Legacy of the Demon (2 page)

The reyza let out a roar of triumph and sprang into the air with powerful strokes of his wings.

“Glassman and Chu, keep eyes on that demon!” Roma shouted with just the barest hitch in her voice. “Landon and Abercrombie, status!”

For an endless second nothing happened. Then Landon lifted his head, working his jaw as if to pop his ears. A second later Abercrombie looked up, blinking, then patted out a patch of flame on Landon's shoulder. “Five by five,” Landon croaked, echoed by Abercrombie.

“Stay put until the medics can extract you,” I ordered, wobbly with relief. “Arcane injuries aren't always immediately apparent,” I added to Roma to explain why I'd stepped on her authority. Technically speaking, I outranked her, but I wasn't stupid enough to override her on tactical or military matters. And her nod told me she wasn't stupid enough to dig her heels in on arcane matters. Then again, one of the reasons I'd requested her for my squad was because she cared more about her people and the mission than her ego.

As the medics hurried up, Roma turned away to marshal the rest of the squad to re-secure the SkeeterCheater and track the reyza. Alpha Squad was one of a dozen special units deployed around the world to areas with high rift activity, its members hand-picked and carefully screened. Most of the men and women in DIRT had police or military backgrounds—such as Roma, who'd been a retired Marine Master Sergeant. But there were plenty who'd earned spots by being excellent marksmen or just plain hard as nails, relentless, and unflinching. Slackers weren't tolerated, not with the world at stake.

I kept one eye on the circling demon as I harangued the medics into moving faster. Due to the weak potency on Earth, it usually took a reyza at least a minute to ready an arcane strike—or “magic missile,” as the first DIRT fighters had dubbed them, hence the “Double-M”—but it was obvious this was no ordinary reyza.

“Only God's power can truly defeat these spawn of Satan.
The gates of hell have opened, and the righteous shall endure for all eternity.”

A familiar ache tightened my chest. No, the gates were closed. Within a day of the PD valve explosion that started this whole nightmare, contact with the demon realm was cut off. No valve travel, no summonings. The rifts were the last remaining conduits between Earth and the demon realm, but the invading demons were the only ones who understood how to use them.

Then again, the incursions were how I knew the demon realm still existed at all.

“You false prophets and so-called soldiers hide in the shadows like the craven cowards that you are, cringing from the face of evil.”

Outrage boiled through me. The courts had ruled that the picketers and protesters had the right to say their piece as long as they didn't get in our way. I agreed wholeheartedly with the country maintaining its freedoms no matter what disasters befell it, but I was also relieved and pleased when the courts decreed that if any of them got hurt while demonstrating near rifts, it was their own stinkin' fault.

To my twisted delight, the reyza swooped low over the picketers, obviously not giving a shit that they were supposedly at a safe distance. The lead protester dropped his mic and dove out of the truck. A few others broke and ran, but the rest hunched behind their eight-foot-tall signs as if cardboard and plastic would protect them.

But hey, for all I knew the protesters and preachers were right. Maybe this whole nightmare started because some god looked down and thought, “Ew, what a mess! Time to wipe the slate and start fresh.” Made as much sense as anything else at the moment.

The medics carted Landon and Abercrombie off. The demon circled the protesters. “Yek ziy,” he roared.

My twisted delight turned to horror as orange light blossomed in the demon's hand. I needed to distract him, break his concentration, or the protesters would get fried. I didn't like their “helpful” messages—or their foolishness for setting up so close to a rift—but they were human, and no way would I sit on my ass and let them die. But what to do? Shooting at him was a lousy option. The demon had arcane shielding, plus the distance increased the chance that we'd hit the civilians with friendly fire. The Light Armored Vehicle was closest to the highway, but even they couldn't—

“Chu!” I yelled at the top of my lungs. “Crowd control the demon. Now!” I wasn't concerned about the protesters getting accidentally tear-gassed. Helluva lot less lethal than an arcane strike, and maybe they'd be smart and run away.

