Devil Hunters

by R. Gualtieri

  The devil opened his mouth in a grotesque semblance of a smile, coughed again, and then spat out a mouthful of viscous phlegm. “M-my Sssarah.”

  “I’m not your anything.”

  A sliver of drool fell from his scaly lips and again he took a large, shuddering gulp of air. “Yes, y-you are. “G-god’s gift to me. My wife.”

  Danni lowered her arms and took a step to the side, away from Mitchell. “No.”

  “You’ll bear fine ch-children.”

  She took another step. “I’d sooner die.”

  Noah let loose with a wheezing chuckle. “You k-killed my kin. Need to m-make more. The c-clan must continue.”

  “No,” she repeated, her hand coming to rest on the hilt of Francis’s knife, still sheathed at her side. “It’s time for you and your clan to die out. To join the myths and legends of this forest. Nothing more.”

  He tensed. “D-don’t. N-nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide.”

  “I beg to differ,” she said with a grimace. “I don’t think you’re going to do it. And I know these woods now. Maybe not as well as you, but enough to get away.”

  “No.”

  “Get away and never see your disgusting face again.”

  “N-no,” he sputtered. His breath was coming hard now, making his words difficult to understand.

  A volley of gunshots sounded from somewhere close by – back in the direction where she’d left Ezekiel to rot, if she had her bearings straight. She had no way of knowing who was firing or what they were shooting at, other than that neither she nor Noah appeared to be the target.

  Noah spared a quick glance that way, then focused on her again. “My kin are coming.”

  “You don’t know that.” She took another step.

  “D-don’t matter. You’re mine. SSSTOP!”

  “You won’t...”

  “D-don’t need to kill you.” Noah smiled, more thick drool dripping from his mouth. “D-don’t need to chase you either.”

  He shifted his aim lower and pulled the trigger.

  The barrel of the rifle exploded and Noah cried out as he dropped the weapon and clutched his face.

  Now it was Danni’s turn to smile. She’d been using that old rifle all night as a walking stick, to look for traps and for testing the depth of any bogs she came across. The barrel had become good and clogged by a combination of dirt and drying mud.

  Not as useless as I thought.

  That was all the time she allowed herself to celebrate. Though in pain from the shrapnel of the backfire, she didn’t fool herself into thinking Noah was injured enough to no longer be a threat.

  Drawing Francis’s knife, she raced at him, looking to change that status quo once and for all.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Julia wasn’t sure what had just happened. She knew the second she pulled the trigger that her shot had gone wide. The knife had come down and she’d heard the sickening sound of it striking flesh. But then, before she could fire again, three more deafening gunshots rang out from close range.

  Her breath caught in her throat, certain for a moment that more of the Lesterfields had found them, but instead the one straddling Derek fell slack atop him. She approached and saw three ragged exit wounds in the man’s hunched back.

  “A ... little help ... here.”

  Derek’s voice was weak and ragged, but he was alive.

  Julia quickly stepped in and realized his attacker, on the other hand, was quite dead.

  She spared a glance back at the one she’d knocked out, still on the ground where she’d left him. He could wait. Julia grabbed hold of the dead man and shoved with everything she had. He was a lot heavier than he looked and even in death seemed reluctant to release his prey.

  “Come on!” With one more heave, she pushed him off.

  Her breath caught as she laid eyes on Derek. He was holding a large revolver in his right hand, one with a very short muzzle. But drawing it had come at a cost. The hunchback’s knife was buried deep in his other arm. “Oh my God!”

  “Don’t,” Derek warned when she moved to grab it.

  “But you’re bleeding.”

  “I’m ... going to be ... bleeding a lot worse ... if you pull it out.” He threw her a weak smile. “Not to mention, I think ... it’s stuck in the bone.”

  Julia looked down at him, feeling helpless. “What do we do?”

  “I just need a breather.”

  “A breather?!”

  “We’re not ... done yet.” He fumbled with his gun before finally getting it back in its holster.

  “You are.”

  “Not yet,” Derek replied tiredly before slowly sitting up. He glanced past her. “The other two?”

  “One dead, one not going anywhere.”

  He pointed. “Help me over to that tree and then go get your backpack. There’s rope in there. Tie up the survivor, then go find Mitch.”

  “What about you?”

  “It’s a nice night for guard duty.”

  “Oh?” she asked with a laugh. “So you get the easy...”

  She was interrupted by a loud report from the direction they’d been headed. It sounded to her like a muffled gunshot. “What the?”

  “Crap,” Derek growled. “Forgot all about whatever passed us earlier. Change ... of plans.” He held out his good hand so Julia could help him up. “Let’s go.”

  “You’re in no shape to...”

  “That wasn’t a request.”

  She was tempted to clock him upside the head with her rifle, but instead asked, “Can you make it?”

  “No idea, but ... going to try.”

  Julia saw there was no arguing with the man, and doing so was just wasting time anyway. She helped him up, offering her shoulder for him to lean on.

  “Thanks.”

  “Save it, you stubborn bastard,” she replied. “You ready?”

  “Yeah. Just do me a favor?”

  “What now?”

