by Hunter Shea
“Turning your back on me won’t make me go away!” it cackled.
It stomped its foot and the entire building shook. A large fissure started at its feet and raced out towards him in a jagged, concrete and metal streak.
Father Michael danced over the crevice and dropped to the floor. He tucked his knees hard into his chest and rolled directly at the demonic aberration. Contact with the floor drove the darts deeper into his flesh but he was oblivious to the pain. He spun between its legs and hacked at the thing’s Achilles tendons as he broke from his crouch behind it. The demon screamed and began to fall backwards, massive arms lashing at the air.
He had just enough time to thrust his arm upwards so the dagger plunged through the falling demon’s back. The weight of it as it fell onto him helped the blade pass through its body and crash past its rib cage. Father Michael’s arm was buried in the creature up to his bicep. His muscles tightened as he struggled to support its weight. He felt its insides burn white-hot and quiver with release. It didn’t take long for it to disintegrate to a heap of mucilaginous waste.
He rose from the backwash of filth and shouted to Shane, “Hurry boy!”
Shane had two demons trapped in a corner. They knew it was no use trying to attack him. One retained its human body but had the head and penis of two albino cobras, while the other was a pulsating blob of bursting pustules with long daggers for hands and feet.
The cobra heads hissed and spat a milky substance that crackled when it hit the floor. The one with the daggers dragged them across the carpet, much like a bull pawed at the dirt before making a deadly pass.
He had to find Aimee, which meant he didn’t have time to fuck around with their theatrics. There was nothing they could do anyway, so it was all just nonsensical posturing.
“Say good night, motherfuckers,” he barked and plunged a pair of daggers into their chests until his hands were immersed inside each. They flopped about as if they had hit an electric fence and Shane’s Dirty Harry veneer melted away. Frozen with disgust and fear, he kept his arms rigid and shook with their death spasms. Mercifully, they putrefied in seconds, freeing the daggers and his hands, but leaving an inky residue. His stomach heaved and he doubled over, emptying everything he’d ever eaten onto the floor.
He felt a hand tug on his jacket and he went rigid. It was Father Michael. He was pointing at the grotesque deformity that had been Patty Wilson. “She’s yours, son. I’ll deal with them.” Two more demons had charged behind the stage and were trying to wrest Father Michael’s trident from the rubble.
Shane approached the sow-beast, figuring it would be an easy kill as it looked incapable of movement. He had been hoping to save it for last but Father Michael was running the show. Pulling his arm back as far as he could, he hurled a crucifix-dagger at the creature. With lightning reflexes, it swatted it away with one of its leaking teats.
“What the hell?”
He ran at it instead, his dagger held high and ready to strike. A thick stream of bile rocketed from a giant, gray breast and sent him sprawling. The beast sniggered as he collided with several dazed bodies on the floor. He screamed in pain. The black-and-maroon fluid that covered him burned like acid. “You’re not so invincible, are you, street boy?” it bellowed.
Shane pulled off his jacket and wiped his hands and face with the inner lining. Red blotches dotted every exposed inch of his skin. His mohawk faintly smoked as even hair was eaten away by the vile lactate.
Another lesson learned. The demons couldn’t physically attack him, but there were other, more indirect ways to get their mitts on him, or in this case, acid milk.
Anger eddied inside him and he let fly with another dagger while diving for cover behind an upturned table. The blade was again flicked away and the table rocked with the force of a blast from one of its nipples. He could hear the wood sizzle as the fluid ate it away.
Spotting another table, he lunged and pulled it down for cover. With raw, trembling hands, he extracted a small pouch from his pocket and emptied its contents in his palm. He needed to get close to the demon and to escape its geyser attack. The table slammed into his back as it was hosed down, the wood crackling as its veneer corroded.
His hands shook as he looked at the powder in his palm. Father Michael had told him he would know the right time to use it. Shane hoped he was right.
Once the stream had stopped, he shouted, “Hey, Patty, did you like that song, ‘Disco Inferno’?”
