Raw Power: An Urban Fantasy Novel (Demon-Hearted Book 1) (26 page)

It was very much a work in progress, with flowing, intricate symbols written all about it. Certain of them had been carved directly into the cement, and new, black candles festooned the five corners of the painstakingly rendered star at its center. Kubo dropped to one knee and looked it over with wonder; the guy was practically drooling. He'd hinted at the fact that Agatha's coven was devising an incredible new spell capable of enslaving me, and even though I didn't know a lick about spell craft, I could see in this circle's designs that he'd been right. It looked ridiculously complicated. He pored over it for a few moments, his breath held up in his lungs. It wasn't the best time for him to geek out, but he couldn't seem to help himself.

I tapped him on the shoulder when I saw something across the room that warranted our attention, however.

There was someone there, sitting in a high-back chair.

And unless I was mistaken, they were holding a baby.

Even through the darkness, scarcely parted by the glow of the will-o-the-wisps, I could feel a pair of dark, hateful eyes carving into me from across the room.

Kubo stood, holding his gun out before him. “Agatha,” he said. Stepping around the circle, almost out of reverence, he waved to me and made sure I was following. Joe and Isabella stayed further behind, looking cautiously at the complicated designs on the cellar floor.

“None other,” said the old witch, her voice a dissatisfied croak. She didn't move from her seat, but continued staring us down as we closed the distance. Our approach was cautious; neither of us could be sure of what Agatha might do. There was nowhere for her to run, but her bag of tricks ran far deeper than either of us probably knew.

Now, as I got to stand about fifteen feet from her, I noticed something that turned my stomach. Agatha's cloak was drawn to one side, and the child was pressed to her bare skin. More than that, though, one of the crone's sagging breasts was exposed, and she had the child nursing at it. A stream of red, viscous liquid spilled from the corner of the kid's mouth as he suckled.

I'm not a doctor, but I knew enough about breastfeeding to know that that shit wasn't natural.

I about threw up Mona's strength tincture right then and there, but somehow kept it down. “What the hell are you doing?” I managed to ask.

Agatha shot me a fresh glance, fierce and cold. “No, I'll be asking the questions here, Gadreel. This is my domain, and I won't abide such rudeness. What I want to know is how it is you managed to come here undetected. We'd placed a pox on you, should have known all about your movements, but I see that's been cleared.” She narrowed her gaze and looked Kubo square in the face. “Oh, I see. You're still cavorting with that miserable whore, Mona.” Agatha shook her head, chuckling throatily. “It makes no difference. You may have found us, but you lack the power to stop me. Having been foolish enough to enter the lion's den, I'll make certain that none of you leave with your lives today.”

“Actually, how about you just hand over the kid,” I growled, stepping past Kubo.

Agatha began to laugh. The sound of her laughter, a genuine cackle, was harsh as it bounced off of the cellar walls. My ears still hadn't fully recovered from listening to the familiars screech. “This child is an offering for you, Gadreel. Don't you see? On the night of the full moon my spell will be complete and the two of us will be bonded forever. I'd hoped to win you to my side peacefully, but I found that I preferred a sure thing.” She stood up suddenly. “No matter. I'll have my way when all is said and done.”

Agatha raised one of her arms, giving some signal.

That was when we got swarmed.

THIRTY-SEVEN

From the shadows, of which there were no shortage in the cellar, came the witches.

It was hard to say exactly how many there were. I thought there must have been at least six bounding out of the shadow towards Kubo and I. They leapt from the shadows as if the room were some deep pool and they were dolphins breaking the surface to do a flip. Their pale, clawed hands took hold of us and tried to drag us to the ground where they would savage us with the same blows that'd killed me once upon a time.

If you ask me, their assault was rather inelegant for a bunch of experienced magic users.

Kubo was knocked to one side as the witches jumped him. Two of them pushed him to the ground and made him drop his gun, while the other four focused on me.

I wouldn't be toppled so easily, however.

 
Or, rather,
Gadreel
wouldn't.