  Derek glanced down at the knife sticking out of his arm. “Try not to brush up against anything. Oh, and watch your step this time.”

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Danni changed tactics at the last moment. In her rage, she’d raced right at the devil, intent on tackling him and burying her knife as deeply into his chest as she could. She realized mid-stride though, that strategy was little more than suicide. Even if she managed to gravely wound him, he was still much larger, stronger, and durable than she. There was little chance of winning that way without Noah taking her with him. If anything, she’d just end up dying badly, leaving this bastard to finish off Mitch and then return to his compound to start the cycle anew.

  Her advantage was in her smaller size and agility. She needed to use that.

  She veered hard left and raced past him as he continued to claw at his face, ducking low and raking the blade across his thigh.

  As she feared, his skin was tough, as if he were more alligator than man, but Francis had kept his knife razor sharp. It drew a furrow of blood before she stepped out of his reach.

  Noah, still breathing hard, snarled and dropped his hands so as to follow where Danni was circling him. It was hard to tell in the dim light, but she was pretty sure his face was scraped to hell from the gun blowback. He shook his head, blinked, and wiped at his eyes once more before facing her again.

  He was in pain and likely at least partially blinded. That was good. Served the fucker right and also gave her a fighting chance, however slim. She knew her best bet was to double back, find her gun, and use it to blow some proper holes in this abomination. But that would leave her flank vulnerable, and she didn’t trust in her ability to do so without him closing the distance.

  “G-gonna, learn you good ... Sssarah.” He put his hands on his knees and bent over to cough.

  A possible course of action began to form in her mind. “Wrong on both counts!”

  She stepped in slashing with the knife, but he countered with his claws. Bone
clinked off metal and she almost lost her grip on the weapon from the sheer strength of his attack.

  He lunged for her, faster than she was expecting, but the mud covering her body made her too slippery for him to easily grab hold of. She pulled away and backed off, sporting three wicked furrows on her arm for her troubles.

  Danni drew in a sharp breath of pain and backpedaled. Noah was quicker than she gave him credit for. She couldn’t afford to be sloppy like that again. No. She had to fight this battle smarter than that. “Your dad died badly – choking on his own blood with his pants around his ankles.”

  A thick snarl escaped Noah’s lips and he leapt at her.

  She sidestepped and threw a punch to the side of his head, immediately regretting it. It was like hitting a wall. Danni considered herself to be in good shape, but she might as well have smacked him with a flyswatter.

  What she lost in actual damage, though, she made up for in angering this monster who called himself a man. Noah let loose with another angry growl which again dissolved into thick coughs.

  It gave her a chance to step around to his flank where she raised the knife high and brought it down into his back with everything she had.

  It wasn’t nearly enough.

  He shifted at the last possible second and, in her haste to strike a killing blow, she instead hit one of the many protrusions covering his torso. Despite putting her all into the blow, the blade sank in less than an inch, becoming stuck tight in his thick hide.

  Before she could pull the weapon free, Noah spun, throwing a wild backhand that caught Danni in the side and sent her flying.

  She tried to roll with the blow but was too dazed and went tumbling end over end ... finally skidding to a halt at the edge of the clearing.

  Sadly, there were no timeouts in this duel against the devil. She’d barely stopped moving when she heard him coming for her again.

  Danni pushed herself to her knees, doing her best to ignore the stinging pain in her side. It would be a near miracle if she didn’t have at least a couple cracked ribs.

  Praying she didn’t immediately collapse onto the ground in agony, she gritted her teeth, pushed off with her foot, and sprinted into the darkness of the forest, moving as fast as her injuries would allow.

  If this son of a bitch wanted her, he’d have to catch her first – even if deep down she feared this was a race she couldn’t win.

  CHAPTER 48

  It took an agonizingly long time to return to the clearing where they’d left Mitch to care for Arthur.

  Fortunately, they weren’t too far away when they’d gotten waylaid by the Lesterfields. Derek just hoped it was close enough. Something else had passed them in the woods before they’d been forced to battle the trio of mutants. What that something else was, he wasn’t sure. Likewise, he had no way of knowing if it was friendly, but it seemed a smart precaution to assume it wasn’t.

  Still, whoever or whatever it was hadn’t turned back and tried to flank them when the first warning shot was fired, something near impossible to miss in the stifling darkness.

  Derek supposed it could have been an animal looking to escape the battlefield, but it hadn’t sounded like one to him. There had been purpose to its steps, not blind panic.

  One of Zeist’s men maybe? It was possible. But if so, who had fired the weapon?

  Since that single shot, the woods had seemingly grown quiet again. Not that he could tell much of anything the way his head was swimming. Between blood loss and his other injuries, Derek felt like a deflated balloon.

  Truth be told, he was done. It was a near miracle he was still on his feet, even with Julia’s help.

  Unfortunately, their mission wasn’t finished, so that meant he couldn’t afford to be either. Not yet anyway. They still had to find Danni and Frank and then get out of this place alive. Quite the daunting tasks for a man as tired as he was.

  The Colt felt heavy in his hand, but he refused to holster it as Julia helped him forward. They might well stumble into another ambush, but whoever lay in wait for them would at least learn they were anything but easy prey.

