by Declan Finn
Amanda’s heart started pounding as though she were once again on her run from the airport. She pounced, growling as she leapt for Day.
The demon disappeared from the view of normal people as a streak of golden-red hair slammed him away.
Amanda’s teeth drove straight into Day’s neck. Her jaws clamped around his throat while her arms were clamped around his arms and upper body in a bear hug. She had already fed that day, but this was… something else. The blood flowed into her mouth, and did not taste like copper, but like honey.
Every time she ate, she became stronger and faster, and all around more alive. This was something completely different—this was to normal blood as a soft drink was to centuries-old scotch. It tasted like nothing so much as pure energy. She had never felt anything like it.
Her arms locked around him tighter as she sucked the blood from him with new vigor. At least a pint had flowed into her body, and she wanted more.
Day didn’t even bother fighting her growing strength. Instead, he curled his forearms against his belly, then exploded them outward, hurling Amanda against a mausoleum so hard the stone broke. However, when Amanda went flying, her teeth held fast in his arteries, and she took parts of his throat with her.
The Armani was so bloodied, the shirt and tie were one massive red stain. Day gurgled a little as the skin formed back around his veins. He coughed and spat out a wad of blood, then straightened, studying the vampire.
Day’s fire-eyes narrowed. “Amanda,” he croaked. He coughed, holding his throat. “I wondered how he had become such a troublemaker. It’s you again,” he drawled with disdain. “You didn’t die.”
Amanda smiled as she rolled to her feet. “Of course, Asmodeus.” Amanda licked her lips clean, leaving a slight red smudge on her upper lip.
Day smirked. The fiery gaze locked onto her. “Come, Amanda Colt, we should finish this, you and I.”
A roundhouse kick to the back of Day’s head slammed him face first into a tombstone.
Merle Kraft smiled. “Sounds like a plan to me.”
Day snarled and whirled around with a backhand for Merle’s head… and he struck thin air. Between blinks, Merle had gone from being behind Day to being perched on top of a tall stone angel. Day charged for it, crashing through the marble, and Merle vanished again.
Day looked around, wondering where Kraft had gone. Even if he had fallen into the dust and rubble, he couldn’t have gotten far.
Day’s legs were swept out from under him, and Merle leapt away before the demon even hit the ground—or, more precisely, before the demon fell onto two marble spikes sticking out of the ground, left after Day had charged through the stone angel.
Day rolled off, the damage healing as though it never was.
Amanda slid into place on the opposite side of Day, her amber eyes glowing. “Do you think that you can deal with the two of us?”
Day grinned, and leapt straight up, grabbing a tree branch above his head. With a quick pull, he broke it off, and held it as effortlessly as though it were a baseball bat… but carried it like a spear.
Day thrust for Amanda, and she stepped toward it, taking a long, diagonal step with her left foot, and grabbed the makeshift spear with her left palm, redirecting it. The palm of her right hand crashed into his nose, driving the cartilage into his brain. He was stunned for only a moment, then tightened his hold on the branch, and twisted, snapping it in half.
“I’m still carrying wood,” Day grinned.
Amanda shook her head, tossing the piece of the branch away. “And I always thought you were classier than that.”
Day charged…
And then, tripped over Merle Kraft.
A blur swooped in, driving a punch straight up, into and through where Day was. Amanda was the blur, snapping Day’s head back and forth at a speed that Marco had never seen her move before.
Day twisted to one side, deflecting one of her blows, then had own flurry. A right palm to her face, a double blow to her ribs, and a grab to her throat, it was clear that Day was recovering.
* * *
Marco blinked. Still on the ground. Can’t have that. He can’t recover. “Hey, Asmodeus, can’t take the lowly human?”
Let go of Amanda. Focus on me. You came here for me. Come on.
He rose to his feet, his smile still on his face. “Come on. Weren’t you sent here as a hit man? You want me, you can come and get me, you little twit.”
Day smiled. “I came to hurt you.” His eyes flicked to one side, the razor-sharp grin returned, pulled back, and threw Amanda straight for a tree.
