Echoes of the Past (Demon Squad) (24 page)

The feeling was a mix of phosphorous and Viagra mainlined through my bloodstream, my head a maelstrom of fury, chaos, and lust. I couldn’t think straight. The only thoughts sticking to the Teflon of my brainpan was the urge to fuck
and
fuck something up. Given the hairy asses in front of me, the latter won out, but it didn’t stop me from being aroused.

As I started to peak, I let the rage shoot from my brain into my limbs, and I let loose. I leapt to my feet and flung a dozen werewolves aside. Lighter than children, it looked like a hairy piñata swatted by Godzilla.
Weres
were tossed everywhere. I could hear their bones snapping as they slammed into the walls and ceiling. Startled yips sounded as I plowed through their ranks to get to Katon. His will rang quiet against my senses, but he was still alive—living? Undead?—whatever he was. He was still with me.

A number of
weres
were still latched onto me as I ran, but I ignored them. So caught up in the ecstasy of the double-shot Lucifer latte, I couldn’t feel the teeth or claws they were using to stay put. I didn’t care. The critters chewing on Katon saw me coming and a bunch of them jumped up and backed off. I laughed as I pictured what I must look like. My clothes eaten as an appetizer to the main course of my ass, I was naked and covered in blood from head to toe. I was also sporting the most painful erection I’ve ever had. I didn’t doubt the look on my face told the
weres
I was looking for someplace to stick it. There weren’t any volunteers.

Without slowing down, I crashed into the werewolves on Katon and ripped them limb from limb. Up to that point, it hadn’t even occurred to me to use my magic. My heart thundered in my chest, a perfect storm of malevolence and sadism that only wanted to slaughter my enemies with my bare hands. I wanted to feel their blood splatter warm across my chest, and taste the virulence of their disease that was nothing more than seasoning.

I gouged and clawed and ripped and bit, fur and pieces of stringy meat in my mouth and wedged between my fingers. Katon moaned and crawled slowly to his knees as I cleared the
weres
off his back. His healing was kicking in now that he was free. Though he was immune to lycanthropy, it’d be a little while before he was whole and healthy. Somewhere deep inside my head I recognized the clock was ticking. It wouldn’t be long before the boost from Lucifer’s blood would start to fade. I’d crash a few seconds after and then we’d be right back in the world of shit we’d just dug out of.

It was time to get serious.

I spun around to face the shifting and uncertain mass of
lycans
and vamps and turned on the blowtorches. From my extended hands, jets of fire burst free and swept through the lines. Modeled after a flamethrower, I sprayed the room from left to right. After a moment of that, I pictured the inner workings of a pipe bomb to help cull the herd. Tiny balls of energy complied with my imagination and sprang up inside the flames.
En masse
, they hurtled toward the burning lines and exploded.

The
weres
that weren’t already crispy were pelted with a dump truck-load of magical shrapnel. With all the energy directed away from me and Katon, I pushed every ounce of magic I had into the assault and laid waste to the room. The howls of the wolves were drowned out by the shrieks of the vampires being shredded within the conflagration. It was all music to my ears.

With only one chance to do it right, I marched forward, leaving no room for any of the shitheads to creep past and flank us. They probably didn’t have it in them, anyway. Just a minute before they’d been chewing on our bones, now they were going up like an arsonist’s wet dream. If ever Hell had been unleashed, this is what it would look like.

When the screams and cries petered out, I turned off the fireworks and stormed forward. I heard Katon at my back, scraping along but there in furious spirit. The room was filled with roiling black smoke and the scent of cooked meat. Still caught up in the throes of Lucifer’s claret, it smelled divine; barbeque beast.

My hard-on throbbed as I strode through the carnage, my feet splashing in the puddles of boiling blood and melted muscle. It squished up between my toes and splatted soothing against my shins and knees. I stomped harder as I used magic to push aside the cloying black clouds so I could see.

Near the entryway, I came across what I was looking for: Mihheer.

