Between Heaven and Hell

by Jeff Kirvin

  Simonson nodded to his companions. They promptly got up and left the apartment.

  “Mister Cho, I can understand your feelings. If I’d been through what you just went through, I’d have had my fill of it too. But this is bigger than you or me. We need your experience. The demons have been preying on mankind for millennia. They’re the greatest threat our species has ever faced. And if we’re going to wipe them out, we need someone who knows them, how they think. We need you.”

  “Why don’t you call the angels? Uriel was very helpful.”

  Simonson looked at his shoes. “We haven’t been able to reach them. Please, sir. Mankind needs you.”

  Daniel had finally had enough. “Don’t you people get it? Those damn things ruined my life, almost killed me, they killed my family and one of the best friends I ever knew. I’m through with them. Hell, it’s because of me, Jeff and Susan that you even know about them. I’ve done my part. You can do the rest without me.”

  Simonson stood in silence for a long moment. “Very well, if that’s your final word, that’s what I’ll relay to my superiors. On a personal note, I must say I’m very disappointed. You’re quite a hero to millions of people, myself included. We really could have used your help in this. We’re trying to change the world.” He turned to leave.

  Change the world. Jeff’s dying words came rushing back to Daniel. What the hell was he doing?

  “Simonson.”

  The agent stopped with his hand on the doorknob.

  “I’m in,” Daniel said.

  Thus began the effort to exterminate the demons, an effort dubbed by the media as the Demonic Crusade.

  And Jeff was right.

  The world would never be quite the same again.

  BOOK II:

  CRUSADE

  New Beginning

  SAN FRANCISCO. SIX MONTHS LATER.

  Colonel Daniel Cho stood in the cold bay wind at the foot of his mother’s grave. He was dressed in jeans and a conservative blazer, his hair had grown back, and for once he didn’t have a cast or a brace on his arm or fingers. Physically, he was whole again.

  Emotionally was another matter.

  This was the first opportunity he’d had to visit his family’s graves since their deaths. During his training with the DTF, he been able to repress his feelings, to concentrate on the work, learning to destroy the monsters that had taken so much from him. But now that he was home, now that he could see the physical reminder of that loss, it all came rushing back.

  A lone tear streamed down from his right eye. “Mom…” he whispered. He knew he would never forgive the bastards for what they did to him, to his family, to Jeff Frankel. His hatred of them seemed to double every day. Because of them, he could never again tell his mom how much he loved her, never again share a beer with his dad, never tease his sisters, never show Jeff how much the world changed, just as the old guy predicted.

  In the last six months, he had indeed seen the world change. Most of the demons, the vast majority, went underground when the story hit. Those that didn’t and stood their ground were wiped out quickly. The leaders, Beelzebub and Satan himself, were still unaccounted for and presumed to be plotting some kind of retaliatory action. No one knew where they’d gone.

  The angels were still incommunicado, and no one knew where they were, either. Mankind was left to deal with the demonic threat alone.

  That was just fine with Daniel. He remembered vividly Jeff’s tale of botched vengeance, but the bastards had taken Jeff, too, and Daniel needed to be involved in their destruction personally.

  Enter the DTF. They were a good group of people, and they had accepted Daniel with open arms as one of their field leaders. After a crash course in combat strategy against demons, a course he helped develop, Daniel was awarded the rank of Colonel and given his own squad, five people that he’d learned to trust with his life.

  Daniel looked down at the headstone of his little sister, Samantha, dead at 21. As good as things were getting, they didn’t change the past. The demons, the monsters that had inflicted so much pain on Daniel and countless others throughout the course of human history, were still out there. Daniel couldn’t rest until the very last one of them was destroyed.

  The ring of his cellular phone cut the still silence of the cemetery.

  “Cho.”

  “Colonel,” came the voice on the other end. Harris, his second. “We’ve got a lead on another one. Belphegor.”

  “I’m on my way,” Daniel answered, then disconnected.

  With a final glance at the four headstones reading “Cho”, Daniel left the cemetery.

