A Girl's Guide to Demon Hunting (3 page)

Chapter 5

Tip 93:
Always carry a concealed weapon, except to the airport. Demons have nothing on the TSA.

    We were headed to the bottling plant. After this morning’s meeting we decided to do a little hunting after dark. I spent the rest of the day at the library trying to find out anything on what we could be walking into tonight. There wasn’t much; a few homicide reports but that wasn’t unusual at this end of town.
    “Not a chance in hell,” I told Ace as he pulled out a halo grenade from the hidden compartment in the floor of Shooter’s van. “Last time you nearly took my head off with that thing.”
With a sheepish grin, he put the grenade back and instead pulled out a taser.
    “Also no.” I said, “I still have the scars from that thing; plus it made my power all loopy for a week. This is only a recon; no fighting until we know exactly what’s going on.”
    “Told you man.” Shooter said from the driver’s seat.
    “Seriously; a few mistakes and I’m punished for the rest of my life.” Ace said in mock indignation. Picking up Shooter’s rifle, he ejected the empty magazine.
    Cold chills ran down my spine as I watched him load the magazine. The halo grenade was bad, what with the white flame and its ability to burn through metal. And the taser was dangerous to me or more accurately my power; out of the three I’d rather he use the gun. Still it made me uneasy. 
    I’m not against the use of guns, especially when I’m fighting with Ace and Shooter; hell I’ve used them a time or two to wound a Demon. The problem is guns tend to kill and when it comes to Demons the key was to not kill. The only choices are to shatter its marker and send it back to Hell or kill it and release its power. I choose Hell every time. Plus, using a gun is just too impersonal for my taste; I like them to know it was me who sent them back.
    While Ace tried to decide on a weapon, I took Pancake’s coat and collar off; no need to make it easy for some Demon to grab hold of her. The van came to a jarring stop two blocks from the bottling plant.
 
We got out of the van and ducked into the shadows next to an abandoned building. Ace passed the gun to Shooter, who slung it on his shoulder under his coat. Ace had decided on the new crossbow.
    “Just watch where you aim that thing.” I told him, not wanting to make a trip to the ER tonight.
    We stayed to the alleys as we made our way to the bottling plant. The Demons loved this end of town; low population, no police and lots of abandoned buildings. It made the perfect place for them to operate. The Lords knew it but collectively turned a blind eye towards this area and its activities.
    Once upon a time the bottling plant was one of the larger distributors of alcohol in Vegas, now it was a testament to what had once been. Five stories of brick; the top story had large windows that circled the building. The only way in was a giant set of double doors at the front; not that we would be using them. Seeing no Demons (or anyone else, for that matter), we ran across the street to the fire escape ladder. Holding Pancake in one arm I climbed up, careful not to make any noise.
    At the top I pushed Pancake up on the platform and followed. Crawling on my hands and knees so I wouldn’t been seen from inside the building, I went to where Pancake sat waiting. Ace and Shooter followed me, almost as quietly. Even they can be stealthy when they have to.
    We moved to one of the big windows and I used the sleeve of my jacket to wipe some of the dirt from the grimy glass to look inside. Bile rose in my throat.
    A circle of humans, dressed like they were going for a big night out, cheered on a pair of men who were in the process of beating the hell out of each other. The slightly less bloody of the two landed a vicious punch square on his opponent’s nose. I cringed as he fell to the ground; his face looked like raw hamburger meat. 
    Turning to Ace and Shooter, who both looked as grossed out as I did, I was about to tell them it was nothing but a bunch of idiot humans when I heard a low growl come from Pancake. Looking back into the warehouse, I watched, stunned, as hamburger guy got to his feet. No way was that humanly possible. I scanned the crowd again and that’s when I saw them; two Demons disguised as men in their early thirties.
    The one closer to me was Asian, tall with greasy black hair, dressed in a long sleeved dress shirt and jeans. The other one was shorter and wore glasses, dressed in a polo shirt and slacks. I wouldn’t have paid them any attention except they weren’t cheering; in fact they showed no emotion whatsoever. They just stood there staring at each other from across the circle and I realized they were controlling the two fighters like puppets.
    “Guys, this is so much worse. Those are Wrath Demons.” I whispered.
   I wouldn’t be thrilled with the proposition of Wrath Demons in any case but there was something more here; it takes a lot of power, very dark power, to control a human to that extent. It’s easy for Wrath Demons to instigate human fights; any perceived slight could be magnified and lead to violence. But to have two fighters blindly keep going; that was a whole different level of control. No way was I getting Ace and Shooter involved in this.
     “Come on, we’re leaving.” I whispered, pulling on Ace’s sleeve to get his attention.
     “And what? Just leave those people to die? You know what they’ll do.” Ace said.
     I knew him; he was going in there with or without me.
 
