The End of the World As I Know It (The Ghosts & Demons Series Book 2)

by Chute, Robert Chazz

  “Ladies!” Mama pointed to her wristwatch.

  Malta and I looked to each other, gave a grudging nod, and raced up the stairs.

  I was upset about the demon blood in my veins, of course. Could I have children? Did I want to test fate by trying? How strong would I become and, realistically, could I still hang out at Starbucks if I grew big leathery wings out of my back?

  That sort of shit might be okay in Brooklyn, actually. I could pass myself off as an extra in a movie. However, anywhere but New York, big bat wings could be awkward. I might never slip through a revolving door again.

  My first taste of my new strength was especially satisfying. When Malta ran out of breath, I threw her on my back, armor, weapons and all, and ran up the winding stairs to fresh air and an army of demons.

  At the top of the stairs, I put Malta down and put my shoulder to the heavy stone that blocked the exit.

  It flew out of our way.

  Seething with newfound strength, Rasputin’s spell had unleashed a new me. I leapt into the light. As I landed on the rock at the center of the quarry, my war cry bounced off the quarry’s walls and up into the sky. I felt ready for anything.

  Lesson 151: With great power comes great volatility.

  My high didn’t last long. I was surrounded by a small army of demons.

  Chapter 37

  A hundred demons or more stood ready to attack on all sides. Magog still floated high above me in the air. Spider Richardson hung beneath him. Magog’s tail wrapped around the holy man’s arm to the shoulder.

  Spider was alive and pleading for his life. His begging bothered me. For a moment — just a moment — I was on the demon’s side.

  Then I remembered how Gog and Magog murdered my friends. My father was on their side, too. That sealed my allegiances.

  Malta scrambled up the stairs to crouch by my feet. “Get back down here!”

  “Magog has Spider.”

  “Get down!”

  “Why?” I asked. “This is the only exit. There’s nowhere to go, but maybe I can cut the head off this snake.”

  “No! Iowa — ”

  No time to chat, I reached down and spun Malta around. I snatched the bow and one arrow from her backpack rig. I nocked the arrow and drew the bowstring back in one fluid motion.

  Even the Choir’s archery instructor would have approved of my form. I took steady aim and held it with more ease than I ever had.

  The demon laughed again. “I am Magog!”

  Magog put a lot of stock in the fact that he was Magog.

  “Shoot him! Shoot!” Spider screamed.

  The demon horde rushed us and I let the arrow fly before we could be overrun.

  I swear I heard the heavy thunk of the blessed arrow as its head drilled into the holy man’s right shinbone.

  Lesson 152: It turns out I put too much stock in being Iowa, Castrator of Demons. It doesn’t matter how strong you are, you still have to practice. I told you I wasn’t any good with a bow and I’d told myself sword practice was more important than putting up with Devin Anguloora.

  I am Iowa, half-demon village idiot.

  Spider writhed and began to slip from the blue demon’s grasp. Magog cackled hard. Spider held Magog’s tail now, instead of the other way around. Swinging back and forth, the holy man screamed, “You dumb biiiitch!”

  My plan was to jump back into the hole. Malta and I could cut the demons down as they tried to squeeze through. That had been my plan when we entered and it still seemed like the only option. It would work as long as the demons didn’t have explosives. If they tossed a grenade down on us, we were screwed. I supposed a race that travels between dimensions could develop that sort of thing, but all the demons I’d met seemed to prefer old school cutting, slashing and dismembering followed briskly by lunch.

  As the demons rushed our little island of rock, I ordered Malta to get down to the platform and draw her sword.

  Covering her retreat, I glanced down as the demons roared as one. Malta already stood on the platform beneath me. She was the one with explosives. At least, I deduced that because she held a detonator high.

  “Malta?”

  She pressed the plunger and charges under the quarry’s lake of ice exploded in a sequence of concentric circles. The ice fishing huts were the first to go up. Columns of ice and water reached high into the air.

  Spider fell as Magog reeled up and away.

  Splash!

  Spider surfaced, his eyes wide and full of hate.