  The Demon Task Force’s Los Angeles headquarters was an abandoned and converted police station. It was a large, three-story brick building, at least 1940’s construction and looking older. When Daniel had left it earlier, it had borne no markings to identify its occupants. He noticed with a wry grin how that had changed. Over the large double doors at the front of the building, someone had hung a four-foot long paper banner with the DTF logo and initials.

  That oughta clear up any uncertainty, Daniel remarked to himself as he climbed the short stairs and entered the building.

  The interior of the building was, if anything, shabbier than the outside. The building had been abandoned for years before the DTF commandeered it, the local cops having moved out to more modern facilities. Everything was brick and faded linoleum, steel desks and chairs that were probably never comfortable. Daniel walked through the lobby and into the precinct room, where his team had set up shop.

  Lieutenant Colonel Jack Harris sat alone at a table studying case files, his long, lean body hunched over and running his fingers through his graying brown hair. Jack was Daniel’s second in command. A former SWAT team leader in Chicago, and a Navy SEAL before that, Jack was known as a tactical genius, specializing in fugitive extraction. He had a knack for finding and flushing out the bad guys with a minimum of civilian danger and collateral damage.

  Major Paul Simonson paced by the window. A blue-eyed blond farmboy from Minnesota, Paul was a FBI agent at heart years before he actually made it to the academy. He grew up fascinated by tales of G-men, and knew that being a federal cop was the life for him. When the revelation about the existence of demons broke, Paul found the greatest challenge an agent could face—a group of powerful, immortal fugitives from justice. He leapt at the chance to join the DTF, and never looked back.

  Stout but hearty Captain Roberto Ortiz sat on the couch with his notebook computer, happily typing. Roberto grew up as the only hacker/computer nerd in his small village outside of Mexico City. His friends never really understood his fascination with his homebuilt computer, but through it, Roberto could see a whole new world, one that his parents and friends would never know. By the time he was 21, Roberto graduated from MIT with honors. A year later he had his Masters and a year after that his PhD. He joined the DTF as one of the world’s leading authorities in communications and encryption technology.

  Compact and redheaded Captain Lucy O’Malley lounged on the couch next to Roberto. Rumored to have been former IRA, Lucy knew just about all there was to know about explosives. Her older brother was killed during “The Troubles” in an altercation started by a man later revealed by Zagam’s files to be a demon. She took great delight in destroying the demons, but lived for the day she could destroy Asbeel, the individual demon that she blamed for the death of her brother.

  Tall, young and handsome Lieutenant Heinrich von Braun stood in a corner, trying not to stare at Lucy and failing miserably. Heinrich was a natural when it came to weapons technology, but a raw novice at practically everything else. A natural marksman bordering on savant, he won German national shooting titles by the age of eight. He understood weapons almost instinctively, and had been known to field strip a weapon he’d never seen, perfectly, after examining it for only a few seconds. Heinrich was also extremely devoted to the Christian faith. When the story of the demons broke, Heinrich saw it as his calling to use his Divine
Gift. He joined the DTF immediately.

  Roberto glanced up from computer. “Hey, boss,” he called in a very slight Spanish accent. “What took you so long? You think maybe these demons are going to live forever or something?” No one laughed at Roberto’s attempt to lighten the mood. They all knew where Daniel had been, and why he’d gone.

  “Damn plane had to obey the laws of physics, ‘Berto.” Daniel turned to Jack. “Where is he?”

  Jack unrolled a map on a table. “Right here in L.A.”

  Daniel wasn’t surprised. Most of the demons they’d destroyed had been located in densely populated urban areas, trying to hide in the surging mass of humanity. They knew that demons looked identical to humans, and tried to take advantage of the trait humans had of not noticing much that didn’t directly affect their lives.

  “And it’s a match?” Daniel asked. Since the vast majority of demons had run to ground, it became imperative for the DTF to verify each demon spotting. If the DTF mobilized on each alleged sighting, they’d spend all their time on wild goose chases. The best forensic and behavioral scientists in the world had drawn up a set of profiles that the real demons were likely to meet. Only those that met those requirements were investigated.

