by Cheree Alsop
“I’m out,” Kai called from the other end of the alley.
Riot threw him a clip. “We’re running low,” the weapons master shouted over the eerie babble of the horde. “Take only the shots you can hit for sure. I’ll make a run back to the truck.”
I tore off my shirt and phased. A shiver ran down my body the moment my paws touched the ground. The demonic scents of sulfur, pepper, and death were everywhere. How was I supposed to smell lavender through it? Virgo had obviously never been a wolf before.
Several shades ambled my way. While they weren’t exactly fast, they didn’t mosey like the risen dead I had seen. The one problem with my situation was that I couldn’t attack them. The demons may have intended me harm or possible demonic take-over, but their host bodies were merely human and didn’t have anything to do with the threat. I couldn’t take down a shade using my fangs or strength without damaging the human.
I backed into the corner. The other members of my team were nowhere in sight. Five shades with gnashing teeth and reaching hands curled into tearing claws advanced. I looked for an out. I could try to jump them, but I didn’t have much space left and didn’t want to risk being caught and bitten. Fray’s warning of the consequences of such a bite lingered in my mind.
I bared my fangs in the hopes of scaring them, but the shades only drew closer. By the looks in their rolling, wide, glazed eyes, they were hungry and wolf was on the menu.
I lowered my head, prepared to take my chances with a dive through them. Another growl escaped me and I stepped forward, then the first one fell.
A dart protruded from the middle of his back. The next fell and another. I looked past them to see Fray with a set of pistols aimed in my direction. I debated whether she would shoot me, too. By her expression, she debated the same thing. She let out a sigh I heard above the chaos and motioned.
“Get moving!” she said.
I loped past her, darted through a tangle of shades, and escaped into the next alley.
Despite my reserves, I picked up the scent of lavender almost immediately. I gave a bark to let the team know I was onto something and followed it around the end of the next block.
A huddle of empty blankets, a torn tent, several vacant box homes, and two shopping carts let me know where some of the shades had come from. If the demons were possessing the homeless, they had definitely chosen the right part of town. The deeper I ran into the heart of the city, the more abandoned living spaces were visible. Scents of refuse and urine warred with the rat and garbage odor of the back streets. The absence of humans made me wonder how many the team had taken down. There was no way the Human Care team was prepared to take care of them all. I wondered what the Captain would make of their call for backup.
“Did you find it, Zev?” Virgo called from the mouth of the alley.
Two gunshots behind him heralded Riot’s figure in the shadows. “That looks about right.”
I followed his gaze to the opposite end of the alley where the smell had taken me.
The next building was decimated. Whether it was the result of shoddy architecture that hadn’t held up during the last earthquake, or just a building left to ruins in a part of town no longer considered viable or worth the cost to rebuild, I didn’t know. Before me was a tunnel of bricks and debris wide enough to fit a small car. It took only a few steps down the mess to smell the metal and grease scent of the subway. Sure enough, the gap opened into a low, wide, unlit channel that stunk worse than the street above.
“This is definitely it,” Virgo said as he stopped behind me. “Even I can smell the lavender.”
“But where are all the shades?” Riot asked.
“Out there,” Virgo said with a tip of his head. “My guess is they were possessed here and left toward whatever cause their demons demanded.”
“But why leave?”
I looked up at Fray.
The dhampir stared at the abandoned channel before us. “Usually when we find shades, they don’t wander far from the source. Demonic souls longing for a body again usually haven’t figured out what to do when they finally get one. These are heading somewhere.”
A sound made my hackles rise.
“Or heading away from somewhere,” Riot said in a low voice.
“They’re escaping something,” Virgo said. “But what?”
I paced slowly forward. The growl had been full of threat, hatred, and vengeance. Whatever the shades were running from, it hadn’t come to this world without a reason.
“Look at Zev,” Serian said in a hushed tone from the back of the group.
The subway had been abandoned for years. The homeless had taken advantage of the situation by making it a live-in shelter away from the weather and humanity above. Whoever had chosen to open the door there hadn’t done so by accident. They were counting on the plethora of human life.
Perhaps the shades weren’t a part of the plan. Maybe the door wasn’t opened by someone who stumbled on a spell book like the Captain had said; maybe it had been opened for something a little more volatile.
Another growl answered my thought. An answering growl rumbled from my chest.
“That can’t be good,” Kai said.
“Follow him,” Fray told the others. “Whatever’s down there, we have to close the door.”
I leaped onto the dead tracks and paced down the tunnel with full awareness of my team who followed close behind. I didn’t want them there. By the sound of the threat, whatever we were about to meet was ready to tear us apart. I would rather have faced it alone. Unfortunately, in wolf form I couldn’t tell them that, and phasing back would leave me naked and unarmed. It may have been good for a laugh, but I doubted a demonic creature recently freed from whatever dark world it was supposed to inhabit didn’t have much of a sense of humor.
“It’s coming from in there,” Riot whispered needlessly.
