I met his gaze fiercely. “I’ve told you before, I’m just not interested in working for you, Lucifer.”
“And I think I’ve made it clear that I’m not taking no for an answer.” He slashed his blade against my arm, cutting a rune right above the first two lines of the spiral.
At that moment, the volcano shuddered violently. The snow beneath our feet flew up as chunks of rock and ice rocketed into the sky. Eli dove for me and we launched skyward, just as dozens of demons burst their way through the icy crust on the top of Mt. Rainier.
Eli glanced down and said something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like a cuss word. Nah, surely not. His wings picked up tempo, but the demons had spotted us. One flew up on the right, and I realized it carried two smaller unwinged demons. Whom each had long spiked tails, which they politely lashed in our direction.
Eli spun to the side, the tail hissing past my ear by just an inch or so. Two more demons rose up level with us on the left and started throwing spells. We jerked first one way and then another, dodging the barrage of ugly red sparks. Casting a quick glance down, I saw the space below us was black with demons. Another spray of sparks flew past us, and then one connected with my right shoulder. The red sparks seemed to penetrate my skin, burrowing underneath like tiny worms. The red worked its way down to my wrist, which kind of felt like someone was excavating each of my veins. When it hit my demon tattoo, light burst from it and the pain dissipated. I gasped, shaking my arm to assure myself I could still move it.
“Are you alright?” Eli yelled, hurling a ball of white light at the demon who’d hit me.
“Yeah. Just get us out of here!”
We dodged two more blasts of sparks and lashes of tails, and then we plummeted down, away from the mass of demons, heading towards the forest on the lower flanks of the mountain. Most of the demons flew the other direction, but two of them split off from the crowd and followed us.
“We’ve got a couple tails,” I said unnecessarily as they began to light up the night with blasts of sparks.
“Get out your sword,” Eli called above the wind.
I barely had time to pull it before he spun and dove straight at our attackers. We passed between them, and I sliced at the wings of the demon on my left. It twisted and I cut the arm off its buddy instead. The winged demon shook off his wounded comrade and let him plummet to the ground. Loyal fellow, this one.
We circled around for another pass, but at the last moment, Eli folded his wings and dropped. As the demons watched us fall, Eli shot back upwards in a spiral. Their faces looked amusingly shocked as we corkscrewed up between them, my blade extended. This time I didn’t miss. Two pairs of wings separated from their bodies with a sickening crunch, and they fell like rocks.
Eli skimmed over the forest a ways and landed in the top of a pine tree. We watched as demons continued to swarm out of Mt. Rainier like locusts.
“I hate being right all the time,” I groaned.
“Well, imagine how bad it would be if we didn’t have a heads up.”
“I suppose.”
Eli turned to look me in the eyes. “How does it feel to have the responsibility of saving the world on your shoulders after pretending for so long that you couldn’t care less about anything?”
“Fantastic.” I pursed my lips. “And what makes you think I was pretending? I got into this thing to get revenge on Alexander. Saving the world came as an unfortunate side dish to the main course.”
He didn’t answer for a moment. “So, you don’t like being the hero, just a little?”
“I’m not a hero.” I shook my head firmly. “I just happen to be one of the few people with the tenacity to stop an invasion from Hell.”
Eli smiled. “Whatever. Let’s go find Quinn and Riley.”
“They’re here?” I squealed.
“Yeah. I dropped them off in the forest when I saw you having your little chat with Lucifer so I could make my dramatic appearance and save your butt.”
“I’ve gotten out of worse pinches by myself.”
Eli rolled his eyes. “Okay. Sure.” He jumped down from the tree, opening his wings to break his fall. I followed, landing on the balls of my feet.
Riley materialized out of the darkness, Quinn at his side. “You know, if I were a demon, I’d have shot you out of that tree five minutes ago. You two are louder than a class full of kindergartners.”
“We were just coming to find you,” Eli said.
“So, what’s the plan? We saw all those demons come flying out of Mt. Rainier. It’s really like the end of the world, huh?” Quinn squeaked.
“No. Because we’re going to stop it,” I said, trying to layer confidence into my voice.
“How?” Riley pressed.
“Well, I’m assuming the gov is on the way with the bombs. Right, Eli?”
Eli nodded. “I notified Commander Hunter. She says they’re going to conduct an aerial attack. There’s just one glitch.”
I jerked my head towards him. “Glitch?”
“The NHTF only recently created the special supe bombs. So far, the only ones approved for combat are the hand-held grenade-style ones we used back there at the most recent breach. They’re still in the process of testing the larger bombs that can be used for aerial attacks.” Eli spread his hands apologetically as if it was his fault.
“So? What does that mean?”
“They’re scrambling to arm a few jets, but there’s going to be a delay.”
“How much of a delay?” Quinn asked.
“Another hour or so.”
“But they could almost reach Seattle by then!” Riley looked angry.
