There was movement in a window and the sounds of children screaming.
Instinctively, Brenna’s hand went to her gun, and she saw that she wasn’t the only one reacting. Stokes and his team were on the move. Doors were opened, gas canisters were deployed, and the SWAT team disappeared inside the school.
The air seemed to grow thick with anticipation, and all Brenna could do was stare and wait and pray that Elijah had been wrong. What kind of world was she living in now, when she actually preferred a nut job with a gun over the alternative.
Gunfire erupted inside the building, followed by a succession of the deafening explosions of flash grenades. Brenna held her breath, waiting.
Automatic weapons continued to fire, but then she began to hear adult screams that could only have come from the SWAT team, and everything went suddenly, eerily silent.
What kind of a world was she living in indeed.
This kind.
• • •
Theodora had taken them both somewhere very dark.
She felt Griffin’s trembling body, wrapped in the layers of living hair. Each follicle was alive, crackling with malignant life as it attempted to feed on the Coalition agent, and she was tempted to let them have him.
Feed the hair and let their power grow—let her power grow. What was the cost of one measly soul if it was to provide her with the power to free herself from the restraints etched upon the flesh of her body.
One. Measly. Soul.
Elione took what she could from the man wrapped tightly in her raven tresses. It was enough to begin to gently push her human master’s control aside . . .
No.
Theo felt her hold upon the demonic reins of the sky fiend begin to slip from her grasp and quickly picked them up again.
You are a tricky thing, she told the ancient entity that once again squirmed beneath her control. I will remember this when I return you to the blackest hole deep within my soul.
It tried to apologize, but Theo was having none of it. Fiends like this must be taught a lesson. She yanked hard upon the reins of control, forcing the demonic entity to bend to her will.
And bend it did—quickly moving them through the spaces between here . . . and there.
• • •
Griffin was almost convinced he had died and gone to Hell.
He could feel the hair embracing him, wrapped about him and deep down he knew what was happening. But he couldn’t think beyond the horrible image that was suddenly in his mind.
His wife was burning. She’d caught fire mere seconds after their baby, Cassie, had begun to wail, upset because she was hungry, or wet, or whatever else little babies tended to get overwrought about.
One moment everything was fine, the next—
His wife was burning. His beautiful Judith was engulfed in flames. Her screams were deafening, and the sweet, greasy smell of cooking flesh filled his nose as he tackled her flailing body, driving her to the living-room floor, trying to snuff out the flames with a blanket from the couch. Her skin was so hot, so blackened, but she would be all right if he could just get those flames out.
“You’re gonna be okay!” he cried as he frantically patted at the fire that threatened to burn through the blanket. “You’re going to be all right!”
But she hadn’t been.
She’d died right there on their living-room floor, covered in a blanket.
Their daughter’s wails seemed to grow louder and more insistent.
“Shut up,” he had screamed. “Shut up!”
But the baby had continued to cry, and cry and cry, until his own skin had grown hot.
And he, too, began to burn.
• • •
Griffin came awake, his body trembling as if freezing cold.
He felt the hair sliding across him, releasing him, and he rolled over to see Theo standing stiffly above him, her hair receding to its usual length.
She stared at him, a dazed look in her eyes. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered.
Griffin climbed to his feet, his skin tingling and sensitive. “Price of the journey, I guess,” he said, trying to sound nonchalant when truly he was so angry he could have hurt her.
They were on the edge of the school grounds, in the woods just beyond the back parking lot.
“We should get moving,” he said, picking up his bag of tricks, heading off toward the gathering of law enforcement near the school.
Theo followed silently behind.
• • •
The closer she got to the school, the more her body, and the things trapped inside her, began to react.
Brenna intercepted them, telling the law-enforcement officials there that they were cleared to be there—that they were specialists. Then she ushered them toward an area that looked to be set up as a command post for the other Coalition agents, who eyed them as they entered.
“Brenna Isabel,” the FBI agent said, sticking her hand out to the obviously shaken man. “I don’t believe we’ve met.”
“Griffin,” the man said, a trembling hand taking hers. “Griffin Royce.”
Theo could see the way Brenna looked at him, then to her.
“Are you two all right?”
“I’m fine,” Griffin said firmly, pulling his hand away.
Theo eyed Griffin, feeling a pang of sadness over what the demonic powers she’d hijacked to get them there had put the man through. She’d been able to see the memories the infernal influence had conjured and felt the pangs of compassion for what he’d gone through.
“The trip was a little rough, but we’re good,” she said.
Brenna opened her mouth, and it looked as though she was going to question how they had arrived so quickly, but then she appeared to think better of it and closed her mouth again. Probably better that she not know, Theo thought.
“SWAT’s here?” Griffin asked, seeing the van parked outside the school.
