For Whom The Bell Tolls

by Michael Todd

  The colonel chuckled.

  Charlotte shoved a clip into her gun as she ran up beside them and nodded at the colonel.

  Colonel Jehovivich asked, “You guys ready to kick some more demon ass? Because I am sure as hell ready to get these fuckers and send them straight back to hell. I got a bottle of wine waiting for me at home and I’d rather not wait until it ages.”

  The guys smiled and Charlotte clicked on her camera again to begin live-streaming as they headed down the hill.

  She turned the camera toward her face. “I am heading into the battle zone to film, and I am armed. I will warn you right now: the images on this video will be graphic, so fucking hold onto your hats.”

  She turned the camera around just as a demon ran up in front of her. She screamed and fired, and Wilson looked at her approvingly as the blood seeped from the demon’s head before he turned to dust.

  “Shit, kid! Good shot!”

  Charlotte chuckled nervously. “Hopefully it’s not my last good one for the day.”

  19

  Katie got to the top of the hill and walked next to Eric as they carried him to the med tent. She held his hand tightly as they set him down on the table. The medics quickly surrounded Eric, cutting open his shirt to look at his wound.

  Katie leaned down and whispered into his ear, “You’d better make it through, asshole. I’m gonna go whip some more demon ass.”

  Eric smiled; his teeth were covered in blood. Katie squeezed his hand one more time and turned to leave, wiping her hands on her blood-soaked shirt, but stopped outside the tent and held her stomach. She just needed a minute to gather her composure. She couldn’t lose another one. Not like this; not at the hands of these assholes.

  “Katie?”

  She looked up when she heard a familiar voice. “Charlotte? What are you doing here?”

  Charlotte held up her camera. “Reporter stuff. Why don’t you sit for a second and grab some water?

  “No, no, I gotta get back to the team.” She leaned down and grabbed an armful of water bottles. “But I’m sure they would appreciate it. Hey, stay out of harm’s way, okay?”

  Charlotte nodded, not really agreeing, but Katie was gone before she could say another word.

  Katie tore down the hill as fast as her legs and Pandora could carry her. She didn’t slow as she sprinted across the town, plowing straight through four demons standing in her way. She reached the top of the hill and finally began to slow when she saw Joshua and Stephanie take down the last of the ring of demons. There were piles of ash everywhere, and Timothy was sitting on the ground and wiping his head.

  “Shit, that was fast.”

  “Calvin got a little motivated when you ran off with Eric,” Korbin explained, nodding at Calvin, who was bent over at the waist trying to catch his breath.

  “I grabbed some water for you guys when I was dropping Eric off with the medics.” She handed out the bottles, actually glad that she’d grabbed enough to have one herself. She opened the top and guzzled it down, tossing the bottle to the side.

  Calvin finished his and walked over to pat her on the shoulder. “Thanks for the water.”

  Katie nodded and Pandora growled from her throat, “No fucking donuts.”

  “Sorry, Pandora,” Stephanie replied, sticking out her lip. “After the battle, we’ll stock up.”

  Katie laughed. “I keep telling her that.”

  “And I keep telling her they are the fuel that ignites my engine,” Pandora replied through Katie.

  Everyone laughed for a moment, taking just a second to regroup before they cleared the remaining demons from the nearly-vacant streets. Katie shook her head, knowing the rest of them, including the Enlightened, were hiding in the town, just waiting for their moment to strike. She sure as hell was glad she had done all that training. This battle was far from over.

  “How was Eric?” Calvin asked.

  Katie shrugged. “Still conscious. I’m sure they will take really good care of him up there.”

  Pandora cleared Katie’s throat. “I also gave his demon a talking-to when Katie was carrying him up the hill. He is going to be working overtime to repair any damage on the inside. The medics might be surprised by how quickly he begins to heal. If not, that demon and I are going to go rounds.”