  “Highly probable, sir. The description matches Belphegor, and the suspect fits the profile. Confidence is high.”

  “All right, then,” Daniel said loudly, addressing the entire team.

  “Let’s move out.”

  Demonbusters

  The apartment they tracked the demon to was one of those rundown places where even the nosy neighbors don’t ask too many questions. A perfect place to hide, Daniel thought. He stood outside his team’s van in his combat uniform, an armored outfit similar to police riot gear. “Paul,” he said into his headset mike, “how we doing?”

  Paul sat somewhere on a rooftop facing the target. Once they got on site, the team never saw him, but his observations had often proved invaluable. “Doing fine, boss. Confirm that the target is home.”

  “ ‘Berto?” Daniel said.

  Roberto responded from inside the van, where he was surrounded by communications gear. “Negative activity. Phone line’s quiet and there’s no outgoing cable or radio transmissions. If he knows we’re coming, he’s not telling anybody about it.”

  Daniel exchanged a look with the tactical component of his team, Jack, Lucy and Heinrich, attired as he was. They were just finishing the adjustment of their various weapons and equipment. “We have a go,” he said.

  “Roger that,” Jack said, and with a wave, led them all into the building, Daniel bringing up the rear. Once inside, they crept quietly up the stairs to the second landing, then down the hall to room 203, the location of the suspected demon. Jack glanced back at Daniel, who gave him a nod. With Heinrich directly behind him and aiming his high powered rifle over Jack’s shoulder, Jack kicked the door open.

  “DTF!” he yelled as he rolled into the shabby apartment. The apartment’s sole occupant, a man in his mid-thirties, sprang up from the couch, where he’d been watching television.

  “Please,” he said, raising his hands, “don’t—”

  Heinrich shot him once in the chest. The target fell to the floor, bleeding.

  Daniel and Lucy entered the room after Jack had verified that there was no one else present. Daniel walked over to the target, who to his credit did not try to get up. As Daniel investigated the chest wound, he could see that it was already healing, a dead giveaway that the target was an immortal. “Confirm,” he said.

  “Let’s do it, then,” Jack answered, and Heinrich stepped up to the target, now confirmed as Belphegor. With a look of great satisfaction, he shot the demon point blank in the head, incapacitating it. He then slung his rifle and hoisted the demon over his shoulder.

  Daniel had been looking around the room, searching for clues to any other demons’ whereabouts. He found nothing of interest, only mementos and relics that had most likely been collected over the course of the demon’s life, probably plundered from unsuspecting humans. It occurred to Daniel that quite a few of the individual artifacts in the apartment were worth more than the entire building that housed them. “Let’s get someone up here to catalog this stuff,” he said.

  “Yes, sir,” Jack answered, and without another word, they went back outside, demon in tow.

  By the time Belphegor had recovered enough from the head wound to be aware of his surroundings, he found himself in a field, the skyline of Los Angeles vaguely visible in the distance. He was tightly bound at the wrists and ankles, and in his weakened state, he could not snap the bonds.

  He looked down at his body, and directly underneath his completely healed chest was strapped a package with a digital timer. He’d heard enough stories from his brothers about the DTF to know what the package was. He began scrambling frantically, trying to dislodge the bomb.

  By the time the counter ticked down to ten seconds, he knew it was futile. He tried to remember all the things he’d seen in forty thousand years, the people he’d known, the historic events in which he’d participated. It’s been a good life, he thought as the counter approached zero. But I don’t want to di—

  His last thought was interrupted by the fiery explosion that ended his millennia of life. His burning body parts scattered hundreds of yards across the field, joining the charred remnants of several other demons that had once made Los Angeles their home.

  When the last of the smoke dissipated and the flames had burned themselves out, the DTF van that had been parked at the edge of the field drove away.

  Reunited at the L.A. DTF headquarters, the team allowed themselves a little celebration.