With the demon's power coursing through me and the strength tincture pushing me to still greater heights, I let the witches hang on me for a moment before flinging them off of my arms and legs like rag dolls. They didn't even know what hit them as they crashed into the walls. One minute they'd been ambushing us and jumping all over me. The next I'd cast them off with ease.

I love it when things work out that way.

Before they could all gain their feet, I was throwing my fists around. The two witches who'd subdued Kubo now set their sights on me, and I was left to fight off the whole horde.

The first time I'd met the coven, I'd been awed by their strength. Physically, they'd overpowered me without trouble then. But now, the tables had turned, and as my fist connected with the first witch, they knew they were outgunned.

Like the head of a sledgehammer, my fist rocketed through the air and crashed into the face of an oncoming witch.

The look of surprise never even fully materialized across her face. The stuff of her visage wasn't strong enough to bear the blow, and I split her head, skin, bone and all, with a single pass. Her corpse slumped to the ground hard, and her sisters took three steps back, fully realizing what they'd just walked into.

They were boned, and they knew it.

Growing livid, Agatha sputtered a few guttural syllables and began flooding the cellar with a choking, impenetrable mist, just as she'd done outside the warehouse the other night. It was the ace up her sleeve, and before her face was blotted out by the fog, I saw a sinister smile creep across her waxen face. She fully intended to trap us within it and kill us one by one. Without being able to see, we were sitting ducks.

Kubo, though, had come prepared.

Just as the fog began to envelop him, he pulled a glass vial from his pocket and threw it down onto the floor. As it shattered, a powerful gust rocked the room, knocking the witches to the ground and clearing the mist completely. The air was left chill as the dead of winter. I could see my breath.

That must've been another gift of Mona's. I have to say, she might've grossed me out, but by this point, I was ready to buy her a box of chocolates and kiss her on the mouth.

Kubo laughed, delighting in the sour scowl Agatha wore. He reclaimed his gun and pointed it straight at her, hesitating to pull the trigger only because she still held the infant in her arms. “You were sloppy, Agatha. Too sloppy. I honestly expected better from you, but the wards you set, while impressive, were too easy to diffuse. You banked everything on not being sniffed out. You were so confident in your choice of location that you neglected to really prepare for the likes of us. You underestimated me, the Veiled Order. And now your time's up. How does it feel, knowing I've commandeered your cornerstones, given myself the home field advantage?” He laughed, his voice coming through like the roar of a bear. “This is the end.”

Agatha took a step back, bumping into her chair.

The other witches, spurred into action, tried to team up on me, but they didn't make it far.

One after another I took hold of them. Some jumped on me and tried to dig their grotty claws into my skin, only to get thrown to the floor. When they were laying prone, I buried my fists in their skulls, ending up wrist-deep in gore. Their heads gave like melons, painting the concrete below in crimson and bits of flesh that looked not unlike uncooked hamburger.

One or two of them started mumbling, trying to cast a spell. They couldn't get it off the ground quick enough to evade my blows, however. In the case of one, I literally tore her mouth from her face before she could finish her incantation.

For me, it was kind of like watching a hyper violent film. I was in control, and yet, the positively outrageous offense I was launching came from elsewhere. My hands and arms were used in doling out punishment, but were guided by a mind far more learned in the ways of combat. My muscles ached as the strength tincture beefed them up. The god of war told me where to swing, and seemed poised to take no prisoners. With my awareness cut in two, the demon and I worked in tandem, sharing the same brain, the same body, the same fists. I could sense him, and he could sense me. And in that moment, our wills were centered on the same aim.

Kill.

Kill everything.

Everything that moves.

There's a saying people use to describe periods of intense anger. “I saw red,” they'll say. Well, for me, it rang true, and not simply because I had fat drops of witch's blood running down my face. My eyes shook so that I almost couldn't see straight. The energy surging through me was almost too much for my mortal coil to contain, and I felt like I might suddenly fall to pieces at any moment. As I grunted and screamed and savaged the coven, I began to see everything in hues of red, almost as if the inside of my body were slowly filling up to the brim with hellfire.