  There, at last, the clearing they’d been seeking loomed ahead through a break in the trees.

  “Just a little more,” Julia whispered to him.

  “Promises, promises,” he wheezed back, surprised by how weak his voice sounded.

  They stepped through the tree line and into the clearing.

  Almost immediately, a dark shape rose up near the other side, seemingly in challenge to their presence, and called out in a groggy voice, “Whoever’s out there, that’s far enough.”

  As it turned out, those were apt words indeed, for when Derek pulled away from Julia, to raise his weapon in response, he promptly passed out before his finger could even touch the trigger.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Danni coughed, tasting copper in the back of her mouth, but she continued onward despite the pain. Behind her, she could hear him coming. He’d given up all pretense of stealth, seemingly intent on running her down instead, his labored breathing giving his position away as surely as the crackle of branches breaking in his wake. At least she’d succeeded in pissing him off.

  The only thing that kept her going was what he’d do to her once he caught up. By this point, Danni was no longer afraid of death. If Noah killed her, so be it. There would be no shame to such an end. It was what would happen if she didn’t die that terrified her.

  The pain in her side was intensifying, but it paled in comparison to the fear of being dragged back to the compound as his wife.

  Danni wasn’t stupid enough to think she could run forever in her shape, but from the sounds Noah was making behind her, hopefully she wouldn’t need to. She abruptly turned right, hoping that in her race to keep ahead of him she hadn’t lost her bearings.

  She knew she was risking a lot, running all out through a potential minefield of traps – that at any moment she could step wrong and that would be it.

  “Sssarah!” The wheezing cry came from close behind her, too close.

  Danni spared a glance over her shoulder. Though she couldn’t see him gaining in the dark, she could definitely hear him.

  The pain, combined with the exhaustion at having been on the go for hours, was slowing her down. Had she been fresh, she was certain she could have outpaced her pursuer, but it felt like someone had poured gasoline on her insides and made her swallow a match. As it was now, she would be overtaken within seconds.

  Unless she changed the rules of the chase.

  Listening to the wet, heavy breathing coming up behind her, she got an idea how she might do that, but there was little time to properly plan. She had to act and hope she got lucky.

  Danni burst through a heavy bramble of bushes, scraping herself up in the process, then slid to the side and dropped prone. It was an amateurish trick at best, something one might expect of a grade schooler, and it made her side scream in protest, but it was all she had to work with.

  She was counting on the fact that Noah was too pissed off to risk losing her.

  Sure enough, he came plowing through the same bushes she’d just emerged from. Danni kicked out and caught one of his legs with her own. It was like striking a concrete piling and, for a moment, she was certain she’d hear the sound of her own leg shattering like a matchstick, but the brute went tumbling face-first onto the forest floor instead.

  Danni spied the knife, still stuck in his back, and was sorely tempted to try to wrench it free, but she abandoned that idea almost immediately. One fall wasn’t going to do much more than slow her pursuer down for a second or two. If she truly wanted to win this, she had to keep up the pressure.

  Noah pushed himself to his knees and coughed several times, but Danni was already back on her feet. She took a moment to look up at the stars and check her direction, then she was off again, moving at a running limp that was barely able to classify as a jog. Danni again realized she needed to be smarter. In her bid t
o escape, she was doing more damage to herself than him. Not a winning strategy in the long run.

  “SSSSARAH!”

  The cry dissolved into a wheezing, hacking cough that echoed behind her. Unfortunately, her hopes that maybe he’d had enough were dashed when she again heard him barreling through the woods. He was getting more reckless, charging full steam ahead, whereas she was slowing down with each potshot she took at him.

  Almost as if in response, a sharp stab of pain rose up from her side, reminding her that another blow like that would almost certainly be lethal.

  Though Noah sounded like he was breathing through a snorkel filled with mud, he moved like a freight train on legs. She began to fear that she’d run out of options long before he ran out of steam.

  If that happened, she’d...

  Danni’s foot caught on the edge of something and all thoughts dissolved as she pinwheeled her arms and toppled forward.

  She managed to barely break the fall with her hands, but the shock of landing rippled through her body, causing her to cry out in agony.

  There was no time to waste on pain, though. She quickly sat up and looked to see what she’d tripped over, despite knowing that she’d erased whatever lead she had.

  As bad as it was, she saw that it could have been much worse. Her foot had caught on the edge of a spiked pit trap. Another inch or so and she’d have gotten her leg stuck fast, with little chance of freeing herself in time.

  Danni rolled to her feet and started to turn again, but then the bushes parted as a massive form seemingly exploded through them, headed toward her.

  Come on, step in it.

  Sadly, luck wasn’t on her side. Noah’s foot came down on the far side of the trap and before she could take much more than a step away from him, his hand wrapped around her arm and spun her back toward him.

  He grinned maniacally down at her. “M-my Sssar...”

  His words dissolved into a strangled cry as Danni, acting on pure instinct alone, brought her knee up. Large, powerful, and possessing skin more suited to a dinosaur, the Jersey Devil was apparently quite human when it came to a kick in the balls.