The last of Amanda that Marco Catalano had seen was her body slamming against a tree branch that had been splintered by one of the projectile Stars of David.
Amanda had disappeared so fast, Marco didn’t even have a chance to even think “Good bye.”
CHAPTER 21:
ASMODEUS EX MACHINA
Marco stared blankly for a long moment. Amanda was dead.
Amanda. Was dead.
That was that. Day would die.
Marco’s smile was unwavering. He reached into his pocket, and pulled out a chain with a bob at the end of it. He gently swung it around, casual, calm, and easy.
“I’m going to kill you now, Asmodeus.” He swung the bob into his hand. “I’m going to strangle you. With this pocket watch.”
Day arched a brow. “Really?” He raised his right hand, where the fingers had mostly regrown, muscles still exposed. In the blink of an eye, the bob was out of Marco’s hand, and in Day’s. It looked like he hadn’t moved.
“I’m back to full power, Marco,” Day boasted. “There is nothing that anyone can do can stop me.”
Then Day pumped his hand once, crushing the bob. He stopped, becoming stiff. The blood drained from his face in terror.
Day gasped. “No.”
Marco smiled. “The power of Christ compels you, bitch.”
* * *
“A pyx,” Marco began, “for the non-Catholics amongst us, is a container for the consecrated host from the Eucharist. Eucharistic ministers carry these to administer the Eucharist to the sick and bedridden who can’t come to church on Sundays.”
“And what does that do?” Yana asked.
“The consecrated host?” Amanda asked her. “The body of Jesus in the guise of bread?”
Yana blinked. “I have no idea what you mean.”
Amanda rolled her eyes. “You know, if you’re going to claim you’re 'multicultural,’ you should learn about a few cultures.”
* * *
Day’s hand crushed the pyx, and stopped dead. He didn’t blink, he didn’t move, he even stopped breathing. His hand couldn’t open, and even started turning black and necrotic. His veins turned black, racing down his arm like the most virulent infection ever.
Then, suddenly, with a full roar, Day reached with his good hand, and grabbed the rapidly-dying shoulder. The grip alone tore the material. With another Godzilla-like roar, Day ripped his own arm off and hurled it away.
Day fell to his knees and his hand. His blood gushed from his shoulder.
In the back of Marco’s head, a switch was thrown. Like at the cemeteries he had raided not 24 hours ago, the tune for March of Cambreadth rang in his head.
Marco moved like a robot moved for Day. Marco stomped down on his skull. The ankle came down on the spot right behind the ear. He did it again, hitting the other ear.
Day tried to rise. Marco slammed his foot sideways into Day’s knee, breaking it at an odd angle.
A punch to the kidney, then knuckles into the small of his back, paralyzing Day for moments. The acid burns on his head still hadn’t healed, and they wouldn’t—it was damage on the molecular level.
I love being right, Marco thought, as he bellowed, “Now!”
He drove two mixed test tubes into Day’s pocket and shoved him away.
Day staggered backwards as one of the Vatican Ninjas came in on a motorcycle. The Ninja leapt off the vehicle. It slid a
long the ground, cutting the feet out from under Day. The test tubes exploded, ruining the pockets of the jacket and causing damage to the thing’s torso. Day and the bike slid together, one dragging the other.
Marco stood to one side as the motorcycle slid by him, and whipped out a set of handcuffs from his pocket. He righted the motorcycle and quickly cuffed Day’s ankles to the seat of the bike. He drove off without another word, dragging Day behind.
Marco drove straight for the docks, Day being dragged along the way.
The demon simply glanced at Marco’s back, and smiled to itself. As Day bounced off the asphalt, all of his other wounds were healing. Even his arm was growing back. Slowly. Impact against concrete wasn’t going to harm him any, so he let himself be dragged by the back of the motorcycle…
Because, after all, Marco had to stop sometime.
Marco didn’t even think about it as he pointed the motorcycle at the docks.
He drove straight for a pier.
With the engine at full speed, he jumped off the motorcycle and into the water. The bike left the wooden planks, soaring through the air and straight down, into the water, on top of Day. With a breath, Marco dove down after him.
