War of the Damned Boxed Set

by Michael Todd

  I like to think that after all this time fighting demons, you would have learned that it is better to take the safer route than the gung ho, jump-into-hell route. It’s only a matter of time before we end up with a bullet in the gut or our head bitten off.

  Oh, so it’s okay for you to send the heroes in that way?

  They don’t have wings, and they are trained to do whatever is necessary. Why do one thing when I can help from another angle? You are really an impossible bitch today.

  Pandora gasped. How dare you!

  Oh, shut up. You are a bitch and usually very proud of it.

  Katie looked out the window and saw that she wasn’t quite at the angle she needed to hit the opposite window straight on. She headed down the hall to the first bedroom on the left and kicked open the door. She ran over to the window and checked the angle from there. She nodded, finding it perfect for her plan, waiting a moment for Pandora to shut the hell up.

  Why don’t you just let me take over? I can jump that and climb down.

  Because we are too close to the ground, so everyone will know it’s not me. And we are walking into a fight with a team that has no idea I can morph into you. We don’t need to distract them. They aren’t as strong as we are, and they’ve already lost one teammate this month. Now, if you are done, I would really like to get in there before the battle is over and Earth is swallowed by a giant portal to hell.

  That can’t happen. Pandora scoffed. You and your imagination. Humans are so silly with that.

  You are a demon from another realm, I think I have the okay to start thinking that the crazy just might be possible.

  Yeah, maybe, but let me tell you right now, it’s not glittery-vampire possible. You got to keep those feet somewhat grounded, or you’ll be chasing down faeries and talking to invisible trolls.

  Katie just ignored her, seeing that the guys were down on the street waiting for her. They were getting their gear ready, and more demons were pouring out of the front door. She kicked the stuff off the floor around her and walked back to the center of the room, then ran toward the window. She drew Tom and Harry, firing both as she coiled and leapt through the opening the bullets created a split second before she hit the glass.

  As soon as she cleared the window her wings appeared. She flapped them once, twice, the powerful beats sending a gust of warm air down to the ground. She turned a tight somersault in the air and raised Tom and Harry again and fired, hitting the closest window as she turned her body to go through.

  Ohhhh nooo! Pandora grimaced. Please for the love of Lucifer don’t miss. It will fucking hurt, be embarrassing as shit, and then we will go splat on the ground as a not too funny encore. I don’t want to have to put your entire body back together in a dirty alley in Brooklyn.

  Katie aimed and closed her eyes, ducking her head as her wings collapsed and she flew through the now open window. She rolled as soon as she was inside, tucking her body as she hit the floor. She whirled around on the hardwood, her body spinning as she crashed into the wall on the opposite side of the room.

  Well, that was fucking graceful.

  Hey, I landed, didn’t I?

  Pandora sniffed. Kind of. I still think we should have done it without the wings.

  Katie groaned and pulled herself to her feet, listening to the screams tearing through the hallways. The apartment she was in was empty, which was good because she really didn’t want to put anyone else in danger. She looked back out of the broken window at the guys, who were just figuring that was their cue.

  She turned back around on instinct, just as her body was wracked by a pulse that began in her chest and exploded outward around her.

  All the glass around her disintegrated

  What in the hell was that? What? Are you a fucking Avenger now or something?

  Wasn’t that you?

  Uh, no. I don’t do weird alien Superman shit like that.

  Huh, it must have been my angelic powers then. That’s pretty fucking cool.

  Oh yeah, sure until you go out there and find all the humans have turned to dust or something fucking weird like that. I’m telling you, these angels aren’t as angelic as you really think they are. They aren’t above dishing out some collateral damage to get their point across.

  I can feel the energy around us, Pandora. They are still alive, and so are the fucking demons. From the sound of it though, they don't like it too much.

  Katie walked out of the bedroom and flung the front door open. She cringed at the sound of demons screeching in agony all around her. Wherever they were, anything demonic in the range of her energy discharge didn’t like it too much. It was like she had the same power that her special metal ammunition had, only it was inside of her body.

  She stepped out into the hallway and looked down at the staircase at the end of the hall. She started to run but slowed as the sound of screaming got louder. There was an open apartment door to the right and she peered around, finding two demons writhing on the floor, holding their claws over their ears and clenching their eyes tightly shut.

  She stepped inside, stopping with a hand to her chest when she saw the entire family dead on the ground. She knelt by the body of the daughter and touched her fingers to the little girl’s eyes to close them.

  Katie gritted her teeth, and her eyes glowed red. She stood up and stomped over to the demons. She used her momentum to pack a little extra into the foot she planted in the demon’s balls. Katie continued to kick him, each strike calculated to cause the most damage.

  “You sick sonsofbitches, you come to my motherfucking world and kill my motherfucking people? This is what happens to pieces of child-killing shit. How does that feel, you dick-sucking asswipe?” She punctuated each word with another kick or stamp, and the demon was mostly a smear on the floor by this point.

  I hate to break this up, it’s rather enjoyable to watch, but I have to tell you, there are about a gazillion other demons and humans that actually are still alive.

