A Despair of Demons (Travelers, Book 1)

by Cassy Campbell

  “Is there anything we can do to help?” Jordan asked before Connor could say anything else.

  “Not unless you can be finding the demons and returning the missing folk.”

  Jordan’s eyes flashed, but he only clenched his jaw. He didn’t make promises he couldn’t keep, and Liv knew there was no way to track down the missing people. They could be anywhere in the multiverse.

  “It’s highly unlikely that they’re still alive.” Trent’s black eyes were unreadable.

  “Then no,” Major Hucklin said, “there be nothing you can do. Our own countryside be sending aid shortly. We’d be rebuilding.”

  “It’s possible the demons could return,” Jordan said. “Do you have means of protection?”

  “We can’t help with protection,” Connor said before Hucklin could answer. “We can’t bring anything big here, and we can’t leave anything behind.”

  This was another mystery of Travel that Liv aimed to someday understand. An object brought with a Traveler would return to its Home World in exactly two minutes unless the Traveler kept physical contact with the object or somehow restrained it, like in a pocket or belt loop. She assumed it was some sort of protection for the First Law of Physics: mass can be neither created nor destroyed. While Travelers could bend the rule by entering a world and bringing things along, apparently the Law struggled to assert itself and right the excess mass by throwing the intruding objects back to their Home World when the Traveler let go.

  “We could assign a team, just for a few days even,” Jordan argued, but Connor broke in,

  “There’d be no way to secure their safety, and no way of knowing when the demons would return, if at all.”

  Hucklin replied, “There be no need. A branch of the militia be on their way.”

  “We’re very sorry for the damage, Major,” Jordan responded.

  Hucklin waved this away with his hand. “It wouldn’t be your fault. It just be difficult to look at my beautiful village in ruins, and think of my poor voting constituency taken away to serve as demon-meal. It be unlikely they’ll re-elect me if I can’t protect them.”

  Connor frowned. “Do you have explosives?”

  Hucklin managed to look both surprised and affronted. “If we had explosives, we could be defending this city from the attack!”

  “Did you see what kind of explosives the demons used?” Connor pressed.

  “Do I be looking like a self-terminator to you? If I didn’t be hidden with my loyal advisory board, I’d be dead!”

  “Right.” Connor started to turn away.

  Liv asked, “Did anyone see any strange humans around? Specifically a man.”

  Hucklin turned to her. “What sort of man?”

  “Black hair with blue streaks, pale skin, dark eyes—” She didn’t know the common measure for height in this world so she gestured to Jordan. “—about Jordan’s height. Do you know if anyone saw him?”

  “Not to my knowledge, but I will ask my people. Why?”

  Ben said, “He’s a person of interest.”

  Hucklin nodded. “If we find him, someone be contacting you.”

  “If there’s nothing we can do,” Connor said, “I think we’d better report back.”

  “One more question,” Liv said, asking Connor for permission with a glance. He said nothing, so she continued. “Do you know if there was damage to the north of Ganja?”

  “Not to my knowledge. Why?”

  “I have friends there. Raja and Corc?”

  “Yes. I’d be knowing them. We’d be having no calls for aid from that direction.”

  Liv breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank you.”

  Hucklin nodded and turned back to his advisors, who had sat silently through the conversation.

  Liv smiled her thanks to Connor, who bobbed his head in acknowledgement before raising his hand in a move out gesture. Liv fell in next to Jordan and followed the rest of the team out of the village. Jordan walked with his eyes on the ground in front of him, and Liv tried to come up with something to make him feel better. She had nothing. She felt pretty useless herself.

  They reached the beach and Connor opened his mouth, presumably to count them back to Home World.

  Demons appeared out of thin air forty feet to Liv’s left, whirling into concrete solidity in less than a second.

  She whirled, her sidearm already free of its holster, and noted her teammates echoing her movement on either side. They ranged out to cover the demons.

  “I still wasn’t sure they existed,” Liv said.

  Ben gave a jagged laugh. “Me either, but that looks like proof.”

  “Ack,” Gin gagged on the rotten stench rolling off the creatures.