The beast became silent for a moment. Shane seized the opportunity, jumped up from behind the table and made a mad dash towards it. He saw one of its nipples become engorged and double in thickness. In another second, he would be bathed in acid. He skidded to a stop, opened his palm and blew grains of fine black powder onto the demon, then ran for his life behind it and out of its sight and the range of its deadly breasts. He felt the heat of the flame on the back of his neck.
Engulfed in an eerie, silent blue holocaust, it writhed in torment, teats and breasts flailing about and spewing their deadly broth in every direction, coating some of the people on the floor and reducing them to simmering masses of flesh and bone.
“Burn, baby, burn,” Shane murmured without joy.
Two fiendish bodies flew through the air just over his head and crashed into a pillar with a loud cracking of bone. Father Michael was right behind them, slamming his trident into their broken bodies. They twitched as amber light sprang from their demolished vessels of malformed flesh and bone.
The blue flame around the Patty Wilson demon had extinguished itself by the time the priest joined Shane’s side.
“Are you okay?” Shane asked breathlessly, inspecting the dozens of bone-like objects sticking out of the man’s body. He wasn’t in much better shape. The kiss of air on his burned flesh brought an unending tide of pain.
“Where are Cain and the others?”
In response to his query, the two remaining demons of Cain’s unholy apostles came shrieking towards them on enormous, silvery bat wings. Father Michael and Shane hit the ground to avoid being decapitated as the bat-demons swiped at them with forearms that had been honed down to sharp scythes.
“Your time is nearly up, gentlemen,” Cain’s voice echoed throughout the hall. Try as they might, they could not locate him.
He was right. Many of the people from the convention were starting to pull themselves up, though still in a thick fog. Father Michael couldn’t let loose with another wail for fear of killing them. Normally, he would have done so without a moment’s hesitation, as it was part and parcel of the brand of exorcism he had been created to perform. Tonight had changed that, and in a great sense, he was relieved.
“Take this,” he ordered Shane, handing him his trident. Following the priest’s lead, he got up and ran to the stage. The bats circled overhead and made a beeline towards them.
Father Michael crouched, then propelled himself straight into their flight path. He pitched a dagger at the one on his left, piercing its wing and sending it crashing to the ground where it tumbled into the podium on the stage, smashing it to splinters. The other canted to avoid the airborne priest, but not before he grabbed hold of its hair and hauled himself onto its back.
“Shane, now!” he shouted as he rode the bat like a bucking bronco, guiding it to Shane who stood ready with the trident pointed at them. Driving his knee into the bat’s back, Father Michael felt its spine crack and it dropped like a shattered skeet. He jumped off just before it landed with a loud thwack onto the trident. Shane, the bat and the trident skidded in a heap off the stage.
Several seconds later, a slightly dazed Shane crawled back onto the stage, yanking the trident free from the steaming innards of the bat-demon.
“Behind you!”
Shane turned in time to stop the wounded, approaching bat in its tracks. He’d learned a valuable lesson with the sow-demon and was wary of what tricks the bat may have up its sleeve. For all he knew, it would spew poison arrows from its eyes. However, the way it s
tarted to slowly back away told him that maybe the whole flying thing was its only gimmick. Weighing the trident in his hand, he started to advance.
The demon reached down and pulled an unconscious woman from the floor, shielding itself from the trident. Her blue dress slid off one shoulder, exposing her breast. She was middle-aged, country-club attractive, with auburn curls that spilled over her shoulder. Now it was Shane’s turn to stop.
“I didn’t think so,” it hissed.
Its wounded wings fell off with a loud tearing, only to be replaced by new ones. It was getting ready to take flight. He reared back to launch the trident but his arm would not follow through.
What if I hit her instead?
The bat started to lift off, still holding tightly to the woman. As it carried her into the air, sharp fangs punctured her neck, elongating with each flap of its wings. The woman stirred, turned to see the demon impaling her and screamed.
