Shadow of the Apocalypse

by D. L. Harrison

  Jacob showed his badge to the man.

  He stood up, and he shook Jacob’s hand. His eyes roved over them, and he narrowed when he saw them all carrying large duffel bags. Of course, they couldn’t exactly walk in with M16s over their shoulders and plastique explosives in their pockets.

  “I’m Mr. James, head of security, can I help you?” he asked suspiciously.

  Jacob said, “We’re federal agents, tracking down a very dangerous woman. We’ve gotten a tip she’ll be here tonight and is planning mischief of some kind. I’d like to share some photos with you and your men and get your help if they’re spotted. We’ll also be taking up positions around the arena, by the entrances. We’ll also need some of your radios.”

  He raised a skeptical eyebrow, and she felt a little guilty as she speared him with a thought, and sent feelings of trust, patriotism, and a desire to help the nice federal agents. She wasn’t all that surprised it was necessary, they had valid badges in the system and everything, but they didn’t look at all like agents.

  Mr. James shook his head, and then smiled, “Let’s see the pictures, then we can see what can be done.”

  Jacob handed him a photo of the two, Jenna and Celia.

  “Don’t let their looks fool you, they’re extremely dangerous and should be considered armed. If one of your men see her, don’t try to hold her, just report the sighting. They’ll most likely be traveling with several others.”

  Mr. James took it, and glanced at the photo a few seconds before handing it to the guy that escorted them in.

  “Show that around to everyone, have them keep their eyes peeled,” he looked back at Jacob as the other guy beat feet, “What danger level are we looking at here?”

  Jacob said, “She’s extremely dangerous, and should be treated as armed at all times.”

  They’d considered the idea of telling him the truth, that she was likely to commit a mass murder and terrorist act, but they worried he might shut the arena down and call to check their credentials. Of course, the badges would check out, but the Federal Marshalls would have no idea what he was talking about on the threat itself, not to mention the lack of case in the system. They also figured if they saw her being escorted by people carrying large canisters they’d react appropriately regardless.

  She didn’t like it, but it was what they had to do, and any fault or deaths lay on the warlock’s shoulders, not hers or the teams. They were there to protect humanity, and she knew any guilt from partial failures was a lie. Not that it always helped. She’d be devastated by guilt if they weren’t able to stop it. Assuming of course, she survived that failure.

  Mr. James nodded, and opened up a door behind him and stepped into an inner room. A moment later he came out with six of the security radios and handed them out.

  She turned the radio on and clipped hers to her jeans, the others did the same.

  Mr. James said, “Those are fully charged and should last the night. If she shows up, we’ll find her.”

  They broke up then, and each headed for an entrance to the main arena. There were six major sections, which were far too large to completely cover with just the six of them. It also felt wrong to her, to be split up. Whatever area the warlock showed up in, just one of them would have to handle it until the rest could converge.

  Allison and Jacob took the middle area. Allison needed to get into range to cast the spell on the gas, and Jacob wanted the quickest response to any area in the arena. Down one side was Carl and Meri, and her and Jace took the other.

  She tried to relax, the game was an hour off, and the arena was just starting to fill up with people. If they could count on anything, it was that Jenna wouldn’t make her move until the place was full and the game had started.

  So far, their plan had gone off without a hitch, but then the enemy hadn’t showed up yet either. Whatever happened, it would happen fast. She’d practiced earlier, she could open up the large duffel bag and pull out the weapon, bar, or explosives without even looking. She also had her spells, and soul eater compulsion. She was ready, she just hoped it was enough.

  Chapter Seventeen

  The excitement of the nearby crowd had her body zinging. There was something about a large crowd that was catching, add in her empathy picking up emotions within thirty feet, and the intensity of the impressions over the life-web. All of it together had her heart pumping, regardless of her feelings about hockey itself.

  She was on a hair trigger, ready to move as she shifted her strength and speed. So far she hadn’t heard much on the radio, and nothing about their targets. It was about ten minutes into the first period, and neither the Rampage or Griffins had scored yet. She wasn’t a hockey fan, but she did follow what was going on well enough, between scanning around her.

  She could only check the immediate area around her with her eyes, the hallway and stands, and that was already kind of covered with her ability to feel the fell magic of hell anyway. So most of her efforts were actually shifting her eyes to closely scan the entire half of the arena on the other side of the ice.

  That’s when her worst nightmare happened. Jenna’s plan wasn’t subtle at all, and she had no intention of maintaining the secret. She’d been right, what was the point in being subtle if the warlock’s plan was to destroy a whole city. If she succeeded, the secret of the supernatural world would be a moot point.

  So, in front of a huge arena, two hockey teams, and god knew how many viewers at home, a portal shimmered into existence right on the ice at the center red line in the damned face-off circle. A blast of hellfire billowed out of it and preceded the first demon. She hated being right, the bastard was carrying a huge stainless-steel canister, about as wide as a propane tank for a barbeque, and twice as high. Her eyes zoomed in on it, and it had something attached to the nozzle with a blinking red light.