“I know,” Eli said. “They’re going to send in some bombers to try to slow them down, but—”
“It’s up to us then,” I interjected. “We’ve got to slow them down somehow.”
“We need our own army,” Eli said, a contemplative expression on his face.
“How many angels can you get?” Riley asked.
“A hundred or so.”
“We need more than angels.” I thrummed my fingers on my arm. “We need all the supes we can get. I’ll call Donovan and get him to rally anyone willing to fight. Eli, you get the angels gathered. Where can we rendezvous?”
“Well, it’d be best if they never even got out of the forest,” Eli said. “They’ll have a number of miles to hike down from the mountain and across the fields and forest before they get onto the highway headed north towards Seattle.”
“We need someplace good to fight,” Riley mused.
“There’s a huge meadow they’re likely to have to cross to get out of the park. Elysian Fields,” Quinn said.
“God, you too? You and Eli might as well just run National Geographic.” I sighed.
Riley grinned. “Elysian Fields? Really? Could there be any more ironic a name for the location of the battle between the angels and the demons?”
Eli returned his smile. “Sounds like a plan. We’ll all meet at Elysian Fields. I’ll find out from Hunter what the blast radius is on these bigger bombs. It’ll be tricky—we’ll have to hold off the demons until they get there, but then be out of the way before the bombs fall.”
“Right. We don’t need to get blasted to smithereens after holding back Armageddon.” I chuckled, which Quinn and Riley did not seem to find amusing. “So, we’ll see you in a bit?” I asked Eli.
“Yep. At Elysian Fields.”
“Otherwise known as the epic collision of good versus evil,” I added.
He nodded and disappeared.
I pulled out my cell phone. “Donovan.” It rang, and then his hologram appeared. “We’ve got a few thousand demons heading for Seattle as we speak,” I said by way of greeting. “I need you to round up all willing and able supes and meet us in Mt. Rainier National Park. A place called Elysian Fields.”
He didn’t ask what the plan was, or whether there was any chance of survival. He just said, “Sure. I can bring some friends to the party.”
I smiled. “Thanks, D. Do you need directions or anything?”
“I know where that is.”
“Seriously?” I threw up my hands. “Am I the only one not intimately familiar with the wilderness?”
He chuckled. “I turn into a panther. Don’t you think I know just about everything there is to know about the land within a hundred mile radius of the city?”
“I suppose. And in this case, I’m glad. See you soon.”
“Absolutely,” he said, and hung up.
“Alright.” I turned to Riley and Quinn. “Now that that’s all settled, we just need to circumvent the demons and get to the rendezvous point without being seen. Although, it would be nice to do some recon and try to get an estimate of how many demons we ended up with.”
“I can help with that,” Quinn said. She had been nervously twisting her hair around her finger, but now she stopped. “I can make us sort of invisible so we can get a closer look.”
“What do you mean, ‘sort of’?” I raised my brows.
“Well, instead of actually making us invisible, which draws a ton of energy, I just use the energy of nature to make us blend in with whatever our natural surroundings are. And out here in the forest is the perfect place. It won’t sap hardly any of my energy. It’s quite an efficient spell, really.” She looked pleased she could help with something, since all we’d been talking about was battles and bombs.
“Sounds good. Lay it on us.”
Quinn closed her eyes and I felt the electric thrum of her magic. Then everything around us began to vibrate. I could feel each tree and vine and blade of grass pouring its energy into us. As I watched, my skin began to turn shadowy in the various hues of the forest at night, my essence absorbed by nature. A moment later, I couldn’t even see myself. I had become a chameleon. “Cool,” I breathed.
“Ditto,” Riley said. “Shall we go spy on some demons?”
“Let’s do it.” I shot off through the trees and heard them fall into step behind me.
I felt strangely vibrant as I dashed through the moonlit forest. It made me realize how unalive I usually felt. If this was the kind of energy I could connect with through my powers, I was really going to have to make a better effort at gaining control of them. Every leaf seemed connected with my body, every whisper of air sung through me. It sort of made me feel high. I suppressed a bubble of laughter as a wave of giddiness went through me. It wouldn’t do at all to alert the demons.
We broke from the forest onto the broad plains that led down from the glacial peaks of Rainier and the surrounding mountains. I could see the line of demons from here, a spiraling black snake against the shadowy background. My eyes ran back and forth along the line and my heart plummeted. There were thousands of them. In a matter of minutes, their numbers had swelled frighteningly. I glanced back at Mt. Rainier and saw they were still pouring out of the volcano. And moving at great speed, too. At this rate, they’d reach the city in an hour and a half tops. Which meant Hunter had better not be late.
“Holy shit,” Riley cursed from somewhere to my left.
“All we have to do is hold them off a bit,” I said, realizing as the words came out of my mouth what a ridiculous statement it was. “The bombers will be here.”
