Damnation's Door: A Cursed Book (14 page)

God, was I ever wrong.

Chapter 12

I’d been moving quickly with Warrick’s hand in mine. Both of us were on edge and wanting some kind of comfort. He was tense because his former allies and employer had shown up and were acting as double agents for the most conniving enemies he could imagine. I was booking it because I felt like the walls of a trap were closing in.

Dro, Max, and Sephiel were all but running to keep up with us. Finally, Dro broke away from them and jogged to my side. She looked at me as I stomped through the dusty streets.

“Con? Where are we going?”

Guess I should have thought of that.
“I don’t know. There has to be somewhere close where we can lay low for a bit.”

Killing time before I possibly get killed by my ex. Wonderful.

We were just coming up to a main intersection when an ugly screech cut through the night. I skidded to a stop, knowing only one thing could make that sound.

“Demons,” Warrick grunted. He let go of my hand and drew the sawed-off shotgun from his back. The blessed rock salt and sage shells would put down a demon for good, and for once I was glad that any gunfire in public view would go completely unnoticed. Even now I was hearing distant pops of guns being fired at who knew what.

It had been weeks since I’d had to fight a demon, and I had been content with that. Somehow I knew I was about to pay the price for all those days of staying under their radar.

They were too far away for me to tell what type of demon they were, and I wasn’t about to ask Dro or Max to find out. Max’s foresight was muddled and Dro was the prize the minions of Hell wanted to claim for their master. The best option was to get out of sight and avoid a confrontation all together.

Not the tactic I usually took, but desperate times, and all that.

“We need to get off the street,” I said, dragging Warrick behind me and looking for anything that resembled shelter. Most of the shops and apartments had been boarded up. Some of the boards on the windows had been splintered, but the spaces between them weren’t big enough for us to fit through.

Another inhuman shriek echoed from the streets on my right, closer than before. Way closer. We were running out of time.

Finally, my eyes locked on a brick shop with a sign reading
Farmacia
. The pharmacy was about twenty feet away. We had seconds, maybe a minute if we were lucky. I bolted for the store, knowing my sister and my friends were right behind me.

I thought we were going to make it. The shop was right there, less than fifteen feet away from us. But it was on the corner of the street, right next to a main road.

By the time I saw them out of the corner of my eye, it was too late to stop. The demons had found us.

I grabbed a silver throwing knife from inside my jacket and stopped, taking a second to position myself and get aim. Then I hurled the silver blade at the Red demon speeding toward us.

My aim was perfect, the weapon slamming into its tough red skin on its chest. The metal caused it to howl and buckle backward.

But it wasn’t alone. Dashing out of the side streets and corners of the main streets were at least twelve other demons, none of which were the same. There were two red-skinned, oily haired, humanoid Reds gnashing their teeth and revealing their pointed black claws. A scarred, half-blind Shredder lumbered behind them, dragging its thick, bony claws almost on the ground. A couple of wailing Wretches trailed after it, the limbs of their tortured angelic bodies clumped together like twigs in putty. At the rear were seven grey ghouls limping toward us, hungry for our flesh.

That wasn’t even counting the two Reds that sprang out of the alley behind us. Sephiel must have heard them coming, because he spun on his heel while drawing his short swords, and sliced the throats of both Reds at the same time. Black blood squirted onto his white leather coat, but the ex-angel refused to move until he saw the demons collapse onto the dirty pavement and dissolve into piles of dark ash.

I yanked the hatchet off my hip and faced the demons head-on. Warrick was at my side instantly, firing rock salt at the horde of monsters. Some of them cringed and collapsed back as the salt shredded their bodies and started to destroy them, but they were far from dead.

I couldn’t warn Dro and Max to run. All I could do was shield them, trust Sephiel to have our backs, and fight with Warrick. Dro knew how to defend herself, and Max was going to have to focus long enough to foresee an escape route, or find a way to use the
movens caeli.
That was all the time I had to worry before the first Wretch shouldered past the Shredder, and launched itself at me.

I stepped back so it didn’t slam into me, and kicked it in the face when it landed in a crouch. The angel-turned-demon howled furiously, swiping its hooked nails at my legs. I danced back and crashed my hatchet down onto its head. The Wretch twisted away, the blade sinking into its shoulder instead of managing a killing blow. The Wretch still screamed angrily, but now it was trying to get to its feet. I backed up again, taking out another knife from inside my jacket.

The Wretch unquestionably lived up to its name. It was a hunchbacked monstrosity with broken stumps of bone protruding from the backs of its shoulders. The creature’s thin skin was pasty and beaded with sweat that oiled the thin strips of hair on its head. Blue veins were visible all over its body, at least the parts that weren’t covered in whip marks and patchy scars. Decaying yellow nails became uneven claws on the ends of its bony fingers. The whites of the insane angel’s eyes had become yellow, the irises half purple from being filled with blood. Combined with their unstoppable madness, it was hard to believe that this creature had once been considered holy.

It howled at me, its voice reduced to a tortured rasp from centuries of screaming. Then it leaped for me.

I twisted to the side at the last second, missing its outstretched arms. I shoved my knife up until it drove into the Wretch’s chest. I used my other hand to slam the hatchet into the back of its neck.