  The three demons stood fully eight feet tall, with leathery purplish-brown skin and huge folded bat-wings that gave them another three feet of height. Their wrinkled faces were a mixture of boar and dog—beady black pig eyes set in basset-hound pouches, pointed pig ears, thick snouts with wiry bristles that looked half pig and half mastiff, and huge boar tusks jutting out of their lower jaw. The smell of them was rotting intestine and sulfur, and Liv swallowed against her stomach’s heave as a puff of wind washed her in the stench.

  The demons stood for an instant, peering around nearsightedly, then leapt toward the group of humans, covering the distance between them with speed shocking for their size. They slashed with hands spread, each finger tipped with a razor-sharp claw.

  “Fire!” Connor shouted. Liv was more than happy to obey. She saw the bullets hit their targets, but although blood splashed and holes opened in the demons’ hides, they had no appreciable effect.

  * * *

  Jordan’s mind couldn’t quite process the demons’ speed. Things that big didn’t move that fast.

  He fired on the demons, each gun aimed at a separate target, but his attention split as Liv dived away from a razor-tipped swipe. She rolled in the sand and gained her feet again, unharmed and still shooting. The rest of his teammates were scrambling for cover, so he assumed none of those butcher-knife talons had found a mark.

  A demon spun his way, and Jordan threw himself backward to avoid evisceration. Ben was just to his right, and he leapt the other way just a second too slow. The demon swatted him across the back with six-inch razors. Jordan’s stomach dropped, but Ben rolled with the blow. He came up with his Beretta M9 in his hand, shooting the instant he could aim. The sharp smell of cordite joined the stink of rotting flesh on the breeze.

  Jordan fired both guns on the demon still advancing on Ben. His gunfire combined with Ben’s drove the demon back into the central huddle, squealing like a pig being butchered.

  Connor and Gin fired from a stand of palm trees partly unburned, and Liv and Trent had stationed themselves behind low sand dunes and opened fire as well. Jordan watched their bullets rip holes in the demons’ chests and arms, throwing drops of blood and clots of flesh, but the demons didn’t even slow. One of them roared and a stream of fire shot from its mouth. Gin and Connor’s palm trees blazed up like candles. They ran for the nearby dunes and dived for cover beside Liv.

  Jordan threw Ben a surprised look and Ben smiled wryly. “I guess that explains the fire in Ganja.”

  The demon turned its flames downward, aiming for the top of the dune where Liv, Gin, and Connor lay. The yellow flames burned bright blue when they struck the blue sand. The dunes melted under the heat and ran downhill to form molten pools at the demons’ feet. The air suddenly reeked of sulfur.

  Liv stared as rivers of molten rock ran toward her. Connor said, “Time to go.”

  They retreated toward the next dune.

  The fire-breathing demon aimed at Connor and Gin as they came over the crest of the dune. Liv retreated last, and when she came into sight, one of the other demons launched itself at her with that horror-movie speed, shrieking as it flew through the air.

  Jordan’s heart stuttered. “No!”

  He leveled his two Nighthawk 10-8’s on the demon. He aimed at its head with o
ne gun and its heart with the other, and both shots hit their targets. Connor had originally balked at the idea of a member of his team double-fisting guns like Laura Croft, but when Jordan had beaten him in a shooting competition, he’d changed his mind. Jordan had never been more grateful for that than now, as the demon belly-flopped into the molten sand and Liv escaped over the dune. Blue lava spattered as the demon splashed down, coating it liberally as it shrieked what Jordan savagely hoped was a death scream. Jordan held a gun on each of the others, firing whenever he had a clean target.

  Dismay welled up as the demon rose from the molten puddle. Liv’s added gunfire turned it back to its comrades, but it showed no trace of injury, and the molten rock ran off its skin like water.

  It probably lives in molten rock for all we know. It’s a demon from Hell.

  Jordan focused his attention again as his bullets tore into the neck of the second demon. Blood jetted from the wound, and the demon sputtered and spat blood as it tried to speak.