  Shit, they were so screwed, Jenna probably had a master switch to release them all at once, remotely. Their only chance was if they killed her before that, or if Allison could neutralize the gas before the warlock released it.

  She shifted strength and speed as she ran forward and down the stairs, while she slid open the bag and pulled out the M-16. She wanted to be in range for her magic as well, and that meant aura range since they weren’t on the life-web.

  What she hadn’t accounted for was the panic of the crowd. She’d only made it halfway down the stairs and toward the floor, when the humans around her panicked and started to run. They were in her way, or she was in theirs, either way it was bad. Worse, when she screamed she was a federal agent, all she managed to do was get their attention, which focused on the fact she had an assault weapon in her hands.

  Some brave but very stupid humans charged her, as if she was the threat.

  Shit, not good.

  She briefly considered leaping straight up and growing out wings, flying down there. After all, the supernatural cat was pretty much already out of the bag. Except, she realized if she did that every human with a gun in the arena, including security, would be aiming it at her in a panic, not the warlock as they’d hoped would happen.

  She felt guilty about it, but she raised her transmit antenna in her satellite dish to the highest it would go, and she sent out waves of fear. The imagined one, attached to her hollow sphere shield on the life-web that controlled her projective and receiving empathy. The brave guys running for her flinched back, and everyone else edged away in fear and made a path for her as she continued to run down the stairs yelling federal agent.

  Her body brushed a lot of humans on the way, but they were too scared to try and stop her. Not that they could have stopped her with her shifted strength and speed, she just didn’t want to hurt them.

  When she got to the rails she stopped and raised the rifle, as she mentally dropped her transmission level. The humans behind her were panicked, and trying to run, but there was a major traffic jam at the exits. In the time it had taken to get down there, three more demons and canisters had come through. She could shoot and kill
the demons, but that wouldn’t help all that much.

  A fifth demon and canister started coming through, she really hated being right about there being more of them.

  “Shit.”

  She jumped up to the top of the railing, and then shifted all the strength she could and jumped over the guards and onto the ice. As she flew over the barrier, she used spells to take out two of the demons, but she was still looking for Jenna.

  She landed on the ice, and her legs flew out from under her and she landed hard on her ass. It was jarring, but she brushed it off in time to see Meri and Jacob take out demons three through five with their weapons. The sixth one coming through she killed with a spell.

  It was like shooting fish in a barrel, but her killing the demons ultimately didn’t make a difference or even help all that much. The containers were making it through, which was far more important and not a good thing at all.

  Allison’s voice came out over the radio, “Got another.”

  She had the idea of sending C-4 back through the portal, but she was afraid she’d break one of the containers that hadn’t been neutralized yet if she tried it.

  Another demon came through, and immediately sent hellfire her way. If it wasn’t for their shifted speed and strength, she’d have been screwed. As it was, she almost failed to dodge because of the ice.

  Carl put a bullet in its brain pan, while she quickly rolled to the side and evaded the hellfire. The hellfire hit the ice about four feet behind her, and then dissipated. That made sense, they all must be under strict orders not to burn down the place, Jenna needed all the humans in it as sacrifices, so the human remains had to be preserved, and not killed by anything else first. That meant only they would burn if they were hit.

  Some small bit of good news.

  She sighed, when a seventh demon walked through with another canister. Another thing she’d been right about, and she hated being right about. Jenna must have replaced the ones they’d killed.

  Her aura flashed as she released a death spell, and the canister fell to the ground and bounced as the demon went down. Seven down, five more to go. The demons did have magic shields, but she was very powerful as a witch, with her shifter life force behind it. Demons just couldn’t stand against her, at least not the lower demons that could be summoned. She imagined a demon lord would be much harder, and at Samael’s level she just wouldn’t even have a shot, but those demons didn’t cross over as a rule.

  She had a burning question on her mind, would Jenna even cross the threshold, or do radio signals pass freely through a portal?

  Shit.

  As Meri took out the eighth, she ran over to Jacob.

  “We need to go through there, and then take her down. We don’t know if she needs to step through to release the gas.”

  Jacob grumbled, “She does. Her and the portal demon needs to be here where the deaths take place, or it isn’t a sacrifice.”

  Well damn, that would’ve been nice to know earlier.

  Jace and Carl took down demon’s nine and ten, respectively, and then there was a pause.

  A second later Allison gave a thumbs up, apparently all ten were neutralized. She scanned quickly, and she saw a lot of security folks and braver humans were watching in confusion, fear, and worry. Not many had made it out of the building at all, it’d only been thirty seconds in total since the portal first opened up.

  Jenna came through next, and she looked very pissed off as they all opened up on her with the M-16s.

  She wondered why Jenna came through first, but as one more male demon and Celia came through, she realized the truth. The first she needed to preserve for the plan, he needed to be alive to open the portal and let the demon army through, and of course, she was protecting Celia as her lover.

  That time every bullet from the rifle struck the warlock, as well as from six others. She also rapidly released several spells, one after the other, and could feel Allison casting as well, but at the canisters. So far they hadn’t broken through.

