At The Gates (Demon Squad)

by Tim Marquitz

  The first shot hit him in his neck, his head snapping sideways in irritation. The second and third thumped into his massive shoulder as though it was made of steel. He didn’t even wince as his red-orange gaze swung about and honed in on me. When our eyes met, he loosed a savage roar and dropped down on all fours, barreling through were and Nephilim alike to get to me.

  “They told me you were out of the fight, mutt. Obviously I’m going to have to do the job myself.”

  Puckered up so tight I could shit diamonds, I looked around to make sure no one was sneaking up on me, and got ready to face down Grumpy.

  “There’s nothing but air and opportunity between us, furball. Come get some.” I’d probably regret antagonizing him, but it wasn’t like he was gonna kill me any deader than he already planned to.

  He came at me fast, but his retinue stayed busy at the dog pile. Sometimes you get lucky.

  More room to move this time and having a better estimate of his speed, I waited until he dove at me before I leapt out of the way. I slipped past his flashing claws and tucked into a ball, rolling to my feet a few yards away untouched.

  “Olé!” I waved the white shirt at him and smiled.

  Momentum and size working against him, Grawwl spun and fell into a tumble as he tried to adjust. The two bullets I put in his ass probably didn’t help his balance any.

  After a moment, he got to his feet and came at me again, his breath huffing like an overloaded freight train. He muttered something but all I caught was the word dead. Me thinks he was a little ticked off.

  Once more I waited until he was close, then feinted right, waving the shirt in his face before diving left. Again, his claws whistled past without hitting me and he struggled to slow down and turn around.

  I emptied the clip in his back and slapped another one into place as he spun around. A solid hunk of muscle, my bullets weren’t doing anything to stop him, barely penetrating his hide, but at least he wasn’t near the key piece.

  He stood his ground for a second, as if wondering how to handle me, then apparently decided he wasn’t quite finished with the charging approach. He tucked his head and sped toward me again. The look in his eyes told me he thought he had it figured out.

  A quick glance at the Nephilim told me they were starting to bite back. Their numbers, slowly being rallied by Venai’s call, began to sway the tide against the leaderless lycanthropes. Surprised and a bit annoyed that Azrael had yet to show his face, I couldn’t imagine we were gonna get a better opportunity than now to make a play for the key piece, trap or not.

  Concentrating to keep from saying it aloud, I sent a message to Rahim to go when he thought best just as the skies rumbled overhead and the wind started to sputter, the gusts petering out. Lightning flashed above and cast a purple shadow over the ground. It was an ominous warning of the fall to come.

  My attention jumped back to Grawwl before he tore me a new one. He came at me and swung both of his claws out to his side, expecting me to leap away. Instead, I threw the shirt at him and ducked and rolled between his legs—doing my damndest not to look up—and popped out behind him. He earned a couple more bullets for his effort.

  Just as he got himself turned around, I suddenly felt the oozing presence of Azrael. It rolled over me like fresh tar, a moist and sickening creep of energy that enveloped me as though I had slid into a pool of quicksand. A flutter at my neck told me he had appeared right behind me.

  Then the pain came.

  Struck in the upper back, the blow slammed me into the ground face first. A crash test dummy, I bounced a couple of times before coming to rest in the grass, my ears ringing. Through the whistling, I heard Grawwl’s gravelly roar of triumph, the sound growing closer.

  “Enough!” The power of Azrael’s voice rattled my skull. “You fool.”

  Not sure who he was talking to, I rolled over to see sparks of fury flying from Azrael’s eyes. He was looking past me, his bony finger crooked toward the battle.

  “The demon’s friends are going after Lilith’s rib.”

  Grawwl and I both turned our heads to see Katon and Rahim tearing into the weres with abandon. Aided by his magic, the wizard was a force to be reckoned with. Were-bits were exploding all around him and his blackened body was soaked with blood, wet red trailers following in the wake of his claws. He had a vicious grin on his face, pieces of fur and flesh caught up in his teeth.

  Katon flittered around Rahim, his sword lashing out at anything that moved. Silver sweeps left dead or rigid werewolves falling left and right. Playing wingman, anything that even dared go for Rahim met its end at the furious tip of Katon’s sword.

  “Get them!” Azrael screamed to Grawwl, who stood there indecisive.

  Finally, Grumpy saddled up and stormed off to join the fight. Azrael growled and turned his attention back to me.

  “I had hoped you would be repentant when I returned, but I see stubborn has won out as the dominant trait.” He floated toward me, the flames in his eyes throwing up black smoke.

  Not looking to antagonize him, I stayed down, inching back along the ground slowly. Through my peripheral vision, I saw Grawwl entering the fray, his bellows rallying handfuls of weres and vamps to his side. Rahim and Katon met him head on.

  “Just like my father, right?”

  He laughed, the fire easing back. “So, now you wish to speak of your sire here as you prepare to die?” The whirling obsidian cloud beneath him melted away, black tendrils fading out of sight, and he stood before me with a skeletal grin. “I’ll entertain your sudden curiosity, not because your ploy to delay me worked, but because it suits me.” He glanced over at the fight, and seeming satisfied for some strange reason, he looked back to me. “Your father was a murderer and a rapist, and quite masterful at both. In fact, that was how you came to be.”