  Trent fired on the third demon, punching holes through its wings and into its back. His last shot hit the main wing bone, breaking it and causing the wing to droop suddenly like a flag with no wind. The demon howled a pig-dog scream of pain.

  Ben aimed for the uninjured demon and took out an eye with his backup P238—he hadn’t had time to reload his Beretta. Unfortunately, the P238 didn’t pack enough punch to break through the demon’s skull. Losing an eye didn’t distract it for long, and as Jordan watched, the hole began to close. Moments later, the bleeding from its companion’s ripped neck first slowed and then stopped.

  Chapter 5

  Jordan listened closely as One-Eye growled a stream of guttural words interspersed with whines and grunts.

  Jordan whispered to Ben, “How do we know if they’re Singular?”

  Ben stared at him as if he’d gone crazy.

  “Raul said to bring Travelers,” Jordan continued as Severed-Jugular answered in the same language.

  “You speak demon?” Ben gasped. “How?”

  Jordan waved a hand: not important. He cocked his head to listen.

  Broken-Wing spat a response that sounded like a two-year-old gargling through a temper tantrum.

  “I don’t think this is right,” Jordan translated. “These aren’t coming. He said it would be easy, unarmed, alone.”

  They didn’t really have facial expressions, but Severed-Jugular roared in unmistakable rage.

  “Fine, you tell him!” Jordan said.

  Broken-Wing growled and dissolved in a red whirlwind. The others followed immediately and they all vanished.

  As Ben and Jordan held their guns at the ready and swept the area for any sign of returning demons, Ben said, “You speak demon. Cool.”

  Jordan shrugged. “It’s similar to Latin. The Romance languages are my specialty.”

  “I didn’t even hear any words, just a lot of grunting and squealing.”

  “That’s why I’m the linguist.”

  Jordan watched as Connor stood and surveyed the scene along the muzzle of his Beretta, swinging it back and forth as he swept the beach. “Anyone see anything?” he shouted.

  The others rose to their feet. Shouts of “Clear” sounded unnaturally loud in the deathly silence after the firefight. They made their way back down to the beach and regrouped in a defensive circle, careful to avoid the still-molten sand.

  Jordan watched Liv, looking for signs of injury, and a knot in his chest loosened when he saw that she was fine.

  * * *

  Liv eyed Jordan as she walked up, assuring herself that he was okay. She bobbed her head as his eyes met hers. “Thanks for the save.”

  He smiled, sending warmth through her. “Don’t mention it.”

  “Everyone okay?” Connor asked.

  Everybody replied in the affirmative.

  Connor’s gaze fixed on Ben. “Flyboy, you took a hit.”

  Liv hadn’t seen that. She whipped her eyes to Ben.

  “I’m fine,” Ben said. “Jordan understood what they said.”

  Connor inspected him a moment longer, then raised his eyebrows at Jordan, accepting the change of topic.

  Jordan said, “The demons were sent here to recover a Singularity.”

  “By whom?” Connor asked.

  “Raul. He told them it would be easy to take the Singularity because he would be unarmed and alone. They decided we didn’t meet the criteria.”

  “Maybe that’s why they took some of the townspeople,” Trent said. “Maybe they’re not going to kill them. Right away.”

  Liv hadn’t really considered Elachai being singular as a possibility. But she hadn’t thought demons were real either. “How do they know he’s Singular? What do they want with him?”

  “They didn’t say,” Jordan said.

  Connor, still watching Jordan, asked, “Anything else?”

  “No.”

  Gin sighed. “Does it bother anyone else that a demon fell into a puddle of molten sand and shook it off like water?”

  Ben forced a grin that looked more like a grimace. “What doesn’t bother me about what just happened?”

  Jordan said, “Well, they are from Hell. Some of those reports of priests seeing visions of Hell as a burning lake of fire must have been true.”

  Liv swallowed hard. “What must Hell be like if that’s what lives there?”

  Jordan’s eyes lit up. “I’ve been thinking about that. From an evolutionary standpoint—”

  Connor cleared his throat. “I hate to interrupt what promises to be a fascinating exposition, but we’re clear. Home World on mark. One—”

  Liv interrupted, “Do you think the people are safe here?”

