Chapter 31
Haatim ran as fast as he could away from the church and the gray demon chasing him, dodging overgrown sections and struggling to breathe.
Unsure what the hell had just gone on or what those creatures might be, he did know they would prove too much for him to handle alone. More importantly, he had no idea how they would stop them, if even possible.
Though he still held onto his gun, it felt woefully inadequate for such a situation. He sucked in breaths of air, trying to get his body under control, and kept running. Dominick had taught him how to control his fear; though nothing he had taught him seemed to apply to a situation like this.
Actually coming here, facing creatures he couldn’t understand and that shouldn’t exist, didn’t seem like something a breathing exercise would fix.
Haatim could feel it pursuing him while he weaved through the old and decrepit buildings. He ducked around tight corners and small passageways, hoping to create some distance from the demon, but it ran quickly. It didn’t seem too adept at handling sharp corners, but on a straightaway, it moved much faster than he could and made up the ground.
He tried to control himself and remember the other situation in his life where he’d faced something terrible and remained unafraid. In Raven’s Peak, when he faced down the demon that tried to kill Abigail, he hadn’t experienced much fear at all. Belphegor had possessed a small child and wreaked unimaginable havoc on the nearby factory, but even then, Haatim hadn’t experienced trepidation like this.
Of course, he’d also had divine help and confidence. Now, however, every fiber in his being threatened to lock up in terror, and he saw through tunnel vision from lack of oxygen to his brain.
He’d fought down his fear back then because he’d known he would overcome that threat and win the day. However, Nida had shown him his weakness and mortality back in Cambodia. He didn’t have any of that same confidence in himself anymore.
Simply fighting back his fear wouldn’t work, and he couldn’t keep running away. Eventually, the monster would catch him. Haatim needed another strategy. He ducked around a building and put his back to the wall, out of the creature’s sight.
There, he closed his eyes and focused purely on his terror, pushing all other thoughts out of his mind. Though the creature continued to come after him, he couldn’t stand up against it if he couldn’t get his mind under control.
To that end, he forced the image of the creature out of his thoughts as well, but with less success. He couldn’t get its spindly body, talons, jagged teeth, and hollow eyes out of his mind. Determined, he focused on relaxing and regaining control of his raging emotions, and eventually, reclaimed his thoughts. Instead of a giant gray monster, he pictured it as a human, just a big ugly human with claws.
A terrible shriek ripped through the air, maybe ten meters behind him. It sounded raw, visceral, and wholly inhuman. So much for imagining it as just a man. Haatim’s eyes popped open, and it felt like the scream had cut through his skin and gone directly for his heart. All of his fear came back in a wild rush, and he stood breathless once more.
Haatim let out a sobbing sound, gritted his teeth, and then took off running again. He didn’t go far, though, before he decided he needed to try something else. With steeled resolve, he waited until the creature stepped into sight behind him, between two buildings.
It noticed him standing there and froze in place. The way it simply stopped moving looked unnatural and wrong, and unlike anything he’d ever seen before. The creature stood perfectly still, just watching him. He fired off three rounds from his pistol. The first one went wide, over the monster’s shoulder, but the next two thudded cleanly into the torso. They blasted it, staggering the creature, and Haatim let out an exclamation of joy. It stumbled back a step, and for a second, he thought he had hurt it.
Then, it shrieked again. This time, the sound came louder and angrier, and he had to cover his ears with his hands. The creature stood up straight, eyes boring into Haatim, and then charged forward once more.
“Uh-oh,” Haatim yelped.
He tried to duck back, but the creature came too fast. It lunged forward, only a meter away, and Haatim couldn’t avoid its talons as they came swinging down at him.
Suddenly, an enormous explosive crack sounded next to his ear. He jerked away from it, falling to the ground and crying out in pain.
Then he rolled, pushing himself up. Frieda stood where he just had. She held a ten-gauge shotgun, which she’d just fired at the creature, barrel still smoking.
The creature lay on the ground a few meters back, unmoving and with smoke pouring off its body. It looked like the shot had blasted it a fair ways.
Shaky, Haatim climbed to his feet, still clutching his ringing ear and checking to see if it bled.
“Blessed salt pellets,” Frieda said, pumping the gun and chambering another round.
“What did you say?” He turned his head so that his other ear faced her.
“Never mind.”
“Is it dead?” he asked.
The body on the ground twitched. They watched as it picked itself up again. Frieda fired once more, blasting it to the ground, but after only seconds, it continued climbing to a standing position.
“Apparently not.”
“What do we do now?” Haatim asked.
She glanced sideways at him, “Run.”