  The fearsome roar of the demon army turned to fearful agony as they fell through the ice and the dark water swallowed them.

  Water is the best conductor of holy energy. Spider must have been celibate a long time. He had obviously kept himself busy blessing this demon trap since he and Chumele were a couple. The demon army burned.

  As the circle of charges reached for the center of the quarry, chunks of ice flew my way.

  Ice crystals glittered in fresh sunlight as the explosions turned fountains of holy water into demon blood.

  I thought of that soccer ball hitting me in the forehead when I was a kid. Everything was happening in slow motion again. I watched, fascinated, as a brick of ice as big as a boxing glove rushed at my face. I dodged it easily.

  Feeling my power, I began to laugh. Then another chunk of ice slammed into the back of my head. I tottered on the edge of the hole at my feet and fell into darkness. Demons don’t have eyes in the backs of their heads.

  Chapter 38

  The smell of cedar.

  Rustling and the crackle and pop of a log fire.

  Warmth.

  An itchy wool blanket.

  I opened my eyes. The underside of an unfamiliar wooden roof hung above me. In a moment, Manhattan looked down into my eyes. She put her mouth by my ear so only I could hear.

  “The largest demon incursion into our dimension so far has been destroyed. Magog got away again, but hey, he’s your white whale…blue whale…blue demon. Whatever.”

  An IV bag hung above me on a metal pole. My lips were dry, but, aside from the headache, I didn’t feel as bad as I thought I should. “Spider?”

  “The holy guy? Yeah, he’s fine. You’re not his favorite person, but he’s okay. I told him to stop whining. It was a shoot-the-hostage situation.”

  “I didn’t do it on purpose.”

  “I wouldn’t tell him that,” Manny said. “He’s a powerful sorcerer. If he didn’t think you were crazy, he might turn you into a toilet brush or something.”

  “I’ll stay crazy then.”

  “You’re at Spider’s cabin, by the way. He’s got a great collection of King Crimson records that has been keeping me occupied between diaper runs.”

  “Wh..what?”

  “Some of the Choir is here, camping and keeping watch, but Magog isn’t showing his ugly face.”

  “How long have I been out?”

  “Two days. Want some water?”

  I nodded and that hurt my head.

  Manny moved to prop me up, but I got up on one elbow under my own power to drink some ice water.

  “I never should have let you come home without me,” Manny said. “See the trouble you get into without me around?”

  I squeezed Manny’s hand. “What about Wil and Mama?”

  “Everyone’s fine but you. Wil got away in the Guardian. Your mother says she’s reevaluating her relationship with Mr. Chang. I heard about Trick. Sorry about that, chick.”

  “Where’s Mama?”

  “She’ll be here in a bit. I called her. You’ve been rolling around in your bunk a bit. Dr. Moosejaw said you’d wake up soon.”

  I looked under my blanket. I was naked except for a diaper. “Oh,” I said.

  “Yeah,” Manhattan said. “We’re friends forever now. You owe me big time until you change my diapers. We’re going to be really old ladies before you’ll get a chance to repay that debt, sweetie.”

  I fell back onto the narrow bed and pulled the blanket over my e
yes. “Oh, God! Oh, God! Oh, God!” My cheeks felt like they were on fire.

  “Your mother took her turn, too,” Manny said, obviously enjoying my humiliation.

  “It wasn’t all bad,” she added. “Part of it was fun.”

  “F-f-fun?”

  “Sure. You have me to thank for the Brazilian. I wish I got mine while I was unconscious.”

  I pushed her off the bed and she laughed as she hit the floor. I was pretty sure she was joking. Not entirely sure. I’d check for myself when I had some privacy.

  I wrapped the blanket around me, stood and waited for the pain to come. I expected to be sore, but I wasn’t. In fact, aside from the throbbing in my scalp, I felt better than ever. I still wore the cast on my forearm. Somehow, I knew I didn’t need it anymore. I pulled it off easily, like taking off an old glove.

  “Slow your roll, Iowa. How do you feel?”

  “Like I could take on the world.”