  Jenna laughed cruelly, and then pushed the button on a remote in her hand.

  All twelve canisters started to hiss, and she looked over at Allison.

  Allison looked terrified, and she realized that Jenna must be shielding herself, her last two demons, and the last two canisters. Allison couldn’t neutralize the gas if her spells couldn’t get through.

  She swung the rifle and threw it like a missile, Jenna’s shield ate it too, as she reached into the duffel bag and pulled out the bar of metal. They were out of choices, and that gas would spread quick. She wasn’t sure how much longer Jenna could hold that shield, but it didn’t matter, the humans would die even if they killed Jenna in that moment, and the gas would also kill everyone on her team except for her and Allison.

  She had no choice, or so she told herself.

  She was just about to reach for the fires of hell, when Allison said, “No! I got this!”

  Magic exploded from Allison and formed a large sphere around Jenna, the two demons, and most importantly the canisters.

  It made her hesitate for a moment, as she read the magic. She didn’t fully understand it, but she recognized it enough to deduce it was a filter of sorts. Any gas that crossed through the large spherical shield would be neutralized, while it was still deadly inside of it.

  Jenna still hadn’t attacked with hellfire, neither had the other two demons. Maybe Jenna believed the gas would take care of it, or the warlock was simply dedicating all her magic to shielding.

  She smiled ferally and shot a mental harpoon at Jenna, and sent fear, lust, and sorrow, which was really messed up, but effective. At the same time, she rapid fired several more death spells and threw the bar of tungsten like a spear at her face.

  She wasn’t the only one attacking, Jacob, Carl, and Jace were unloading their revolvers with their M16s spent, and also throwing their tungsten bars with their other hands.

  Meri threw her tungsten bar with a block of C-4 attached, and screamed, “Get down!”

  Shit. She dove away and dropped to the ice, and there was a huge explosion behind them. She turned her head and hesitated a second in disbelief, the bitch and her two demons looked fine, and the canisters were still hissing.

  Jenna looked like she was supremely confident they’d all drop dead any second. She must not have been able to detect the witch magic sphere.

  Fortunately, Allison’s filter spell was still active as well. The warlock obviously couldn’t feel the witch magic around her, nor could either of the two demons still left alive. If there’d been a tracker demon among them, it was already dead. Still, at some point the stupid bitch would realize something was wrong.

  She frowned, as she pulled out her own hand gun, and started to shoot at the bitch. She wasn’t sure what Jenna would do when she realized her grand plan had already failed, but she didn’t want their quarry to get away again.

  On the good side, it seemed Jenna living through all that, including a point-blank explosion, had finally broken through the human security guard’s horror and amazement, because they all finally opened fire too. The teams hail of bullets turned into a withering rain from almost forty guns.

  Jenna’s shield ate them all, until it didn’t. The first bullet struck her in the side which twisted her body, then she went down to a second hit right in the kneecap, then several disappeared into her chest and sides as she went down for good, and she breathed her last.

  Finally.

  She was relieved, as the two demons were banished at the moment of Jenna’s death, and disappeared in a flashing light. She hoped Jenna enjoyed her sojourn in hell.

  Allison said, “Got the rest.”

  The canisters were still hissing, but apparently after Jenna’s death, Allison had been able to neutralize it at the source.

  Still, she was also nervous as she looked around, at thousands of shocked faces staring at them in center ice. Not to mention the red lights at the tops of the cameras surrounding them. What the hell would happen
next?

  None of them had shifted to anything inhuman, and the humans wouldn’t have been able to see the witch spells from her and Allison. But… they’d all moved impossibly fast to evade hellfire, not to mention throwing stuff and firing one handed and a bunch of other impossibilities. Like her jumping over the walls and guard screens onto the ice from the stands.

  Of course, Jenna’s shield, the enemy’s hellfire, and the portal were all far more blatant, but it wouldn’t take a genius to realize they weren’t human either.

  She, and the rest of the team, turned to look at Jacob. It was one moment that she was very glad she wasn’t in charge.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Jacob held up his badge, and then waved at all of us and we packed our duffels and moved toward the rink exit, where the teams got on and off the ice.

  She was a bit bemused, as the security guards just stared at them with mouths hanging open as they walked by, and then headed straight for the emergency exit sign.

  “Good plan, boss,” Meri teased.

  Her friend hadn’t quite pulled the right tone off though, Meri’s voice had been stressed and nervous.

  Jacob snorted, “We’re so screwed, I don’t suppose there’s any way to remove their short-term memories?”

  Allison shook her head, “Not a chance. Between the two of us, Lily and I, we could probably get six hundred or so, tops. Then we’d be exhausted and quite possibly unconscious.”

  Jacob grunted, “Probably doesn’t matter, it was on TV. Our badges are burned since we showed them here, they’d pass a typical check, but under the intense scrutiny from the fallout we’ll have the FBI and homeland security put out a warrant on all of us.”

  He pulled his phone out, and then made a phone call.