“Here, and I think gone,” Brenna answered. “They went inside. There was a lot of gunfire and flash grenades, then screams and now nothing. I managed to convince the locals to lock the place down until the specialists—you—arrived.”
Theo moved closer to the building. She could feel her skin crawling as the sigils tattooed there began to move, countering the demonic influence inside her as it became excited by what lay ahead.
“If you had any doubts about this being infernal in nature, put that right out of your mind.”
“A girl can dream,” Brenna said. “How bad do you think?”
“Pretty bad,” Theo said, eyes fixed on the school. “The assholes inside of me are mighty aroused.”
“Family reunion?” Griffin asked.
Theo looked at him. “That might not be too far from the truth.” She returned her gaze to the front entrance of the building. “There are children’s lives and souls at risk here, we have to move fast.”
Griffin hefted his bag. “I’m good,” he said.
Brenna made sure her bulletproof vest was secure. “I’m going in with you.”
“You sure?” Theo asked her. “You didn’t have enough with me the last time?” Making reference to the case that resulted in the FBI agent’s being brought into the Coalition fold.
“It’s like Chinese food,” Brenna said. “You think you’re full up, but suddenly you’re hungry for more.”
Theo couldn’t help but smile; the woman was tough, she’d give her that. The Coalition had chosen wisely.
Brenna talked with her agents for a final time, dispersing them amongst law enforcement to explain what was going on, as they all started toward the school.
“What’s the plan?” Brenna asked.
“I need to get in there first,” Theo explained. “Need to literally sniff around . . . see what the situation is. See what the demons are up to.”
“And if it’s the kids?” Brenna asked.
“If it’s the kids, then we need to be very careful in how we do things,” Theo said, knowing how tricky and dangerous that could be.
“I’m not going to hurt kids,” Brenna said flatly. “And I’m not going to allow you to either.”
Theo just nodded slowly, trying to think about the potential horrors they might face when those statements might be tested.
They climbed the stairs up to the building, pausing at the door.
“Abandon all hope, ye who enter here,” Griffin said, tensing in anticipation.
Theo grabbed the door handle, paying attention to the feelings inside her. The infernal were excited, but no more so than earlier, so she imagined that they were clear at the entrance.
She pulled the door open and entered first. The air was thick with smoke, like a choking fog. Griffin came up behind her, while Brenna moved to the opposite side of the corridor and quickly ducked into the main office.
“Empty,” she said, coming out.
Theo suddenly felt that terrible sensation in the pit of her stomach, the one that often told her things were going to get very bad. She began to dig deeply, dredging up the powers of an infernal that would give her a chance against a demonic threat—just as they heard footsteps in the smoke.
Brenna immediately pulled the gun from its holster at her hip, while Griffin reached into his sack and hauled out a strange-looking pistol.
A little boy emerged from the smoke, dancing and skipping as if he were playing a game of hopscotch. At first he seemed oblivious to their presence, but then he stopped not too far away and faced them.
“Well, hello,” he said with an enormous smile.
Too enormous. So wide that the skin at the corners of his mouth had torn, allowing thin rivulets of blood to run over his chin, making his jaw look as though it were hinged, like a ventriloquist’s dummy.
“Are you here to join the others?” The boy’s voice sounded odd, as though something was only pretending to speak as a child would.
“Where are the others?” Theo asked, allowing just a bit of the demonic influence within her into her tone.
The child looked at her and cocked his head, first to the left, then to the right. “Aren’t you funny,” he said after a minute. “You should be over here with me, I think.”
“No.” Theo shook her head slowly. “I’m right where I belong.”
“Ya, think?” the child asked, then began to giggle. There were multiple laughs coming from inside him.
“Jesus,” Brenna muttered beneath her breath, probably unaware that she’d even spoken aloud.
“How did you get here?” Theo asked the child, distracting it from paying attention to Brenna. Demons loved fear, and it was coming off the FBI agent in waves.
“We were a special gift,” the demon child spoke. “Such a surprise to them all.”
“A gift from whom?” Theo asked.
The child giggled again. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”
“I would,” Theo said, feeling the effects of a predator demon that she’d called upon flooding through her body. The predators had no qualms about hunting their own kind; in fact, they really enjoyed it.
She sprang at the child, who immediately recoiled, attempting to run back down the hall. But she was fast, her grip locking around the child’s thin wrist.
“Let me go, you fucking bitch!” the child screamed with a voice that did not belong to an eight-year-old.
It tried to pull away, the child’s movements so violent that Theo was afraid the demons inside would hurt the boy. She started to let go, and saw from the corner of her eye that Griffin was on the move. The man strode toward the child, who watched him with eyes dark, and wet, that extrawide smile seeming to get even wider the closer he got.
She was going to warn him to back off, but before she could get the words out, he aimed that strange pistol and fired several shots into the child. The boy’s body danced strangely with each hit.
“What the hell are you doing?” Theo cried, horrified.
