by N. P. Martin
“It’s the Spear of Destiny,” Eva said. “You would think it would always find its mark.”
“Maybe. Are we willing to take that chance?”
Eva said nothing. She looked at Sandra. “How certain are you of landing on that thing’s back?”
“Fairly certain,” Sandra said after a moment’s hesitation. “That’s the best I can give you. Sorry.”
“No time to be sorry,” Frank said, gripping the spear in both hands, taking some comfort from the power that flowed through it. “Eva, unless you have a better plan, we go with Sandra’s.”
Eva shook her head. “I don’t.”
“Then it looks like we’re going on a fun ride,” Frank said. “Eva, I need you on the ground, in case something goes wrong. It’ll be up to you then.”
“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”
“Sandra,” he said. “Once you get me on that thing, you get straight off again. No sense in us both getting killed.”
“Don’t talk like that,” Eva said, for the first time a look of worry on her face.
“We’ll teleport you to the top of the closest building first,” Frank said. “Do you have a spell that could possibly hold that thing in place? I don’t fancy no joyride through the skies on the back of that thing.”
“Maybe,” Eva said. “That thing is so big though...I don’t know.”
“Try anyway,” Frank said, for the first time feelings of terror beginning to mix with his adrenaline and bad grace. Now he knew how Ahab felt before confronting Moby Dick, only Moby Dick didn’t shoot energy balls out of its chest. “We ready?”
Sandra nodded. So did Eva.
“Okay then,” Frank said as they all held hands. “Let’s harpoon us a demon.”
CHAPTER 32
The demon had swam through the smoke filled skies towards the northern part of the city, a place that was mostly apartment buildings and residential dwellings, and which therefore housed a large concentration of the city’s population. When Sandra put the three of them down atop the roof of a high rise building, the demon was hovering over the streets below, about fifty yards away, a ball of destructive energy building up in its glowing underside, about to be unleashed on the houses and apartment buildings underneath. The black horned head of the giant demon was facing down towards its intended target. It hadn’t noticed the three of them on the rooftop, at a height roughly level with it. The high pitched sound of gathering energy coming from the demon was ear splitting. “Alright Eva,” Frank shouted. “Try and hold that thing in place before I go on its back.”
Eva went to the edge of the building and held out her arms as she began to recite the words of whatever spell she was going to use to try and hold the demon in place. She almost had to scream to be heard over the cacophony of sounds swirling around them. As she recited the spell, the energy building in the demon’s chest began to flash faster and faster. A second later a huge flash of light emitted and then a massive ball of sheer energy exploded from the demon, shooting straight down to the streets below, causing a massive explosion, sending bricks and mortar flying up into the air, decimating every building below it and all the people in them.
Fuck, Frank thought. This thing is going to wipe out the whole damn city if we don’t stop it.
He looked at Sandra, who was standing beside him as she stared in horror at the all too close demon. Her face could no longer hide the terror she was obviously feeling. “You can do this, Sandra!” Frank shouted at her. “Michelle had faith in you. So do I.”
The young girl could only nod in response, unable to even speak. Frank doubted she had ever been in the field before now. Nothing like a baptism of fire to gain some experience. After this was over—if they all held on to their lives—everyday missions would pale in comparison for her.
Eva was thrusting her arms towards the demon hovering in the dark skies ahead of her, putting every ounce of intent she could muster into the spell.
Then the demon turned its head to look across at them for the first time, its huge expansive wings or fins or whatever they were, undulating slowly as it held itself in the air. As it looked across, it was the first time Frank had seen its face up close, not since he first saw the creature on the TV screens back in Leland’s suite. Seeing its wholly black face now, its eyes burning red, it looked even more terrifying in real life. Everything about the demon was wrong, the way it looked, how grotesque and utterly bizarre it was. It didn’t belong in this world and Frank was determined to kill it, or at least send it back where it came from.
Eva shouted over her shoulder. “Go! I don’t know how long I can hold this thing!”
Frank grabbed Sandra’s arm. “We need to go now!”
Eyes wide with fear, Sandra nodded, unable to speak.
“Remember,” Frank said. “Once you get me on there, you get straight off again. Got it?”
“Got it,” she croaked.
Frank steeled himself for the teleport. He was ready to do or die.
Then a figure appeared in front of him out of nowhere and he felt a hard impact on his chest, an impact that took him off his feet and sent him flying back to land on the rooftop again with a hard thud. All he could do was lay there as he struggled to get a breath. It felt like a sledgehammer had caved in his chest. As he groaned in agony he noticed Sandra flying back through the air as well, like something had thrown her across the rooftop. Frank heard her land behind him somewhere, crying out when she hit the hard surface of the rooftop. What the fuck? he asked himself.
Just as he managed to sit up, holding his chest, Frank saw the cause of his pain standing not far away on the rooftop.
Tolloch.
The demon stood calmly and looked at Frank. Eva was still using her powers to hold Tolloch’s offspring in place and she hadn’t yet noticed Tolloch not far behind her.
Tolloch smiled at Frank and thrust an arm out behind him.
