by Michael Todd
“Not a problem, ma’am,” one of the airmen told her, seeing her dismay. “There is a third plane for the donuts.”
Katie slowly looked at the third plane as it rolled to a stop next to the other two. She lifted an eyebrow and shook her head, laughing. She couldn’t believe the general had actually sent a third plane just to carry the donuts over to France. She had a feeling that out of the three of them, that was the most precious cargo to Pandora.
Damn straight it is, and the general is a smart man. He knew I wasn’t going to leave those donuts behind.
Your donuts just cost him about a hundred grand.
And they are worth every damn penny. And damn, look at those planes! So sleek, so smooth, and so fucking fast. I’m gonna have to hold on to your soul when we take off.
You better hold onto my stomach too. I don’t want to puke mid-flight.
I got you, which is why we are not indulging in any of those delicious confections before getting in the air.
Katie looked up at one of the pilots and put her finger up to get his attention. “So, I’m just curious. I am freelance, but the general sent these planes here for us. I just want to make sure I’m not footing the bill for the fuel and cost of using the planes.”
“No, ma’am. You are officially a contractor for the United States military, and any costs for transportation ordered by the military are covered by the military.”
“Oh, good. Otherwise, I’m pretty much paying to fly back and forth to Paris.”
They strapped up Calvin and Katie, putting on their flight helmets and testing them out with their individual pilots. Katie climbed the ladder and shinnied into the back seat, looking around as the pilot climbed into the cockpit. They made sure Katie was tightly buckled in and then slowly lowered the glass dome down over them.
“Just to point out really fast.” The pilot‘s voice sounded crackly in her headset. “You see the red handle on the side of your chair?”
“Yes.”
“I have one too, and if I pull mine, it will eject both of us. But if mine malfunctions or half of the plane falls off, you pull that and hold on. It will eject the entire seat, and a parachute will immediately deploy.”
“Sounds good, Maverick.”
The pilot chuckled. “Now hold on. We are going to really get going here.”
Katie held on tightly as the plane started rolling down the runway. She closed her eyes and held onto the sides of the seat as it surged off the ground and shot forward, throwing Katie backward. She could barely move her mouth because they were moving forward so fast, and she could feel her stomach jumping up and down.
I’m really glad I didn’t eat those donuts, Katie yelled to Pandora.
Woo hooooo, bitches! This is fucking amazing. Seriously, you need to buy one of these.
Katie rolled her eyes and looked at the blue sky above her. When the plane reached the correct altitude, it began to move at a comfortable speed. Katie didn’t know if it had slowed or if she was just used to it, but she had to lick her lips to get them unstuck from her teeth. They cruised through the bright blue skies for several hours before another plane approached.
“Who’s that?” Katie asked the pilot.
“We are refueling midair to save time. He will match our speed, connect the fuel line, fill us up, and then disconnect and it’s all done.”
“That’s pretty sweet.”
I wonder if Gabriel would be able to have a conversation going this fast. Hell, I wonder if he could even catch up to us mid-flight like this. I mean, I don’t know how fast angels can go, but I don’t think warp speed is in their repertoire.
I don’t either, but I sure would hate to see him sucked into the jet’s engine or something.
Pandora cackled with glee. Holy shit, that would be incredible. There would be feathers everywhere, like a fucking cock-fighting ring.
Let’s just get to Paris and not worry about angels and engine failure, please.
Gosh. Pandora sighed. I love Paris. It’s one of my most favorite cities in the world. I wonder how much it has changed since I was there last.
When were you there last?
Oh, maybe 1923 or so. I remember going to some jazz clubs right when jazz was really starting to become the scene. We would go out all night and just dance our asses off. This one time we left the club, I grabbed one of the trumpet players and we ran out into traffic and started dancing through the streets. People were honking and waving, and I am pretty sure that was the time we caused the major blackout in the city. Of course, electricity wasn’t so reliable then anyway.
You have the craziest stories. Didn’t you ever just chill out?
Oh, sure. We used to hang out with Edouard Monet and Edgar Degas. It was the life.
Katie shook her head, not sure whether she was telling the truth. In reality it didn’t matter, since it wasn’t like she could call up Degas and ask him. If everything she said about her past was true she had met some of the most influential people in history, and part of Katie was jealous of that. To live a life of such amazement and wonders! It was a dream she knew she would never fulfill, at least not in one lifetime.
She spent almost the whole trip over listening to Pandora tell her stories about Paris, Tokyo, and the million other places she had spent time in past lives on Earth. Katie was starting to understand why she was so engrossed with Earth. It sounded a lot more interesting than the way she described hell. Lava pits, volcanoes, and fast-food joints that sold puppies and fried hamsters. With Pandora’s obsession with fashion, hell seemed like the worst place for her. They didn’t even wear clothes in hell, except when Pandora wanted to piss off Lucifer and strut around in something sparkly she had bought when she was above ground. All in all, she’d had one hell of a ride, and Katie could tell she wasn’t ready to give that up yet.
“We are making our approach to the base,” the pilot announced.