The near-constant growls came from the door that branched off the tunnel to my right. The lights from my crew’s guns lit it in small circles. There was no way to see into the darkness beyond, but the scents of death, pepper, and sulfur were strong enough to make me want to sneeze. I pushed my nose into the crack in the door to nudge it open.
“Careful, Zev,” Virgo whispered.
I was about to snort a reply when a black, reaching tentacle snaked around my neck and pulled me inside.
Chapter Ten
I couldn’t make sense of the writhing, growling mass. I snapped and bit at the tentacles that held me, but every time I forced my way free, others caught my ankles or neck or tail and pulled me back. Voices yelled my name. The thought of my team getting caught as well made me fight even harder. I bit and lashed at every wriggling limb I could reach. The bitter stinkbug taste of demon blood filled my mouth, but I didn’t stop until the creature resorted to wrapping what felt like a hundred tentacles around me and squeezing.
“Shoot it!” Fray yelled.
The sound of gunshots was followed by yells and shouts of pain as tentacles threw my teammates around like rag dolls. Virgo hit one wall and fell to the floor where he didn’t move. Fray and Serian were slammed into another wall while Riot was shoved back out the door. The demon must have taken a special disliking to Kai because it picked up the human and hung him by his ankles as high as the ceiling would let him. Kai yelled and fired a few shots toward the creature until the demon shook him hard enough that the man’s gun fell to the ground.
“Virgo, try magic,” I heard Fray shout.
I craned my neck to see through the mass of tentacles to where Serian had assisted the warlock to his feet and was supporting him with an arm around his waist. Blood colored Virgo’s forehead where he had hit the wall.
Virgo lifted both hands. The runes on the back of them glowed faintly. He said something I couldn’t hear above the demon’s growls; a few shards of light danced across the room and sputtered out against the tentacles.
The demon gave a guttural chuckle and squeezed me tighter. It felt as though my lungs wer
e about to burst. The pain was excruciating.
I kept my gaze on Virgo. The warlock frowned, steeled himself visibly, and shouted something. Blasts of light exploded from the warlock’s hands. The demon lifted its tentacles to shield itself from the attack. But when it lowered them, only a few had been singed. Virgo leaned against Serian looked entirely spent.
Something hit a tentacle near my waist and the demon’s hold released slightly. I looked down to see a throwing knife embedded in the slithering mess. Several more sprouted in other tentacles. I spotted Riot standing near the door pulling other knives from his vest. The good news was that the weapons master had plenty to draw on. The bad news was that the demon had also found him.
A tentacle lashed out. Virgo gave a warning shout, but Riot didn’t hear him in time. The tentacle snaked around his leg and flung him onto his back. Two others grabbed his arms. Both sets began to pull.
A yell tore from Riot.
Fray fired into the tentacle closest to her. The demon let out an angry roar and released Riot. It grabbed Fray with two tentacles and flung her across the room to somewhere I couldn’t see.
The demon was too strong. Our weapons barely hurt it, my teeth did little more than anger it, and bullets weren’t effective. We had to find a way to stop it before it escaped. If it could decimate our team so easily, there was no telling what it would do when it reached the streets. The fact that the shades were running from it said exactly what I was thinking; the demon was too strong.
I struggled to hold onto my last breath. Stars danced in my vision and pain surged as my ribs threatened to give way. It pulled me closer. I felt a wash of hot, putrid breath and opened my eyes to see a hundred teeth in front of my face. I thought the light I could see by was coming from the demon, but when I blinked the dark fluid out of my eyes, I realized it was coming from the doorway behind it.
A small flame of satisfaction flourished in my chest at the thought that I had led my team to the doorway as I had been told to do. That fire was quickly snuffed out at the realization that they wouldn’t survive to destroy it.
Bits of things I didn’t want to identify were caught in the creature’s spindly teeth. It pulled me closer. I couldn’t breathe or move. All I could do was watch my death loom over me. A slimy tongue ran over the teeth in anticipation of its next meal. I wondered grimly what I would look like caught between the teeth as well.
Its tentacles tightened and pain exploded through my body as my ribs broke beneath the pressure. I let out a yelp of pain and tried to break free, but it was no use. The demon was too powerful. It was going to crush the life out of me and there was nothing I or my team could do about it. My thoughts slowed to a crawl. I tried to remain conscious, but the darkness was quickly taking over.
“Zev!”
I craned my head enough to see Virgo standing far closer to the demon than I wanted him to be. He held up something. It took my oxygen-starved brain a moment to realize what it was. Then he pulled the pin free and I saw the grenade in the dim light.
The last stand.
We couldn’t let the demon reach the surface. They could stop the shades, but this creature was something else, something far too powerful for our team.
The memory from the cafeteria after our night of triumph surfaced in my aching brain.
“It’s your last stand,” Serian said, her voice strange and echoed. “You or the demon. No other options. What do you do?”
“Throw me a grenade and let me take it down with me,” I replied. There had been no bravado in my voice. I had been confident, certain that when the time came, I would do what I had to for my team and the world. And now it was time.
I nodded at Virgo. His eyebrows pulled together and sorrow showed through the blood on his face. But his stance was sure and the determination that warred with his sorrow let me know one thing, when the grenade left his hand, the warlock wouldn’t leave me to die on my own.
