by Michael Todd
Something in the wind that told her she was in the right place. It was an eerie feeling, and too elusive to pin down. She couldn’t shake the slasher-movie vibe even though the sun was shining brightly and the people hadn’t shied away from her—which just added to the creep factor.
She picked up her pace as the burning turned into a tugging sensation like a homing beacon searching out its other half. She turned right, then left, and then right again, following the intense feeling in her chest. She knew she was on the right track, but she didn’t know just how much longer it would actually take to reach the source.
When Katie turned the next corner, she stopped dead in her tracks. She was facing a large mosque set back off the road. Arabic writing was colorfully painted across the front of the building, and children played happily on the playground. To the right was the minaret, square at the bottom and narrowing to a point at the top. The sounds of afternoon prayer were pumping from the attached speakers, and Katie stood with her hands in front of her waiting for it to end. When it did, many people came out of the building, all cheerful. They were shaking each other’s hands and talking joyfully.
Katie didn’t want to admit it at first, but the feeling in her chest was pulling her directly to the mosque. She shook her head and tried to fight the feeling, but she could almost hear Gabriel’s voice inside her head telling her about the terrorist attacks using demons. Why did it have to be a religious thing, after everything New York had been through in the last decade?
“This is going to be a shit show of epic proportion.” Katie sighed and set off toward the mosque as the last of the prayer crowd left for their homes.
She had been given a task, and no matter how much she didn’t like it, she had to see it through. As she passed onto the property, she glanced at the children playing, laughing, and shouting to each other. She looked at the man standing outside of the doors of the mosque and smiled in his direction.
“How can I help you?” he asked, eyeing her strangely.
“I was wondering if I could speak to your Imam?” she asked politely. “It is ‘Imam,’ right?”
“That is what we call him, yes, but I cannot let a woman not covered modestly into this facility. It is a shame on this house and a shame on our protector, Allah. Disgraceful woman! Harlot!”
Katie tilted her head at the guy. That was when she got pissed.
The Imam put his hand on the young man’s shoulder, nodding. “This is the will of Allah. If the demons are coming, so will the naysayers. We must show the world that those who go against God end up on the other side of the light.”
“Yes, Imam,” the young man replied a little hesitantly. “In the name of Allah.”
“Exactly,” he replied, an evil look glimmering in his eyes. “You will need to clear your mind and open up to let the demon enter you. Do not fight him. Remember, this is your destiny, and you will find your place in heaven.”
The boy nodded, but the Imam could tell he was still very nervous. “Adhhab mae allh. Sawf yakun maeak dayima. Tadmir alkufaar hayth yaqfuna. Sawf najid makanana fi hadha alealam.”
The boy bowed his head at those words and replied, “Qad yakun allah maeik.”
“And with you, my son. Remember, let the change happen in the center of Times Square.”
A grunt outside pulled the Imam’s attention to the door behind them, and the door swung open. The man from the front was standing there with a thin stream of blood flowing from his nose.
The Imam clenched his fists tightly, enraged. “What are you doing?”
Katie put both hands on his back and pushed him hard into the room, then rapped him over the head with her knuckles as she stormed past him to the Imam. All three of them watched as his eyes rolled back in his head and he hit the ground, unconscious. The Imam backed away, throwing his arms up in outrage.
“Harlot! Infidel! How dare you walk into this holy temple with no shame? Leave at once!”
Katie looked up from the guy on the floor and smiled at the Imam. Slowly, she raised her hand toward him and extended her middle finger. The Imam spluttered and scrambled to get behind his desk. He reached for the phone, but she grabbed the cord and yanked the entire thing from the desk.
She stepped delicately toward him, slowly shaking a finger at him. “Tsk, tsk, tsk. Bad Imam. You are no man of God. You’ve tricked these poor people into believing in hate instead of love. Is that what Allah asks of you?”
The Imam glared daggers at her. “You know nothing!”
Katie gave him a knowing smile. “I know more than what you want anyone to know.”
The Imam’s eyes darted around the office in panic. Katie stopped just steps from his desk and pushed the chair out of the way. She watched him scramble for a moment, glad she could feel his fear.
“You have been duly Judged for dealing directly with demons. Your sentence is death.”
Uh, do you have that ability? Pandora sounded concerned. I mean, it’s not like I wouldn’t be against you doing it, but can this get you in trouble?
Pandora would have pushed harder for an answer, but it became a moot point when the Imam grabbed a rifle from under the desk. She reacted before he’d even swung the rifle up.
She kicked the desk forward, slamming it into the Imam. He was knocked backward and pinned between the wall and the desk and the rifle went off, blowing holes in the ceiling. Katie squinted and waved her hand through the air, trying to clear the dust and debris that sprinkled from the ceiling.
She caught a glint of metal through the dust, and the young man screamed as he came at her, holding a knife high above his head. Katie turned around and rolled her eyes before grabbing his hand before he could strike her. She pushed him back into the table and put her hands in the air, waiting for him to regain his footing. He tossed the knife back and forth in his hand, slicing several times through the air. Katie moved and ducked, although the blade almost caught her chest.