  “Good,” Manny said. “I suppose you will have to.”

  “What’s wrong, Manny? We won, right?”

  “It’s war, Iowa. There is no winning. There’s only ending. Sam’s body wasn’t in the ashes of the funeral home. She’s missing.”

  “Then she must have gone through the rift and she’s with my father and the Ra.”

  “That’s what Victor thinks. He’s pretty freaked out. We all are.”

  “Yeah. Me, too.”

  Manny checked her phone. “The cell towers are still all down, but my phone’s still good to check the time. C’mon, out on the deck.”

  I followed her outside. It was cold, but the winter temperatures didn’t bother me. I figured out later that I should have been more worried. However, with Rasputin’s dampening spell lifted, the real me was part demon and, for a short time, I was okay with that. Blame the concussion.

  “Where is everybody?”

  “Not far,” Manny said vaguely. “Moosejaw and Victor thought it would be best if you woke up to my friendly face first. You’ve been through a lot and everyone needs some adjustment time.”

  “I don’t want adjustment time,” I said. “I want to see mother and talk to her about…that man.”

  “Your father.”

  “Peter Smythe, yeah. Weird name for a demon, isn’t it?”

  “I’m sure that’s not his real name, Iowa.”

  “You think?”

  “Your mother is pretty embarrassed.”

  “I have a million questions,” I said. “How long into dating were they before she figured…I mean, one of them? That must have been one amazing masking spell.”

  “I talked to her about it a little.”

  “What did Mama say? Tell me.”

  “She didn’t want to talk about it. She did say your dad was a demon in the sack.”

  “She did not!”

  Manhattan gazed at me steadily. Not a flinch.

  “Oh, God.”

  “Yeah, well, every older woman was a younger woman once, off on her own adventures and —”

  “Don’t.”

  “Okay.”

  “Any other surprises?”

  Manny checked the time again. “A couple. Wait for it…wait for it…” Manny raised a hand and pointed at the horizon as if she held a gun. As she mimed pulling the trigger, a flash of white light froze the forest in a black silhouette.

  Manny put her arms around my shoulders and held tight. We watched a column of orange fire rise high in the air followed by a mushroom cloud.

  My jaw dropped open. “Nuclear?”

  “No. Conventional explosives, but lots of it.”

  The roar of the explosion hit us. A moment later, a wall of hot breath blew our hair back as the displacement wave washed over us.

  “No radiation for nosy people to pick up on. The town of Medicament is evacuated. I’m sorry, kiddo. Your hometown isn’t there, anymore. The Army did it.”

  “A cover up. How can they cover this up?”

  “They’re the government, Iowa. They can do anything. FEMA workers are telling a bunch of homeless, shellshocked people right now that what they thought happened to them, didn’t happen to them. It’s a lot of lies. Victor says the aim all along wasn’t to kill everyone in town. It was to drive your team to the quarry.”

  “They wanted Trick to be one of them.”

  “Victor thinks they would have let you audition, too.”

  “What?”

  “I know, I know.”

  “That’s why they didn’t kill me when they had the chance. I thought I was badass but I was bait. Victor sent me on this mission to be the cheese in his mousetrap.”

  “I don’t think he’d put it that way, but yeah, it was a tactical move with big risks. He hoped to drown the bad guys in holy water and get your demon power leveled up, of course. The demons wanted Trick’s power undampened, too. That pretty boy could have done the Keep a lot of damage. If they could turn you, the Ra could have a couple of powerful allies who could go anywhere and do anything. You two could have been like, a demon power couple.”

  “Mr. Chang and Victor… I trusted them but they didn’t trust me enough to tell me the truth.”

  “I think Victor was freaked about operational security. After what happened with Lynda and the whole demons impersonating friendly humans thing, well….”

  Tears slipped down my cheeks. My home — Mama’s home — was gone. So was my confidence in the conductors of the Choir Invisible.

  “Ellen will come back to Brooklyn with us,” Manhattan said. “Victor told her the Keep needs a pharmacist. She told him she’d bring her shotgun.”

