“Hey! You!” Carsis yelled, turning the monster away from the pile of rubble. He broke out into a full sprint, turning the corner on the Berlin Wall. The dragon followed, and I had my chance.
“DJ, come on, you ain’t dying here,” I said as I clawed at the debris. “Come on! Come on!”
But it seemed like the pile of rubble extended down to hell itself, and that I had only made about a foot of progress… when I needed to make about two dozen feet just to reach where DJ might be. This was starting to feel hopeless.
I refused to believe it. I hadn’t died yet, despite some dangerously messy situations. I had survived some crazy ordeals, and DJ had the same amount of toughness—or at least, good enough toughness to get through this.
But the nagging sense in my head…
“DJ! Come on! Damnit, you are not—”
The rubble shifted.
No, it wasn’t just shifting.
Suddenly, bursting from the pile of rocks, DJ’s dragon form rose, crying out with a tremendous roar. Frankly, he didn’t look good—his right eye was shut and swollen, he had cuts all over his scales, and one wing looked tattered. Carsis was right. I was so thankful that he was alive, but I sure as hell wasn’t going to keep him in a battle like this.
“We have to go! DJ!”
DJ looked down at me, and I could see the resentment in his one good eye. The problem for him, though, was I could hear the chase behind me, and the blood dragon was nowhere near defeated. Nothing DJ could do would change my mind.
“Shift back to human form! Now!”
I said this not as a plea, but as a command. Even in a battle as stressful as this, I was not to be denied. DJ gave one last roar, then changed back.
“Sonya—” DJ began.
“Shut up,” I said. Talk could wait later. “Carsis!”
“Go, I’ll get out of here myself!”
I grimaced but, as callous as it sounded, wasn’t worried. Carsis had enough skill that I trusted him to get out alive. And if he didn’t… well, I could learn magic on my own. I didn’t need help to learn everything. It wouldn’t be the first time I became self-taught.
Quickly, I opened a portal and grabbed DJ. His clothes were in tatters, his right eye was purple and shut, and he walked with a limp. So rather than waiting for him to walk to the portal, I shoved him through, ignoring his cries of pain from putting too much weight on his bum ankle.
“Carsis!” I yelled, giving him one last chance.
But instead of coming to me, Carsis went down a side alley instead. The blood dragon, hearing me, ignored Carsis, reared back and fired a pillar of flames.
“Yeah, I’m hot enough, thanks,” I said as I dove through the portal.
When I emerged, I found DJ on the ground, on his hands and knees, coughing up blood. I felt uncomfortably thankful that the demon attack had happened earlier, since it ensured that no one saw us emerging in as public a place as this. At least, I didn’t see anyone in the area.
Then a cackle filled my head.
“You fled again,” Paul said. I looked to DJ to see if he reacted, but he gave no indication he had heard anything. “I am not surprised. Your friend is on the run right now, but it won’t be long until we capture him. And we still have dearest Brady in our hold, begging to see you. Well, I wonder how he will feel when he knows that he got to see you… and you fled like the coward you are.”
The laugh again filled my ears.
“It has become clear, Sonya, that you will not act unless we raise the stakes a little. So here is the deal right now. You have until 11 p.m. tomorrow evening to come to me and surrender. If you do not do so at that time, I will unleash demons upon this entire city. You do not know what an army of hell looks like Sonya. And if you doubt it, just ask the Dark Lord.”
I rolled my eyes. Mundus wouldn’t attack unless he felt sure he could defeat—
“Indeed, I will grant him a legion,” Mundus said. I shivered. “I grow tired of waiting for the right moment. The battle today has tested the strength of my demons. You are powerful, Sonya, but you are not powerful enough to take down an entire legion. The forces of heaven will tremble before our might!”
I didn’t get scared often, but there was something terrifyingly intimidating about hearing the king of the underworld warn you that the Spirit War would begin in just a day and a half.