  Katie kicked the demon one more time, her chest heaving from the effort. She wiped the sweat off her forehead and pulled a large knife from her waistband. She grabbed the first demon and turned him toward the second, pulling his head back to expose his neck. She sliced the demon’s neck and threw him to the floor, then grabbed the other by the shoulder. Holding it up in front of her, she sunk the knife into its gut and sliced up through its chest and into its throat, spilling its sludgy entrails all over the floor.

  That stain is never going to come out.

  Katie shook her head and tossed the demon to the floor, turning and taking one last look at the little girl while the beasts turned to ash. She walked back out of the apartment and took a deep breath to get her emotions back under control. She was livid, angrier about the death of that little girl than she had been about anything in a long time. It was running through her veins, the revenge, the anger, the bitterness. She could feel the angelic side of things pushing back against it, but she wasn’t going to let it go.

  She sensed a demon across the hall. She pulled out her pistol and stomped over kicking the door straight off the hinges. There was a mother and her child crying and shaking in the corner and a demon was stalking them, his big claws out and ready to strike. She raised Tom and pulled the trigger, and the demon’s head exploded all over the wall. The mother shielded her daughter from the sight and waited for the demon to turn to ash before picking her up and running toward Katie.

  “Thank you so much,” she cried.

  Katie nodded. “Go down to the third door on your left, it is an empty apartment. There is a broken window with a fire escape. Get out of the building, but make sure they see you when you are coming down. There are cops ready to take care of you.”

  The woman nodded, and the little girl turned, looking up at Katie. There was a flash of red in the little girl’s eyes, but she smiled, reaching out to touch Katie’s face. Katie was stunned as they raced down for the empty apartment, never before having seen a child so young infected.
>
  Looks like they are starting them young now.

  I don’t even have words for that.

  Probably better. There is a lot of ass to kick, and we are running out of time.

  Katie jetted down to the staircase and looked up and down making sure there was nothing bigger than her or equal to her anywhere around. The demons were fleeing which was strange to her. She shook her head ready for anything, heading down the stairs to find the others and shut this portal to hell before it was too late.

  Brock and the gang plowed through the bottom floor, taking down six demons just as they entered into the large open entryway. A couple of the guys grabbed several metal pipes from a pile of renovation tools in the corner and slid them through the doors to impede the demons’ exit. They looked at the doorway leading to the basement, the door knocked off the hinges and waves of heat shimmered in the air. The paint on the walls all around them was dripping with sweat, and the floors were hot even through their shoes.

  A demon shot out of the top of the door, then clung to the ceiling and scurried across. All five men pointed their weapons and opened fire, taking the demon down. One by one they shot demons trying to escape the basement. There didn’t seem to be a lot of them coming at one time, which made it easy to keep them from entering the high-rise.

  “This isn’t so bad. Are we sure the gate is as big as we think it is?” one of the guys asked.

  Suddenly the ground began to shake, and dust cascaded from the walls. All five men turned and stared at the doorway leading downstairs to the basement. They could hear the roars of hundreds of demons echoing as they swarmed up the stairs and walls toward the door. The same guy looked at the others and lifted an eyebrow. “That can’t be a good sign.”

  Suddenly a flood of demons came rushing out of the door and burst out into the space. Several of them ran right into the glass like pigeons while others roared and screeched as they pulled on the front doors. The guys just shook their heads and started shooting, backing up to each other to cover every angle. It was like shooting apples in a barrel at that point there were so many of them. The floor was coated with a thick layer of demon ash, but there were so many of them Brock and his team were getting swamped.

  Brock shouted to be heard above the squall, “We have to move or we are going to be overwhelmed. I don’t know where Katie is, but they are coming faster than we can take them down.”

  “There’s no place to go! Katie is pushing down, we are just killing!”

  The sound of gunfire and crashing glass was all around them, and they stared wildly as the demons spun around the room, jumping over others as they turned to ash. It was the craziest thing Brock had ever seen. He pulled his finger off the trigger for a moment and looked around, noticing that it wasn’t a normal attack.

  “Guys, guys, stop shooting for just a second.”

  One by one the guys stopped shooting and looked around them. Brock sighed in confusion and turned toward the men.

  “They aren’t coming for us, just shoot them as they go by. Don’t let them out the front doors or into the upper stairwell!”

  The guys started working to slow down the hordes, knocking them down as they attempted to escape one way or another. However, as the guys aimed at a surge coming through the doorway to the basement, three of them to the right changed course, heading straight for them. All five of the guys turned, forming a line and blasting into the charging demons. They started to surge, joining the attackers coming at the guys like a wave.

  Brock unslung his automatic rifle from his back and planted his feet into the ground. He focused and pulled the trigger spraying bullets back and forth across the surge until every last demon fell to the ground in a huge pile of ash. The guys stopped shooting, the other demons still running around them and stared at Brock. He wiped his forehead and took the gun strap from around his neck, tossing it to the ground.

  “What? Sometimes you need more than skill and luck. Sometimes you just need to pump the motherfuckers full of bullets.”

