by Kim Curran
She had to get help. She remembered she was still holding her phone and dialled 911 as fast as her shaking hands would allow.
It only rang twice before she was put through. “What is the nature of your emergency?”
“There are, are…people in my house and they have black eyes and…I don’t know what they are. Aliens or something.”
There was a pause on the other end of the line, followed by a sigh. “Prank-calling the emergency services is an offence, miss.”
“I swear, they just ripped a woman’s heart out. Please, you have to come.”
“We have your location. We’ll send a patrol car to check on the situation, but if this is some kind of game then you will be charged with wasting police time.” The line went dead.
Milly looked down at the phone helplessly. She didn’t think one patrol car would be enough. She remembered the email. She opened and reread the message. People who can help. What did she have to lose?
She was mid reply when her door handle rattled.
“Come out.” That sickly-sweet voice that was nothing like her mother’s.
“Um…no?”
“We have something wonderful to show you.” Mourdant’s voice crept through the gaps of the door as if trying to find a way in. “Something truly wonderful. Come on out.” The door handle rattled again.
“No, no, really, I’d rather not.”
“Then we”, the woman’s voice boomed, “will come in.”
A slam made the door shake. The bed shifted an inch. Milly braced herself between the bed and the far wall, pushing the iron frame back against the door with her legs. She needed help. And fast.
She hit reply.
To:
From: Lyudmila Durand-Lin
Subject: Re: You’re not safe
HELP ME. PLEASE! YOU WERE RIGHT!
She chewed on the skin around her thumbnail before refreshing her mail. There was no way this “DAD” could have received the email and replied in just three seconds, but Milly kept dragging the page down, refreshing it over and over. A third slam made her nearly drop her phone. The door wasn’t going to hold much longer.
Finally, an email pinged back.
To: Lyudmila Durand-Lin
From:
Subject: Re: Re: You’re not safe
THANK YOU FOR YOUR MESSAGE. HELP IS ON ITS WAY.
Who was on their way?
As if in answer to her question she heard a roaring noise – followed by what sounded like something smashing through the front of her house.
The house was silent. That was never a good sign. As long as people were screaming, they were still breathing. Which meant there was still something that could be done. JD hoped they weren’t too late. Again.
The house was old, maybe even Victorian, which was unusual around here. It had once been impressive, but was now faded, with flaking paint and ivy clawing at the brickwork. Large glass double doors were the only improvement that had been made in years. Which at least meant getting in would be easy.
“Hit it,” JD said to Connor.
“Aw, but she’s new,” Connor said, stroking the dashboard.
JD fixed Connor with one of his unimpressed looks.
“All right, all right.” Connor slammed on the gas and the jeep hurtled towards the front of the house. A moment before the impact, Connor hit a button and two large spikes shot out from under the bumper. Glass rained down like diamonds as the jeep bounced over the threshold. It screeched to a halt on the marble floor of the entrance hall, the headlights illuminating two figures standing at the top of a grand, curved staircase – a male and a female.
The boys kicked open the doors of the jeep and leaped out, weapons ready.
“Go, Priestess,” the male said. “I will handle this.”
The female vaulted over the banisters, long dark hair trailing behind her, and landed gracefully before sprinting away. She moved unnaturally fast for someone of her build, racing across the hallway and towards the back of the house. The male – tall, lean and wearing dark glasses even though it was night – wasn’t going anywhere. They’d have to deal with him first. He walked slowly down the stairs, adjusting his cuffs.
“I take it you are the same children who dispatched four of my disciples earlier tonight? You have caused me a mild inconvenience, I’ll give you that.”
“Children, are we?” Zek said, spinning his scimitar around in a circle. “Well these children are about to send your butt back to hell, just like we did your lackeys.”
“Zek,” JD said warningly. There was no point antagonizing demons. Besides, JD wanted to know how this one had seen through their disguise. Masked and tooled up, they certainly didn’t look like children.
The male demon seemed unfazed. He stopped in the middle of the staircase and smiled a dazzling smile. “Wait, I have seen you boys before. Aren’t you…?” He clapped his hands together. “It can’t be! My, my, this is wonderful.”
“What are you talking about?” Tom said. “We’ve never set eyes on you before.”
“No, but I have been watching you for some time. Quite the meteoric rise. I can see now why your manager was so adamant in rejecting my offer. What a shame I shall have to kill you all tonight. You would have made truly extraordinary hosts.”
JD looked to Tom and the other boys. How did this demon know who they were?
“Oh, you’re wondering how I can see past those silly masks of yours? Boys, you don’t think these eyes look at your pathetic human bodies, do you?” He pulled his sunglasses off and tucked them into his top pocket. Jet-black eyes twinkled back at them. “They look right into your souls.” With that, he flicked two fingers in Tom’s direction. His mask and goggles flew off, smashing against the wall. “There is no hiding from me.”
Tom stepped back, stunned. They’d never come up against demons with so much power before. Still, as Gail said, the bigger they were, the harder they fell. Magic tricks or not, it was five against one and this demon was going down.