The Wretch bucked and twitched against the silver, its scrawny limbs slapping at my stomach. I grimaced and struck down with the hatchet. The Wretch jerked and demon blood sprayed, but it wasn’t dead yet.

Something big moved on my right. I turned my head just as the Shredder lunged with its bone claws extended.

I pushed away from the Wretch, trying to shield myself behind it. The bone claws punched through the Wretch’s back, splashing me with dark, hot blood. I leaned back, my eyes widening when I saw the demon’s blood-covered claws just half an inch from my face.

The Shredder yanked its claws out of the Wretch, which had begun to collapse in on itself, turning into nothing but ash. I looked up at the Shredder, then kept looking up.

It was easily double my size and stood an extra two feet over me. Like the Wretch, its pale skin was covered in ragged scars. Strips of tar black hair hung to its shoulders. The face resembled a concrete block with glazed white eyes that gave it a blind appearance. Like most demons, this monster had jagged teeth behind its lips, but that wasn’t its primary weapon. On the end of each finger was a foot long bone-claw. I didn’t think I’d ever look at those claws and not be terrified of how easily they could rip me in half.

The Shredder swung its claws at me and forced me to jump back. The claws just barely snagged my shirt, and I winced at how lucky I’d been.

Shredders were big, but they were remarkably fast. The moment I backed away, the demon was rushing forward and striking down at me. I feinted to the side, staying away from its front. My back brushed the brick wall, though I still had enough room to toss my knife into the Shredder’s face.

It was an awkward angle, but I managed to send the blade into the Shredder’s cheek. It roared furiously, swinging its body around as it tried to catch me with its far claws. I dashed out into the main street, hoping I’d be fast enough to avoid the claws. My luck held, and the claws smashed into the corner of the shop. The Shredder’s blow had so much force behind it that chunks of brick were torn off when the claws connected.

I kept running, knowing it would chase me no matter what I did.

Staying ahead of it gave me the stupid idea that my luck would hold out. That completely changed when a grey shape shot out from the alley and tackled me.

I went down fast and hard, landing roughly on my ribs. The smell of rotting flesh and sour breath nearly gagged me. A damn
ghoul
had taken me down?

Angry, I drove my elbow back. It connected with the ghoul’s face and knocked it away from me. I rolled onto my front and shot to my feet, glaring at the demon. Ghouls were thin, humanoid creatures with enlarged heads and almond eyes the shade of spoiled milk. Their flesh was made of rough scales and their teeth were as sharp and yellow as their claws.

I raised my hatchet to strike the ghoul, but the Shredder had caught up to me. It lumbered forward, batting the ghoul aside with the back of its fist. The smaller demon flew through the air like a piece of paper on the wind. I might have laughed if I wasn’t the Shredder’s next target.

I turned and started running again, making my way back to the group. They’d spread out, trying to keep the demons from surrounding them. But it wasn’t enough. There were too many, and I could see that everyone was tired. Dro was slashing and kicking the Reds with her silver knives. Warrick and Sephiel were in front of her and Max, the demon slayer shooting any demons that got too close while the ex-angel cut down anything that came near him.

But there was blood on their clothes and bruises on their faces, and the demons weren’t afraid of dying. They wouldn’t be able to hang on much longer, and I still hadn’t killed the Shredder chasing after me.

Max fiddled with the
movens caeli,
waiting for me to get in range to use it. The group might be able to kill the rest of the demons, but the Shredder would be more than they could handle right now.

They needed time to escape, and I couldn’t stop running.

“Dro!” I screamed, dodging to the left and letting the Shredder swing wide. I could still see my sister out of the corner of my eye, but I was backing away into another alley with the large beast looming over me.

“Last week’s house!” was the most I could manage before the Shredder swung wide and nearly took my head off with its claws.

“Constance! Come on!” she screamed back.

I didn’t look at her, moving into the narrow alley behind me.

“Go! I’ll catch up!”

The Shredder rushed the alley before I could hear her reply. I turned and ran faster than I thought I could.

The Shredder struggled to fit its bulk into the alley. I risked a glance back, seeing a flash of gold light. They’d used the
movens caeli.
I wanted to cry with relief, but I still had six more blocks to run to before I met up with them again. I had to lose the Shredder before then.

As I tore through the alley, I drew on memory. I knew all the streets and alleys downtown. I’d had to run them all when rival gangs were chasing me. I’d been good at giving them the slip, and this demon probably wasn’t half as smart as they’d been.

I took a sharp left and heard the Shredder roar in frustration when it lost sight of me. It turned and squeezed itself through the exit I had already taken, barely able to force its mass through the narrow corridor. Up ahead of me was a wire fence acting as a block for parking. I turned toward the wall and jumped, pushing off of it to get a little more height. I slammed into the wire and glanced over my shoulder.

The Shredder was still stuck, but it was determined to force its way toward me. It rolled its shoulders to help itself move across the brick, snarling hideously and glaring at me with blind eyes. I turned back to the fence and started climbing.

It wasn’t difficult, but the top of the fence was uncut wire that scratched along my arms as I dragged myself over it. I slipped onto the other side and dropped down. The Shredder was about halfway through the alley, bellowing furiously, but I still had the advantage. I turned to the left and dashed down another alley.