I wanted to scream for him to leave, to save himself and return home to his sister and the Willard family, but I didn’t have a breath left to make a sound.
He threw the explosive through the air. I watched it turn end over end. The faint blue light around it let me know that he was guiding it with his magic. The irony that his magic would help be the end of me wasn’t lost to the detached part of my mind.
Weak, the Master’s voice hissed in my mind. Pathetic.
I caught the grenade in my mouth. The metal surface scraped against my fangs. I didn’t want to chance the demon throwing me away from it with the grenade. There was one way to be sure. I tossed my head and let go of the explosive. A faint moment of fear struck me when the grenade grazed the creature’s teeth, then it disappeared into the demon’s mouth.
A gagging sound reached my ears just before the tentacles released their hold. I hit the ground hard. It took a second for me to realize that the creature had let me go because it was choking on the grenade. I had a chance.
I leaped to my feet and jumped over the writhing tentacles. Two bounds took me clear of the mass and straight into Virgo. I knocked into the warlock on purpose, jarring him free of his stunned stare. He stumbled after me out the door and into the subway tunnel.
“Run!” the warlock managed to croak out to our team.
Everyone took off running.
The grenade exploded with a force that knocked me off my paws. I rolled and came to a rest against one of the subway rails. The dust and debris from the explosion settled around us. My weakened, ironic side noted that at least the tunnel had been built well. I struggled to draw in a breath, but could only manage a weak gasp.
Virgo was immediately at my side.
“Zev, are you alright?”
I felt as though I was suffocating. Each time I tried to breathe, a knife-like pain stabbed into my lungs.
“We’ve got to get him help,” Riot said.
A rumble shook the ground.
“What was that?” Serian asked.
Virgo’s hands ran through my fur as he checked for injuries. “Could it be an earthquake?”
“I don’t think—”
The rumble came again. This time, the ground beneath me shook. My nerves tingled. That was no ordinary sound.
I pushed up to my paws. When they saw what I was trying to do, my team helped the best that they could.
“Look how his fur’s standing up,” Serian said. “What is that?”
“It’s defensive,” Kai replied. “It helps protect a wolf when it fights and makes it look bigger to intimidate an enemy.”
“But what enemy?” Virgo asked.
The rumble turned into a roar nobody could mistake.
“I think we’re about to find out,” Fray said.
I concentrated on placing one foot in front of the other. I felt as though I was drowning and had to draw a quarter of a breath through the pain.
Virgo tried to stand in front of me to keep me from going back through the doorway. “I don’t think you should go in there.”
I looked at him. There was no way I would let any of my team face what was within that door without me.
He must have read my expression because he sighed and stepped aside.
“What do you think it is?” Serian’s voice shook.
“I think it’s not good,” Kai replied.
I cleared the door in time to see tentacles five times bigger than the other demon’s had been reaching through the glowing archway. My heart sank.
“Oh no,” Riot said. “Not another one. We can’t survive another one!”
“This isn’t just another one,” Kai whispered in a horrified voice. “This is the biggest demon I have ever seen.”
“Where’s my son?”
The blast of the demon’s voice hit me with mind-numbing strength. His words didn’t come from the great, toothy maw that loomed above us, but from his thoughts. My teammates staggered around me clutching their heads as though their skulls were about to split. I pushed forward without them.
I h
ad no way of talking to the demon in my wolf form using words, so I sent the thought back at him the way my Master used to do.
He’s dead.
A great moan came from the demon. He surged forward, trying to force his way through the arch.
Stop! I told him.
He stared down at me, his glowing eyes boring into mine.
“And why should I listen to you, little wolf?” he asked in a tormented tone.
Because he tried to attack my team and this world, and he couldn’t be allowed to do so. I’m sorry.
The demon glared at me, his eyes a burning red counterbalance to the door he tried to breach.
”I told him not to go, but he went anyway. He said he was being promised things if he came, and now he’s dead.” A great moan of agony escaped the demon and he surged forward again.
Stop, I told him again. You can’t come to my world.
“I need to avenge my son,” the demon said. “He can’t be gone without me.”
I needed to find any way to distract the demon and keep him from breeching into our world. I thought quickly. Where do demons go when they die?
“I don’t know,” the demon replied. “But it has to be a better place than this. I choose to go with him.”
He struggled forward again, freeing another tentacle.
Let him go, I shouted at the demon. He made his choice.
“I will die with him!” he shouted back with such force it made me stagger.
I shook my head to clear it and stepped forward again. There is nothing here that could kill you; you would destroy my world! And if we don’t close the gate, others will come after you. They are not meant for this world. This is wrong!
“Then so be it!” he proclaimed.
No! A cough racked my body. I tasted blood before I said, This is my world. There is no place for you in it. Live in his memory, don’t die because of it. He wouldn’t want that.
I coughed again. Red-flecked foam left my mouth.
“What’s wrong with you?” the demon asked.
I believe your son has killed me, I replied. Another cough made me bow my head in pain. I wavered on my feet, but kept standing in front of him.