“Now you know, Sonya,” Paul said.
Nothing more came after that. I remained in a state of shock for a few moments, disturbed at the future, until I started to hear DJ moan. I went over and dragged him to a wall, propping him against it.
“Maybe next time you should worry about picking on someone not twenty times your own size,” I said, teasing as I examined him.
“Says the girl who took on something five hundred times her size,” DJ said, grimacing when I placed my hand on a sensitive spot. “At least this was within reason.”
“I think you need glasses like mine,” I said, and we shared a short laugh.
But the laugh soon vanished when I heard the sound of sirens. I tried to drag DJ, but he was so weak and tired he couldn’t move. It became a moot point, anyways, when a cop car pulled up directly in front of us.
“Sonya Ferguson,” a familiar voice said as Janet emerged from the car. “Come with me, I have questions for you.”
Janet? The cop from the spirit realm?
She approached without a weapon or an authoritative stance, but a casual walk. She crouched before DJ.
“Bad?”
“Like what you encountered,” I said. I gulped. “Will he get help if I go with you?”
“I promise I will help him,” she said. “I need your help, Sonya. I feel like I saw something world-changing today, but don’t know how to handle it. I need your help filling in the gaps. I need your help to prepare this city for whatever comes next.”
I really didn’t like this idea. Every minute spent not planning on rescuing Brady, fighting the dragon, and ending Paul’s rampage was a minute wasted.
But the alternative was pissing off a cop who knew about my actions and activities, and the last thing I needed was someone willing to talk about what had happened. Maybe Janet wouldn’t have talked after I saved her, but I had to assume the worst. Besides, maybe she could help prepare Berlin if that onslaught of demons came.
I helped DJ get in the back seat of the car. As a sign of trust, Janet let me sit up front. She began driving us presumably to the police headquarters, where hopefully I could both get some reinforcements and not spread panic in Berlin.
Chapter 12
Janet drove me in silence. I kept glancing at the bloody Australian in the backseat. Despite DJ’s ugly wounds, he kept himself in good spirits, telling stupid jokes about Australia and crazy stories from some of his book tours. I kept hearing short snorts of laughter from Janet and felt more at ease.
When Janet stopped, we had not come to the headquarters of the police department, nor anything that resembled a business or government agency of any kind. Instead, we came to a small apartment building, maybe four stories high.
“I am on the first floor, so it will not be painful for your friend.”
I helped DJ out of the car and let him sling his arm over my shoulder. He still had the severe limp, but he pushed through it, ignoring the obvious pain and tenderness not just of the ankle but all the other scars. For some reason, I just imagined him as a bruised pirate with his swollen eye and snorted in laughter.
“What’s so funny?” DJ asked.
“That’s for me to know and you not to, for once,” I said with an obvious and slow wink, my eye staying shut for a good couple seconds.
When we entered the apartment, Janet immediately took the flight of stairs ahead of us.
“I thought you said it’s the first floor,” I called out.
“It is. First floor.”
I looked at her inquisitively before I remembered. First floor in America meant ground floor. First floor in Europe meant the first floo
r above ground level. Well now I have to carry this guy up. Guess it’s my leg workout for the day.
I’m pretty sure a couple of times DJ intentionally pushed his weight on me, making life more difficult, but I just playfully threatened to drop him and let him climb himself. He always did his part right after. After climbing the stairs, Janet opened apartment No. 114.
“So close,” I said.
Janet didn’t register my comment as she invited DJ to relax on a bed. I laid DJ down and kissed him on the cheek.
“Next time you fight another dragon, make sure you don’t get thrown around like a mouse in a cat’s mouth.”
“Next time you say cross into a portal, make sure there are no dragons!”
We teased each other a bit more before Janet returned with some first aid materials. Asking for privacy so she could concentrate, I went into the living room as I heard some grunts, gasps of pain, but then gentle relief. Janet’s time in there lasted maybe five minutes, but when she emerged, she did not look concerned.