  “Uno down, God knows how many to go,” Roberto said.

  “Easy there, ‘Berto,” Daniel cautioned. “We know there’s a finite number of them, so each one down is a victory in my book.”

  “Is it just me,” Heinrich asked, his high voice contrasting with his heavy and guttural German accent, “or is this getting easier as we go?”

  “You bet it is,” Jack answered, reclining on the couch, “but only because we’re getting better at it. We’ve had time to develop a standard operating procedure, and we follow it. Professionals always make the job look easy.” The team toasted themselves on that comment, before Jack added, “But just remember that the second you get too cocky and stop acting like a professional, the enemy will eat you alive.”

  That sobered them. Not all DTF teams were as successful as they had been, and a few had been lost, the entire teams, to the demons they pursued.

  As Heinrich took a seat next to Lucy and complimented her on the bomb that destroyed Belphegor, Roberto waved at Daniel. “Hey boss, come here.”

  Daniel walked over and stood over Roberto’s shoulder. “What you got, ‘Berto?”

  Roberto showed Daniel his notebook. “Email coming in, addressed to you.”

  Daniel took the computer from Roberto and opened the message. It was from DTF Central Headquarters, inside the United Nations building in New York. The message was short and to the point.

  “Pack your bags, people,” he said. “The boss wants to see us.”

  Susan’s New Life

  Susan Richardson was having a little difficulty adjusting to her new life. After years of studying print journalism, Susan was “discovered” by the television networks and deemed too telegenic not to be on camera. She’d been wooed by all the broadcast and cable networks, but she finally settled on the fledgling World News Network, a cable all-news outfit located in Washington, D.C. that lured her away from the bigger, more established networks with a promise of complete autonomy. The opportunity to pick her own stories and report them without even the possibility of editorial changes was simply too good to pass up.

  A few months later, Susan practically owned WNN. Her face and reputation had single-handedly put the tiny network on every major cable provider in the world, and Susan had become one of the most recognized and trusted voices in news. People tuned in to hea
r what she had to say. Which was beginning to annoy the hell out of her.

  Not that she didn’t appreciate the following. Every time she heard herself compared favorably to great newsmen like Walter Cronkite, she got all tingly inside. It was, after all, her life’s dream. No, the problem was the pressure. She’d already broken the “story of the millennium”; there simply wasn’t anywhere to go from there. She did her best, but corrupt politicians and airline disasters paled somewhat in comparison to evil, immortal monsters preying on mankind for centuries.

  Her life wasn’t full of slow news days, however. As she proofed her copy one last time before air, Susan noticed that things were picking up right in her own back yard.

  “Good news, Susan?” asked Bob Pack, her co-anchor.

  Susan glanced up and smiled. “You mean for the world or the ratings?”

  She still really hated that one thing about televised news. She often felt like a ghoul seeking out the most depressing, tension-filled stories. The same thing applied in print journalism, but television was much more merciless. One of her journalism professors had once told her that no one bought a newspaper to read about “happy bunny people.” But where a newspaper reader might simply glance down to the next story, a television viewer would change the channel and probably not return. She didn’t have the luxury in television of telling people good news. It was as simple as that.

  Keith, the stage manager, waved to get their attention. “We’re on in five,” he said, “four, three, two, one.”

  “Good evening, and welcome to WNN,” Susan said as she smiled warmly into the camera. “I’m Susan Richardson.

  “Our top story tonight, tempers flare on Capitol Hill as Congress narrowly votes down the Demonic Emergency Act, a temporary repeal of the fifth amendment proposed by Texas Senator Timothy Phillips. Phillips had this to say.”

  The camera cut to tape of a tall, heavyset man in his fifties. His mahogany hair was receding and graying, and a prominent brow, bulbous nose and heavy jowls dominated his leathery face. “Now don’t get me wrong,” he said in a deep voice with a strong southern accent, “the DTF is a fine idea, but it’s not enough. One, they’re too small, and two, all they have to go on is a six month old computer database that was sketchy at best even when it was current.