The church members rushed forward as Lenny and Drew tried to make a run for the door. Joseph held out his arm and took hold of Lenny, tossing her backward into the lobby with little effort. She landed squarely in the center of the floor and winced at the pain that radiated from her tail bone into every inch of her body.
Two members grabbed Drew and pulled her away toward the reception area behind Lenny. She tried to turn and see where they were going and what they were doing, but before she could, two other church members grabbed her by the arms and hauled her up from the floor.
Joseph hurried down the front steps and came face to face with Lenny. He took a small bottle from his pocket and unscrewed the lid. She winced as he flung its contents onto her face.
"Holy water, demon," Joseph said with hate contorting his features.
Lenny looked at him and tried to determine what he was doing. "I'm not a demon, and neither are you, Joseph. You are a good man, aren't you? You really believed in him." Lenny suddenly felt pity for this man she'd been afraid of only a week before.
"What do you mean, believed?"
"Hershel is dead. Celia killed him, and she's trying to blame us," she said, trying to get through to him. "It's me, Lenny. I'm different, but I am not evil. They've been lying to you. Hershel was no messiah."
"Lies," he whispered, obviously not swayed. "Demons like you lie. He is the Messiah."
"No, Joseph, he was nothing but a monster that meant well. He believed the lies of creatures that are worse than anything you could imagine, and they killed him for it."
The man stared back at her, his expression shifting to one of confusion and worry. He took a small knife from his belt and pointed it at her throat as he stepped closer. Lenny felt the blade scrape her skin as she tried to pull back.
"I'll kill you, you monster."
"No, you won't. You aren't a murderer."
"Killing demons is not murder."
He pressed the knife harder against her throat. She winced as she felt the tip of the blade pierce her flesh.
"Joseph, don't do this. You are not a monster like Hershel or the rest of the Faithful. You don't have to do this. You can walk away. You can still save your soul," she pleaded, feeling panic at her possible misjudgment of the man.
"I am saving my soul."
"Hershel was not your savior. But you can save yourself, I swear. Just put the knife down and walk away. Please, Joseph."
"I won't listen to your lies," he said with less conviction than before. "I believe in Father. I gave up my life, my family, to follow him because he truly is the way and the light."
"I'm sorry to do this, Joseph," Lenny said as she shifted into the form of the djinn that had tried to kill Drew. "There's obviously no other way."
A single tear ran down Joseph's cheek as Lenny raised both sets of her arms out and picked the man up off the floor. She carefully flung him across the room, hoping that he would be knocked out but not seriously hurt. Many of the church members screamed and ran away from her, yelling about demons and monsters. Some of them dropped to their knees and prayed through their fear. Lenny turned around to see what had happened to Drew. She didn't immediately see her, but she spotted Celia rushing over to Joseph's side. Lenny shambled over to where the man lay fighting to stay awake. Before she could get to them, she saw Celia pull the blade out of his skull, quietly killing Hershel's most trusted lieutenant. Lenny shifted back into herself and called out to the monster.
"Celia, stop."
"Fuck you, shifter."
"We will stop you," Lenny yelled. "You won't get away with whatever you're trying to do."
"You and what army, puta?"
Celia smiled and licked her blood-soaked finger. Lenny smiled back at the look of surprise and fear on her face when Drew grabbed her from behind and pulled her off her feet.
Chapter 33
Drew tackled the djinn, and with a slow, concentrated breath, she tugged at its dark but powerful soul. The two went down together, hitting the floor with a heavy thud. Her ability to pull away at Celia's life force by touch alone was nothing compared to the damage she could have done under more intimate circumstances, but the beast within her had stirred from the little she'd fed it, and now it was ravenous.
If only she'd learned more from her father, she would have known how to channel this power, how to draw and consume this soul—tainted as it might be—more effectively. As it stood, she had little idea what she was doing, her only training having been Polly's second-hand instruction. Instinct kicked in, her only saving grace when the djinn's psychic tendrils challenged her own, creating an invisible battle between them.
