Collateral Damage (Demon Squad Book 8)

by Tim Marquitz

  I let my senses out for a walk but there wasn’t anything sending up flares, though that was to be expected. Katon had warded his home against magic and those defenses played havoc with my senses, even amped up as they were. There was no way to tell if anyone was inside without actually going in. I was hesitant to do that, however, so I waited a little longer, scanning the neighborhood first. It wasn’t until I felt confident that no one of any power lurked nearby that I decided to take a chance. Before I could talk myself out of it, I dropped down into a shadowy corner of the house and made my way to the front door to knock.

  Only silence answered me, so I knocked again and again, trying not to disturb the neighbors while I did, my hand getting heavier with every thump. Still, no one answered. It didn’t mean they weren’t there. Had I seen me slobbering on the front stoop while trying to get my supernatural groove on, I wouldn’t answer the door either.

  I ran my hand along the frame and felt for the wards. They tingled against my palm while I struggled to remember what they were. Not much of a student on my best days, those lessons were largely faded and pretty much useless. I growled and put up a shield before slamming my fist into the door right where the deadbolt sat. There was a sharp crack as the wood frame splintered and gave way, then the sudden scent of sulfur as the wards were triggered.

  An invisible force slammed into my defenses. It felt like a mule whacked out on PCP had kicked me in the gut, but my shield held, dispersing the energy without too much effort. Good ol’ Katon. As much as he wanted to defend his property, he was still a big ol’ softie. He wasn’t looking to kill anyone. The odds were good that it’d be a human looking to rob his place rather than some monstrosity bent on world domination, and he’d set his wards accordingly, which was awful polite. Saved me from getting my ass kicked by a door.

  Speaking of which, it swung open on oiled hinges, the dark, empty living room beckoning from beyond. I was just about to step inside the house when my senses set off a klaxon that reverberated through my skull. I’d been worried Katon or Scarlett might retaliate for what I’d done to the door had they been inside sleeping, or otherwise occupied, but this wasn’t them I realized. Four empowered entities materialized in the street behind me. It wasn’t the Three Stooges obviously, which was disappointing. Still, that didn’t mean they weren’t connected somehow. I spun about and strolled out to greet them. Right then, it really didn’t matter who they were. They certainly weren’t there on accident, and I was in the mood to destroy someone.

  Anyone.

  I apparently caught them unaware as the foursome jumped like spooked puppies when I strolled out of the shadows. “Day care let out early today, kids?” Wide eyes stared at me. They were an interesting lot, I’d give them that.

  The bravest of them, a dark-skinned girl with respectable amounts of padding in all the right places, looked at me through narrow eyes. She had dark, wavy hair that fell to her shoulders and framed a face that was pretty despite the sour lemon twist of her lips. Her muscular frame was packed into tight jeans and a tank top that showed off her broad, sculpted shoulders. My senses rang back as Nephilim. She had some power running in her veins but was hardly the head of her class.

  “Who are you?” she asked, her voice raspy, albeit still soft from uncertainty.

  I ignored her and glanced at her friends. The girl next to her was tiny; a porcelain doll that clearly spent all her allowance at tattoo shops. There was enough metal poking holes in her that she probably couldn’t classify as waterproof anymore. What parts of her that weren’t covered in piercings or clothing—she was dressed much like the first woman—was covered in intricate tattoo work that professed a love of all things mechanical. There were gears and sprockets and all sorts of whatsistats I didn’t recognize or give a damn about. She’d fit right in at a Steampunk convention. I couldn’t make out what she was, but there was no mistaking the magic that wafted off her.

  “I asked you a question,” the first repeated, gaining a little confidence when I hadn’t drawn any closer.

  “Answer her!” the Marilyn Manson clone with them demanded. I raised an eyebrow.

  Out of all of them, he had the best resume on paper, a Black Metal wizard of the highest diabolical order. That’s probably what his business card said, at least. The stink of his dark energies curled my nose hairs something fierce. Crimson eyes glared at me from above the craggy plateaus of his cheekbones. His paper thin lips were pursed so tight as to look like an em dash of dissatisfaction. Black leather robes hung from his emaciated frame and swayed in the wind, metal clasps scraping against the asphalt.

