by T S Paul
He nodded. “This isn’t over.”
“Nope, it’s not,” I replied.
The humans moved away from me and carefully started down Church street, hugging the storefronts as they went.
Without even looking, I said, “Blake, you need to decide. Stay here with us and do your job or go somewhere else. Xavier and his people might take you. The Demons are leaving this area, so you could find cover or help on your own.”
Cat turned her massive body and looked behind where I was standing. She growled again and dragged her claws across the steps of the building.
I turned my head and looked at the young Agent. “What’s it to be?”
Clearly frightened, the Agent stood stock-still when Chuck stepped out of the building, still in his warrior form.
“Are you ok? It’s just Cat and Chuck.” I told him. He looked like he was shivering.
“Don’t let them eat me!” Blake replied.
“Why would you think…” I trailed off, remembering his serious conversation with Chuck. “Whatever Chuck said back in the shuttle, ignore it. Humans are too gristly for Weres anyway. They prefer rabbits and deer.”
Chuck laughed. It sounded like he was choking on his tongue.
I turned and glared at him. Raising a finger, I said, “You did this. I can and will make you purple for an entire day.”
Looking back at Blake, I apologized. “Blake, Chuck was just messing around. He was a bit pissed that you shot him, but whatever he said he didn’t mean it.”
Even as I spoke, Chuck was nodding his head. I knew that it looked as though he was agreeing with me, but I was also very sure that he had actually meant whatever he’d said.
“Why don’t you pick one of these places around us and just barricade yourself inside?” I pointed to possible hiding places. “The Demons have thinned out or disappeared from the area.” And they had. I hadn’t seen an Imp since the three with baskets on their heads. Alarms were going off all over the place internally because of it, too.
Our newbie Agent nodded, mumbled something, and took off toward one of the area’s restaurants. The doors were heavy looking, and some sort of gigantic crab hung off the side of the building.
“What did he just say?” I asked my remaining team.
Both my friends were in other forms, so the question was mostly rhetorical. To me it sounded like, “I’ll get you for this.” But since he’d almost peed himself not ten minutes before, I wasn’t worried about it.
“This lack of Demons concerns me.” I made a circling motion. “There are plenty of gunshots around us, so are the Demons gone or just moving outward? We need to confront Camilla and close this thing.”
The human team had preceded us, but I figured since we were on Church street that the Demons might not be there, anyway. Religion is funny when it comes to dimensional travelers. Which is what Demons are. They come from a world that we call either Hel or Hell. What it is in their own language is a mystery. According to my grandmother, they have been trying to conquer Earth ever since they found a way to Portal into it for more than a thousand years.
The Gods exist. I should know, since I’ve had quite a few run-ins with Odin and Coyote. Every God form has its place in the overall picture. Good versus Evil, light versus dark. It all has a place. They are in constant turmoil, each jockeying for better position and advantage. Hell lost that battle and went all dark and all evil. Which is why the Gods of light can battle it with impunity.
Charleston is called the Holy City because of the number of churches it contains. Which is a lot. The Christian God, also called the White God, does battle along with the much older deities. It was my thought that the Demonic forces we fought might not be anywhere around those places of worship. Demon mentality is more of an “eat you and steal your soul” versus mass desecration and destruction. Once the Earth was theirs, that might be the case, but not for now.
There were a few Demon bodies mixed with those of the dead humans, but none looked fresh to me. Turning away from the carnage, I concentrated on our goal. Confront and stop Camilla, my aunt.
<<<>>>
“Did you know she could do that?” Victoria asked her boss. She was still shocked that Agatha Blackmore, with just a snap of her fingers, could negate the Mages’ shields.
Xavier shook his head no. They’d stopped in the nave of the French Huguenot church on Church street to report in and compare notes. The ornate wooden doors were wide open and inviting. Xavier had his tablet out and was typing as fast as he could. “No. It wasn’t in any of the reports. Command says that she disappeared for three entire days last summer and those ornate bracelets on her arms are new. The eggheads think they might be power boosters of some kind.”