“Your friend is just in pain and has an injured ankle, nothing more,” Janet said. “It does not look good on the outside, but I suspect there was not a lot of internal damage.”
“Dude’s a beast,” I deadpanned.
“Forgive me, would you like some coffee?” Janet said.
She got some black coffee for me, making it in silence, as I glanced out the window of her place. It led straight to more apartment buildings, but at least it seemed like we’d found some privacy here. When I became bored, I asked her how she had experienced the events.
“Funny thing about that. I was just helping on my day off. Of course, being in uniform meant I had to uphold the standards, but that was no problem. But it just felt like someone put a firm hand on my shoulder and next thing I know, I was surrounded by these monsters.”
The way she described it…
“Janet, do you have a mark on your shoulder?”
“A mark?”
“Like a tattoo. Like this?”
I showed her mine, which had gone a dull red. But to my surprise, Janet shrugged and said she did not. Then again, maybe it shouldn’t have been a surprise. Tyrus had marked me deliberately, not by accident when I fell into the spirit realm.
“In any case, Sonya, I grabbed you because I need some information from you, and I cannot do it at the police academy. I need to know from you, Sonya, what the level of threat is. I am not going to hold you here for more than another half hour, and your friend will be fine by then. I just told him to rest, to take a nap. But I need to know what’s going on so I can prepare effectively. I can’t just let you walk out of here without anything.”
My story sounded so ludicrous in my head. I tried to imagine what would’ve happened if I’d told this tale to myself, let alone a foreign policewoman, a week ago. Hey, just so you know, you’re going to get caught in a war between heaven and hell—yes, those places are real, by the way—and you’re going to be the primary target of the devil because you’re half demon. Oh, right, your mom was a demon. Yeah, I don’t like to think about it either. And you have to fight them in the streets of some pretty big cities.
But if anyone believed me, it was the woman who had helped me kill a couple of the demons. So I went ahead and told her everything.
Well, not quite everything. I didn’t tell her why Paul Stephens hated my guts so much, and why I would never be able to let go or forgive myself for what I had done. But that was irrelevant to Janet. What mattered was that there was a massive dragon demon on the other side, a horde of demons was coming, and it would happen at 11 p.m. tomorrow.
“So let me ask you this, then,” Janet said, a shocking lack of emotion in her voice. She’s better trained than I at emotional control! “Is there any way to prevent the attack on Berlin?”
“Sort of,” I began. “The demon Paul wants me to surrender by then to Mundus. If I do that, he will spare Berlin. But if not, he’s going to literally unleash hell on this city. But if he doesn’t get the chance to because I take him out first, well, Mundus should pull back.”
Should. I don’t really have a basis for that answer other than blind hope.
Janet crossed her arms. I didn’t like that sign.
“If what you say is true, then we have a little over 30 hours before the demons strike. That’s 30 hours that you can use to strike first, to prevent them from coming up, and prevent the world from panicking over a full blown war against demons.”
“Exactly right,” I said.
“If that is the case, I will inform the department that we should stay alert for a possible terrorist threat tomorrow evening. That will be vague enough to prepare the department without drawing unwanted criticism and attention.”
“Understood.”
“However, it goes without saying that I am relying on you to defeat the demons. If we carry on with this, then we cannot prepare to defend ourselves with all our forces before tomorrow evening. Such mass mobilization will draw eyes, suspicion, and panic from the populace. And the last thing we need is unnecessary panic in a city this large and this diverse. I will have to trust that you can win this battle before 11 p.m. Because if you don’t, a relatively defenseless city will be waiting to be destroyed by demons.”
I knew all this. What Janet said were things that I had already internalized and accepted.
But hearing her say it gave it a different gravitas. Janet was putting her entire city on the line, trusting me to carry out this task. I wasn’t just rescuing five good friends—I was defending just under five million people.