  Lastly, the little hobbit that could was a mismatched amalgam of girth and redneck couture. It was as if Glen Danzig had made a pact with Lucifer for a lovingly coiffed unibrow. Despite being four foot nothing, the guy was as wide as he was tall, nothing but layers of muscle carved on top of more layers on top of more. He wore a pair of overalls that had a lived-in look about them and a pair of beat up shit kickers. If you pictured a pug cowboy turned human, that was this guy. He was also clearly a demon, though I imagined his bloodline was more diluted than the whiskey at a Drink-N-Drown.

  “If you don’t—” the pale guy started but the barest flare of my magic cut him off mid-threat.

  I waggled a finger, power humming at the tip, and then traced the letters F and U in the air with a glowing streamer. Wisps of flame danced in the darkness. The assembled circus clowns went silent.

  “I don’t know who you people are, or why you’re here, but you’re picking a really, really bad time to trespass in my world,” I told them. “Explain what you’re doing, and I might let you off with just a spanking.” In reality, I was hoping they’d take the bait since I’d been reining in my power since they popped up on my radar. I was spoiling for a fight.

  The thick guy chuckled. “I’m thinkin’ Grandpa Ballsack here wants his ass kicked.”

  “Stand down, Thud,” the first woman called out, signifying that she was in charge. I smiled. It was great when the bad guys advertised who to take out first.

  “Thud?” I said with a laugh. “Is that your name or the sound your mother made when she shit you out?”

  “You’re going to regret that when I rip your tongue out and use it to wipe my ass.”

  “Seriously?” The little tattooed girl rolled her eyes. “We’re not here for this.”

  “There’s always time for a boot to the head, Kit,” Thud said, his knuckles cracking as he clenched his fist and started forward.

  That was more like it. The fuse of adrenaline flickered to life as the demon advanced, but I knew I needed to keep them talking no matter how much I wanted to brawl. They were there for a reason, and whether they were connected to the fanatics had yet to be determined. If they were, I needed to know.

  “You here to finish the job the holy rollers started?”

  “Maybe we are,” Thud replied, a broad grin spreading across his square face, though it sounded more like he was just talking shit rather than admitting to something.

  “I said stand down!”

  “I don’t answer to you, toots.”

  “You damn well better or—”

  “No need for threats, Grace,” the vampire wannabe said. “Let the two morons battle it out. We have other things to attend to.”

  “Morons?” Thud and I asked at the same time, both of us looking at the asshole.

  “See?” he said. “They can be reasoned with.” His smile would have looked right at home on a shark.

  “Fuck you, Styg,” Thud told him. Clearly there was no love lost between the motley crew of freaks.

  “Why don’t you clue me in as to why you’re here and maybe, just maybe, we can go our separate ways without any of you getting hurt too badly,” I asked.

  “Why don’t you go hump a porcupine?”

  “Because I’d rather screw the ass golem that gave birth to you.”

  Thud’s upper lip twitched, and he charged. I just grinned. Sometimes it was too ea
sy. I cast a sideways glance at the woman they’d called Grace and saw her roll her eyes. Whatever they were doing here hadn’t involved getting into a scrap.

  Too bad.

  Thud growled and swung at me but it would take an hour before his T-rex arm got anywhere near me. I drilled a kick into his kneecap Jon Jones style, hyperextending it and stopping him cold. He huffed, and I used my reach advantage to hook a shot to his liver followed by a straight right to his face. Like a good little boy, he doubled over at the body blow, adding his momentum to the last punch. My fist collided with his cheek and he went flying across the street, disappearing into the trees. He hit with a sound that made his namesake proud.

  All hell broke loose right after.

  The wizard’s power welled up, and I heard several distinct clicks as the short woman cobbled some weird device together out of thin air. It was damn interesting to watch, but I figured then would be a good time to make an impression. With a thought, I cut the leash on my power and let it shimmy into the light.

  “Shit.” Grace shouted as my essence washed over them. She paled.