Shane’s arm jerked backwards as the trident was pulled from his grasp. Father Michael hurled it with a grunt, skewering woman and beast, pinning them to a pillar. They both struggled against the steel prongs, the woman retching with pain as the fangs grew so long, they erupted from the bottom of her rib cage. In a staggering flash, the demon was no more and only the body of the now lifeless woman hung from its shaft.
“I can’t believe you did that!” Shane wheeled around on the priest.
“Oh, believe it. Your little hero is capable of far, far worse. I should know.”
Cain floated onto the stage, Aimee still limp in his arms. He had been hidden among the steel posts up above, watching the carnage with glee.
Shane locked gazes with Father Michael, trying to find an answer within their ivory wormholes.
“I don’t know who’s filled the hereafter with more souls over the years, Father Michael or me. I can tell you that we’re both very, very good at what we do.” Aimee came to and made a strangled gasp. “Kind of makes you feel like a stooge in a game you could never comprehend, doesn’t it, Shane Baxter? Maybe you’ve been duped all along. Maybe there are no sides. Maybe we are the evil and you and your kind scattered all about here are the only good.”
Father Michael turned to tackle Cain but the demon lord grabbed hold of Aimee’s neck and motioned that he would snap it. Aimee’s mind clawed its way through the haze and fully awakened to see Cain’s face beneath the mask of the mayor. She turned and saw the immobile figures of Father Michael and Shane and screamed from an unknowable place buried deep within her, “Not again! Liam!”
The loud report of gunfire filled the hall as a band of snipers that had regrouped on the roof took aim at them.
Shane cried out and dropped to his knees as a bullet shattered his shoulder.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Blood pumped out of the wound in Shane’s shoulder and splattered Father Michael’s side. Bullets zipped through the air and pinged off the ground around them. Cain casually stepped back and out of their range with the ease of a man moving out of the rain and underneath shelter. Father Michael scooped Shane’s unconscious body into his arms as hot lead pierced the priest’s back and arm. He jumped clear across the stage, depositing Shane safely behind it. Blood continued to flow and Shane grew deathly pale. Keeping one eye on Cain, he knelt down and placed a hand over Shane’s shoulder.
“In the name of Jesus and the miracle of his birth, dead and resurrection,” he chanted. It wouldn’t heal the boy’s injury but it would prevent him from being completely exsanguinated.
They were both a bloody mess. Their clothes had been reduced to shredded rags and they stunk of infernal offal and cordite.
Cain remained in the shadows, watching them.
“Well, aren’t you going to stop them?” he called out to the priest.
Father Michael rose to his full height despite the flesh, muscle and bone damage that had been inflicted on his body. His eyes burned white-hot with a hate that would have driven a mortal man mad with violent desire. He was a veritable pincushion and now he had the internal chaos inflicted by the gunshots to contend with. He looked at the convention floor and saw four hundred people on the verge of coming out of their stupors. Their bodies shivered, heads began to crane on stiff necks and eyelids fluttered.
Cain sighed. “If you won’t, I will. Boys,” he shouted up to the shattered roof, “could you do me a little favor and…”
Cain shot up into the air like a rocket, with Aimee screaming in the crook of his arm. As he rose, he began to spin like a top caught in a hurricane. As he reached the lip of the opening in the roof, his outstretched spinning arm made quick work of decapitating the snipers. Father Michael watched as a dozen heads, some still twitching with life, others frozen in a death mask of shock, bounced around him. The spinning stopped and Cain gently touched back down.
“Now, where were we?”
“Oh my God, please help me!” Aimee had breached the surface of awareness and was on the verge of hysteria. She tried to break free but Cain’s grip was too much. She looked at the tall, pale, battered figure of Father Michael and realized who he was. It was the priest that Shane had introduced her to last week. “Father Michael, please!”
But hadn’t she called him something else just a moment ago? What exactly was it? She was no longer sure of anything except her own impending death if she didn’t get away soon.