Chu immediately swung the grenade launcher around, loaded up the needed grenades, then sighted and fired four times in quick succession. I held my breath as the grenades sailed toward their target, then watched in relief as the demon wheeled toward the incoming threats, the orange glow vanishing from his hand. He batted a tear gas grenade into the midst of the protesters, but the second and third bathed him in gas and smoke, and the fourth peppered him with rubber pellets. While the demon pivoted in an aerial dance of gas and pellet avoidance, the protesters—including Microphone Man—made their own escape, scuttling like roaches into the woods behind them.

But they were still far from safe, especially if the reyza decided to blast the woods where they were hiding. Drawing my Glock from my thigh holster, I marched to the rift and began firing into its depths. As I'd hoped, the reyza let out a cry of outrage, then he turned on a wing and headed toward us. Yet instead of going straight to the rift, he flew high and circled twice before descending to land atop what was left of the Piggly Wiggly.

He crouched and settled, a pose a reyza could hold for hours on end. It was clear he was waiting for something. Reinforcements? The puny humans to give up? Screw that.

I jogged to the Stryker and pounded a fist on the side. “I need the wizard staff,” I said after Scott poked his head out of the hatch.

He chuckled and passed down a six-foot-long black pole. “Don't step on any hobbits.”

“They're going to have to stay out of my way.” I curled my hands around the smooth metal and thumbed the button. Electricity arced from the tip of the staff—which was little more than a cattle prod on steroids. Scott had dubbed it the “wizard staff” after the first time I used it to stun a demon, and the name had stuck.

Staff in hand, I jogged over to where Roma was making notations and drawing arrows on a sketched map of the Piggly Wiggly and surroundings.

“God, what I wouldn't give for internet,” Roma muttered. “And radio comms.” I made a sympathetic noise. The folks in R&D had worked up shielding that reduced the arcane
interference on electronic devices, but we were too close to the rift for it to have any worthwhile effect.

I peered at the map and took careful note of her plan for netting this giant beastie. “This is good. I can lure him off the roof.” I jerked my head toward the reyza. Wouldn't be the first time I'd played bait.

Roma gave a brisk nod and tapped the map. “Get it on the ground in that clear area by the handicapped spots. We'll net it there.” She gave me a hard look. “And try not to get et.”

“No chance of that,” I said. “I'm too tough and stringy.”

She let out a dry laugh. “Ready when you are.”

With unhurried strides, I made my way up the raggedly striped rows toward the shattered Piggly Wiggly storefront. Atop the grocery store, sunlight sparkled on the reyza's gold jewelry as he tracked his gaze over the parking lot. His pose was casual, indolent even. I knew better. A demon this big was old, smart, and tough. And he wasn't going to give up.

On the other hand, I was young, moderately clever, and sick of this bullshit.

“APCs, move into fishing position,” Roma shouted behind me. “LAV, cork the hole. Blauser and Hurley, Metallica that son of a bitch as soon as it lands! Ahmed, Petrev, Hines, grate the cheese the instant the plastic's off!”

In my periphery, I noted people and vehicles shifting position in a clever dance of subterfuge. No point making it obvious where we wanted the demon to go.

When I reached the handicapped spots, I planted the butt of my staff on the head of the wheelchair-bound stick figure, stood with my feet apart and my chin lifted, and challenged the reyza with a glare.

“Lahnk hremtehl si bahzat bukkai imhritak!” I shouted, which loosely translated as
Your mother is an asswipe.
Or it could have been
Your breath smells like fairy farts
. A good chunk of the demon language relied on telepathic signals to clarify the meaning beyond words, but I figured I was close enough.

The reyza ignored me. Hell, maybe he agreed with the sentiment. I tried another insult that mocked his prowess as a fighter, then one that belittled his tail as thin and weak. Those earned me a chunk of rubble slung in my direction, but otherwise he didn't budge. Crap. Though my time on the nexus in my back yard had improved my grasp of the demon language, it wasn't going to take long for me to run out of clever abuse.

“Lah zhet unkh sutiva!” I hollered.
You have shit wings.

The demon curled his lip in a sneer, then focused his attention on the rift.

“Lahnk vahl mumfir nurat!”
Your head looks like cheese.
I mentally riffled through the vocabulary I knew. Yeah, I was scraping the barrel now.

“Grahl ptur . . . uh, ptur unkh qaztahl!”
You serve a shitty lord.

