t care what it is,” I said, crying out as I tried to straighten up, thinking now that most of my ribs were fractured, if not broken altogether.
“I’ll tell you anyway,” he said, standing next to me so I could lean on him. “It’s Sassoon. Haedemus Sassoon.”
A laugh escaped me, which I immediately regretted. “That’s…the most ridiculous name I’ve …ever heard.” I tried to contain my amusement for my ribs’ sake. “It makes you sound like…a hairstylist…for poodles.”
“Fuck you, Ethan,” Haedemus said as we walked along, me still leaning on him for support. “Your savage amusement has destroyed any sense of nobility I had over my name. Thanks a lot for reducing me to a hairstylist…for poodles.”
“Don’t worry,” I said as I inched along. “You can always change your name.”
“Of course,” he said, halting. “I can, can’t I?”
“I didn’t mean right now. Just keep walking.”
“What about Haedemus the Mighty? That has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?”
“For sure. Haedemus the Chatterer might be more apt, though.”
“Ethan,” he said, stopping again. “You really do offend me sometimes.”
I was too sore and too tired to argue with him, so I patted his side. “Look, I’m just fucking with you. You’re a valued member of the team, Haedemus, alright?”