  My face warmed as his implication hit me. I’d engaged him to allow DRAC time to operate, but I was beginning to regret it.

  Azrael’s grin grew wider, obviously feeding off my discomfort. “Does it bother you to think of your mother being raped, grunting into the sod like a common whore being rowed?”

  Without even realizing I’d done it, I fired on him, the gun barking fury in my white-knuckled grip.

  Azrael batted my bullets away as though they were nothing, closing the distance in an instant. My gun flew from my hand and he struck me in the chest, the blow reverberating all the way through to my back.

  Lightning bolts of white pain exploded in my torso and radiated out, searing a path along my extremities, ending at my fingers and toes. A tingling numbness followed in the aftershock. My body twitched and flopped as my nerves reacted, then relaxed, dropping me flat. My eyes whirled and my vision tunneled for a moment, before widening and returning to focus.

  Azrael stood over me, his toothy smile splitting his face wide, a macabre Jack-o’-lantern.

  “The best part of it was she liked every moment of it; the moist dirt of the field pressed cool against her face, the smell of her sex as it mingled with the morning air. Her scent was an aphrodisiac, Triggaltheron, sweet and tempting like a ripened fruit plucked straight from the tree.”

  Numb, I did my best to ignore his words and get to my feet. Azrael laughed and pinned me down by holding my arms, his cadaverous face moving in closer. “I know all this because I was there, demon. I watched as your mother squirmed beneath your father’s strident ministrations, her hands clawing at the dirt. She screamed and thrashed about like a banshee, yet ever pushed back to meet his every thrust like the wanton little cunt she truly was.”

  Napalm tore through my veins and I fought against his hold. His bony fingers cut into my arms as I struggled to rise. My clutching hands sought his heart, falling just short.

  “She cried when he released his seed, but they were tears of joy, Triggaltheron. They were tears for you, little demon. She knew right then she was special, that she’d been honored by the rutting she’d received; that she would soon be with child.”

  “I
’ll fucking kill you,” I screamed, frothy spittle flying. Everything was hazy, my fury screaming inside me, shrieking to be released.

  “Will you? Is that what you’d like to do to me? Carve me up over the course of days and feed my remains to the fire?”

  I screamed again, feeling something pop in my back as I strained against his grip. Thrashing about, I flailed and struck at him, but Azrael just laughed as my pitiful blows.

  “Let me tell you another secret, Triggaltheron.” He leaned in close and pressed his clammy lips against my ear, his grip tightening. “Long have you lived a lie, an illusion fed to you to keep you docile, to keep you in your place. Lies perpetuated to steer you from your rightful rewards.” His words wormed inside my head, slithering cold and harsh. “Your friends lie to you because they fear you. They use you to go against your own, to defy the wishes of your father.”

  “My father is dead.” Thunder rumbled overhead as if in sympathy.

  A cold, bitter laugh tickled my ear. “Of all the lies you’ve swallowed like the lonely whore desperate to find love in a mouthful of bitter seed, that’s the greatest of them.”

  The words sunk into my mind like hammered railroad spikes. My anger bled away through the holes and I went still to hear what he had to say.

  Azrael kept his grip tight, but his smile warmed at my sullen compliance. “Aah, you’re listening with our mind at last. Well then, listen close. The man you killed with such passion, with such glorious brutality, for which you paid Baalth so dearly for the pleasure, was not your father. He wasn’t even the man who murdered your mother.”

  My stomach clenched into a solid knot and I stared into his flickering eyes, into his soul, desperate to see the lie there, to know his words were false. The truth stared back at me. It wasn’t what I wanted to see.

  Bile roiled inside me, flicking serpent-like at the back of my throat. Azrael nodded as the sickening reality sunk in. The man I’d killed for murdering my mother was not who I had been led to believe. I’d been deceived.

  My heart sank and I went limp, the truth draining everything from me. I’d traded my innocence for the power to kill the man I thought was my father, the man who murdered my mother. It was all a lie. My soul mortgaged to Baalth for years, the cost of my freedom something that still haunts my dreams, had been for nothing. Though I knew the man I’d killed was no innocent, he was of the crime I’d so horribly torn him to pieces over. The image of his dying face came to life in my mind’s eye, his horror so clear.

  Guilt boiled over with my vomit. Azrael released his hold and stepped back as I rolled to my side, retching.

  “You should have run to Hell and waited this out, Triggaltheron. It would have spared your heart such brutal revelation. Now you must live without knowing your father’s true face or that of your mother’s killer.”

  I puked again, sick with myself and all I’d done. Questions swirled inside my head like my vomit did in the grass, running into itself and going nowhere. There was no exorcising guilt.

  “I thank you for bringing Eve to me. I’ll reward your servitude by slaying your friends quickly; both those who challenge my minions and those who still hide upon the hill.” He held up Eve and winked. The bone in his hand was sickening proof of his boast.