“No!” Frank cried, but it was too late. An invisible force hit Eva in the back and sent her flying forward off the top of the roof. She screamed and disappeared from view a second later. Frank scrambled to his feet, forgetting about the Spear of Destiny and running past Tolloch to the edge of the rooftop. He looked down, but couldn’t see any sign of Eva below. Too much smoke and too dark to see where she even landed. It was five stories up. No way she survived that fall.
Released from Eva’s hold, the spawn of Tolloch roared into the night sky, as much an acknowledgement of its creator who had come to protect it as anything else.
Frank let a guttural roar escape from him. He reached down and took his knife out, then went charging towards Tolloch. A second before he reached the demon, Tolloch disappeared and reappeared again, now behind Frank, punched Frank hard in the center of the back. Frank arched forward and fell to the ground, losing his grip on the knife, the knife skidding away from him. He lay there, dazed, afraid that his spine was now snapped. Then he heard Tolloch’s voice behind him. “Did you really think I would let you kill my greatest creation?” he said. “My son of destruction?”
Frank didn’t answer. He could only think of Eva, of how she had probably died from the fall.
Another one bites the dust, eh, Frank? You might as well let this demon kill you, spare yourself the agony of living...
“You were foolish to think you could stop things,” Tolloch said. Frank felt a weight on the back of his neck. Tolloch’s foot, pressing down hard. “That feather in your jacket will do nothing to protect you now. I’m going to break your neck.” His foot pressed harder, pushing Frank’s face into the concrete. Frank tried to struggle, but he could hardly move.
Don’t fight it, Frank. Let him do it. At least it will be quick...
“No!” he said.
“What’s that?” Tolloch asked. “No? I’m afraid yes...”
The pressure on Frank’s neck increased and he closed his eyes, awaiting the inevitable snap, the instant blackness.
But it didn’t come. Instead, he heard a cry of pain and ut
ter despair, and the pressure was released from his neck altogether. Frank rolled over on to this back to see Tolloch standing there, amber light beginning to pour from his eyes and mouth, his whole body shaking like it was about to explode. Then the demon fell to his knees as the light leakage increased, his insides now a newly opened portal to Hell, sucking his spirit back to the depths.
Sandra stood behind Tolloch, her Watcher knife in her hand. She reached out her free hand towards Frank. “We still have a monster to stop,” she said, her face all steely determination now.
Frank felt himself bolstered by her bravery and commitment to the mission. Despite wanting to run to the ground below to look for Eva, he took Sandra’s hand and painfully got to his feet while Tolloch’s meat suit bucked and smoldered on the rooftop. “Fuck you asshole,” Frank said and spat on the demon’s remains.
Just then there was a massively loud roar from Tolloch’s offspring. Its daddy was dead and it wasn’t happy. The giant demon hovered almost vertically in the air, its face a mask of demonic rage. Frank knew if he didn’t stop the thing it wouldn’t rest until it had destroyed not only the city, but the entire world, if only out of revenge for them killing its creator. It was gliding towards them, its underbelly exposed, whatever destructive energy it created within itself beginning to build up again, the orange light pulsating and increasing in brightness as it drew closer to them. “The spear!” Frank said. “Or that thing’s going to blow us to hell!”
Sandra ran past him and retrieved the spear, handing it to him when she brought it back. “Are you okay to do this?” she asked, glancing fearfully at the approaching demon in the sky.
Frank took the spear, wincing at the pain in his back and chest. Tolloch had cracked his sternum, he was sure of it. “Stand back,” he told Sandra and she stood just behind him while he held the spear for a moment, feeling its power. If he was a religious man, he would have uttered a silent prayer right then, but he wasn’t. Instead, he thought of Eva, forced himself to hold on to the likely false belief that she was still alive and that she needed him, needed him to save her...
The demon was almost at the edge of the building they were on, it’s colossal form a dark shadow, in the center of which was the rapidly pulsating energy.
“Do it now, Frank!” Sandra screamed from behind him.
Frank readied the spear as the demon’s energy seemed to pull inside itself, like it was getting ready to shoot it out with terrific force, destroying the building and everything on it, Frank and Sandra included.
Now or never, Frank...
He reared back as the demon’s burning red eyes locked on to him. It knew something wasn’t right. The buzzing of the energy in the demon’s underside reached a constant high pitch, a single monotone that signified the explosion was about to happen.
With all his might, Frank launched the Spear of Destiny at the demon before him, like David launching the stone at Goliath.
Then all he could do was watch as the spear shot through the air towards the demon, heading for the mass of energy on its underside.
The demon roared as the spear disappeared inside the mass of orange energy.
And then nothing.
The spear was swallowed up and the demon was still hovering in the air, a look of defiance on its face now.
“No,” Frank said, shaking his head.
And then it happened.
The demon seemed to lurch, a look of confusion coming over its face.
The energy at its center seemed to get sucked back into itself, like it had somehow been reversed and was now turning on the vessel that wielded it. As the demon roared and reeled in the air, powerless to stop what was happening, its own energy beginning to consume it from within, Frank turned and grabbed Sandra by the arm. “Run!”