“Put her down,” Father Michael commanded. A lesser man or even demon would have cowered at the raw brutality of his voice.
Cain sneered. “OK, since you’re being so nice about it.” He feinted letting her go, loosening his grip just enough to give her hope. When she tried to move, he dug even harder into her flesh, a deep chuckle in his throat. Aimee’s chest heaved as she fought to keep herself from hyperventilating.
“There, there, I won’t hurt you,” Cain cooed in her ear. She quivered in his arms.
“Okay, I lied. Maybe I will hurt you, but just a little.” A needlelike bone sprouted from his index finger and he jabbed the tip into Aimee’s arm. She yelped in pain.
Cain’s head snapped around to face Father Michael. He wore an executioner’s grin as the bone grew longer, burying itself deeper in Aimee’s arm.
“You know as well as I, my old, old companion, that you’ve run out of time. Word of what happened here is going to spread like a plague and the world will know that I truly exist. There isn’t a rug big enough to sweep this under, Michael. Or should I say, Liam?”
“I’m not here to be your janitor,” Father Michael spat.
Cain bent over Aimee’s face and licked her with a forked tongue. “A little salty from the terror sweat, but still tasty.”
“Enough!” Father Michael shouted. He had taken two steps toward the demon lord when Cain closed his eyes and waived his arm in a wide arc, causing a hazy ripple effect in the air around him. Cain and Aimee’s image shimmered behind the swirling gauze as a fist-sized black hole opened up at the center of the eddying atmosphere.
Father Michael’s ears pricked as he detected the silent wailing of billions of tortured souls emanating from the vortex. The feculent odor of burning tires, spoiled eggs and necrotizing flesh exuded from the portal.
“Remember the days when we both had armies to do all the dirty work?” Cain said. “And no matter what nasty tricks we each pulled, you and your chaste little kind were safe in the knowledge that word of the truth wouldn’t spread beyond the battlefield and your precarious world order was safe from harm. Those were heady times.” The rip in the air grew wider and the distant songs of lament grew closer. “And, alas, those were your times. Whenever we went to war, you won. It was getting downright depressing, being forced to lick your boot every century or so. But we both know that most great accomplishments are the result of tireless perseverance, ofttimes fraught with failure after failure. The key is to never give up, and thanks to your insipid God, I’ve got nothing but time and an endless supply of hatred. Besides, this world is so fucking screwed up, it’s barely worth your effort to ru
sh to its rescue.”
Father Michael mentally ticked off his remaining weapons. All of his daggers were scattered around the room and his trident was firmly embedded in a pillar. He had given Shane the pouch of conflagration embers, not that it would have helped him in this situation. Doing so would only kill Aimee in the process and he was not willing to risk it if there was even a remote chance that she was somehow kissed with the essence of his centuries-lost Ailis. Cain watched him closely as the rip in space and time expanded. If it became too large, there was no telling what would emerge, not to mention how much would be sucked into its vile depths for eternity.
“Do I detect a hint of hesitance in that awful, albino face? Well, if that isn’t just the cherry in the virgin. Could it be because of this girl? This simpering sack of skin and organs?”
Aimee stepped on Cain’s foot with all her might, only to find it swallowed up by morphing flesh and bone and held in place. “Father, do something,” she cried. An endless stream of tears ran down her cheeks. Father Michael could see in her eyes that she was losing hope.
He was failing her.
Again.
“The world…or the girl? I know who she is, Liam.” He jabbed the jagged bone deeper into Aimee’s arm, eliciting a fresh snarl of pain. “The real question is, do I really care? I think you know the answer to that one, God boy. I do have to admit, this is far better than the first time. That boy of yours kept getting in the way of my fun.”
Father Michael fought to keep his emotions under control—human sensitivities that came bubbling up from the grave of his long-dead heart. Emotions equaled instability and he could not afford to indulge in them. Not now. Avoiding Aimee’s imploring gaze, he considered his options.