More screams rang out, the few remaining parishioners fleeing through the closest doors, when Celia shifted into her true form and physically overpowered Drew. It tried to strangle her, surprised when Drew somehow continued to tug at and ingest the creature's life force. Images began to come to her, fragments of her opponent's memories, and Drew had to put forth even more effort to piece them together into cohesive thoughts. Some of what came either made no sense at all or was irrelevant to their cause, but some useful bits did make it through.
In her mind, she saw the djinns organizing their efforts. They had sympathizers in Heaven and Hell, and they converged in another plane that seemed to belong to them alone, and they numbered in the thousands. The djinn came in several variations, but Drew could recognize each individual just as well as the djinn she now syphoned from.
In one memory, one of the organizers, a fat, ugly creature named Panuk, handed out dozens of leather bags that were held closed with drawstrings. A member nearby opened his bag and looked inside, revealing a translucent blue dagger. He tested it against his skin with a quick touch, pulling away when it singed his finger.
The name of the mineral flashed through Drew's mind: angelite.
The knowledge came to her that this material was deadly to demons of all forms—but it also was a necessary component to the spell the djinn were using to make their escapes from Hell. Drew couldn't pull from the creature's essence any information as to where they'd obtained the angelite, only that it was abundant in Heaven.
Even the Pearly Gates were made of the stuff.
Another memory showed her Demas and a few others shaving brimstone from the fiery walls, and then another showed them crushing it into a fine powder and distilling it with numerous other ingredients. With another spell, they enriched the resulting clear, yellow liquid with traces of their own essence, and it turned a smoky black color.
They believed the liquid created the necessary base to a disease never before seen by humankind. That base would end up in a laboratory in New Mexico, where a Dr. Sandberg would mix it with the necessary biological material to create a super plague.
And, like the stones the djinn had convinced religious leaders all across the globe would "deliver" countless souls, this plague would bind them to Earth.
Starving Heaven and Hell alike.
Drew tried to seek out more specifics on the lab and the plague they planned to unleash, but a sharp psychic attack pulled her from the djinn's mind to her own, forcing her back into the moment. The djinn had successfully cut off her airway, and her vision had begun to grow dim. She looked at Lenny for help, only to find she had her hands full with a djinn of her own.
Panic hit, and she tried to remember how she'd produced the psychic blast that had thrown Hershel off her. It had just … happened, but the knowledge of how to do it on command had to be in her somewhere. She closed her eyes, her concentration fading with her senses. She'd felt a particular sensation when the energy had thrust itself from her, but recreating the event felt just beyond her reach. She struck and clawed at the strong arms holding her down, even raked her fingernails against the creature's fat, red face, but to no avail.
Their eyes locked, hers under fluttering eyelids, threatening to roll back on her. The pressure in her face made her feel flushed, and her mouth opened wide in her attempt to force in one good brea
th. She couldn't scream. She couldn't push her attacker off. She couldn't fight off the hands tightly clasped around her throat.
She closed her eyes, too tired to continue in the struggle. In that moment, the weight lifted and the grip cutting off her airway loosened. She felt like she was floating, and her first thought was that this must be what it feels like to slip away from the living, her soul leaving its body, readying the journey to wherever it was she would spend the rest of eternity.
Which place would it be?
"Bitch!" the djinn growled, the word echoing as though through a massive cave.
She opened her eyes, gasping in a quick and painful inhalation of air when the creature's grip slid and they floated away from one another. Their surroundings reminded Drew of Limbo, but this place was filled with colors, like they'd entered a giant prism.
What the hell…?
The djinn's flabby limbs flailed in what looked like a pathetic attempt at swimming to her, but it merely continued to drift. Its eyes were wide with anger … and was that also a hint of horror?
"I'll tear you apart, limb by limb!" it shrieked.
Yes, definitely horror.
Did I do this? Drew wondered, although a part of her already knew the answer. She'd somehow transported both of them to a different plane.
Somewhere on the astral?