  Connor paused. “Do you?”

  Liv didn’t know. She looked at Jordan, who thought for a moment. “The demons were hunting the Singularity. Twice now, they haven’t found him here. I don’t think they’ll be back.”

  Connor raised his eyebrows at Liv. “I agree.”

  “Good enough. One, two, three, mark.”

  Liv blinked and opened her eyes on the sand surrounding the hidden entrance of the DEPOT. Connor appeared and turned silently for the entrance.

  General Mace was already seated at the head of the briefing room’s table. “Commander Bryant, report,” he said as Connor strode in, Liv and Jordan at his heels.

  “Blue Beach was attacked yesterday, sir. And we were attacked just now. Demons.”

  If General Mace was surprised, he didn’t show it. “Everyone okay?”

  Before Connor could answer, Gin, who followed Ben through the door, said, “Ben, my God, you’ve got blood everywhere!”

  “Apparently not,” Connor said as he turned to Ben.

  “I’m fine,” Ben growled.

  Connor turned him by the shoulders and inspected his back. “You’re not.”

  Liv’s heart jumped. She’d believed Ben when he said he was fine. Liar.

  General Mace stood up. “Commander, call Medical.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Ben turned to the general, and Liv finally saw his wounds. She breathed easier. The slashes were vicious but didn’t go through to bone, and although his shirt was bloody, he wasn’t actively bleeding so no arteries had been hit.

  General Mace asked, “What happened?”

  Ben sighed. “It’s just a couple of demon scratches. I’m fine, sir.”

  “You’ll be patched up by Medical before you debrief.”

  “Sir, it’s just a couple of scratch—”

  “That’s an order, Lieutenant Farthing!”

  Ben nodded. “Yes, sir.”

  The general continued, “I trust there’s nothing urgent?”

  “Other than a demon attack?” Gin’s voice was laced with sarcasm.

  Connor’s mouth twitched, but he shook his head. “Nothing that can’t wait.”

  General Mace said, “The rest of you get cleaned up. We’ll meet back here in one hour.” He strode out the door.

  A medical trotted
into the room laden with bandages and immediately pounced on Ben. He quickly wound a tight wrap around Ben’s chest, over his clothes, and led him away, asking questions as they went.

  The rest of the team stared aimlessly for a moment. Then Gin said, “Fancy a sparring session, Ninja?”

  “You think you can take me, Virgin?” Trent answered.

  “Bring it on, Nagano.”

  Gin’s curly blonde hair, pulled into a bouncy ponytail, formed angelic ringlets around big innocent-looking sapphire eyes, and though she was curvaceous, she was also pixie-petite. Looks could be deceiving, Liv thought as a fierce grin spread across Gin’s face. Gin was tough as nails and had a vicious competitive streak. She was the smallest on the team at five-foot-three, but Trent’s slim five-foot-nine had always made him look like an easy target too.

  Jordan turned to Liv. “Care for a match ourselves?”

  “Sure, I can take you,” Liv said with a smile.

  Jordan gave her a look she couldn’t interpret, but nodded and strode away.

  When she got to the gym, Gin and Trent were already feinting around each other on one mat, each trying to land the first blow. Connor watched from a weight machine in the corner and shouted advice to both opponents.

  Jordan stretched on another mat while he waited for her, and Liv was struck by how formidable he looked. Muscles rippled in his arms and back, and he appeared limber and ready. She hadn’t fought him since they’d taken jujutsu and karate lessons from Trent a year ago. She knew Jordan had already studied karate before Trent had started their training, and wondered if this was a fight she could win. Too late now.

  As she stretched, Connor shouted, “Get beneath him, Gin! Make him move his feet. Break his track. Nagano, are you gonna let a girl knock you back like that? Balance!”

  Jordan stood and smiled as Liv stepped onto the mat. “Ready?”

  Liv nodded, and he came at her without warning. She blocked and struck but landed nothing. One skirmish and she was already panting. Jordan was fast.

  “Glad you’re okay after that demon attack.”

  She wasn’t about to fall for that trick. “I’m fine,” she said, waiting for his next move.