Katie swept the guy’s leg, knocking him to the ground, and the knife clattered onto the floor next to him. She stood over him as he groaned and rubbed his eyes, trying to clear his vision, then knocked him out with a kick to the jaw. She pulled her left pistol from its holster, turning around and aiming it at the Imam.
“I call this bad boy ‘Tom.’”
The Imam stared wide-eyed down the barrel of her huge gun. His eyes flicked toward the rifle in his hand, but he didn’t move a muscle.
Katie inclined her head toward the rifle. “Go ahead. Make my day.”
The Imam shifted his eyes again, sweat starting to bead on his forehead. He glared his hatred at Katie, not realizing that her femininity had no bearing on the kind of woman she was. He didn’t actually think Katie would kill him. He wasn’t a demon, he wasn’t possessed, and he was familiar with her and her kind.
“You’re a demon hunter.” He scoffed. “You do not kill humans.”
Katie’s lip curled as she spoke. “It really depends on your definition of ‘human.’ I don’t think trying to kill thousands of people qualifies you to call yourself human.”
The Imam smirked. “You are a woman, incapable of killing in cold blood.”
“Righhht. That makes so much sense.”
The Imam was at an impasse with Katie, and he weighed his options. Finally, still not believing she would do it, he swung the rifle up to shoot her.
Katie shot him in her next breath, splattering his skull into a hundred fragments against the wall behind him. She watched his body slide down the wall and shrugged as she put “Tom” back into his holster.
Shouts in the background let Katie know she wasn’t done. She pulled out the pistol on her right hip and smiled. “All right, Harry, it’s your turn now.”
How the hell did you come up with the names Tom and Harry for your pistols?
Katie laughed. Because between Tom and Harry is usually Dick, but this time it’s a bitch.
Katie crept to the doorway and peered out, pulling her head back quickly as bullets sprayed pa
st her. She hooked the door with her foot and slammed it shut, then reached down and pressed the catch on the door handle to give herself a few moments of peace before the cavalry came charging into the Imam’s office. Not even a minute later the bullets smashed straight through the door, hitting the guy on the ground and peppering the bookshelves at the back of the room.
A few moments later five men, including the guy whose nose she’d broken, charged in. Katie took three of them out as soon as they walked through the door. One headshot, one dead guy.
The other two charged at her, unloading their weapons with zeal. Katie ducked behind the desk and waited until she heard the clicks indicating empty magazines, then stood in one fluid motion, firing as she came up. Both men fell to the ground, a bullet buried in each of their brains.
Goddammit! These bullets are so fucking expensive to make. They’re supposed to be for the big demons, not crazy humans. Talk about piss-poor planning. I should have known there wasn’t some huge-ass demon rolling through here.
Ha! Pandora laughed. It looks like your heaven-dar is a little out of whack. Maybe you should have figured that shit out before bursting in here.
Well, it’s done now. Shit.
Just then a bullet buried itself in the wall next to her head. A lone ranger came rolling into the room, screeching at the top of his lungs.
Katie grabbed a gun from a body and unloaded into him, only stopping when she saw light through the holes in his body. The guy hit the floor, and Katie shook her head in disgust and threw the empty gun to the side.
I think that’s all of them. Fuck, I got eight non-dusty bodies here. Maybe I should have waited until the demons were inside them. It might have made it a bit easier to explain.
You probably want to explain it to the cops that way, or we are going to find ourselves up Shit Creek without a paddle.
Katie sighed and leaned back against the desk, looking around at the mess. She pulled out her phone and Schultz’s number. She really didn’t want to deal with it, especially since none of it could be explained, but she had no choice. There were eight bodies on the floor around her.
“This is Schultz.”
“Hey, it’s Katie.”
“Oh, hey there. What’s up?”
“Well, you’re gonna want to send some men out to the mosque that we went by yesterday.”
“Why?”
“There was a bit of a misunderstanding here. I came here to check things out based on a gut feeling and found that the Imam has been grooming suicide bombers, only he was going to use demons instead of bombs to attack people. I got here just as he was about to send them out to Times Square. I walked in on him talking to one of the humans he was going to use. One thing led to another, there was an argument, and it ended in a couple of fatalities.”
“Wow, that’s intense. So, a couple. Should I send one or two coroner trucks with the cops?”
“Um…it was more like eight fatalities.”
Schultz dropped the phone. When he picked it up again, his voice was incredulous. “Holy shit, Katie! Eight is not ‘a couple!’”
“Look, I stopped shooting when they stopped rushing me with automatic weapons.”
“All right, all right. Hold tight. We’ll be over there shortly.”
Katie disconnected and sat on the edge of the desk to wait for the detectives. About ten minutes later, the sirens outside had increased enough in volume for Katie to surmise the cops had finally shown up. She stayed put, waiting until they got to the Imam’s office. She pulled her coat around her again, thinking it would be best if they didn’t get a glimpse of the arsenal she had strapped to her body. Not all of the cops knew who she was or what she did, and she wanted to keep it that way.