  Her hands were a blur as she drew two weird pieces of metal out of what looked like holsters at her hips. There was a blue flash of energy, and a concentrated beam of mystical power shot between the two pieces, connecting them. Before my eyes the beam solidified into a glowing chain that linked together a solid steel handle and a hooked blade. She spun the chain about and the razor sharp blade hummed through the air beside her.

  Styg took her motions as the sign to attack. An inky blackness erupted from his hands and streaked toward me. I formed a shield in front of it and directed it downward into the asphalt. The ground where it struck withered and rotted in an instant, a hole the size of a basketball rupturing in the street like time-lapse photography on fast forward. The blast had some sting to it, but my easy deflection made it clear to both of us that we weren’t playing in the same league. I couldn’t help but laugh at Styg’s unhappy expression.

  And, of course, that’s when the little girl jumped in. There was a clack as she fitted the last piece of her device together, followed by a loud boom. Turned out she’d built a gun of some kind.

  Well, gun was selling the thing short. It was more like a cannon.

  Something ugly slammed into me and knocked me to my knees. My ribs throbbed something fierce, and I could smell charred skin, acrid smoke billowing from my side. I glared at her as she cocked the slide back, readying the weapon again. Clearly I’d underestimated the shrimp. She fired again before I’d even gotten to my feet, but my power worked at the speed of thought. A trebly reinforced shield met the blow and turned it aside.

  “Not gonna happen twice, Miss Metal.” Visions of hooking her up to a car battery until her piercings glowed white played across the inside of my skull, but the Dark Wizard of Oz decided he wanted some loving first.

  He loosed another bolt, but I sidestepped it and brought my power to bear. A giant hammer of glowing energy formed at my fist, and I whipped it his direction. He cursed and tried to duck away but I’d made the thing too big to avoid. It hit him hard and sent him tumbling down the street like a Tim Burton cast reject.

  “It’s just us now, ladies,” I told the last two as they held their ground, their weapons at the ready. “Tell me what I want to know before I have to get rough on you.”

  They both stared without saying a word, then after a moment Grace narrowed her eyes as if listening to something far away, her eyes twitching in their sockets. I readied my magic, waiting, but she didn’t attack.

  “You’re Triggaltheron,” she said. It wasn’t a question.

  “If you know who I am, then you know you’re making a big mistake rattling my cage,” I answered. “Now get to yappin’ before I beat the answers out of you.”

  Grace sighed and shook her head, her upper lip pulled back in a disgusted sneer. She seemed oddly disconnected considering she was technically staring down the barrel of a gun that was loaded with bullets made out of Anti-Christ.

  I realized then she was listening to someone inside her head, recognizing the signs as her eyes rolled up. My senses leaked out quick and peeked under every stone and branch in the area. I caught the barest sense of another mystical signature—one that felt vaguely familiar—but it vanished as soon as I touched it, leaving me wondering who it might have been.

  Grace started talking then, distracting me. “I can’t tell you what you want to know, demon,” she said, lowering her chain blade and reaching a hand out to grasp the other girl by her arm, pulling her back, “but I can tell you this: You’ll find what’s left of your wife downtown.” She let out a quiet breath. “You might want to hurry.”

  Wasn’t much time for wondering after hearing that, my heart crashing into my ribs in panicked thumps. “What did you say?” My cheeks went nuclear at the thought of Karra.

  She gave me a look I couldn’t decipher, though it clearly wasn’t a happy one, and then the pair vanished in a flicker of energy. I snarled and looked to their pale partner only to see him fade from view the same way. The weight of what she’d said bore down on me so fast that I didn’t bother looking for the diminutive demon. Even if he was still out there in the woods, trying to get information from him would only slow me down. There wasn’t time for that.

  If there was a chance to reclaim Karra’s body, Katon and Scarlett could wait.

  I was in the air an instant later.