“Copy that.”
Katie held on tightly as the pilot swished in for a bumpy landing. The plane raced down the runway, slowing down to a stop right in front of the hangar. The pilot popped the top on the plane, and they brought over the steps and helped Katie down.
The ground crew unloaded their gear, and the third plane disgorged the twelve dozen donuts. They had a Humvee there ready and waiting to ship them out to the boat that would take them over to the island. They got changed and ready, carrying enough ammunition to last them until they were able to get to a checkpoint. They knew it was going to be one hell of a ride, but nothing could have prepared them for what they were walking into.
All around Notre Dame were cop cars flanked by Humvees and newly-erected portable stone barriers. Lights flashed brightly in the dark of the city, and the sparks of gunfire looked like a fireworks show. The demons were flowing out of the cathedral after making their way up through the tunnels and out the main doors. The police and several military units were doing their best to hold them back, trying to keep them from getting into the surrounding city and killing even more innocent people than they already had.
There were bodies strewn all over the square, and blood ran down the steps outside the church. Demons hunched down, devouring the people who had been killed when the portals initially opened. It was a gruesome scene, and it was about to get even worse if they couldn’t hold the demons back. Once the whole island was taken there was not much stopping them from making a break for the main part of the city, and there were so many demons running around they would have a really hard time controlling them once off that island.
The line of police stretched around the entire infected area, and they took cover behind cars, retaining walls, and anything else they could as they laid continued suppressing fire on the crowd of demons. None of them were trained on how to handle the demons, but they had been the first ones on the scene and were doing their best to learn from the military, who also had very limited knowledge. It was a bloodbath; there was no other way to describe it.
The horror of Incursion Day pal
ed in comparison to the droves of demons pouring through the portals and the amount of carnage they were inflicting on anyone they could get their claws into.
On the terrace leading to the front doors of the cathedral, three demons closed in on a woman. She screamed, dropping to her knees and praying with her hands up in the air. The cops were too far away to get a shot off to help her and everyone else sat there helpless, watching the scene unfold.
“Per favore, abbi pietà di me. Sono un credente in Cristo. Ho vissuto una bella vita, abbi pietà di me. Lasciami stare,” the woman cried out.
The demons cackled and hissed, swiping at her as she fell forward on all fours. They piled on top of her, ripping at her flesh. She clawed the ground, trying to climb away, but they just pulled her back, biting into her arms and legs. Brock watched the scene unfold from high up in a helo that was circling to drop them off. A demon jumped on top of her, shielding him from the gruesome sight. Her arms and legs twitched and finally went limp.
He took a deep breath and shook his head in anger. “Those bastards. They are brutally slaughtering people down there.”
The guys watched out the window as a man flew through one of the large stained glass windows and hit the ground. A demon lunged out behind him and grabbed him by his head. He picked the man up and ripped his body in half, biting down on the entrails that leaked out of his lower half. They all grimaced at the sight. Some of the soldiers had never seen anything like it before.
The chopper dropped and hovered, and the pilot looked back and nodded.
“All right, boys,” Brock yelled. “This is our time. We go down there and send every single last one of those motherfuckers back to hell!”
One by one they grabbed the rope, rappelled out of the helicopter, landed on the steps of the cathedral, and joined the battle without a pause. They blasted the demons with their special bullets, turning them instantly to dust. Brock screamed as he ran across the platform, blasting bullets into the three demons who were chowing down on the Italian woman. When they turned to dust, he looked down at her. Her face was splattered with blood, and what was left of her hand clutched a cross around her neck. Her eyes were wide open, staring straight up at one of the towers. Brock gritted his teeth and turned, spraying bullets across a line of demons who were steadily creeping toward him.
He shot and shot, not stopping until he had expelled every last bullet in his magazine, leaving many piles of dust in his wake. He grabbed another and reloaded, finding another group hunkered in the corner chewing on what looked like the remnants of a stroller. Brock felt like he was numb; like nothing was affecting him except rage. All he could see was red, and all he could do was kill every single demon that got anywhere near him.
Brock climbed the steps and entered the cathedral. He opened fire on a swarm of demons, and several of them hit the ground. He put up his arm as one lunged toward him, spinning out of the way just as the demon’s claws grabbed on. He used the extra strength his demon was feeding him and hurled the beast through one of the windows. Another of his teammates ran up and put a bullet in another demon’s head, nodding at Brock as he went on to the next.
Brock stood in the center of the nave looking up at the beautiful ceiling. Demons were everywhere, clawing their way across the historical monument; forever desecrating the place.
He brought his gun up and fired at the ceiling, blasting the demons who crashed to the floor before turning to dust. He reached for his back strap and pulled out a small handheld flamethrower that had been issued when they arrived. Brock smiled as a demon ran straight for him, holding up the weapon and covering the demon in flames.
The beast flailed wildly, screaming in pain. The flamethrower’s accelerant had been laced with the special metal, so every layer of skin that burned off was one more layer for the metal to penetrate the demon.