JD strode forward, his blade at the ready. “Niv, Zek, see if you can track the woman. Connor, find the girl. Tom, you’re with me.” He didn’t need to check that the others would follow his orders; they always did.
As he reached the bottom of the stairs he picked up his pace, charging towards the demon. Just as he placed a foot on the first step, the creature jumped up and spun over their heads. JD twisted to watch him soar through the air and land on the floor behind them.
The demon straightened up and brushed an invisible fleck of dust off his silver suit.
JD grimaced and strode back towards the man. Tom hadn’t moved; he just kept looking between the step where the man had been and where he was standing now.
“Cool,” he said.
JD threw him a disapproving look as he passed.
“Well it was,” Tom muttered under his breath, taking his place by JD’s side. They weren’t going to let this thing get away this time.
JD lunged, his sword an extension of his arm, but the demon dodged effortlessly. Tom drew back his bow and let an arrow go, but the demon batted it out of the air as if swatting an annoying fly. This was going to need a different approach. JD pulled a flash grenade off his belt. He glanced at Tom, remembering just in time that he wasn’t wearing his goggles. Tom closed his eyes and turned away, just as JD let it fly.
“Dodge this!”
The room exploded in a bright white light. While JD’s eyes were protected from the glare by his goggles, the demon wasn’t so lucky. Those black eyes were sensitive to light. The creature hissed and turned away, giving JD the opening he needed to attack. He stepped in and swung his sword, aiming for the neck. At the last moment, the demon stepped away so JD’s blade only made contact with an arm, slicing through the silver sleeve. JD saw a flash of black blood.
The demon tutted. “You have ruined my favourite suit.”
JD was seriously starting to hate this guy.
He swung again, feinting low
and then changing at the last moment to strike high. Tom fired one, two more arrows. Both missed. The demon was too fast, somersaulting again until he was standing in the smashed doorway.
“While I could do this all night,” he said, “I’m afraid I have places to be, rituals to orchestrate. Perhaps my friends can keep you entertained.” He raised two slim fingers to his lips and blew, letting out a high-pitched whistle.
Through the remains of the front door burst two huge men dressed in black bomber jackets, both with the same gold Lyric lettering they’d seen on the dead guy’s baseball cap back in the motel. They snarled and blinked black eyes.
JD took the one on the right while Tom went left. The demons were big but slow – the kind the boys were used to fighting. JD sliced the first one in half, from shoulder to hip, with a graceful strike of his sword. The creature made a small surprised squeak before toppling to the floor. Tom didn’t even bother drawing his bow. Instead, he struck out with an arrow in his hand, plunging it into the neck of the second demon. There was a spurt of black blood and the demon sank to the floor, clutching at its throat. JD finished it off without even looking.
Then he glanced back to the doorway – it was empty. He raced outside and looked down the driveway. Nothing. The silver-suited demon had got away.
“Dammit!” JD shouted, slamming the door frame with his fist.
“Um…”
He turned to see Zek standing by the bottom of the stairs.
“Did you get her?”
“Sorry, Jay, she was right in front of us and then…” He blew on his fingers as if blowing away smoke.
JD shook his head. This hunt had been a total failure. Unless… “Connor!” he shouted. “Connor, have you found her?” There was no reply from Connor. Tom called back instead from a room off the hall.
“JD, you need to see this.”
JD followed Tom’s voice into a large living room. Three of the walls were covered in large oil paintings while the fourth bore a huge TV screen.
Tom pointed at a body. This had to be the girl who had called for their help. She lay face up, blood pooling all around her, a large hole in her chest. JD curled his hands into tight fists, wanting to strike out at something, anything. They’d failed her. They failed at everything.
Tom crouched down and laid a gentle hand on the girl’s shoulder, moving her hair aside so he could see her face.
He gasped. “It’s not her. The girl we came here for, Lyudmila, was it? Report said she was sixteen and mixed race.” Niv had hacked the girl’s Facebook on the way over and they had all read up on her. “This woman is white and early twenties.”
“So,” JD said, a flutter of hope swelling in his stomach. Maybe they weren’t too late after all. “Where’s our girl?”
Milly’s heart pounded so hard she didn’t know how it was managing to stay in her chest. She’d heard crashing and shouting and thudding from downstairs. But now there was just silence. And in some ways that was even worse.
The minutes stretched out agonizingly as she waited, her back pressed up against the wall. After five minutes of hearing nothing, she risked moving. The freezing panic of fear was being slowly replaced with a determination to survive. That couldn’t have been her mother she’d seen doing those terrible things – her mother was overbearing and impossible, but she wasn’t a killer. Milly’s mind went back to the dumb idea that her mother had been taken over by aliens. Maybe it wasn’t such a dumb idea after all. If that thing downstairs wasn’t her mother, it meant the real Isobel Durand was in terrible danger. And Milly had to help her. She couldn’t hide in this room for the rest of her life. There had to be something in here she could arm herself with. The time for hiding was over. She had to fight back.
She glanced around. The majority of the room was filled with books, but what use were they now? Even the heavier hardbacks wouldn’t have much impact against knives. Her dad had called her his little bookworm and teased her about never seeing the sun. He had loved the outdoors and had always tried to get her to go out more…which reminded her. The baseball bat he had given her for her thirteenth birthday. The last birthday they’d had together.