The last few tried to run.

Kubo pumped them full of lead, and from the rear I heard the clicking of Joe's Zippo.

They got torched in short order, clutching at their bodies and shrieking on the floor in the seconds before the flame fully consumed them.

Now it was just the four of us and Agatha.

Agatha was backed into the wall, no options left to her. The only reason she still lived was the bundle of joy she clutched to her chest like a life vest. That kid was sitting tight, seemingly oblivious to everything that was going on. “What a mistake the Veiled Order has made this day, threatening an ally like me. Why, I was a great asset to the organization, a longstanding member. I see that this is how they choose to repay my years of service. I wonder, though, if this Faustian bargain you've made won't come back to bite you... dealing with demons has never been the Veiled Order's specialty. This time, in teaming with one, I wonder if you haven't bitten off more than you can chew. It's unwise... I expect it will backfire on all of you, horribly.”

“Drop the kid,” I bellowed in a voice too deep and feral to be my own.

Agatha refused. She extended one hand, allowing it to take the shape of a long, serrated knife with the utterance of some few words. This was her greatest hit, and she couldn't help but trot it out one last time. Leveling the blade against the baby's throat, she looked out at us with wild eyes. “I will kill this child,” she warned. “I will find another after I escape here and fulfill the ritual myself. Back away now, or I'll slash his throat!”

Kubo raised his gun anyway. He didn't give a fuck about this kid. From the very start, it'd been about the mission for him. The kid was a distraction, a pawn caught up in the game just like Isabella, Joe and I. All he wanted was to see Agatha dead, collateral damage be damned.

I still had enough control over my body to get my way, though. I'd come here to protect that baby, and I wasn't about to let the kid get hit by a stray bullet.

Everything went into a kind of slow-motion in the next instant. I was acutely aware of Kubo's movements, of the electrical activity that informed them. I could sense his muscles tensing, his finger twitching as it went to squeeze the trigger.

And then, things sped back up.

I batted the gun out of his hand, and it fired as it struck the floor. Then, grabbing Kubo's arm, I whipped him over my shoulder like a Judo master, so that he crashed into the wall head-first.

Knocked him out cold.

“I'm in charge here, sorcerer,” I barked at him as Joe and Isabella looked on in horror. I doubt if he heard me, though.

In the time it took me to handle Kubo, however, Agatha had gone in for the kill. Raising the blade, she held the infant out before her and took a swing.

She'd promised to kill the kid if we didn't cooperate and now she was following through.

THIRTY-EIGHT

The kid disappeared.

Even as Gadreel was looking through my eyes, he had to do a double-take.

One minute, Agatha was about to stab the kid with her knife-hand; the next, the kid was nowhere to be found.

The old witch's eyes almost popped out of her head when she whiffed, catching nothing but air. “What... what?” she screamed, unwilling to believe her eyes.

From behind me, I heard a baby's cry.

Isabella was holding the kid, and was standing near the stairs, ready to race up them at any moment.

Agatha stamped her foot against the ground. “How? How can this be?” She pointed her knife-hand at Isabella, her pale, waxy face narrowing in a beastly snarl. She was too angry to speak anymore, the corners of her mouth crowded with foam.

With a scream, Agatha lunged past me, sprinting for Isabella. She was fast, enormously fast.

If not for the fact that I had Gadreel on the assist, I might not have been able to grab the hood of her cloak and drag her to the ground.

Agatha choked as her cloak tightened around her throat. With an open palm, I gave her a smack in the neck, so that her head was separated from her shoulders. Agatha's last breaths sputtered from a pair of trembling lips. I looked her in the eyes as consciousness fled from them and then cast her head towards the unconscious Kubo.

Isabella raced up the stairs, infant in tow, looking positively frightened. Joe, too, had gone utterly pale, and his knees were knocking against one another as if he might piss himself. He tried to stammer a congratulations for a job well done, but he couldn't get the words out.

And, besides, the job wasn't done.

Not yet.

Agatha's body, sans head, began to writhe on the ground, inching forward a few feet like some sort of giant worm.