“Watch,” Griffin told her.
And Theo did.
The possessed child had broken away from her grip, leaping back to examine the marks left by the weapon. “What have you done?” the demon inside the boy demanded as the expression on his face began to change. Then it threw back the child’s head with a horrible, inhuman howl, and departed in a foul-smelling cloud that hovered over the child. The little boy collapsed to the floor like a rag doll.
“What’s in that gun?” Theo asked Griffin.
“Just a little something I worked up myself,” he explained. “I call ’em mercy bullets. They deliver an injection of holy water mixed with the powdered bones of six saints and blessed by Pope Francis. That demon’s not going back into that child. He should be fine. Sore, but fine.”
A face had formed in the misty substance that floated in the air. It looked at them and roared its disapproval before swirling off down the corridor away from them.
“Effective,” Theo said, feeling the demonic predator that she held on a psychic leash angered by the lack of conflict.
“Thank you,” Griffin said.
“So, should we follow the . . . smoke?” Brenna asked nervously.
“That’s probably a good idea,” Theo said, suspecting that whatever was down the hall and through the double doors would be waiting for them. She lowered herself to the floor. “Back me up,” she said, loosening her hold on the psychic leash. She felt the demonic surge through her, changing her, her body becoming more like that of the monster she was attempting to control.
She bounded down the hall on all fours, then leapt up, clinging to the wall like some gigantic spider, stopping only long enough to be sure that Griffin and Isabel were following. When she reached the double doors, she dropped back to the floor and plowed through.
“Dear God,” Theo growled, crouching just inside the doors.
She hadn’t expected this. What was once the gymnasium now looked like a lower level of Hell.
Adults—teachers, secretaries, cafeteria workers, and the SWAT team—were hanging from the ceiling. Their throats had been cut, or bitten open, and their blood had formed an enormous puddle of shiny black in the center of the room.
The children, at a quick glance about twelve of them, squatted around the circle of blood, all staring down into the crimson depths of the enormous puddle.
There was demonic script scrawled around the edges of the pool, writing that she recognized from the memory of the predator demon raging in her body.
The pool was to wash away any vestiges of humanity. If the demons wearing the children’s bodies were to complete the ritual they were in the midst of performing, and bathe in the blood pool, they would keep the children’s forms permanently.
Theo wasn’t about to let that happen.
“Look at me, you worthless maggots,” she called to them.
They all looked up from the pool to fix their gazes upon her. In unison, they sneered, baring teeth turned needle-sharp and long.
“Come on,” she growled, showing them her hands as they morphed, the bones of her fingers popping as they elongated, her fingernails turning to talons.
They could sense that they were in danger from her, that she could perhaps take away their chance of claiming these innocent bodies as their own.
As she suspected, they all came at her, confidence in numbers winning out over their fear. Theo was ready, as was the predator under her control.
The children were fast, darting at her from different angles. But she was faster, using the prowess of the hunter demon to leap from their path, avoiding their slashing claws.
She drew them closer, taunting them until she realized that they were far enough away.
“Griffin, if you would be so kind!” she announced.
>
From out of the shadows Griffin appeared, weapon in hand, and beside him Agent Brenna Isabel, she, too, wielding one of the strange Coalition weapons.
They opened fire on the children, the projectiles striking the young bodies as the demons inside shrieked out in terror and pain from the poisons that were currently driving them from their host bodies.
Fearing the demons’ escape, she knew it was again up to her, tramping down upon the predator demon, putting him back inside the toy box in order to call forth another of her infernal denizens.
One with the ability to capture its prey and hold it inside for slow digestion.
The demons exploded upward from the children’s bodies, forming an enormous, roaring cloud of gray.
Theo allowed the newest demon to do its thing, feeling her body shifting and changing painfully as she propelled herself up into the air, directly into the demonic cloud.
Upon entering the cloud, she felt her jaws unhinge, and lungs far more powerful than they had been even when she was human, begin to inflate, as she opened her mouth wider, and wider still, sucking in the tainted air—sucking the demons into her lungs . . . into her body.
Theo came down, landing in a crouch, before springing upward again to capture the remaining demonic entities within her expanded lungs. She could feel the demons, enraged by their capture, attempting to exert their influence upon her augmented human flesh, but the demon’s physical attribute she had borrowed left her safe. Four more times she leapt, like some enormous toad, capturing the ethereal demons and storing them away inside her, and when she was finished, the air was clear of the demons’ malignant presence.
Crouching upon the gym floor, she sensed her friends approaching from behind.
“Theo?” Brenna asked.
“Yeah,” she answered them, repressing the urge to spring at them, murder them horribly, and suck their dying souls into her lungs.
That wouldn’t be good, she thought to herself, exerting even more control. Not good at all.
“Are you . . . okay?”
“Fine,” Theo said, rising to stand. “Don’t I look fine?”
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