Past the door, there’s an interior room with an expansive space draped in blackness that could be hiding anything.
Brody stalks forward, eyes adjusting to the pitch.
“Noah?” he calls out in a quiet voice. “Noah?”
At the far end of the room, the trio spots an obscured, small figure, huddled on the ground.
“Is that you, Noah?” Hines asks.
At the same moment that I’ve got one eye on the others through a semi-transparent projecting feed, Dominic, Benz, and I crisscross forward into hallway number two.
I’ve got my shotgun out, marching ahead of Dominic and Benz toward an open door that reveals a large chilly room.
That’s when I spot an object up ahead. It’s the penlight that Noah had earlier.
The little thing is just lying in the middle of the room like a mirage as I plunge full tilt down the hallway.
“Something’s wrong!” Dominic screams.
Back in hallway number one, Hines, Jessup, and Brody shuttle across the open space toward the small figure who sits in front of them, facing forward.
“Noah?” Jessup calls out.
The small figure trembles but doesn’t turn around.
“I’m here, I’m here,” the small figure says.
Brody and Hines freeze on a dime as the small figure finally turns to face them.
It is not Noah. It’s a twisted demonic freak with an oversized mouth and a maw full of sharpened metal incisors.
“Come and play, motherfuckers,” it screeches.
“GET BACK!” Brody shouts.
Hines and Jessup ready their weapons as Brody steps forward, his Gatling-gun hand spinning around as more dark forms rush the trio from every direction.
In the same moment, in hallway number two, I lunge for the penlight that lies in the middle of the circular room.
The darkened walls are lined with sheet-metal and glass windows.
I allow myself a smile as I reach down and hoist the penlight, not paying any attention to the dark silhouettes in the windows.
Dominic enters the circular room as I hold up the penlight, but it disintegrates in my hands, turning to dust that slips between my fingers.
I recoil.
Dominic tosses Benz to the ground, steps on his back, and pins him.
“Tell her!” Dominic demands.
Benz looks up at me, eyes wide and feverish.
I shoot a glare at Dominic.
“What’s this about?” I ask.
Dominic nudges Benz with his boot.
“Tell her the truth, you fucking Judas,” Dominic says.
“How’d you know?” Benz asks, confessing.
“I had Hines set up a mirror feed on The Order’s cameras down here,” Dominic replies. “You never know who you can trust. The last feed I saw was of the inside of this building, and you led us right inside.”
Benz looks up to me with sorrow in his eyes.
“I didn’t want to, Samya, but they threatened me,” he says. “They said they’d snatch Sarah out of the world and send her into the abyss unless I did it!”
“Did what?!?” I ask.
“Help them bring you down and set you up,” he answers.
“Who?” I demand.
“They wanted you to come down,” Benz says. “HE wanted you to come down.”
An explosion rocks the vehicle.
14
The Double Cross
The windows implode. Shards of glass burst toward us and fill the air like shrapnel from landmines.
Dominic and I pull our body armor over our heads.
I thumb the hammer on my shotgun as a dozen demons scramble into the room through the windows like spiders.
At the same moment, back at the end of hallway number one, Brody unloads with his Gatling-gun hand. The barrels spin so fast they’re smoking.
Bullets shred a pack of marauding demons who pour into the room through holes in the walls.
Black blood and bone-confetti spray, demonic body parts litter the ground as Brody fires in every direction.
Hines tosses a grenade filled with angel tears at an eight-foot-tall demon who crashes through the ceiling.
The grenade explodes, showering the demon with napalm-like chernips. The great beast bellows and runs like an ambulatory torch before collapsing.
Hines tosses his remaining grenades, lighting up the joint, cheering as the demons burst into flames.
For a brief second, it looks hopeful.
Then, Hines wheels around in response to a discouraging sound.
Brody’s Gatling-gun hand clicks as it runs out of ammo.
“Fuck,” Brody says.
Brody and Hines backtrack and sprint as Jessup strides forward with a thick staff of polished wood with a metal end mottled with sharpened spikes, a Death-bringer. His hand drops as the metal end distends, and he flicks his wrist, activating the weapon.
Spikes harpoon out, tethered to metal chains as the spike-tips open to release dozens of razor-sharp flechettes.
The flechettes rip through demon flesh in great fonts of black blood as Brody grabs Jessup. The trio exit the room while…
Back in hallway number two, Dominic and I engage in a close-quarters death match with the demons.
I empty my shotgun, then pull my Tokarev pistol out and trigger it.
Everything slows down. The bullets exit the barrel and rip right through a demon and then…
A grotesque demon flies backward and black blood spurts from the holes in his chest. I empty the rest of my pistol.
The heavy slam of the gun echoes as demons are cut down mid-sprint.
Dominic keeps a foot on Benz while unloading with his grenade launcher...
A dozen demons are obliterated.
The concussive blasts vaporize whole sections of the room.
I fire point-blank at scale-slicked demons, decapitating one, gut-shooting another, driving my shoulder into a third and then blowing out its mouth.
Still, more of them appear and we spread out, taking the fight to the crazed revenants, the interior of the space buzzing with the fury of an overturned bee hive.