  My heart slowed. Spittle dripped warm down my chin as I lifted my head to look toward the fight. Rahim and Katon had done well it seemed, bodies were piled thick at their feet, but the tide had turned against them. Grawwl still stood, an army of vampires shielding him as he closed on Rahim and Katon.

  To make things worse, the Nephilim had pulled together, their numbers apparently the confidence they needed to engage the weres, as well as DRAC. They were lashing out indiscriminately, anyone not one of them was an enemy. Surrounded, Rahim and Katon looked battered, defending attacks from all quarters. It wouldn’t be long until they fell, Azrael’s addition guaranteeing it.

  I concentrated as best I could, and reached out for help, for Michael. There was only silence.

  Thunder rumbled, shaking the ground as if in triumph as I rolled over to look up at Azrael. He stood a few feet away, his black lips peeled back in a fearsome grin.

  “Enjoy what’s left of your immortality, Triggaltheron, for its moments are numbered. Perhaps if you are appropriately humble, I might one day tell you who your father is.” He stood over me and laughed, gesturing toward the battle where Rahim and Katon were desperately fighting to stay alive. “Now, I must put an end to this nonsense.”

  Everything crumbling down around me, I dug deep for one last sliver of hope and reached out for Poe.

  A whispered voice answered back. “How nice of you to call, Mister Trigg.”

  Despite the sarcasm, my heart leapt at hearing Poe’s crisp monotone. “Glad you guys are okay.”

  “That’s not the word I’d use, but Mister McConnell and I managed to win a few of us free from Azrael’s vampires.”

  My sliver faded. “Is Rachelle with you?”

  There was only silence from the other end, its agonizing nothingness driving defeat into my heart, one pounding beat after another.

  “I’m here, Frank,” Rachelle’s voice echoed inside my head like the voice of an angel.

  Still on the ground, Azrael having only walked a few paces, I called out to him. “Tell me something, Azrael.”

  He looked back to me, his arrogance framing his face with smug confidence. “Be quick, little demon, I’ve a world to conquer.”

  I got to my feet and met his fiery gaze. “You’re a fan of rape, right?”

  He looked at me, his eyes narrowing. “What are going on about?”

  “That’s what you said, isn’t it? You got off watching my mother being raped, right?” I couldn’t keep the venom out of my voice, his words careening through my head, Abraham’s dead eyes staring at me.

  Azrael grinned. “Don’t make this your last stand, boy. Either quiet down or die, the choice a simple one.”

  I grinned back. “I’ve got another idea.” In my head, I passed on a message to Rachelle making damn sure I didn’t say it aloud.

  The words sent at the speed of thought, a shimmering blue portal the size of a house appeared just inches from where Azrael stood. His eyes flew open wide as he looked into it and stumbled back.

  “Sic him, boys.” A horde of dread fiends burst from the portal, crashing into Azrael with fearless tenacity. “Welcome to our own private gang-rape, Azrael.”

  The archangel shrieked as he was dragged under a pile of snapping jaws and sharpened claws. Eve fell beside him, being kicked about as Azrael fought back against the fiends.

  “One of you, bring me that bone.” I pointed at Eve, then turned to face the still flowing line that spilled from the portal. “The rest of you, kill the Nephilim and only the Nephilim.” Over a hundred fiends laying into Azrael, the remaining couple thousand stormed from the gateway toward the wide-eyed half-breeds who scattered before them. Poe still on the line, I had him convey a message to our guys not to worry about the fiends; they were the cavalry, as unlikely as it seemed.

  Still unsure of my control over the dread fiends, I didn’t want them confusing a certain friendly werebear and vampire for the rest of the rabble, so I kept the commands simple. At least with the Nephilim out of the way, Rahim and Katon could handle the rest. I sent another quick message to Poe to have Rachelle close by and to get McConnell ready to join us once the gates were open. Scarlett apparently out of the picture, details unknown, I was gonna have to improvise.

  A dread fiend panted up to me, holding Eve in a bloody claw. Giving it a pat on the head as thanks, I snatched the bone and sent the fiend back after Azrael. It did so with morbid glee, its dripping tongue lolling out of his mouth.

  You gotta love the enthusiasm.

  The last key piece in hand, I made a mad dash toward the remnants of the fight. Rahim and Katon had turned their opponents toward the fiends, and though the dreads weren’t attacking the weres, they were distracting them. There’s nothing
like a couple thousand sub-demons storming past to get the heart rate up to a nice, brisk pace.

  The Nephilim who had been swarming them were now scattered across the field, many of them in fleshy chunks and bloody pieces. The tight organization had crumbled under the wave of dread fiends, and the few who still stood nearby were falling fast.

  Grawwl had organized his men and was flinging them at Rahim as though they were chess pieces. He hung back as the werewolves threw their lives away, trying to give him a clear shot at the wizard.

  The tactic sound, it was a good idea not to take on Rahim head-to-head, but he’d forgotten about me. His back exposed, I stashed Eve and raced toward the oblivious werebear. Knowing full well Grawwl could shrug off my shots as though they were bee stings, it didn’t make any sense just to start firing away. Since I was too exhausted to draw upon my magic, it was time to be creative.