I looked past him to Shooter for some help, only to find that he already had the window open and was in the process of getting into a stable spot to shoot. Right; so this was going from bad to worse real fast.
     “Fine.” I sighed, turning back to Ace, “Take Pancake and go to the front, get those doors open and the humans out.”
     I passed him Pancake and waited while he climbed down the fire escape. Once they had turned the corner of the building I opened the window and balanced on the sill.
     “Shooter, keep an eye out; I’m not sure how many Demons are in that crowd. Be ready, they’ve got room to fly.” With that, I stepped off the sill and dropped fifty feet to the floor below.
     Landing on my feet I ran to the shadows. It was worse down here on the factory floor; the coppery scent of blood, the meaty (I know; ick) sound of fists hitting flesh could be heard between the cheers of the crowd. What was wrong with these people? Why would they voluntarily watch this? Sometimes I question who’s sicker; the humans or the Demons? At least Demons are evil by nature.
    The seconds ticked by faster and faster and with it my fear we weren’t going to be able to stop this. What was taking Ace so long with the doors? The unmistakable crunch of a bone breaking filled the air and the crowd cheered even louder. If I didn’t act soon someone was going to die.
    I slowly moved closer to the circle, all the while keeping out of the Demons’ line of sight. I was hoping with all the emotions running high in the air, they wouldn’t feel my power until it was too late. I pushed my way through the crowd and came to a stop a foot from the greasy haired Demon. I pulled hard on my power; thick and dark it filled me.
    The Demons reacted almost instantly. The puppet fight instantly forgotten, greasy-hair turned and lunged for me but I was already pushing through the humans. I broke free from the crowd in a sprint, leading Greasy away from the crowd and the semi-innocents within. Over their screams I heard his footsteps closing in, his breathing as labored as mine. With only a wall in front of me, I cut right and ran straight for the front doors.
    Okay, plan B: get the doors open and get some space to fight. I had one moment to register the unmistakable roar of an engine and was just barely able to change direction and dive to the left. I hit the ground hard but still moving forward, rolling to a stop against the left wall just as the van crashed through the doors. Ace hit the brakes, sending dirt and splinters of wood flying everywhere.
    As the dust settled, silence rang through the crowd before they erupted into another round of screams and ran towards the exit. I pushed myself to my feet, feeling my power still roaring through me. I had to find the Demons.

    “Get down!” Ace yelled to the humans as he pushed his way through the crowd.
There was no way to get the humans out, at least not without the Demons escaping. Only a third of the crowd responded to Ace’s command, that was until the warehouse lights hanging fifty feet above us began exploding. I smiled as bright white sparks rained down on us and the crowd, who with panicked screams dove to the ground.
    Shooter in rapid succession shot out the rest of the lights, thrusting the warehouse into almost complete darkness. Standing in the sea of huddled humans were five Demons in mid-morph; there must have been more hidden among the humans in the crowd. The pale moonlight streaming from the windows above shone on their grey skin, causing it to almost glow in the darkness.
    Pancake jumped out of the van and wasted no time in attacking. Letting loose a deep growl, she ran across the floor and straight past the group of Demons and into the back of the factory, disappearing into pitch black darkness. A second later I heard a vicious snarl followed by a high pitched scream of a Demon as Pancake went on the attack. Hum, seems I missed counting one.