A demon flies through the air and I shoot it down like skeet.
Two more charge Dominic and I squeeze off two shots, blowing out the demons’ legs. They crumple to the ground as Jessup returns and batters them with his Death-bringer semi-automatic pistol.
Then Jessup turns his full rage on the remaining demons and wades forward, swinging his massive club, tearing jaws from faces, divesting the demons of heads and limbs.
My world goes crimson as he pulps our attackers until everyone of them is cowering before the big man in fear.
Through it all, Benz lies curled on the floor in a fetal ball, hands over his ears, eyes closed as spent shells litter the ground.
We retreat back down the hallway.
Brody covers our six, cranking rounds at pursuing demons.
Everyone rolls toward the end of hallway number two.
Hines, Jessup, Brody, Dominic, and I are all covered in demon gore, the bodies of the fallen lying around us in all attitudes of death.
“It’s a fucking trap,” I explain when the others notice Dominic holding Benz down.
I motion for everybody to fall back. Then I drag Benz to his feet.
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” he cries.
“WHERE’S MY SON?!” I spit.
“Moloch has him! He set this all up,” he says. “I already told you everything I know.”
As his pathetic words fall onto my ears, I can’t help but whack him across the jaw with my right elbow.
“WHY?!” I demand.
“He wanted to bring you here,” Benz answers. “It was all a test to see if any of you would join him when the Gates of Hell are opened. He’ll take you all down into the abyss, and you’ll never get out unless you join him. Oh God…” Benz gets a look of realization. “He was working the whole time with—”
Benz is violently snatched
away by a horde of demons.
Dominic manages to jump over and latch onto his arms as the demons savagely tear apart Benz’s lower body.
He pulls a pistol around and aims it at Benz’s forehead. He’s about to put him out of his misery.
“No! Please! If you do that I’ll never ascend!” Benz pleads. “I won’t even get a judgment day.”
Dominic pulls the pistol back.
“At least this way they can say I gave my life for another!” Dominic shouts.
In a flash Benz is pulled back and eviscerated by the demons in a bloody blur of bestial rage.
I try to look away but can’t.
A part of me is sad for him. Another part is satisfied that he got his comeuppance.
Dominic and I blast away at the demons as we retreat and follow the others back down the massive metal staircase.
Our team loads and fires as fast as we can slap new clips into our guns.
The walls and roof teem with demons who mass like meth-amped fire-ants as we lance past the atrium.
We’re almost out, but the demons swarm around the Suburban that I drove down.
“Go back!” I shout. “We have to go back!”
“I’ll do it,” Brody offers. “I’ll get the ride.”
Before I can stop him, Brody does a mad dash out of the building and across the industrial yard. He runs for his life while hip-firing.
A winged demon slams into Brody, slashing his back as blood spatters the ground.
Brody shoots the demon down and manages to limp into the Suburban.
Inside, he fumbles with the keys while demons pound on the roof and doors, peeling the metal open as they ready to pile in.
Brody, realizing the end is near, reaches a hand under the dashboard.
Dread fills my heart.
What’s on the underside of the dashboard is a small red switch hooked to wires that lead to a mass of hidden plastic explosives under the shotgun seat.
I can’t hear Brody flipping the switch from this far away, but the blinking red light that flashes from inside the Suburban tells me all I need to know.
A shrill beeping sound emits outward. Brody’s made his choice.
I recognize the sound and shout, “Everybody down!”
The demons atop the Suburban clamor through the open roof as Brody leans back, casts a look at me, and flashes one last ‘Hell yeah’ grin right as a scaly demon reaches down for him.
“Come and get some,” Brody says, as the demon reaches for him.
The Suburban vanishes in a retina-searing flash of orange and white.
Across the yard, the explosive backwash turns demons to ash in a single instance as it mushrooms up and scythes out.
The others and I take cover as a blast-wave rolls across the yard, incinerating the remaining demons and rocking the building to its core.
The reverberations from the blast last another several seconds as I push up off the ground and take in the carnage.
My vision is cloudy, coming in flashes. My eyes focus in on a smallish form running through the plumes of dust and smoke.
As the figure gets closer, my heart begins racing. I’m afraid of getting my hopes up again, but he even has Noah’s awkward gait when he runs. It has to be him. It has to be Noah.
His legs pump as he churns toward me.
I step toward him, and my body grips with disbelief. Is it really him?
“Noah?” I call out. “NOAH!”
Before I can take another step, Noah’s visage is swallowed up by a cloud of black smoke that plumes from beneath the ground. Slowly, the smoke dissipates to reveal dozens of demons, reinforcements, standing on the charred remains of their brethren.
At the head of the horde is the bastard himself—Moloch.
He holds Noah in his sinewy arms.
My young son is too frightened to even scream.
I instinctively reach for my Tokarev, whip it around, and pull the trigger. The gun clicks empty.
No dice. I’m out of ammo.
The Tokarev is ripped away as I glare into the twisted face of Vic Jacobs. He’s the gift that keeps on giving.
He looks worse than before, much worse. His body is twisted and contorted, his mouth is crooked in a perpetual sneer, his gums are cracked, and he’s wearing armor made of scales that layer all along his body.