“How are we going to get out in front of them? They’re moving so fast,” Riley said, his tone glum.
“Quinn, can you cast a spell to make yourself run faster?”
She responded by tearing off in front of us, leaving a cloud of dust in our eyes.
“I’ll take that as a yes.” Me and Riley sped off after her.
It took us about fifteen minutes to pass the demon horde, and another fifteen to reach the rendezvous point. Not that I could tell one meadow from another up here, but Quinn and Riley both came to a stop, and Quinn released the chameleon spell.
“Quinn, Zyan. Nice to see you again,” Riley joked.
“I love you guys, but who I really want to see is our reinforcements,” I said. “Those demons are going to get here in about ten minutes, and three against five thousand or so are not good odds.”
We stood in the darkness alone as the minutes ticked by. The ground below our feet started to shake slightly as the yet unseen demon army approached.
“Zy, what do we do if they don’t make it in time?” Quinn whispered.
“They’ll make it.” I pulled my katana, running my eyes over the glittering length of it.
The inky line of demon warriors came into view over the hills. They spotted us immediately and their bloodthirsty shrieks of glee split the night air. All together, they charged towards us, closing the distance with frightening speed. I took a deep breath and spun my sword in my hands.
Then from behind us came a strong wind and a strange whooshing sound as if a twister was touching down. A chorus of growls, roars and yells rang through the night. I screamed a battle cry as a wave of weres, vamps, shifters, fae and witches burst from the interdimensional pathways, each carried by an angel.
The battle for the realm of Earth had begun.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
I’d never seen so many types of demons in my life. It seemed Hell had emptied itself out for the occasion. Not that if I were Lucifer I’d do it any differently.
There were the usual red, fleshy demons. There were also black ones with weird yellow markings like spiders, oozy gray ones that looked like mutated armadillos, and some dark purple ones that looked like walking bruises. Those were the major spell casters, and were especially cruel and spiteful. It was a good idea to stay the freak clear of the purple ones.
Eli landed by my side just as the two forces came crashing together in a terrific cacophony of snarls, howls, screams and deafening thuds. The majority of the other angels remained airborne after dropping off their passengers, raining arrows and blasts of light down on the demons. Quinn was on my left and Riley was on the other side of Eli. I saw someone else run up beside Riley to join us in the charge. Dan.
“What are you doing here?” Riley called above the din.
“I decided it was time I fight for the right side,” Dan answered.
Riley smiled, and they dove together into the wall of demons, changing form in midair. Skin morphed into fur, fingernails into claws, war cries to savage howls. I swung my blade in a wide arc, cutting a demon’s legs from beneath it. A black cloud spun past my head, and I turned to see that one of the demon spellcasters had me in its sights. Quinn took him out with a well-aimed blast of lightning from her fingertips. I heard a bone-crunching collision to my right and saw a Cyclops crushing in a demon’s skull with a massive war ax. Not just any Cyclops—“Will!”
“You didn’t think I’d sit this one out, did you?” His silly surfer grin was pasted on his face like he was just catching a few waves.
We cut through several waves of demons, but they kept coming like a black tidal wave. Quinn and Eli blasted them, I cut and hacked them, Riley bit and tore their limbs off, but wherever one fell, ten seemed to replace it. Then lights glared from behind us, and I turned to see what looked like several tanks and a few Jeeps rolling up.
“Hunter and the NHTF!” Eli called.
“About time,” I growled.
I heard someone yelling orders, probably Hunter, and then the reassuring sound of boots running up behind us. The NHTF agents seemed to be armed with good ol’ fashioned rocket launchers, which they wasted no time in deploying upon the hordes of demons. Soon the night sky was lit up with blossoms of red fire.
And then I saw something coming that made my heart drop to my feet. Several somethings, somethings which towered over the other demons. I wasn’t aware of anything bigger or badder than a twelfth level demon, but these seemed like a twelfth level demon’s big brother on steroids. They had to be at least fifteen feet tall, with massive wings, four arms equipped with foot-long claws, and about ten tails that whipped in all different directions, each with a spiked ball at the end. I wondered if they could—an explosion of red sparks launched towar
ds us from the frontrunner’s outstretched hand. Yep. They could cast spells.
Eli and I dove to the side. The spell hit where we’d been standing, leaving a three foot deep crater in the earth.
“Shall we?”
“Yes we shall,” he responded.
We raced forward, weaving in and out of the demons between us and our target, ignoring them for the moment. About ten feet from our target, Eli launched into the sky, drawing its eyes up and away from me. I moved forward in a blur, slicing off one of the lower arms. Green blood sprayed everywhere. I spun and leaped up again for another bite, but two of the tails whipped around, one from each side, and pounded into me, one at the back of my neck, the other at the top of my thigh. I screamed and dropped to the ground.
Martinis with the Devil, Part Two Page 11