The reyza leaped up with a bellow of fury, wings snapping open with a
crack
.

I blinked in surprise at the sudden vehemence. He had some serious fanatic devotion to his lord if
that
pathetic insult set him off. But which lord? The sly and devious Jesral? Hot-headed Amkir?

With an ear-splitting roar, the demon leaped off the building and toward me. I clamped down on a yelp and fled.
Okay, lured him off the roof. Now to get him on the ground.
My inner survivalist screamed for me to sprint like hell, but I stuck to the plan. I couldn't risk drawing him too far from the target zone. So what if I was one hundred percent certain he'd rip me to tiny pieces if he got hold of me.

Gripping the staff in both hands, I slid under the cart corral then rolled to a low crouch, facing the demon. He was more than strong enough to shred the aluminum bars that sheltered me, but he'd need to land first. I hoped. He might decide to tear the corral from the parking lot mid-swoop, but then he'd have to make a second pass to grab me. I crossed fingers and toes that he'd favor the more efficient route.

To my right, Blauser and Hurley ran up with a device that looked like a pregnant rocket launcher.
Sonic weapons, yeah!
The throaty growl of diesel engines sang a wicked harmony that told me the Strykers were maneuvering into position.

The demon hit the parking lot with a
thump
that I felt as much as heard.
Score one for efficiency!
I jammed the butt of the staff into the asphalt and pointed the nasty end toward him, praying that everyone had made it to where they needed to be. The demon's eyes blazed, legs coiled beneath him for another leap—one that would end with me impaled on his claws. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Blauser snap open a tripod mount on the sonic cannon, holding it steady while Hurley took aim and pulled the trigger.

A low throb of sound shook the air, and the reyza staggered as if an actual cannonball had plowed into his chest. I allowed
myself a quick mental fist pump. The air throbbed again, sending the reyza to his knees. Elation sang through me as his arcane protections flickered.

“Wings and tail!” I hollered then scrambled for cover behind the mangled tank. The plastic was off. Now it was time to grate the cheese. Ahmed popped up from the other side of the tank, rifle at his shoulder. I hurried to shove earplugs into place as automatic gunfire sliced through the air. The reyza howled as the rounds ripped through the membranes of his wings and took chunks out of his tail. Hines, Roma, and Petrev joined in the shooting—all positioned so that no squad member could be caught in crossfire. Ahmed dropped an empty clip and slammed a fresh one into place with barely a pause in his firing. Behind the demon, chips of concrete flew from the rubble.

A dark arrow launched in a lazy arc from Kowal's Stryker: the new demon-snaring SkeeterCheater net, spreading as it flew to settle over the demon. Roma held up her fist, and the firing stopped.

“Crank it!” I yelled. If the reyza had been three feet shorter, it would have been perfect. But with the net only covering him from his horns to his knees, we had to take him down fast. The winch on the front of the Stryker screamed, winding in the cable to close the net around the thrashing reyza. I pulled the earplugs out and ran forward as he toppled. Razor sharp claws tore at the net, but his incredible strength wasn't enough to defeat the graphene strands.

A triumphant whoop went up from Alpha Squad. Mission accomplished. Our squad had scored the first demon capture, and a big ass one at that.

I was in no mood to cheer. DIRT HQ would swoop in and cart the demon off—for the good of Earth—and would then refuse to let me anywhere near him. After all, my job was complete, and there were too many agencies wanting a crack at him to waste time letting me keep a hand in. Maybe they'd find better ways to kill demons, but they'd never break him and learn the reason for the incursions—info that could give us a real edge and help end this nightmare.

Anger burned in my chest—at myself and HQ and the demons and the lords.

The winch went silent, cable taut and net tight. Breath hissed between fangs as the reyza struggled. Blood dripped from his shredded wings, staining the asphalt beneath him.

“Kho lahn ettik ai vihr?” I demanded. “What are you doing to the rifts?” At his glare, I jammed the business end of the staff against his side and thumbed the button, held it for the count of five as his body jerked. I pulled the staff away and repeated my question.

His breath rasped, but the hatred in his eyes merely shone hotter. “Our blood. Our breath.” He let out a rage-filled bellow that made me wish I'd left the earplugs in. “Our world!”