Her body relaxed for a moment while she recovered from the near-miss at being strangled to death, and she felt a slight smile come to her lips. Yeah, that's right; you keep drifting off into whatever else is in this weird void, she thought, watching the creature continue trying to fight the weightless reach between them.
"Take us back!" the djinn commanded, although there was no longer any authority left in its voice.
Drew crossed her arms, enjoying the shift in power. To see something so monstrous, so intimidating, suddenly scrambling so desperately was enough to make her suppress a light chuckle.
"I'm gonna break every bone in your body!"
Drew shrugged. "You're gonna have to reach me first."
The creature snarled, suddenly a rabid beast, fire in its eyes while it reached and clawed at the open air. "You can't keep us here forever—"
Those words alone were enough to shock Drew out of her high. How did a person leave a place such as this? Could she get herself back?
As if responding to a mental cue, her surroundings shifted and the church materialized around them. They went from suspended in the air to a freefall to the floor, and they both hit it hard.
The djinn lunged forward, unfazed, and grabbed her again by the throat. "I'm gonna have fun with you," it said, lifting her off her feet.
Again, Drew pulled at her opponent's life force, but the battle on both the physical and psychic fronts became too much for her to handle, although the energy she did manage to steal was probably all that saved her from an otherwise certain death when the creature tightened its grip and flung her into the pews.
She stayed there for a moment, dazed but giddy. The energy charged through her, culminating into a ball of dark, heavy foulness deep inside her gut, and she was unsure whether she would laugh like a maniac next or violently puke. Both came at once. When the djinn advanced, ready for the kill, she was too busy retching and heaving out the thick, black sludge her body had filtered out and rejected. She saw the djinn through the corner of her eye, unable to respond in time for flight or fight.
While it was in mid-air, Lenny, moving in the form of another djinn, leapt toward the creature and thrust it into a neighboring pew. Something in its side cracked upon impact, but it only laughed at the pain. Drew collapsed, coughing up the final remnants of filth, dizzy with the residual energy.
Another djinn advanced on Lenny, and Drew realized the shifter had abandoned her own battle in order to give her a fighting chance while she recovered.
Both of the djinn attacked Lenny at once, and Drew watched, too punch-drunk to assist, while they tore and raked at her. She held her own at first, parrying strikes and rebounding against sharp teeth and massive claws, but it didn't take long for them to gain the upper hand.
Drew tried to get up, but only managed to heave more black ooze onto the floor. She watched through hazy eyes, slipping into unconsciousness right after catching a glimpse of Polly's massive form joining in on the battle.
Chapter 34
"Is this a private party or can anyone join?" Polly quipped as she teleported into the church amidst a battle that was pure free-for-all.
"Demon!" screamed a djinn that had been knocking around Lenny.
Polly looked around for Drew and found her. She saw the woman's eyes roll back into her head and her body go limp. Seeing that the succubus was out cold (luckily being ignored by humans and djinn alike), Polly went to Lenny's aid, fighting her way through a mob of idiotic humans that fell almost as quickly as she hit them.
The djinn saw her coming and scurried away from Lenny, leaving the shifter slumped to the floor and trying to catch her breath. Polly was livid as she recognized the female as being the one that had attacked her and J. D. The coward had run before she could be dealt with, and Polly wouldn't make that mistake again. Snarling, punching her way through human after moronic human that tried to attack her, Polly made her way to the djinn.
"You will not escape me this time. I will have your ass in my chair and you will spill your guts, then you'll tell me everything." A wicked half-snarl, half-smile turned up the corners of Polly's mouth, and hellfire shone through her eyes as bright as any lightbulb. The djinn turned to run and found herself with her back against the wall.
"You said you would help me! We made you the Messenger for a reason!" The djinn cried out to an empty corner.
Polly looked around, confused for a moment, until she saw a shadow flee the corner and hurry out through the door. She considered pursuing it, but instead, she refocused her anger on the djinn. She figured she'd hunt that shadow creature down later; they were fairly harmless beings with little to no power.