“Our information on Weres is off as well,” TJ remarked. “I’ve never seen a WereCat that big before. Why haven’t we run into the Warrior form before?”
Robert Jenkins, the team’s gunsmith and overall weapons specialist grunted, “Because all the info we have on them came from the experiments the military did in the 1940’s. I’ve seen one in that form, but it was before I came to Arcane. At the time, I assumed that only the Alpha could change to it.”
“That, and most problems that we have to take down, are usually Magic related. The Weres we see are all domesticated,” Xavier replied. “I’ve reported what we saw but when this is all over we need to have a serious heart to fist with intelligence. They can’t have missed what just happened.”
Xavier flipped his tablet around to show the others. “No, they haven’t. And they have new intel for us. This is smack dab in the middle of Charleston Harbor. Reminds you a bit of Sicily doesn’t it?”
The tablet showed a black as night cloud formation over what looked like an island of some kind. Flashes of red, purple, and white lit up the sky.
“That is Fort Sumter. Our Demon Lord picked the perfect spot to open a Portal. It’s accessible only by boat, Demon Bats blanket the sky, and they’ve knocked out both regular communications and power. Tactically they have the upper hand,” Xavier explained. “They’re going to see us coming whichever way we go in.”
Robert studied the screen for a moment. “Fort Sumter. That’s a civil war fort, right?”
“It was used as a prison during the Great War to hold Paranormal prisoners, so they modernized it a bit, replacing the gun ports with cells and barracks. After the Demon War it was converted into a museum. They have a really nice display and guided tour,” Xavier said.
The entire team stared at Xavier with surprise evident on their faces. Even Hamilton had an upraised eyebrow.
“My parents took me there as a kid,” Xavier stated.
They all continued to stare at him until he finally said, “What? Is it so hard to believe I have a bit of culture?”
“No, we just have a hard time imagining you as a kid,” Robert replied.
“Funny man,” Xavier said. “So we have a choice to make here. Commander Best thinks the Demon Lord is here at Fort Sumter but there isn’t any hard intel confirming it. Everything we have points to the house at Washington Square. Thoughts? It’s a gamble either way.”
“The gunfire from the area ahead of us stopped a while ago. If there was an FBI unit there like the Blackmore girl said, they may be gone,” Robert pointed out.
Xavier shook his head. “Saving the FBI is not in our purview. You know that. We protect humanity whatever way we can. Are we able to close that Portal?”
Victoria winced. “Sicily was easier than it should have been. All we had to do was change the spell on the small Gate there. This looks like a true Portal instead of a Gate.”
“I know you’ve told me the difference before but go over it again, please,” Xavier asked.
Victoria nudged Hamilton who shot her a grumpy look but answered anyway. “Portals are more permanent. The one at Conception base is a good example. The sigils cementing it in place are cut into stone. They cannot be erased by mortal means, at least not that we’ve ever known. Gates are f
ormed with pure Magic. They are supposed to be temporary. Erase part of them and they vanish back into the ether. Usually a Gate allows a single entity access to our world. The one in Sicily was left open and unattended.”
Xavier opened his mouth to speak and then stopped. He looked at the tablet again. “If this is a Portal, could they bring even more Demons into our world?”
“Thousands. Hundreds of thousands. That is the bigger threat,” Hamilton remarked.
“Then that is where we go. I seem to remember that the Parks Department runs tour boats like a shuttle service around here somewhere. It was inside another museum,” Xavier replied. He took his tablet back and began typing out a query.
<<<>>>
“Do you see any movement at the house?” Agent Anabelle Smith asked her partner.
“Not since this mess started. Should we look for team two? They may have fought their way out like we did,” Alicia Jones remarked. Team two was the other part of the surveillance team.