  Just then another demon jumped from the adjacent wall with his claws out at Brock. Brock rolled his eyes, raised his sidearm, and shot the demon.

  Don’t they ever learn? They make me ashamed to be a demon.

  The demon groaned and then fell to the ground, turning to ash as he hit the floor. The guys tilted their heads at Brock and then cheered, finding that he was becoming more badass with every passing moment.

  A couple of floors above them they could hear Katie’s huge guns blasting away demons. They continued to fight, thinning out the horde as they continued to pour through the door to the basement. They knew they were going to have to go downstairs and somehow close the portal, but there was no way in hell they were doing it without Katie. They were badasses, but they weren’t sure what would be crawling out of that portal at any minute.

  “This isn’t quite what I thought when you said a good time in New York,” one of the guys shouted. “But fuck if I am not having a damn good time. I will definitely have my fill of demon heads by the end of all of this.”

  Brock chuckled and killed a couple more demons before reloading his pistol. “At least we can say we helped New York City while we were here.”

  “All I know is this better get you fucking laid.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Katie thought that finding the others was a hell of an idea, if she could get out of the fucking stairwell first. As soon as she started moving down the stairs to the fourth floor, a demon dropped down in front of her, snarling and swiping his claws at her. She rolled her eyes and kicked him hard in the chest, sending him stumbling down a few steps to the landing. He continued to growl and snarl, putting both sets of claws up in the air and waiting for a fight. Katie had neither time nor patience, she wanted to get this the hell over. All the rest of the demons that were around were running like they had a bus to catch, but not this fool.

  Katie reached back and pulled out two halves of her staff. She pressed the buttons, and the blades flipped. She smiled, tapping the metal against the railing of the stairs. The demon continued to snarl, finally swiping his claw outward. Katie swung a staff, slicing the demon’s arm off above the elbow. The limb fell to the ground, and thick black blood squirted everywhere. Katie leaned back to avoid the spray, watching for a moment as the demon snarled and screamed and then regained its composure, lunging toward her. She moved to the right as the demon flew past, landing on the steps and then turning quickly around.

  She swung her staff again, this time she struck the demon in the neck. The blade stuck in his throat.

  Katie sighed and applied her foot to the demon’s chest to dislodge it. The staff finally dislodged, and she stumbled backward onto the platform below. The demon glared at her with wide red eyes before bursting into dust.

  “This just couldn’t be simple, could it?”

  When she opened the door to Level Four, she stood back as the demons churned past, paying her absolutely no mind at all. She tilted her head when she caught sight of a straggler that looked more like an orangutan. The oddly-shaped demon fell a little farther behind, and Katie saw the leg it was busy eating.

  Katie stepped out from the stairwell and cleared her throat, which didn’t get the demon’s attention.

  “AHEM!” she yelled.

  The demon slowly turned, its eyes blaring red. Katie chuckled at its huge belly and short legs.

  “Where you going?”

  The demon snarled and turned to continue on after the others, but Katie was not going to be ignored. She drew one of her small throwing knives and flung it to stick in the demon’s back. The demon stopped and reached back with an overly long arm to pull the knife out, then turned with a speed that belied its odd frame and threw it back at her.

  Katie dropped her staff and caught the knife between her palms right before it struck her in the eye. “Look at you, a crazy little fucker. Have you met Tom?”

  The demon tilted his head at her and blinked vacantly. Katie pulled Tom from
its holster and pulled the trigger, blowing the strange little demon’s head right off its shoulders. The round body wobbled back and forth before collapsing into a pile of dust.

  Katie turned around and headed down toward the bottom floor. She was almost hit by several demons that busted through the second-floor door, making a run for it. She walked onto the floor and looked up and down the hallway. The lights flickered, and Katie caught sight of one apartment door that was wide open.

  A little girl, frozen with fear, crouched on the floor in the doorway, her hands in her mouth as she tried to stifle her hitching sobs. Just as Katie relaxed her shoulders, a paw swung down from the ceiling, knocking the gun from her hand. The demon dropped onto Katie, and the two tumbled across the ground as Katie worked to bring its arms under control.

  The terrified little girl‘s feet scrabbled against the floor as she tried to push herself backward.

  Katie kept her eyes on the fight but called over some reassurance for the child. “Just one moment sweetie...ouch.” The demon clipped her cheek with its claw, opening a hot line across the skin of her cheek.

  Just as fast as it was torn, Pandora closed it. Katie smashed her forehead into the demon’s nose and then thrust upward with her hips to fling it off. It landed in an ungainly heap against the wall and Katie flipped to her feet and kicked it in the face for good measure.

  “What is with the heavy-assed demons tonight? What are they feeding them down there?”

  Probably a high protein diet of fried chinchillas and human thighs.

  I’m sorry I asked.

  The demon stood up and leapt at Katie and she darted for her weapon, tucking into a roll to avoid the demon’s claws. She scooped Tom up from the floor and rolled over on her back as the demon soared overhead, aimed for its head on her next breath, and pulled the trigger. The demon fell on Katie’s legs before turning to ash. She grimaced, shaking the grit from her legs and pushing herself to her feet.