She raced over to her wardrobe, slid open the door, and winced when a jumble of shoes and books fell down on her head. All stuff her mother had told her to throw away before the move but she’d kept hold of out of spite. Thinking of her mother felt like someone had reached into her stomach and twisted. What had Mourdant done to her? Whatever it was, he was going to pay. Milly wasn’t scared any more. Now she was angry.
She pushed all the clutter aside and pulled out the bat. She twisted her hands around the grip, finding the perfect position like her dad had taught her. The tape was coming away in places. Filled with rage, she strode towards the door. She’d lost one parent and she wasn’t about to lose another. If she had to beat whatever that thing was out of her mother, she’d do it.
With a kick less powerful than she had hoped, she shoved the bed aside and dragged the door open.
The landing was empty, but she could hear voices coming from downstairs. Hefting the reassuring weight of the baseball bat in her hands, she headed towards the sound. The voices became clearer: the murmur of people chatting. Mourdant and the thing in her mother’s body maybe? The anger bubbled hotter.
She lifted the bat over her shoulder and picked up her pace. Before she knew it, she was running down the stairs, roaring like a crazed person. Ready to hit and bash and crush and destroy anyone or anything she found there.
She charged into the living room, screaming, bat raised. Three figures stood with their backs to her. She swung the bat back and let it fly.
The head she was aiming for ducked at the last second and the bat went wide, smashing into a wooden dresser, shattering glass. She swung again, aiming for one of the other figures. He raised an arm to block her blow and, quicker than she’d ever seen anyone move, grabbed the bat and twisted it out of her grip.
“Whoa!” he said.
Before she could do anything else, arms grabbed her from behind. She kicked and thrashed, trying to shake them off.
“It’s okay,” the boy who had grabbed the bat said, “you’re safe.”
The haze of rage faded and through it Milly saw a slim white boy with curly blond hair and a wide smile and sparkling green eyes. She recognized him. She’d seen this face staring back at her from magazines, billboards and from her own TV just a few hours ago. But that couldn’t be possible… Standing next to him was a tall, dark-skinned figure with swirls shaved into the side of his head. He wore a half-mask with a grinning skull across it and goggles, hiding his face. And yet…
The arms pinning her let go and a third boy stepped forward. He was a mirror image of the boy with the shaved head. They also had matching tattoos snaking up their arms, the black patterns blending seamlessly with the engravings on their curved swords. Twins.
Milly blinked to check she wasn’t imagining things, but, yes, they were carrying swords. All three boys wore black combats and heavy black boots. None of this was making any kind of sense. Why were they here? How were they here?
“It’s okay,” the blond boy said, one hand raised, the other holding the bat down by his side. Milly made out a British accent. “It’s all okay.” He flipped the bat over in his hand and returned it to her, handle first.
Milly took it. “But you’re…you’re…” she stuttered.
“We’re Slay,” a voice said from behind her. “And we’re here to help.”
There was no point pretending. With his mask and goggles off, this girl had clearly recognized Tom.
JD pulled off his own mask and ran his fingers through his hair. The others gratefully followed his example. The masks might look cool, but they itched something chronic.
“Are you Lyudmila?” JD continued, his hand hovering over the handle of his sword.
The girl wasn’t showing any signs of possession. No twitching. No black eyes. She was about the same age as JD, of mixed heritage with l
ight brown skin and a short bob that framed her face. Cute in that geek-girl sort of way. She wore tracksuit bottoms and a bright purple hoodie.
“Milly,” the girl said quietly. “The only person who calls me Lyudmila is my mother. At least, she used to…”
JD didn’t need her to carry on. They’d listened to the FaceTime with her friend and the panicked phone call to the police after Niv had hacked her accounts.
“Okay, Milly,” Tom said, stepping closer, and resting a gentle hand on the girl’s elbow. “Everything is going to be okay.”
The girl’s face hardened. “Really? Really!” She shook off Tom’s arm. “I just saw my mother’s manager make her stab her PA in the heart. How exactly is that okay?”
“I know this is all seriously strange,” Tom said, looking slightly shaken that his usual charm hadn’t worked. “Believe me, we all know. But for now, we need to get you out of here. Is there somewhere safe you can go?”
“What? No. I’ve only been in Chicago a few months. My mother—” She choked before she could finish the sentence.
JD took a deep breath. Usually it was left to Gail to explain things like this. Or Tom would just hypnotise them.
“That’s not your mother any more.”
“What do you mean?” She looked pallid, like she might be sick any minute.
“She’s a demon,” Connor said, appearing from the kitchen. He was still wearing his mask. “Hey, you’ve taken your masks off. No fair.” He pulled his off and immediately replaced it with his red snapback.
“Way with the sensitivity, Con,” Zek said, glaring at him.
Niv clipped the Irish boy around the back of his head, knocking his tatty cap to the floor again.
“What?” Connor said, rubbing at his hair. “She asked.”
Milly stared blankly at JD. “A demon?”