“No need to say you missed me,” Vic gurgles through his gangly teeth. “I can tell you did.”
He throws a nasty right cross, slamming me across the jaw. He then tosses the Tokarev in the air.
Moloch snatches it and strides forward, fully visible for the first time. He’s easily seven feet tall, elongated, with a humanoid face bearing shortened horns that erupt from his temples.
He has Noah in one hand, and in the other, he crushes the Tokarev then drops it to the ground in pieces.
Vic, jagged legs and broken bones, hobbles over next to Moloch and the other gibbering demons who have us surrounded.
Moloch’s voice resonates through the air as if amplified by loudspeakers and slinks into my ears like the hiss of a serpent.
“I would have thought that someone as powerful and clever as you would have known better than to fall into my trap,” he snarls. “I even hoped my precious gift of the hunk of wing-flesh that I carved out of your back and presented to your son would be cause for you to withdraw into your past ways. Didn’t you retreat and not follow through during the first war?” He cackles. “All we really need is the boy, but if you’re included in the package, then all the better. Your return will please my Lord.”
The fucker has no compassion whatsoever, not that I’m surprised. In less than ten seconds, he’s managed to insult my valor, my motherhood, and my integrity.
If I had the flames of Heaven, I would spend every last ounce of any spiritual righteousness I have left to cut his throat and leave his mangled head behind as a warning to anyone who would trifle with my flesh and blood. Unfortunately, I lost that right a long fucking time ago. I no longer have divine justice on my side, but I do have righteous anger and an absolute, unfaltering, relentless will to do whatever it takes to get my son back.
“Let him go,” I reply. “Or I’ll fucking end you, one way or another, I’ll fucking make certain that you lack pleasure or pain. I’ll send you to a void of nothingness.”
If I’m being honest, I don’t really know if my threat carries weight with the asshole. Maybe he likes silence and being left alone. Maybe solitude for eternity is his goal. I sure as hell wouldn’t want it, so I figure it might resonate.
Still, I’m fumbling around in the dark when it comes to Moloch. He should never have risen to such power. Something’s off about him, and the only explanation is that someone important is using him in a bigger game.
I’m going to use that against him once I uncover the truth.
Moloch sniffs Noah’s neck, causing my son to squirm and attempt to escape the grotesque monstrosity’s grasp.
“I should kill you now,” Moloch snarks, “but I wouldn’t want to do that before the fun begins.”
The ground begins to vibrate as Moloch raises his arms. He begins chanting a dark prayer in an unknown tongue that I don’t even know.
His horde of demons join in.
As their voices grow louder, the ground cracks and begins to open like a monster unhinging its jaws.
The carcasses and remains on the surface slide into the vast hole that drops into a darkened abyss, which is as vacant and shadowy to the eye as the bottom of the ocean.
The team and I scramble for purchase, trying to avoid being sucked down.
Huge plumes of dust rocket into the air as the ground lifts and twists. It’s too powerful.
We aren’t going to win this round.
We’re swallowed whole into the darkened abyss and tumble down like rag-dolls, free-falling through time and space. We’re specks in a world of darkness.
This is my worst nightmare come true. We’re losing, I’m no closer to rescuing my so
n, and I’m claustrophobic as fuck. Goddamnit!
15
Deathly Surprise
I look over my shoulder and catch a fleeting glimpse of Moloch and his minions as they vanish.
My shouts at them disappear along with them.
They’re gone.
“NOAH!” I cry out.
Then, I slam hard into the ground and roll over.
I peer back into the black mirage that envelopes the empty space where they’d been.
Slowly, I pull myself to my feet, crying out again.
“Dominic, Hines, Jessup!” I shout.
There are only four of us left. We’re shrinking in number, giving the enemy an advantage.
I can’t afford to lose anyone else.
Even though we’re more powerful, they will always outnumber us, unlike the First Holy War.
Lucifer seduced a third of the angels. We outnumbered him, though, and we were winning.
We still had two-thirds of the angels on our side.
But Michael’s decision to invade Hell itself, despite the armistice, left our side with fleeting numbers.
Not only did most of the angels remain in Heaven during the invasion, but those who followed Michael were lost, except for a few such as me.
Those still in Heaven aren’t allowed to interfere now, or the truce would be broken.
So, it’s on us, and we number four against hundreds of thousands, if not millions by now.
Lucifer won’t settle for dominion over Hell.
He wants Earth and all of humanity, the second creation, next.
Then, he intends to take Heaven.
“Over here!” Hines shouts back.
His voice is faint and fleeting.
I take off, rushing for him. I stumble through the pitch as if I’m in a sandstorm until I fall into a mass of sticks or brush.
I pull out a chemlight from my front pocket, flare it.
It lashes its light out in a fan.
When I look down I see that Hines is lying in a pile of bones, some obviously human, others not.
Looking closer I see that we’re atop a vast boneyard.
It’s not just from the battle.
It’s a menagerie of bleached, skeletal material from multiple battles.
DEATH SUITS HER_A Supernatural Reverse Harem Romance Adventure Page 9