    Feeling my smile twist into a snarl I ran straight for the greasy haired one. Like the others he was shedding his human form, revealing the Demon inside. His body was now over six feet tall, all grey skin and red eyes. The sound of his shirt tearing reached me and giant leathery wings grew from his back. Yuck.
    In the seconds it took me to cross the factory floor, two of the Demons panicked and ran straight for the rear of the factory. Knowing between Shooter and Pancake they’d be taken care of soon enough I continued towards my target.
    Seeing me coming, Greasy threw the first punch and I twisted to the right, feeling the slice of his claws as they grazed my ribs. Letting my momentum continue to turn me, I lashed out with a backhand to his face. He rebounded quickly and caught me with a kick to my right side. Pain tore through me and I felt at least two of my ribs crack (I love that it’s happened enough that I can make an accurate guess). As my right arm automatically dropped to guard my injured side, I had just enough time to leap out of the way of another kick.
     I dodged a punch to my face and moved in, landing a quick succession of blows to his ribs, followed by a very nice punch to his face (if I do say so myself). He went down hard. I knelt down to finish him off.  
     “Stop!” came a shout from behind me.
    I froze, my fist just inches from  Greasy's marker. This was most likely not good. I looked up for the source of the yell and my blood froze in my veins. It was the other Demon, the formerly small one with glasses if I remembered correctly. He stood in the middle of the room, holding one of the human puppet fighters by the throat.
    “Get away from him or I kill this one.” He said, giving the human a shake. The human moaned in pain, blood running from his mouth.  The control of the Demons began to break when I first broke up the spectacle and the human was now feeling the pain he lacked earlier.
    Slowly I raised my hands away from the Demon and stood up. A quick look around the room showed me Ace had taken down two Demons with the crossbow and Pancake was dragging a third one from the shadows by the throat. This one with the hostage was the last one moving, not to mention a coward.
    Glancing again at Ace, I saw his anger building as he looked at the human. As recent events indicated, he was pretty good with the crossbow but good enough to miss the hostage? Pancake was another variable; she was very disciplined most of the time but danger to me makes her unpredictable. Come to think of it, it had the same effect on Ace. This thing was about to go full-on bloodbath unless I defused things now. The thing about a bloodbath? Usually collateral damage. I carefully walked towards the Demon.
    “Okay,” I said, “look, we’re done. You let the human go and everyone walks away; no harm, no foul.”
    Of course I was lying; I was going to hunt him down and commit several harms and fouls later but he didn’t need to know that.
    The Demon’s eyes shifted fast between Ace and me as he tried to make up his mind. Obviously this one was not a leader, powerful yes but unable to make a quick decision. It was most likely why he took a hostage instead of just running off; he panicked and made a bad move. His hand flexed around the throat of the human, causing another moan and I stopped. See? People say I’m not sensitive.
    “I want your word no one will know about tonight.” he said, red eyes looking into mine. Great. Really? A promise I wouldn’t go run to the Demon Lords and tell on him? What was his plan, a pinky swear? Idiot.
    “Fine. Now let the human go.”
    And that’s when I saw it, the little green dot right in the center of his forehead. Only then did it occur to me I had neglected a whole side of this problem.
     My brain barely had time to register the crack as the bullet broke the sound barrier and I saw the Demon’s look of shock. Then his power erupted from his body. Like black smoke only I could see, it swirled around the room, rising high into the air; searching for a new home. It began to descend towards Ace. It wouldn’t take him; I wouldn’t let it. I pulled hard on my power and just as it always did the darkness came straight to me; an evil moth to its flame. Closing my eyes in dread, I felt it wrap itself around me.
    As always, I wanted so much to feel the tearing pain that my mom told me about; the pain as the Demon’s power enters and every decent thing in you fights to reject it. Once again it wasn’t there. I would welcome that pain, welcome the feeling that my soul wanted to fight. However, as always, I felt my power reach out to the darkness, pulling it inside me. Tears of shame gathered behind my eyelids as the darkness flowed within me.
    Its energy filled me, goosebumps covered my skin and I felt my power wrap around the darkness, gathering it close. It’s always so strong; I can never tell where it ends and I begin. When there is no separation between that sick thing and my soul, I know the truth of what I am and it scares me more than anything in Heaven or Hell.