***
Dominick hoped that Haatim remained all right. He’d seen him come into the church—against the plan—and then sprint back out with one of the demons in tow. Frieda had joined him out there, but the kid had gotten into trouble.
However, he couldn’t worry about that just now. He had a job to do, and at least one of the monster demons had come out of the church now. He glanced over at Abigail, waving to get her attention, but she didn’t even look at him. She had a worried look on her face, and looked distant and lost in her thoughts.
This made for the perfectly wrong time for her to lose focus. They didn’t have a lot of leeway to get this taken care of, and he couldn’t wait around for her to get ready. He sighed in frustration, drew his pistol, and then stepped away from the church.
He ran toward the window and dove, gliding nimbly through the opening and landing inside the building. After a roll, he came up firing.
His first shot, he aimed at Nida, but she ducked and slipped behind the cultists. They moved quickly, forming a wall in front of her, blocking her from Dominick like a human shield wall. That didn’t bother him, though. He fired into the group, and one-by-one, they fell to the ground. However, as one fell, another would move to stand between Dominick and Nida, keeping her protected.
He tried circling the group to get a clear shot, but it proved of no use. He kept firing until his clip emptied, and by the time he’d done, a pile of bodies lay in the center of the room, pooling blood. And still, he hadn’t managed to get a clear shot at Nida.
His target came out from behind the pile of dying cultists, grinning at him. Thus far, the other monster in the corner hadn’t moved, awaiting her command.
“Dominick. I feared you wouldn’t make it.”
“Wouldn’t miss this.”
“Of course not. And where, might I ask, is Abigail?”
Before he could stop himself, he glanced up to the roof where Abigail hid. She still looked distracted, barely even seeming to notice the fight happening below.
Nida followed his gaze, and her smile widened. “Ah, there you are!”
She gestured, shattering the roof beneath Abigail with a telekinetic blast. Abigail fell but landed on her feet about two meters to Dominick’s right.
“Welcome,” Nida said. “After I lost you in Cambodia, I felt afraid you would become difficult to track down. It pleases me that you remained willing to come here to me.”
Abigail shook her head, and her eyes glowed red. “You’re wrong.”
“About what?”
“Arthur. I can bring him back.”
Nida made a tsking sound. “I’m sorry, love, but you can’t. He’s trapped in hell and has no escape. All of that about him coming through the portal? I made it up.”
“I will save him.”
“No,” Nida said. “You will join him.”
She reached a hand out, into the air, and then made a clenching motion. Abigail staggered, letting out a gasping sound and falling to her knees. She clutched at her throat, eyes wide and mouth open.
Dominick ejected the clip, slid another one out of his coat pocket, and jammed it in place. He chambered another round and came up firing—the entire maneuver taking less than two seconds.
Nida’s arm flashed, her other hand coming up, and Dominick watched in horror as the bullets stopped in mid-air, hovering in between them. He’d only fired off three rounds when he realized they didn’t have any effect.
They held there for about four seconds before falling to the ground.
“I apologize, but I am both out of time and patience for you.” Nida swung her hand through the air, and all of a sudden, Dominick found himself airborne. He smashed into and through the wall of the church, flying another ten meters through the air before crashing hard to the ground outside.
He let out a groan and rolled over, staggering to his feet. His entire body ached, but he had somehow managed to keep his grip on his pistol.
He looked back at the church. The second monster came out after him, knocking the rest of the wall out of its way and waving its talons in the air. It stopped in the open hole in the wall and let out a shriek.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
***
The monster came charging out of the church at him, waving its talons and bending over as it ran. Though fast, they seemed awkward creatures, and it had its head mostly down as it came, making it difficult for it to see.
Or, Dominick realized, maybe it did it for another reason. What if the creature didn’t protect its face by accident, but rather, did so on purpose?
He fired off a few quick shots, aiming for the head. The body loomed large and easy to hit, but the face didn’t offer that big a target at all. Normally, he wouldn’t have made that the first target he aimed for; however, shooting it anywhere else on the body had little or no effect.
He missed with the first shot. The second one ricocheted off the creature’s face, and he groaned in frustration, setting his stance and sighting in. The creature stood only a few meters away now, and he would only get one more try.
The third proved the charm: he hit the monster squarely in the left eye.
It staggered to the side, off-balance, and let out a piercing scream. This time, however, it came from pain, and Dominick breathed a sigh of relief when he discovered he could hurt the thing. If it could get hurt, then it could also get killed.
He turned the creature’s hesitation into a chance to back away and create some distance. Somehow, the monster managed to keep its feet and continue running forward, but it moved more slowly now, more cautiously, and used its talons to block its face.