He lay amidst the wreckage of his master’s grunt force. All around him were charred pieces of werewolf and vampire, arms and legs scattered everywhere as though I’d blown up a mannequin factory. Covered in blood and chunky pieces I couldn’t recognize, he looked up at me as I approached. Apparently, he’d managed to deflect most of the magic I’d thrown around, but he was clearly hurting. One of his hands looked deformed and a number of his teeth had been knocked from his mouth. I noticed that when he sneered at me.

I kicked him in the face for his defiance.

He tumbled back into the hallway, and crashed into the wall. I wasn’t done yet. Still under the influence of the blood, I was feeling feisty,
know what I mean
? If any of the
weres
or vamps survived the onslaught, they’d turned assholes and elbows and headed for home. There wasn’t a single one anywhere nearby. That left me free to focus on Mihheer.

The alien grunted and looked up at me coming toward him. I kicked him again, and again, and again, a brittle crackling sounding at every blow. He crumpled and spit blood across my foot. I kicked him for that, too.

“Where’s Scarlett?” I screamed at him, emphasizing every syllable with yet another kick.

He raised his hands to cover his head and I stepped over top of him. Had I been able to see things through Katon’s eyes, I might not have been so eager to have my naked crotch hovering so close to another man’s face, but Lucifer’s blood fueled a rage in me I couldn’t shut down. There was no reason or modesty buried anywhere in the deep murk of my primordial brain. This alien was getting tea-bagged.

“Where’s Scarlett?” I shrieked, pummeling him with my fists. Over and over I alternated from left to right, pounding and pounding. Subconsciously I heard the snap of his bones, but I couldn’t bring myself to stop. Katon shouted behind me and I felt him trying to pull me away, but his strength was like a gentle breeze. I shrugged him off and kept hitting Mihheer. At some point, the alien had gone unconscious, but I couldn’t say when.

Even more irate that he’d dare cheat me out of his agony, I reached down and grabbed ahold of one of his horns. I locked my fingers around it and leveraged my legs against the floor. I pulled. It came loose with a grinding crunch. Mihheer screamed into wakefulness and frantically clutched at the empty socket where his horn had been.

I stepped away triumphant, holding the horn over my head as a warm fluid rained down atop me. Katon shouted my name and I felt his voice worm its way inside my ear as I celebrated. It pierced the murk that churned inside. I paused and he called to me again. Flickers of light danced before my eyes. I turned to find Katon standing in front of me, his lips moving out of sync with his shrill voice. Blinking my eyes, I stared at him as he looked back. His face wavered from side to side and I couldn’t understand what he was saying anymore, his words oozing out of his mouth in slow motion. I tried to tell him to talk faster, but my own tongue wouldn’t work.

Lights popped in my head and Katon disappeared. There was a sudden sense that I’d stepped off the edge of the world, and then a cold solidness thumped against my cheek.

Chapter Twenty-Three

I woke up to the soothing sounds of Barry White.

“He’s coming around.”

Barry needed some serious help with his lyrics. No expectations he could ever top “Let’s Get It On”, “He’s Coming Around” sounded like it was a railroad song or about a guy with a serious bend in his crank. He wouldn’t be seeing the top ten with lyrics like that.

“I’m surprised he’s still alive.”

His backup singer needed to be replaced, too. The poor girl sounded as raspy as
Froggy
from the
Little Rascals
. The only mood she could evoke was the desire to develop lung cancer.

A jostling at my side sent sparks through my brain. I was suddenly upright, vertigo contemplating upending my guts. My head felt as though I’d been skull-fucked by King Kong. Pressure—a euphemism for icepick stabbing agony—bubbled in my brain and sent daggers of pain through my temples. Even with my eyes closed the lights were too bright. After a few minutes of listening to Barry and his band go back and forth about finding clothes to cover something up, which was a little catchier than the last tune, I dared to open my eyes.

Let me just tell you, a nuclear explosion would have been preferable right then. I screamed and fell back as streams of light seared my eyes. The hint of a shadow fell over me and cold hands were set alongside my cheeks.

“Relax, Frank. Open your mind,” I heard someone say, and shook my head in defiance. The pain that followed the motion set fire to my brain. “It’s me, Frank. Michael. Let me in.”