Day shoved the vehicle off of him easily and moved as fast as though he were above ground. Marco slammed a foot behind Day’s ear, then fell onto him, driving an elbow into his solar plexus, driving the air from his lungs. Most people would be paralyzed for minutes, but that would only be seconds for Day.
Marco swam away as Day recovered.
The demon smiled as his body automatically strove for breath.
Day’s eyes widened in shock as he realized he had automatically taken a lungful of seawater. Marco smiled.
Even monsters needed to breathe.
Marco moved back for Day as the demon struggled frantically with the handcuffs, momentarily forgetting his own strength. Day spared the human only a glance and punched at him, even though Marco was yards away—but the motion sent a fist of water at Marco, pushing him to the surface as Day broke the handcuffs.
The student had made it to the dock by the time Day had figured out that he needed to drop the suit and wing-tipped shoes so he could surface.
Marco glared at the water and waited for the demon to come after him. The body that hosted Asmodeus would die if he didn’t get oxygen within five minutes, and not even he could resurrect himself from the dead. Unless the demon jumped bodies, he would be trapped in a brain dead shell, and Day would be the ghost.
Day surfaced and climbed onto the dock, trying to fill his lungs with air. He looked at Marco and charged, making no sounds with his open mouth. Marco smiled, bent one leg and swept Day’s legs out from under him.
Marco used another test tube to blow a hole in the dock beneath Day. The demon fell through, but Marco wasn’t ready to stop just yet. He turned to where the dock met the mainland. And there was Merle, as planned, with a large tank in front of him, on the ground like a missile.
Merle smiled, looking behind Marco as Day came through the wooden planks, raging, dying. Day ripped a board from the dock and rammed it through his chest, letting a hole in his lungs to release the water trapped there.
Merle looked at Marco. “I think it’s time for us to leave, don’t you think?”
The two of them broke out into a run.
Farther down the dock, Ibrahim the sniper aimed down his handgun at the release valve of the pressurized tank with the gun… then fired. When his bullet hit the nozzle, the tank shot off with the force of a rocket, slamming into Day…
The demon caught it, plucking it from midair like a bouquet of flowers.
Day held it in his hands, shooting Merle and Marco a look of contempt.
“Pressurized air?” he snarled with what little breath he had already regained, and slammed his fist into the tank.
As he destroyed the final weapon, Marco remembered explaining this to the gang after it had arrived.
* * *
“Where did this come from?” Rory asked, wondering why it was in the Artful Krafts.
“Amanda secured it for me,” Marco explained.
“And what is it, a cruise missile?” Tara asked.
“An oxygen tank?” Merle inquired.
Tiffany: “A phallic symbol?”
Marco smiled and plucked a rose from the vase on the table, sliding it behind Amanda’s ear. “Hold on to that for me, will you, love?”
Marco rolled the tank to the table and let some of the contents pour into a plastic cup. He took the flower from behind Amanda’s ear and slid the open petals down her cheek, wishing it was his hand.
“Has anyone ever seen Terminator 2?”
Marco then dipped the rose into the cup, pulled it out, and then shattered it against the table as it exploded like glass.
“Liquid nitrogen.”
* * *
Day drove his fist into the tank of liquid nitrogen, and it exploded like the oxygen tank in Jaws, spraying him with the chemical over four hundred degrees below zero.
Marco stopped at the explosion and turned, facing the fog of gas. If his plan had worked, if Day had been pissed off enough, and aggravated enough, to crush the pressurized liquid nitrogen without thinking, and if the demon had been affected, there would be no reason to run.
And if it didn’t work, there’d be nowhere to run.
Marco waited, staring at the cloud.
Marco and Merle looked at the dock once more. The water beneath it had iced over, and the dock looked like it had been dusted with a light frost.
The gas dissipated, revealing the demon known as Day.
He had been completely covered in the liquid nitrogen, freezing him like a statue.
Marco and Merle exchanged a glance, astonished smiles frozen on their faces. “It worked.”