  “Thanks, Pandora.” Calvin smiled. “You are a lifesaver...literally.”

  Pandora didn’t know what to say; she wasn’t used to people thanking her for the things she did. Of course, until Katie, there hadn’t been very many humans who would feel a desire to thank her for the pain and evil she had brought into their lives. Only the men thanked her, and that was usually a breathless “thank you” after a good romp in the hay.

  The team recuperated for a few more minutes, talking, taking a breather, and regrouping for their next go through the town. They knew it was going to be hard, especially with night approaching, but they couldn’t leave until every last demon was killed. The RRF had done an amazing job helping them, as well as the Army. When they finally arrived they had covered the perimeter and sent the remainder of the RRF into the town to start taking out demons.

  Pandora had seen more than one battle as they ran through the town, and she couldn’t help but notice that it now bothered her. She sighed, watching the team quietly through Katie’s eyes. That was when it hit her, and it hit her hard—the team had started to treat her like a person, not some slimy demon. They talked to her the same way they talked to Katie, and they appreciated what she did to help the team. There was a swelling inside her that she hadn’t felt before, like she was the Grinch at the end of the movie.

  Maybe I won’t be the scary bitch forever, Pandora thought to herself. But then again, it’s so much damn fun.

  The chair flew across Moloch’s office and crashed into the wall, breaking into a hundred pieces. T’Chezz let out a loud growl, clenching his fists and kicking anything and everything he could find. Moloch just sat back behind his desk, sighing as he watched his office’s destruction. He had been tired of the furniture anyway, but if T’Chezz went anywhere near his fireplace of souls he would find himself ten floors down with no way to work his way back up.

  “They are getting their asses kicked six ways from Sunday. They are a fucking army; an army from hell. How hard can it be to kill some fucking humans and take over a few cities?”

  “You have to remember, T’Chezz...” He grimaced as a lamp crashed into the wall. “They are low-level idiots without much of a brain. They are stuck on all the food they get to eat.”

  “There were over a thousand of them. I see…what, maybe five hundred other people down there. They should have broken through already!”

  Moloch inspected his claws. “And once they did, what did you really expect? Did you think that they were smart enough to make it to the next city? Please! You are too ambitious, T’Chezz. You are letting your goals cloud the facts. You are unable to see what these beasts are actually capable of.”

  “More than dying at the hands of those damn mercs!”

  “You could have gone down there with them. What you did was send a bunch of idiots into a buffet with no leader to wrangle them. My mercs did their job and secured the town for you. They were not tasked to lead your army.”

  “I am like any general. I lead from afar, too precious to be put on the front lines.”

  “Any general but the one fighting your army.” Moloch nodded toward the screen playing footage of General Brushwood. The human general carried a child and was shooting demons down as he ran toward the perimeter.

  T’Chezz growled and smashed his fists through the top of a table. Moloch rolled his eyes and let out a deep sigh.

  “You need to sit down before there are no chairs left to sit on.”

  T’Chezz glanced at Moloch and took a deep breath. Moloch observed as he mulled over the choices, looked around him, and realized that he had just destroyed Moloch’s office. The realization calmed T’Chezz some. He shook his head and wiped his face with his
big paws. He went to the armchair in front of Moloch’s desk and plopped down, the wood frame creaking under his weight.

  Moloch half expected the chair to collapse, which would send him into another temper tantrum, but despite his disappointment at the big-ass demon not landing on the floor and his gratitude at avoiding the tantrum, the chair held. T’Chezz rested his elbows on the arms and steepled his fingers, bringing them up to his chin.

  “You may not have gotten the outcome you were hoping for, but you didn’t look hard enough here.” Moloch clicked on his television and a human newscast appeared on the screen. There were pictures of the battle and video of the demons ripping people apart. “See? You wanted to foment fear, so I would call this a success.”