  Five

  Though the Nephilim hadn’t given me an exact location, it didn’t take more than a few minutes to realize where I was supposed to be. A horde of people had gathered on the street outside of city hall, a serpent of waving arms and flashing camera phones held back by a line of police cruisers and agitated cops. Red and blue lights cast an ugly pallor across the assembled crowd while news crews lit up the scene. It might as well have been daylight out. A dozen reporters stood at the edge of the crowd, playing to their audiences.

  My eyes scanned the assemblage and the shadows nearby, certain this was a trap. Though I’d been unsure of the kids’ relationship to the rollers, Grace’s comment made it clear there was a connection there. That almost guaranteed I was walking into something unpleasant. That said, there was no sense of great magic anywhere nearby, but I had to presume that, if the punks I’d just left could teleport, then the three bastards of the apocalypse probably could too. I drifted closer to get a better look at everything and caught several people pointing, their hands jumping to their mouths a moment later. My gaze followed their fingers, and I regretted it instantly.

  There, at the top of the flagpole, a sullen lump of familiar blonde hair waved in the breeze. My chest tightened, and I nearly fell from the sky as my brain processed what it saw.

  It was Karra’s severed head.

  A roar of angst and hurt and rage tore through the night. It spilled from my throat without control as I flung myself at the flagpole. Every eye, digital and otherwise, turned toward me, but I didn’t give a damn. All I knew was that I needed to get to Karra.

  I flew over the assemblage and plucked her head from the pole, cradling it in my arms. The tears I’d pushed aside earlier came back in torrents. They spilled down my cheeks, their bitter tang scalding my lips with recrimination. I could hear a tumult of voices coming from the crowd below, but the loudest of them were being drowned out by a loudspeaker that scythed through the noise, ordering me down. I ignored it as I clung to Karra, her hazel eyes staring off into the void after I brushed the strands of her hair aside that hid her face from me. Her skin was cold and stiff, at odds with all my memories of her vitality. There was a bleak emptiness against my senses where her spirit had once burned so brightly. My finger traced her rigid cheek, and her last moments played out in my mind. My stomach lurched at seeing it again. Bile stung my throat as I pulled her to me tighter, burying my face in her wet hair. Everything else was forgotten as I sobbed.

  The world hadn’t forgotten about me, though.

  Something punched me i
n the spine right then.

  Pain seared my nerves, and I was spun about in a haze, the world whipping past my eyes. A boom of thunder sounded immediately after, little more than a blip on my subconscious radar. Gravity took over, and the ground jumped up to meet me, but all I cared about was Karra. I held her close as I crashed to earth, twisting midair to take the blow on my back. That only fueled the agony of my wound. I ground my teeth together and bit back a scream. It was short lived as anger stole its breath, the realization of what had happened sliding home.

  I’d been shot.

  I scrambled to my feet, shrugging aside the pain, blood oozing warm and thick down my legs.

  Some motherfucker shot me.

  My vision narrowed as the blue line that had held the crowd moved toward me, guns out, gaping black barrels pointed my direction. A red filter seemed to drop over my eyes, and all I could see was murder. Before the police could light me up, I drew back a fist and smashed it into the ground, willing my power into the blow.

  Had we been in California, they’d have called this the Big One.

  My magic spread the impact out so my fist didn’t just sink into the sidewalk. Instead, the punch was more akin to an asteroid striking the planet. The ground buckled beneath the blow, waves of cement rippling out in a circle around me. Gunshots barked but nothing came near me as the ground kicked up, crashing into the officers and tossing them into the air. The flagpole toppled behind me, and I heard the explosion of glass as the great windows of city hall met their demise. The wave continued outward, slamming into the crowd and knocking them down, reverberations lashing at the vehicles behind them before the earth finally settled.

  “You can’t have her,” I heard myself scream, barely recognizing my own voice as it boomed over the settling chaos. My body trembled in a way I couldn’t recall having ever felt before. I felt ready to vomit but it had nothing to do with the bullet wound, which was already healing.

  The police scrambled drunkenly to their feet, bruised and battered, terror creasing their faces. Their guns still pointed my way, but no one pulled the trigger. The gathering at their backs were stunned into silence, caught between the desire to run and the primal need to see what happened next. I growled. They were likely gonna regret that indecision.