“Aim for the eyes,” he called to no one in particular. He doubted Haatim or Frieda could hear him on the opposite side of the church, but he still felt the need to say it if only so he didn’t feel so alone.
He continued to backpedal away from the creature, sighting in and taking his time to aim. When the monster blocked its face, it couldn’t see him either, so he expected that it would try to wave its hands around and peer through to track him.
Dominick timed it, waited, and then pulled the trigger. This time, his bullet ripped into the other eye, blinding the creature. It screamed again and charged forward wildly, waving its talons at anything and everything it could. Without eyes, though, it couldn’t aim at him, but rather, at where he had stood.
He sidestepped, shifting quietly, and then ducked under a wild swing. The creature kept going, rushing past him and continuing further into the town. It stopped about five meters on, freezing into place in the eerie way it did, becoming a statue once more. It stood listening for him. He held perfectly still, refusing even to breathe.
All at once, the creature screamed again, spun in circles, and tilted its head, still listening for him. He didn’t know how well it could hear, and so he moved slowly, backing up toward the church and getting distance from it.
It continued to spin, searching for him, and then a loud gunshot echoed from the other side of the church. The thing spun in that direction, hissed, and then took off charging after the sound.
Dominick waited until it got out of sight, and then let out the breath he’d held. He rushed back to the church, which crumbled as more of it got destroyed.
He came to the hole that his body had created. However, he didn’t go inside. Instead, he peered in. Abigail knelt on the ground, though she no longer clutched her throat.
Nida stood over her and rubbed her hair. Abigail had her arms crossed over her chest and rocked back and forth, eyes closed. Streaks of liquid ran down her face and clothes, and it looked like blood. He couldn’t tell if it came from her, though, or something else.
He had no idea what he witnessed, but he wouldn’t let Nida finish whatever she stood doing to Abigail. He stepped up into the room and fired; this time, catching Nida off-guard.
The bullet thudded into her leg, staggering her, and she turned and hissed at Dominick. He fired again, but she dove to the side and landed on all fours, scrambling out of the front door.
He moved to follow, but then Abigail let out a gasping whimper. Instead, he rushed over to her and put an arm around her shoulder, steadying her. The blood didn’t belong to her. It looked as if Nida had poured it over her head. Where it touched her bare skin, it sizzled and let off steam.
“Abigail? What happened? What’s going on?”
No response. He held her for a second, having no clue what Nida had done to her and unsure what he could do to help. At a loss, he rubbed off the blood, starting with her face and arms. It clung, however, and seemed almost like it had absorbed into her skin.
“Hang on, Abigail,” he said. “Just hang on.”
***
“We need to split up,” Frieda said, running alongside Haatim as they dodged around what looked like an old store in the center of town. Part of the building had collapsed when the ground gave way beneath it.
“What?” he asked. “No, no, I don’t like that plan.”
He felt short of breath and exhausted from running, and it seemed as though they’d gone for hours. Though he knew that only a couple of minutes had passed, it felt so much worse than that.
“One of us needs to get back and help Abigail and Dominick against Nida. This thing can’t chase both of us.”
“Which one will it chase?”
“Me,” Frieda said. “I’ll lead it away and buy you some time. Get to Abigail and get her out of here. We made a mistake and never should have brought her here.”
“What? Why?”
Frieda didn’t respond. She stopped and turned around, facing back toward the monster chasing them. Then she raised the shotgun against her shoulder, waiting for the creature to approach.
It became hesitant, though; it knew the danger that the gun posed to it now, and so tried to dodge out of the roadway. Frieda had readied for that, however, and timed her shot until the thing tried to dodge around her. She swung the gun and sidestepped, pulling the trigger only a meter from the creature.
The shot hit it full in the chest, and it went flying, landing in a heap about four meters back. It lay still for a second, and then twitched and let out a pained scream. Haatim watched in horror while it lifted its smoking body from the ground.
“Go!” Frieda yelled at him, pumping another round into the chamber and circling to the side of the creature. “I’ve got this.”
Haatim didn’t need telling twice. He turned and ran, ducking behind a building and heading back to the church. Another gunshot blasted behind him, and he glanced over his shoulder. The roadway lay empty, and the monster didn’t chase him. It remained wholly focused on the person hurting it.
He rushed around the corner of an old home and stepped out into the clearing in front of the church. Nida staggered into the clearing away from the edifice. She had her hands in the air and focused on the doorway, and looked like she limped a lot worse than normal.
When he stepped into the clearing, he saw the front of the church collapse, blocking the main entrance. It took him a second to realize that Nida had caused it to happen, using the demon’s telekinetic abilities.