He kicked the demon, sending it flying out the front door, hitting several other demons on the way out. They all burst into flames, running around screeching until finally falling to the ground. They would burn for a while until finally turning to dust, an anguish Brock believed they truly deserved.
He returned the flamethrower to his back and retrieved his rifle, walking carefully to the side. The demons had taken notice of the attack and had scattered to hide in the rafters. They peered out from the shadows, their red eyes gleaming brightly, giving Brock targets. He hit a bullseye every single time, killing the demons amid showers of grit floating down from the ceiling.
The whole place was covered in hell, and Brock knew that to finally stop it they had to get to the source. He had heard about the underground tunnels beneath the church, but hadn’t been sure if they actually existed. To him it seemed like the perfect place for demons to hide, and the perfect place for him to go hunting. He had gotten a taste for demon blood, and now he was out to obliterate them.
He had seen too much death for it to ever leave his mind, and he was going to make the demons pay.
20
Angie grabbed a cup of coffee from the kitchen and took her files into the living room. She sat down on the couch and clicked on the television, figuring she would catch some news before going out to grab some dinner. It was only six there and she thought about catching up with Katie, but she knew she had gone to France for some kind of emergency. If she wasn’t fighting demons she was in bed, since it was midnight there. Angie chuckled, thinking about Katie and how she never missed a chance to get some sleep, no matter where in the world she was.
She leaned back on the couch and took a sip of her coffee, glancing up at the screen. The television was muted but on the screen was a special report with the National News, and across the bottom of the screen, the words Incursion in Paris scrolled. Angie choked a little on her coffee and wiped her front, grabbing a coaster and setting the cup down. She hit the sound on the television and watched with wide eyes as the newscaster recapped in a shaky voice.
“For those of you just joining us, there has been an incursion at Notre Dame Cathedral. Authorities are saying that the cathedral became home to several portals to hell that they believe originate in the catacombs beneath the building. These demons have been flooding to the surface in numbers that we have never seen in a single battle before. We are about to go live to the scene, but be warned, this is a live feed. We have no idea if it will be safe for viewing, so viewer discretion is highly advised. We do not recommend this for children or anyone with a heart condition.”
Angie grimaced as the screen flashed over to the live footage. She could see demons flailing in the distance, covered in flames on the steps of the cathedral. There was blood splattered everywhere, and pieces of bodies being dragged around by snarling black creatures with sharp teeth and razor claws. Angie leaned forward and shook her head, not understanding what in the hell was going on.
All around the cathedral there were cop cars, Humvees, armored vehicles, and hundreds of officers and soldiers lining up shooting any demon that came in their direction. The camera panned to the front of the building where a woman laid half-eaten, still clutching the cross around her neck. Angie looked away for a moment and then slowly looked back, watching as gunfire blazed at the beasts. Some turned to dust but others turned on their attackers, tearing them to shreds on live television. It was a complete and total bloodbath, something Angie had never before seen.
“Julie,” the reporter yelled, holding her earpiece. “We are on the scene at the Notre Dame Cathedral, where reports began pouring in just as the sun went down. The emergency system here was flooded with everything from calls for help to screams and terrible screeching from the demons. The police were the first ones on the scene, though sadly the first wave of fifty who went in never came back out. At that point, the police decided it would be better to surround and fight from the outside until backup could arrive. More soldiers have just been brought in, and only a few minutes ago I witnessed some special operations soldiers drop in from a helicopter and start doing some serious damage.”
�
�Are there any mercenaries there that you know of?”
“At this time... What?” The reporter seemed to be talking to her cameraman and slowly turned around, dropping her mic.
She started to run, and the demon chasing her closed in behind her. She slipped on a puddle of blood and disappeared down some stairs, the demon lunging down after her. The camera shook before hitting the ground, the feed getting fuzzy. You could hear a man screaming in the background. The news station quickly cut back to the studio, where the newscaster gaped wide-eyed at the screen. Tears started to pour down her cheeks and she repeated the name of the reporter over and over.
Angie sat up on the edge of her seat, shaking. She couldn’t believe what she was watching. A reporter and a cameraman had just been eaten on live television during an incursion that she knew Katie was heading to. She had seen Katie in action on television during the recent New York incursion, but that was nothing compared to what she was watching. Suddenly the screen flashed over to the weather and when it came back, the evening host had replaced the woman formerly at the desk.
“This is a trying time for all of us. I am Robert Hoseby, filling in for Julie, who is receiving medical attention for shock. We do not know if our reporter in the field or her cameraman are okay, but we are doing everything we can to find out. Please keep them in your prayers tonight. Paris is under attack, an attack we haven’t seen the likes of in our entire history on this planet. Demons are pouring out of portals too fast for the authorities to take down, and backup has been requested.”
Angie put down her files and took another sip of her coffee, folding her legs underneath her. She wasn’t sure if she would ever get used to the fact that her boss went out to fights like that on purpose. She didn’t know how she did it and came home sane the next day. Then again, she was a demon hunter with one of the most powerful demons of all inside her.