  “A success?” T’Chezz grumbled, shaking his big head. His eyes were still glowing bright red. “A success would be another town taken already, leaving no survivors, and the rest spreading out like my plan entailed. This is just fear. Hell, the damn humans have feared us forever—long before we came to Earth and started taking bodies.”

  T’Chezz watched the screen, grimacing every time one of his demons turned to dust. They would all be sent to the bowels of hell for this one. Lucifer hadn’t known about their plan. He would just see those demons as unlawfully starting a battle and wash his hands of it. He might have gotten on the news, and it might be terrifying the public, but he wanted to do more than that. Earth was his, and he was tired of waiting for people to get scared. They would be scared when they watched the demons tear their neighbor limb from limb.

  What T’Chezz really wanted was to hear them scream for mercy. To have them sign over their souls. To fill hell with the screaming agony of soulless humans for Lucifer to revel in. He wanted to walk the Earth like it was his home, forcing those who were left to do his bidding and watch as the demons slowly destroyed their beloved home. He wanted his sister on a goddamn leash so he could parade her around like a dog for the others to see. He snarled, feeling the irritation building again. He was getting screwed out of everything that he had worked so hard to achieve.

  Moloch, on the other hand, rather enjoyed watching T’Chezz so angry, drowning in his own idiotic failure. The time was growing closer; the time to get rid of him once and for all. He could feel it in the pit of his stomach, and when he finally had his way he could go to Lucifer and pin all the chaos on T’Chezz, coming out the hero for destroying him.

  It was the perfect plan, and he only hoped he could bring Lilith in as the icing on the cake.

  Charlotte, outside the skating rink near the center of town, turned the camera around and looked at her viewers. The number at the bottom of the screen was well over a million by that point, which meant she’d gone viral. Her email count was in the double digits, and she knew other news stations were trying to contact her.

  “We have passed through the center of the town, which now lies quiet. There are still hundreds of demons here, and we are looking for them. Some are in hiding, and others are moving from street to street looking for fresh kills. For those of you who think this is some kind of prank, let me remind you that I am on Facebook Live. You are seeing exactly what I am seeing.”

  A loud bang and several gunshots inside the skating rink caused Charlotte to duck. She turned the camera back around and looked at the colonel and Morris’s team, who were reloading their weapons. The double doors out front opened and a demon came flying into the parking lot. It skidded across the cement and stopped right in front of Charlotte, and she attempted to keep the camera steady. The beast had a knife in its skull and its eyes turned to Charlotte for just a moment before it turned to dust.

  The colonel chuckled. “You all right there, superstar?”

  “Uh-huh?” Charlotte nodded, still in shock.

  The four of them crossed the lot and approached the rink’s front doors. They peeked inside, where a merc team was fighting a large number of demons. Ella looked at them and smiled for the camera as she sliced through a demon’s throat. He wheezed for a moment, wobbling back and forth, so Ella pressed one finger to his chest. He fell backward and turned to dust as he hit the floor.

  The New York team was kicking major ass, having stumbled on a huge nest of demons using the skating rink as a hideout. The demons had been listening to bad nineties music as they devoured the employees. The colonel nodded at the Band and they ran in, guns at the ready.

  “These are good guys—New York mercenaries. Protect them and they will have your back,” the colonel yelled to the Brothers as they jumped the half-wall.

  They nodded and laid into the demons, blowing their brains to dust all over the floor. The New York team nodded in thanks as they broke necks. It was a fucking furball of destruction and mayhem —and Charlotte filmed everything.

  Ella pranced across the floor and called to one of her teammates, “I wonder if I could do this on roller skates?”

  A demon lunged at her and she grabbed it by the neck, snapping her gum and smiling as she drew her arm back to punch it in the face. She threw the demon on the ground and stepped on its neck, examining the scratch it had left on her forearm.

  “You fucking dick! I have gone this whole time with no wounds, and here you come with happy fucking claws. Nope! Fuck you.”