That was a tall order, but damn if I wasn’t prepared for it. I would, somehow, someway, defeat Paul. I would rescue Brady. And I would make sure no demons bit or killed any more Germans. For Brady’s sake.
“Know this about me, Janet,” I said. “I don’t fail. If I fail, it’s because I died. And I won’t die. You’re the best option I’ve got.”
“Then please don’t fail us. You may go whenever you wish.”
Now. Sorry DJ. Rest later.
I went into the bedroom, said “Wake up, pretty boy,” and let DJ walk to me. We headed out together before Janet stopped me at the door.
“What can I do to help? I am still off today but recognize the danger at hand.”
The answer came to mind immediately.
“There’s a house in the Marzhan neighborhood where we are staying. It has a porch with two yellow chairs. A red bird feeder. Protect it. Patrol it. Do whatever you need to without being suspicious. It’s a house with us, two British brothers and a lesbian couple from Australia. The last time I had something like this, the demons took my friends hostage. I’m counting on you, if you want to help, to protect them. I’m not sure if demons will respect the badge, but at least it will send the signal we are aware of their presence.”
“I will,” Janet said, and the confidence with which she spoke assured me. I thanked her and then led DJ out.
“So day two in Berlin,” I teased DJ as we slowly climbed down the stairs. “We bump into a marathon, save a policewoman, visit the Berlin Wall, and you get yourself injured. Nice job.”
“Hey, I didn’t say it was a dream date.”
Now that the marathon had ended, all of public transportation had resumed, and we used it to return to the house. I kept a close watch for demons still, but perhaps satisfied with what they had accomplished today, we didn’t run into any trouble. If anything, DJ’s appearance pushed other people away. Who’d want to sit next to someone who looked like they’d gone a dozen rounds with Mike Tyson?
A welcoming sight awaited us when we reached the house—a police car sitting right up front. I gave the shortest of nods to the car, and while it was too far away for me to see who was inside, it didn’t take a lot of guessing to figure out who. We should bring her along wherever we go next. This crew needs more estrogen.
Just before the steps, DJ grabbed my arm gently.
“What’s up?”
“Sonya, before we go insi
de, if you want… I want to know what happened. What was Paul talking about back there?”
I grimaced. I’d never revisited this story in the level of detail that I knew DJ would want to hear. Not even Brady had heard my perspective—he had just gotten the official debriefing on what had happened, but that didn’t deal with what I had seen or my emotions. I knew that when I started to tell this story, I would probably cry from a combination of grieving and shame.
But maybe it would be good to get it all out. I’d only thought of the story in bits and pieces, letting the images and the moments flash by. I needed to replay the story in its entirety… so I could understand what I was fighting against. I had to also remember it fully so I could never forget and never made the same mistake twice.
“Paul… he was my first mentor in the CIA. He wasn’t in charge of overall training, per se, but he came to teach us how to blend in in a new environment. Cultural camouflage, he called it. Not wearing a uniform that made you blend in with your surroundings, but wearing clothing that made you blend in with the populace, taking on customs and the language of the locals, and so on. During the class, he took a special liking to me. Not in any weird way, he just told me that I had a lot of spunk and a lot of talent. I think he could also pick up that I’d had a childhood full of grieving and isolation. I have nothing to back this up, but my gut tells me that he connected to that.”
Until I’d spoken that, I’d forgotten that detail. I still had no proof of believing it, but the cliche opposites attract generally proved false for a reason.
“In the beginning of my training, I was something of a loose cannon. Not that I put people in danger—they wouldn’t let me get into dangerous situations for many months—but that when we did field exercises, I would freelance. I would talk back to my teachers and superiors. Paul was the only one who wouldn’t yell, ever. And, perhaps not coincidentally, he was the only one who molded me from a brat who didn’t trust anyone into someone who could channel their anger and emotions into something powerful. When the time came to deploy for our first mission, he was my partner.”
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