“There was a pretty good-sized explosion on the other side of the square when the Demons first appeared. So many of the manholes and storm drains were blowing up I didn’t pay all that much attention to it at the time. It may have been the other van,” Anabelle answered. “Is there any cover on that side of the park?”
Agent Jones leaned around the stone monument they both were hiding behind and scanned the area. Once a nice manicured park, Washington Square was a blackened and burned ruin. The iron fence that encircled all the open spaces was twisted and destroyed. During the last big push by the Demons, some of the larger ones had ripped the fence like it was made of cardboard. The obelisk in the center still stood, though. One of the gigantic Live Oak trees was down across the Broad Street portion of the park.
“That tree those Demons knocked down would do the trick,” Jones said.
Special Agent in Charge Anabelle Smith shuddered at the thought of the tree and what it represented. That part of the battle had been terrifying.
<<<>>>
“Cover the civilians! I’ve got the Demons,” Agent Smith yelled at her partner.
Just as soon as the tourists on the street found cover, the screams from a tour group in the park started up. Both women charged in, guns blazing.
Half a dozen Imps had what looked to be a guided tour group backed into the corner near the old courthouse and the outer fence. The tour guide, a large man in a funny hat, was beating on the miniature Demons with his cane to no avail. Just as the agents got within range, a Demon Bat swooped down out of the sky, dragging the now screaming man away.
Jones dropped to one knee and fired a couple of shots into the sky, trying to stop the bat. The creature dragged its prey to the upper balcony of the house the agents were supposed to be watching and disappeared from sight.
“Damn it!” Smith tore into the Imps like a banshee on steroids. She cut loose on them with shotgun blasts to the head, taking down half of them before they could react.
Blam! Blam! Blam!
When her combat shotgun ran dry, she used it as a club to subdue the last three Imps, then drew her sidearm. Standard armament for the FBI is a Glock 22 and Anabelle was a crack shot. Not even stopping to aim, she took out the wounded Demons and ran to the civilians’ aid.
“We need to get you to cover!” Jones tried herding the screaming tourists toward the front of the courthouse building. There were windows along the side, but they were covered by ornate iron grates. A single door was located on the side, in a small step-down cubbyhole.
A tall man in a gaudy flower-covered shirt shook the door a couple of times. “It’s locked!”
Alicia pushed past him and several others taking stock of the door. At some point in the building’s history the door was thankfully replaced with a more modern aluminum and glass door. Pulling her weapon, she took aim. “Everyone move back!”
Boom! Her first shot shattered the upper part of the door. The glass was fortunately safety glass and shattered into thousands of pieces. “Get inside.”
Jones stood guard at the top of the short steps while the frightened people entered the historic building. She could only watch in horror as her boss and partner engaged a pair of Cambion Demons all by herself.
“You shall not pass!” Agent Smith fired her shotgun into the gnarled red face of the closest Cambion even as she came around with her right elbow into the other one. Coming back around, she fired her shotgun a second time.
Cambion Demons are human-sized monsters with non-functioning wings. Historically they were thought to come from the joining of a human woman and a male Demon. If it was true, it would mean that somewhere in Hell there were prisoners without any hope at all.
The first Cambion jumped up, ichor dripping down its face, and pushed Agent Smith to the ground. The Demon staggered a bit as its brain registered the fact that half its face had been blown off. That didn’t stop the claws from coming out and the strangled bellow it screamed. Blood and unmentionable bits sprayed everywhere.
Anabelle cocked the shotgun and blasted the Cambion at close range. Quickly climbing to her feet, she checked both bodies. Other than quivering a little they seemed to be dead. She was just turning to yell at Agent Jones when a swarm of Imps cleared the fence and clustered around the large tree to her left.
The FBI doesn’t usually use exotic weapons, but Anabelle Smith wasn’t a regular Agent. She always kept a few goodies tucked away for emergencies and this was one such occasion. Reaching into her tactical pack she quickly pulled out the only fragmentation grenade she possessed and tossed it at the tree. “Fire in the hole!”
BOOM!