They ran all the way across the rooftop and crouched down at the far end, behind an air conditioning unit. A second later there was an explosion of blinding orange light, followed by a rush of mighty wind that blew all around them. Over it all, the demon roared one final time and then everything died down to a stop.
When they next looked the demon was gone, nothing but a few sparks of orange light hanging in the night air, like the demon itself had never even been there in the first place.
Frank barely gave himself time to breathe a sigh of relief. “Eva,” he said and ran towards the door on the rooftop.
CHAPTER 33
It didn’t occur to him until he was halfway down the stairs of the building that Sandra could have teleported him to the ground instantly. He wasn’t for stopping though, not even when Sandra, trying to keep up behind him, suggested it. He just knew he had to keep running to save Eva, as irrational as that was.
When he burst out the front door of the building, he stopped, overcome with the devastation all around him. It was like a city that had been bombed in WW2, with smoke everywhere, fallen debris, massive craters in the road where the demon’s energy balls had impacted.
And bodies.
A lot of bodies. Twisted. Broken. Bloody.
He stood shaking his head for a moment, Sandra now beside him. “My god...” she said.
Frank forced himself to look away from the human remains scattered all over the place. Did his best to block out the moans of the injured and barely alive, trapped in their cars, under rubble, or just lying there bleeding out from missing limbs and massive injuries.
The only person he was bent on helping at that moment was Eva, the one person left in the world that he could even come close to connecting with.
You better hope she’s alive, Frank.
“She is,” he said.
“What?” Sandra asked.
Frank barely heard her. He was running around the side of the building to where Eva had fallen. A city bus full of people was lying on its side against the sidewalk, smoke still pouring from the engine, the people inside the bus all dead it seemed. No one was moving anyway.
Not even the person who lay splayed out on top of the bus, one leg dangling down through a broken window.
Frank stopped and stared hard.
Eva.
He shouted her name as he ran to the bus and climbed up on top of it. Eva lay motionless, blood pooled out around her head. For a second, all Frank could do was look at her, afraid to check her just in case she was dead. “Oh God,” he said, a hand over his mouth. When he got a grip of himself, he bent down to check for a pulse.
It was there, but faint. Too faint. “Sandra!”
Sandra appeared on top of the bus a second later. “Is she alive?”
“Barely,” he said. “We need to pump her full of grace. Get over here.”
Sandra bent down beside him and placed both her hands on Eva’s chest. Frank put his own hands on either side of Eva’s head. They both concentrated as bluish energy formed out of their hands and transferred into Eva. A moment later, Sandra removed her hands. “Sorry, I’m done. All that teleporting drained me pretty good.”
Frank nodded and kept his hands on Eva’s head until every drop of his grace had gone into her. Then he removed his hands and waited. After another moment there was still no movement from Eva. Sandra kept looking at him, afraid to say what she was thinking.
Too late, Frank...
“No!” he said. “Come on, Eva. Fucking wake up!”
Eva’s eyes flung open and she took in a sharp intake of breath, like she had just surfaced from underwater.
“Oh, thank god,” Frank said.
Eva blinked a few times, then said, “I hope you killed that demon fucker...”
“Both of them,” Frank said. “Sandra put Tolloch on the elevator.”
Eva smiled at her. “I hope it felt good.”
“It did,” Sandra said, looking as relieved at Frank to see Eva alive.
“So,” Eva said, sitting up slowly. “You think there’s any bars left open in this goddamn ruin of a city?”
CHAPTER 34
It didn’t take long for the military and city authorities to move back
into the city to try and restore some kind of order, and to start the monumental task of cleaning the place up. When Frank and Eva were walking back to her place—having left Sandra, who had gone back to the Facility to see what was happening there—they noticed most of the supernaturals had gone to ground again. Vampires and werewolves were no longer wandering the streets openly. Half of them probably didn’t even know what the real deal was, just that it was somehow okay for them to call open season on humans and the city itself. With the fall of Tolloch’s demon son and the presence of teams of Watcher’s on the streets—who blended in with all the other uniforms swarming the streets—most of the supernaturals got the message that party time was over and went back to whatever lair they normally hung out in.
Frank hung around at Eva’s for a while, just to make sure she was okay, which she seemed to be. He felt guilty about wanting to call Lucas the whole time, to arrange a meeting. It wasn’t lost on Frank that he was going to great lengths to save a woman who probably didn’t care about him as much as she used to, while he was also choosing to hold back from Eva, who really did care about him and who would have started something with him if he had asked her to. He didn’t want to do that to her though. Didn’t want to risk hurting her, which he inevitably would when she realized that a ghost meant more to him than anyone alive.
They watched the various news reports on TV while they sat and drank whiskey. The media were showing footage of the demon rampaging through the city, seemingly on a loop while reporters spoke over it via live and studio feeds. They even had footage of the demon’s final demise, showing the colossal beast go from almost pure black to looking like it was being struck by orange lightening over and over again, its own energy imploding inside it, the Spear of Destiny transferring its own destructive power into the beast. Then it explodes in a massive ball of light and disappears like it was never there. Thankfully, it was too dark and too smoky to make out Frank and Sandra standing on top of the building near the demon.