  She pulled her rifle off her back and pulled the trigger, smirking in satisfaction as the bullet blew half of his head away. After he turned to dust she looked at Charlotte and winked, turning back just in time to pull the trigger again—this time taking two demons down at once. She blew on the end of her rifle and smiled.

  “That’s how you fucking win this game, bitches.”

  Charlotte flipped the camera to her face, the shock of the battle starting to settle in. She stared at the screen for several moments before snapping out of her trance, then sighed and started to talk.

  “The battle continues to rage, and I don’t know how much battery I have left on this thing, but keep watching. I will keep filming until the phone dies...or I do.”

  20

  Brock groaned. He held his head and rolled over onto his back. His whole face hurt, and he could hear his heartbeat thumping in his ears. That Damned had given it to him hard. Slowly he opened his eyes, blinking at the darkening sky. He had been out for hours, and the thought of what had happened to his mother sent panic through him. He tried to sit up but fell back, groaning.

  Slow down, beefcake, I only just finished healing you, his succubus snapped. You have to take it slow for the first few minutes. I know you want to get out there, but if you run into a wall and knock yourself out you’ll be no good to anyone.

  You healed me?

  Uh, yeah! That’s part of my charm. You didn’t actually think that pulled hamstring in Virginia healed itself, did you?

  Thought maybe I dreamt it.

  Brock put his hands down and slowly sat up, pulling his knees up to rest his arms on them. He looked at the lights flickering inside the grocery store, and then around the street. There were bodies, but none that resembled his mother in the flowery dress she wore when she went into town.

  What happened while I was out?

  Well, there are some good Damned kicking demon ass, the military rolled up, and now it’s just a giant shit show. They are battling it out like World War III. Of course, I missed a lot since I was stitching up your fucking brain stem. When you find that fucking dude, let me get a punch or two in.

  So if you can fix me, can you do anything else? Like make me fight better, or be stronger? Bigger, even?

  Yes, I can do some of that, but I am not a self-help service here. I have to get something in return. I mean, I’m a demon, not your fairy fucking godmother. I can’t, however, take you over. You’ll never come back, and I don’t have the use of my powers like that top side—otherwise you’d have screwed ten dudes by now.

  There will be no negotiation about me taking dick! I’ll eat a fucking bullet first.

  Fine, fine, we will talk later about payback. There’s no time for that now. You need to get
up and get going. Your mother ran off somewhere out there Rambo-style, so I’m thinking you might find her alive.

  Brock stood up and took a deep breath, feeling the succubus-derived strength surge through him. His muscles got bigger and his chest filled out. He turned his neck right and left and the pain in his head subsided.

  Shit, where were you when I had hangovers?

  Eating fucking humans for lunch.

  Why do I even ask? All right, thanks. We’ll talk about payback later. Right now I gotta figure out where everyone is and then hunt down that motherfucker who bashed me over the head. There is no way I am going to let him get away with that shit.

  Yeah, yeah, the succubus replied.

  She pushed Brock’s adrenaline, allowing him to run faster across the town, and he looked for demons anytime he turned a corner. She chuckled to herself, knowing that she had just gotten him in a corner. He was going to owe her, and even if she couldn’t actually do it, she would threaten to kill him if he didn’t give her exactly what she wanted. She liked being back Earth-side, and there was no way she was going to let the fool die, but he didn’t need to know that. As far as he was concerned, he had to barter for strength.

  I have all the time in the world, she thought to herself. I’m not giving up on getting some dick until my human is dead and buried. By then I’ll be heading back to hell, where there is more than enough demon stuff to satisfy a girl in need.

  The human hostages sat in the back of the bar, staring at the demon mercenaries with anger in their eyes. They had already tried to take the three men out, but that had ended with two dead and one devoured. That had been enough to make them sit still for a little while. At least in there they weren’t being chased down by human-eating demons, but they had no idea what these Enlightened had in store for them. It wasn’t going to be good, whatever it was.