Marco carefully walked up to the dock, and looked into Day’s eyes. They were still alive and aware, even behind the ice. The PA student spoke to him softly and evenly, never letting his voice above a whisper.
“You, sir, attacked my city. You murdered my only friend. My only love. It's time for you do die. Your body is frozen to your core and your metabolism. You’re dead, and you don’t know it yet.”
Marco looked down the pier. Rodgers had not yet been allowed near Day. There wouldn’t be an exorcism just yet. He looked out a knife—a real one, not wood or a boxcutter—and he hacked away at Day’s right shoulder, smashing the arm off. It shattered against the pier. He then stabbed into the open wound, making a little pocket. Marco pulled out another pyx. He slid away the knife, and carefully took out a host. He gently pressed the wafer into the wound.
“That should keep you still for a while. In case you wondered about all of those test tubes, glycerin, plus nitric and sulfuric acids equal nitroglycerin, which equals boom. Now go back to Hell.”He stopped thirty feet away from him with the rest of the team, standing next to Rory and Merle, who was shooting Day with a camera. Marco didn’t think to inquire.
Marco turned his back on the demon, content to let the bastard burn… or explode… or whatever movie special effect might happen when you shoved a host into a demon.
Then he heard the first crack. It sounded like a tree suddenly snapped in two. Marco looked over his shoulder. The frozen Day had fractured at the torso, just under the breastbone, cracking up to the left shoulder …
Meaning the lower part of Day’s body that weren’t connected to the parts touching the hosts.
Oh crap.
The upper part of Day’s body was cast aside as the lower half exploded, with a giant arm shooting out and grabbing Marco. The thick fingers were like telephone poles as they wrapped around his arms and torso. The hand seemed impossibly large to have come from something as small as what was left of Day …
Except, instead of the human-looking form, this was a great black ball of mass. It began to unfurl itself, growing as it did so. First the outer layer of the ball spread out, revealing two great black wings that spread out the length of the pi
er. Then came the neck and the giant head, armored and shiningly black all the way down.
As it grew, the water level dropped—matter upon which a demon could build a body in the physical realm.
Marco looked up and up… and up some more, peering at the unbridled majesty and terror of a fully-unleashed demon named Asmodeus.
Of course he’d turn into a five-story dragon. Because, you know, that’s just the way my luck runs. Anything that can go wrong… damn you, Murphy, I hate you.
Asmodeus raised Marco to eye level. It would be nice if the eyes were dead and lifeless, like if it were the end of Sleeping Beauty—the original animated version, not the terrible live-action re-write. But no, the eyes were very much alive, like jade that glowed.
For some reason, Marco recalled, that he had seen eyes like that once at an aquarium, in the shark tank.
Marco looked down at the hand gripping him, and frowned. “If you want to crush me, what are you waiting for?”
The dragon’s mouth opened a little and bore teeth in a razor-sharp grin. Asmodeus stared straight at him. “So, now what, Marco Catalano? What will you do without your love? Without your Amanda? What will you be able to do?” The grin became wider. “I’ve seen your heart, and I know what’s in it. I know what darkness is in your depths. You cannot hide it from me, Marco Catalano. You can hide nothing from me. Your soul is bare for me to see. The evil. The depravity. The thirst for death and destruction. Your soul shall be mine.
“But first, I want you, little man. You want to fight evil with evil, then you get evil. You get me.
“You get to be my new host.”
Marco grimaced. Oh nuts.
Sorry, God, hadn’t expected that twist. While I generally like to rely on the gifts You gave me, and not ask for Divine intervention, I won’t object to a little here. Could You help me out a little here? Like killing me before that happens? A nice little lightning bolt to fry my synapses would be appreciated. Pretty please?
The dragon stared at Marco long and hard. Marco heard the noises below. There was the chatter of gunfire below. If Asmodeus noticed, the dragon showed no sign.
“So?” Marco asked defiantly. “What are you waiting for?” Seriously, God, what are you waiting for? I have no problem dying. Right now. This minute. I can hopefully join Amanda in Heaven, and not be host to a freaking demon.