Too weak to resist beyond what I already had, I gave in. Anything to stop the agony. Seconds later a cold wave washed over me and put out the fire inside my head. My eyes sizzled in their sockets, and then settled as the sharp pains eased and disappeared. I drew in a deep breath and luxuriated in the chilly air that settled in my lungs. The lights faded and darkness flooded in to wash the last of it away. My thoughts scrambled into the shadows like roaches, and things started to make sense again.

Finally able to think, I opened my eyes. Michael Li kneeled beside me. He gave me a warm smile and helped me sit up. “Welcome back, Frank.”

I patted him on the shoulder before he stood and stepped away, allowing me to see the rest of the room. Katon stood there looking like he’d tried to
buttsex
a wolverine. He looked like a zebra, only with black and red stripes, his dark flesh doing its best to heal the damage inflicted on him.

“You okay,” I asked.

He nodded and gave me a shallow smile. Happy to see him alive and recovering, I glanced around the room for Mihheer. I vaguely remember him being there when Gorath set his cronies on us, but I had no clue what happened after that.

The alien was in the corner. Rahim held him down. In his human form, the wizard looked dapper as he clutched to Mihheer. He even spared me a smile with teeth showing. I didn’t have the heart to tell him about his prospects of being a successful singer.

Mihheer was slumped in Rahim’s hands. He looked unconscious. What was left of his ruined face was a wash of red and protruding gray bone. Yellowish-green fluid seeped from a gaping hole in his head where I could have sworn he had a horn before. A couple of his teeth protruded through his lower lip, and spittle and blood ran to join the mess that pooled in his lap.

“Damn. You guys did a job on him.”

Katon chuckled and looked to Rahim. “I told you he was out of it.”

I glanced back and forth between the two as they shook their heads in something that resembled amusement. “What?” After a moment of laughing at what I presumed was my expense, Katon reached down and lifted my arm. In my hand was
Mihheer’s
missing horn. I tossed it aside quickly and shook the residual goop from my fingers. I looked back at Mihheer, pointing. “I did that?”

Katon nodded. “That you did.”

I sighed, trying to remember what had happened, but my memories were so jumbled it would take Stephen
Hawkings
to piece them together into any sort of coherence.

“Scarlett.” My cousin sprang to mind. “Did you find her?”

“Not yet,” Katon answered, seriousness returning. He gestured to Michael. “Since the brute force approach didn’t get us anywhere, I called Rahim and Michael down to help out.”

Mike went over to the alien and knelt down in front of him. “Let’s see what he’s got going on inside there.” He dropped to his ass and crossed his legs, taking slow and deliberate breaths.

I got up, a bit unsteady on my feet, and stumbled over for a better look just as Michael’s eyes shifted. They went from brown to silver in an instant, mercurial in their swirling flow. He rolled his head on his neck and started to mutter. The words were quiet and distorted, nothing making any sense. If I hadn’t seen him do his act before, I would have thought it was just me being out of it. His hands twitched in his lap as though he were signing with Tourette’s.

While I stood there watching, Katon handed me a bundle of clothes. “You mind covering that thing up? You’re freaking me out.” He motioned toward my crotch, drawing my eyes. I realized I was naked and my dick was hanging there more than half-riled. “It was one thing to watch you slaughter werewolves with a full on erection, but this is the part of the date where your pretend you have a little modesty.”

The word was foreign to me, but I slipped the pants on. It was getting a little chilly, anyway. By the time I was dressed, Michael was done. He sucked in a sudden breath and shuddered, his eyes wide and back to being brown. He shook his head and growled as he got to his feet.

“His head is like an abstract painting on crack. Everything is in symbols and sigils and strange shapes that no doubt make up some kind of language, but it’s certainly not one I understand. He doesn’t see things like we do. The only images I can pick out appear to be Asian, if that makes any sense.” He raised his hands in defeat. “All his thoughts are jumbled together, the flickers of bright flowers and Chinese letters mixed in amidst the
Giger
-like sharpness of the alien sigils and signs. It makes no sense.”