  “This makes no sense,” I said. “We’re at war with demons. The world will know it. Then what?”

  “At war with demons? You know how that sounds. The government will pay anybody to keep their mouth shut, relocate them and everyone will get on with their lives.”

  “No they won’t!”

  “Sure, they will. It’s Iowa.”

  I gave her a hard look.

  “Oh, c’mon. It’ll be easy. This time next week, the Medicament Invasion will be reduced to a silly conspiracy theory and an urban legend. Well…a rural legend. They’ll pay off the survivors and have them sign non-disclosure agreements so the survivors get to keep their dough. It’ll all go away and anyone who disagrees will get their payout yanked. Then they’ll be written off as a nut and mocked on Facebook, if they aren’t disappeared.”

  “And how will the government explain the smoking hole where my town used to be?”

  “They’ve already got it covered. Bomb train.”

  “What?”

  “Happens once a month or so.”

  “Really?”

  “Trains carrying oil and gas derail somewhere in North America with surprising frequency. Medicament wouldn’t be the first town to be wiped out by one. Add in a rumor about toxic chemicals and no one will come near here to investigate for ten years. Today, it’s Medicament’s turn to be erased.”

  “You think they’ll get away with it?”

  “Of course they will,” Manny said. “Somebody will tell the truth, sure, but it’s like with everything. The first person to tell a new truth always looks crazy.”

  We’ll call that little gold nugget from Manny Lesson 153. I was too upset at that moment to think of anything so pithy. Of course, I had no idea the news would get worse in about a minute.

  The hot wind died as flights of sparrows, crows and a few owls took to the sky, flying away from the place that was once Medicament, Iowa. Hot zephyrs caressed my cheeks, drying my tears. I supposed I would be back in the Keep soon, far away from this mess. Soon, I’d be ready to begin again. “Manny?”

  “Hm?”

  “Can we go shopping? When we get back to New York, I mean?”

  “Sure, sweetie. What do you want to buy?”

  “Clothes.”

  “Of course. I’m always up for — ”

  “More workout gear, I mean.”

  “Okay. Anything you want.” />
  “I really want to kick some demon ass. I also need to get more archery training in with Anguloora.”

  “He’s no fun.”

  “No. He’s not. But he’s what I need.”

  “Okay,” Manny said. “Whatever you want.”

  “I gotta pee.” I walked back to the bedroom and Manny pointed me to a door on the right.

  As I touched the handle, I worried what might be waiting on the other side of that door. What if Trick came back as a zombie like Brad had? What if Peter Smythe — or whatever his real name was — waited behind that door, ready to try to pull me through a rift and recruit me to the Ra? Or kill me if I refused treason?

  As I closed my eyes, I could almost see Magog mocking and cackling at me from behind a shower curtain.

  I opened the door. Spider’s dirty little bathroom was empty. I stepped to the sink to wash my face and caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror.

  No fangs.

  Same girl-next-door face.

  The devil horns were new. There were two of them. Each sharp, dark horn grew out of my head a couple of inches.

  Manny appeared in the open doorway, crossed her arms and leaned on the doorframe. “Don’t freak. It’s not all bad. You’re a super chick with super powers.”

  “I am a freak.”

  “Very chic. I think it’s hot.”

  “Shut up, Manny.”

  “Tam?”

  “Yeah?”

  “You’re still Iowa, Castrator of Demons, but times ten.”

  “I’m…I….ugh. I’m a monster. I’m ugly.”

  “I have a suggestion,” she said.

  “Make it good.”

  “When we go shopping, let’s start with hats.” Manny stepped close, wrapped her arms around me and held tight as I began to shake. “The Choir Invisible needs a champion, Tam. You are that champion. You volunteered.”

  “Feels like I’ve been voluntold.”

  “It’s going to be okay.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “I believe it. That and saucy new demon powers is all you’ve got right now. But that’s enough for now, isn’t it? It’s like always. We gotta adapt or die. You won’t die and neither will I…probably.”

  A hot tear slipped down my cheek. “This isn’t happily ever after, Manny.”