There was an incredibly loud explosion, the sound magnified by the closeness of the buildings surrounding the park. All the Imps absorbed the blast but unfortunately so did the tree. A loud creak followed by a crash accentuated the explosion as a tree weighing thousands of pounds fell over at the base and slammed into the ground, blocking off all access to the main street and freedom for the Agents.
<<<>>>
Still thinking of that tree, the Special Agent considered the target house. The rush of smaller Demons was gone. Maybe now would be a good time to check the place out.
“Whatcha thinking, boss?” Alicia asked.
“Assaulting that house. None of the bikers we’ve been seeing are there today. It’s just the mother and daughter and that older neighbor. I think we could take them,” the Special Agent remarked.
“Didn’t the Director say one of them might be a Demon Lord?” Alicia asked.
Anabelle nodded. “She did. But then we’ve been killing Demons right and left. What’s a couple more?”
“You’re the boss, but I think we should wait for reinforcements,” Alicia commented.
“I was hoping for the local PD to help us, but I guess they didn’t listen to your message. The military is no help. You saw how they treated us, right?” Anabelle remarked.
Agent Jones didn’t want to comment on the military. Both her brothers were active duty. From the Army’s point of view, she could see them not believing a couple of FBI Agents with no tangible proof that Demons were about to invade Charleston, of all places. “What about that other help Director Mills said was coming? Should we wait for them?”
Chapter 16
“A Portal has been opened and the way is clear,” Dimachaerus announced to his Lord and Master, the Dragon Lord Leomaris.
The Dragon Lord shifted on his mound of gold and riches. He turned his massive head to the left, watching the heavily scarred human ambassador. “Is it large enough for our uses?”
The former gladiator-turned-human-ambassador frowned and turned his head to one side for a split second. “Almost. The Portal is new and not in a good spot for us. Strategically it is upon an island in the middle of a harbor.”
“I assume that the island is not big enough for our army to strike from,” the Dragon replied.
Dimachaerus bowed, his head almost touching the ground. “That is correct, milord. Haboryrm and his
Demons entered via a small Gate his servant created in the city. It was her power that set up the Portal.”
“The woman, Esta, who holds the book?” Leomaris asked.
“Yes, immortal one. She survived the early trial and now lends her skills to the artificers. The Book still holds sway over her soul, though,” Dimachaerus replied.
Esta was the last surviving member of the Strega leadership loose in the world. She’d been given possession of the The Book of Undying to decipher by Ysabel Luciano, the Strega leader. The intent was to use the spells the book contained to control a Demon Lord and trap him in a human body they could control. Camilla Blackmore was kidnapped for this purpose and mind-stripped for this purpose. Her body’s power would be useful to the Demon, but only under Strega control. Under Ysabel’s orders a Gate was created. Every leading member of the organization was called in to lend power to the working. They failed and died for their effort.
The Book of Undying possessed Esta, body and soul. Through her, it changed the ritual and altered the coven’s protections. Demon Lord Haboryrm entered into the realm of Earth and took possession of his new body. So began the second Demon War.
“…but only on Earth. The ties are broken by interdimensional shifts. We have experimented upon the Book before and know its properties. Is my army ready?” Leomaris asked.
“Yes, great one. Twenty thousand Hoplite Phalanxes are prepared and waiting. The Dracaena Advance is preparing for battle as I speak,” the human ambassador replied.
“Alert the Mage Corps and have their best assigned to each unit. This attack must be flawless and complete,” Leomaris instructed.
“What do we do about the humans’ technology and weapons?” Dimachaerus asked.
Leomaris growled and the walls began to tremble. Gold, silver, and other fine things made tinkling noises as they tumbled onto the floor of the massive cavern complex the Dragon King called home. “Weapons? Those aren’t weapons, they are toys. A simple fail weapon spell will negate their technology. We ruled their planet once and we will again. Humanity will come to fear the Nine Sons of the Dragon once again and this time we are there to stay.”