The roof shook and broke apart, and a second later, it all fell, obliterating the doorway. Nida seemed hurt badly, and he watched while she turned toward him and half-ran, half-hopped, trying to get away from the church.
Haatim didn’t think, only reacted. The gun in his hand came up, and he pulled the trigger, releasing a round into his sister’s chest. A look of surprise creased the demon’s face, mixed in with fear.
She stopped cold, still wearing a look of shock, and then sank to the ground.
***
Frieda got down to two rounds in her shotgun. Once she ran out of salt shot, she would only have her pistol, vial of holy water, and a prayer.
The salt pellets caused damage to the demon but didn’t prove enough to stop it outright, and she didn’t have enough shots left to waste in trying to beat it down with simple attrition.
The vial of holy water might do some damage. If this was a pure demon—and it seemed so—then holy items would affect it even more than they would a possessed demon. She could pour it on the beast, and had no doubt that it would do significant damage, but enough to kill it? Probably not, but still.
Then she felt the syringe of poison in her pocket. The mundane poisons wouldn’t harm the demon, made for the human body, but she’d mixed in herbs and ground poisons that would harm the beast. Holy and blessed herbs and things unnatural to them.
She had mixed enough to kill Surgat, so surely, they would prove enough to also take down this brute. Maybe those would work and finish the job where the salt hadn’t managed to.
She hated the idea of wasting the poison because she might need it for Abigail, but she’d run out of options. Her pistol wouldn’t do any good against the demon, and she doubted the holy water alone could kill it.
In any case, she had no more time, and the demon had made ground on her as she ran. Nerves steadied, she chambered a round and then spun.
All or nothing.
The demon loped several steps behind her, shrieking wildly and swinging its talons as it approached. Those talons looked huge, close up.
She aimed for the creature’s midsection and pulled the trigger. The shot echoed through the forest and blasted the demon back several steps. This time, she didn’t hesitate, chambering another round and closing in on it while it tried to find its feet.
Frieda held her next shot until she got close to the demon’s head. The pellets ripped in and blasted the skull back at an odd angle, all but ripping off the head and tearing away chunks of the outer cartilage.
The entire face sizzled where the salt bore into it, but it still didn’t prove enough to kill it. Now, she’d run out of shotgun rounds.
She dropped the shotgun to the ground and slipped the vial of holy water free with one hand. With her other, she grabbed the syringe of poison and pulled it from her pocket.
With a firm grip, she flipped the top from the holy water vial and poured it over the demon’s exposed face. It burned where it touched, and the creature shrieked anew.
Then, Frieda jammed the needle into the soft skin under the armor, deep into the soft flesh beneath, and managed to push the poison into place, but the demon thrashed wildly as it stood there. It hit her, hard, with one arm and sliced her across the leg with one if its talons, drawing a deep gash and knocking her away.
She flew black, hitting the ground with force. Though stunned, she rolled to her feet and backpedaled, almost tripping when she tried to put weight on her injured leg. The demon got up, thrashing and flailing in pain and anger as it charged at her. Frieda rolled and scrambled, trying to create separation from the creature, and fell onto her side. The thought that the poison hadn’t worked terrified her.
All of a sudden, the demon stopped, maybe two meters away, and stood statue-still. A moment passed while she kept sliding backward on her butt, and then the beast let out a piercing howl that forced her to cover her ears.
It staggered to the left and fell over, writhing on the ground in apparent agony. In disbelief, Frieda watched while its body disintegrated in front of her and turned into a disgusting black-and-red ooze on the forest floor.
The demon kept swinging its arms and trying to pull itself out of the ooze, but after only a few seconds, it got consumed completely, leaving behind only a stain on the ground.
For a few seconds, she hesitated, trying to get her body back under control. Finally, she steeled her nerves and picked herself up. The leg hurt quite a bit, but after a quick test, she found that she could put weight on it and keep moving.
Everything had fallen quiet now, and she didn’t know what had happened. Had the fight finished? Did they win?
She didn’t know. A rustling sound reached her, and she stopped moving. Off to her left, the other of the creatures stood in the woods a ways off.
When she set eyes on it, she almost let out a gasp. Only by a slim margin had she managed to take down the first one, and no way could she survive another encounter.
After a moment, though, it dawned on her that it wasn’t looking for her or its mate. It stood listening, moving its head from side to side. Its eyes had gone, and it looked as if someone had shot them out.
After a few terrifying moments, the demon took off. It ran away from her, deeper into the forest and away from town. Thankful for small favors, she let out a sigh and headed toward the center of town.
She needed to get to the church and find out what had happened.