"You hurt some friends of mine. I really don't like cowards who hurt people and try to run. Not to mention you escaped from Hell, and that, my dear, is a very. Big. No-no." Polly grabbed the djinn by her throat with her left hand and brought her right fist into its gut.
"Oof! I'm just a lackey, puta. I'm not the one you're after."
"Don't really care at this point. I'll find the one I'm after. Until then, I'll be happy to use you as my punching bag." Polly grinned broadly and sent her fist into the djinniri's nose. A loud crunch and a flow of scarlet brought a bigger smile to the demon's lips.
"You should care. I can help you."
"Oh, sweetie, I don't need your help." Polly tightened her grip on the djinniri's throat and a large scarlet bubble began forming from the woman's nose. A human male rushed her from behind and tried to hit her with a large prayer book. Polly sent her right elbow into the human's face and donkey kicked the man in the testicles.
"Let Celia go, you monster!" A tall, willowy brunette ran at Polly as she yelled.
"Aw, you didn't tell your little prayer group that you're a demon, did you, Celia?"
The woman stopped in her tracks and stammered, "What? Stop spreading your filthy lies!"
"Tell her, Celia. Tell all of them the truth of what you and Hershel's other Faithful are. Tell them what you were doing here. Tell them about how you were stealing people's souls. Tell them how you led people to their deaths just for those souls. Explain how you fed off the souls of the homeless these people thought they were helping." As Polly ranted at the djinniri, she called up her hellfire. The djinn looked into her eyes and gasped.
Celia saw everything, all of her sins, within that fire. Polly relaxed her grip on the lesser demon's throat and looked around to see Lenny had shifted into Demas' form and was tearing apart the other djinn. While her attention was on the shifter, Celia struck at her with a small angelite knife she pulled from a sheath on her thigh.
As the blade of light blue stone pierced her flesh, Poll
y felt like she was in one of her torture chairs being burned alive. She grabbed at the blade and tried to pull it out, but Celia broke off the hilt, leaving only bare angelite behind in Polly's shoulder. Her hand smoked and burned as she tried to pull it out without letting go of Celia.
Realizing it wasn't going to happen, Polly squeezed until the djinniri fell limp in her grasp. She held tight another second for good measure and dropped the djinn to rip the blade from her flesh. Her hands slipped on the blood and sizzled as they made contact with the angelite, making the task even more uncomfortable. She finally managed to get a good grip and yanked the remainder of the blade from her shoulder. It smoked as droplets of her blood ran down it. The blade smoked even more as it landed on Celia's cheek, waking the lesser demon from her bout of blackness.
She lunged for Polly's legs, trying to tackle the tall demon down low. Polly chuckled and kicked her in the chest. Then, filled with rage for everything the rotten filthy djinn had done to Hell, and to Lucy, Polly picked up the djinniri in one hand and the angelite in the other. Her hands blistered and bled, but Polly held the blade up to Celia's throat and yelled, "Tell them what you are and why you were here!"
"Fine! I'm a demon! I did it. We killed people so we could steal their souls. Hershel and his Faithful were sent here to collect as many souls as we could. There are other things, so many things, I could tell you, but I won't." Celia smiled as the blade slipped from Polly's fingers. The burn from the stone had been harsher than Polly could bear, and it tumbled to the ground while the demon's fingers still smoked and sizzled from their contact with it.
Celia took one of her hands off Polly's strong wrist and reached into her pocket. She grabbed something from within and tried to shove it into Polly's mouth. As the demon leaned back out of Celia's reach, the djinn appeared to realize what she was trying to do wouldn't work.
Instead, she shouted, "Viva los djinn!" and swallowed the object she had been trying to shove in Polly's face. Almost immediately, the djinniri began convulsing and foaming at the mouth. Several specks of foam hit Polly's hand, and she winced as the traces of angelite within burned her. She let go of Celia and the angelite blade as she watched the woman's lifeless body slide to the floor. Polly said a quick incantation over the body. A mist issued forth from the djinn's mouth, and with the incantation Polly sent the soul to Hell, and Lucy, where it belonged.
Cast In Blood: Revelations Series Book 1: Page 18