Travers and Schultz entered the mosque and made their way to the office, skirting all the puddles of blood on the floor. Katie nodded as they walked inside. Travers was still taking in the carnage beyond the office, shaking his head in disbelief.
Schultz came over to Katie and stood beside her looking around with concern. “This is pretty heavy.”
“You should have seen it when it was going on,” Katie replied.
Travers eyes Katie skeptically. “Why haven’t any of the bodies turned to dust? I thought that was what demons did? This looks like a bunch of dead humans.”
Katie was about to snap at him, but Schultz put his hand up. “I called the general as soon as I got off the phone with Katie. He told me that if Katie said there were demons, then there were fucking demons, and to write it up. So, yes, there will be a shit-ton of paperwork, but there won’t be any issues with IA. You’re good to go if you’d rather not stick around, Katie. We have a clean-up crew waiting outside to take care of all this.”
Travers snickered as Katie picked her path carefully, trying not to get blood on her boots. He had assumed she would be squeamish about walking through all the blood and gore from the body parts spread out all over the floor.
Katie narrowed her eyes at him. “Think I’m squeamish? I could always punch you in the balls and use your body as a bridge so I don’t mess up my boots.”
His smile quickly faded.
Laughing, Katie strolled casually through the blood and guts as she exited the room. There was little those days that could turn her stomach, not even the entrails of a human body.
The cops were going to learn real fast that she was tougher than she looked.
Manuel paced back and forth in the house he had bought for Sofia. He stared at the picture on her dresser. It was of the two of them together on his yacht, taken just months after they’d met. He looked for her jewelry box, but it was empty, just like her drawers. He slammed his fists on the dresser, rattling the mirror on the wall. He breathed heavily, his teeth clamped together, pissed as hell that his woman had been taken from him.
“Calm yourself, Manuel. You’ll get your girl back. I am the one who lost valuable men, lives that can never be returned.”
The gang member who had sent his men to kidnap Sofia stood in the doorway of the bedroom. The light caught the gold rings he wore on almost every finger, complementing the pressed silk shirt tucked into his black dress pants. The men had been after each other for years. They were rivals in both their businesses and their lives, but for this, they’d called a temporary truce. They were determined to hunt down the stranger who was responsible for all the chaos.
Manuel took a deep breath and smoothed his hair back. “They caught him on camera, and they’re printing us off a picture right now. They’re also sending it to our men at the airport so they can keep an eye out for them.”
“Do you actually think she’s so dumb she would try to take a flight out? No, she is much smarter than that, my friend. She is on wheels, with this bolsa de mierda.”
“And what is your suggestion?”
“We take the picture, leave some men at the airport, and head north toward the border. I will make some calls to the Border Patrol, and post guards on my payroll to let them know to be on the lookout. Even if they get there before us, they will not make it to the other side.”
“I want her unharmed.”
“Even after her betrayal?”
Manuel rubbed his hands together. “I didn’t say she would stay that way. The bitch will be reminded of her place, and she’ll feel the wrath of my hands once again. By the time I’m done with her, she will be thankful if she can crawl out of this house and beg in the streets in her own filth.”
18
Katie left the mosque, but glanced over her shoulder. She sighed, shaking her head at the bloody boot prints she’d left in her wake. There was no way she was walking the entire way back and leaving a trail of the enemy’s blood behind her. She walked over to the empty ambulance sitting to the side while the coroners were inside the mosque, grabbed a clean rag and a bottle of alcohol from the back, and poured the liquid over the soles of her boots. Katie sat down on the sidewalk and scrubbed off the gore as best she could.
She took one last look around. The
playground across the way was empty now, the swing slowly swaying back and forth.
When her boots were clean, she started her walk back to the Stewart Hotel. She was thankful that she wasn’t tracking blood everywhere, given the number of people who had been drawn from their homes by the gunshots and sirens. They weren’t looking so friendly anymore. Most of the people she passed were more worried about what was going on at the mosque than her.
That had been a hard call. It hadn’t turned out as she’d thought it would at all, and she was starting to wonder when Gabriel would show up to explain himself.
Don’t you get it? Angels explain themselves less than demons do, Pandora growled. It’s the whole “God works in mysterious ways” thing.
Yeah, well, the detectives—those two idiots—didn’t make it any easier. I can’t believe that after the club op, they still don’t understand who I am. They didn’t think for a second that I was capable of doing something like that. There was danger, and I took care of it. That’s my job. It just happened that these bodies didn’t disappear in a cloud of dust.
I suppose dust is easier on the senses for humans than entrails and chunks of brain matter.
Maybe for them, but it’s all the same to me. But come on—they had it coming. All religion aside, I can’t believe anyone would be so idiotic that they would think using demons as a weapon was a really good way of showing the public a thing or two. Have they not been watching the news? Have they not realized by now that when they plan something stupid like that, they will get their fucking asses handed to them?
It’s been done like this for thousands of years. I have seen demons used for the craziest reasons. It’s shocking what humanity can make itself believe when it wants to. Gore, murder, religion, politics—it always gets spun, and human beings twist their minds to believe one violent action is worth it to get their point across.