Risen: The Demontouched Saga (Book 6) (3 page)

Searching the rest of the house, I find much of the same. Dressers knocked over with the contents of the drawers scattered on the ground. Boxes ripped open with their contents scattered about. Not even the mattresses were spared, both of them with the covers cut off, exposing the springs beneath.

The only things we notice missing are my ammunition and the food in the cabinets. I don’t dare check the fridge to see if they got that too. If they didn’t, I can’t imagine it smells good by now.

“You find the keys?” Sara yells down the hall.

“Nope. Probably under this mess somewhere.” I couldn’t see anyone leaving the car in the driveway if they found the keys. They left it because they didn’t want it.

On the floor I notice Sara’s laptop poking out from under a pile of clothes in the corner of the room. This is the computer she usually used to encrypt and decrypt data from things we found, including the USB drive I found in the warehouse that’s still plugged into the side.

I take a seat on the couch after putting the stuffing back inside one cushion. Placing it on my lap, I push the power button on the top and it turns on. It must have been on the charger when we left. There won’t be enough power in the thing to last more than a few hours, which is fine. There really isn’t a need for them anymore.

“You going to sit there and play games, or help me find the keys?” Sara asks, leering over the screen. Getting the point, I put the computer down on the couch to help dig through the debris.

She starts in the kitchen, leaving me to check somewhere else. Not wanting to look the places she already has, I walk across the house to start in our bedroom.

Walking inside, I step over the pile of clothes at the door, carefully avoiding Sara’s porcelain dolls lying on the floor. Those are her babies. Her prized possessions. Many of them she has had in her collection since she was a child. In our time together, I’ve added nearly two dozen to it while I’ve been out on the street. Many of those shattered in the room across the hall.

Before digging through the room, I fix the mattress the best I can so I can place the dolls on top. The ones she keeps in the room are some of her favorites. Even the one dressed like a clown that freaks me out. I know it’s harmless, but it would scare the shit out of me when I woke up in the middle of the night. You can blame that on Steven King’s IT. I hated that movie too.

I pick up the last doll, a little girl dressed in a small white wedding dress, revealing the keys below. I smile at the irony of the situation as this has always been her favorite doll. At least as long as I’ve known her. Every time we were out, she would make me stop at every store that sold the things. She was looking for a boy dressed in a tux to make a matching pair. Being a dreamer, she had hoped to have them set up in the reception if we ever got married. Something that was going to be difficult without any priests around.

Real priests anyways.

“Got them,” I yell, grabbing the keys form the floor.

Sara walks into the room to see me not only holding the keys, but also the doll.

“We should bring it with us,” she says, kissing me on the cheek.

“I’m not sure that’s a great idea. Going to be hard enough to keep you in one piece when we get back to Nal.”

She takes the doll from my hands, kissing me gently on the lips. “You protect me and I’ll protect the doll.”

“Deal,” I say, smiling. It was an easy deal to make. I was going to do that much anyways.

She walks to the closet, opening the door to take look inside. Out of all the things to do before we leave, she would have to check the one place that could keep her here longer.

“You should put this on,” she says, handing me one of the priest suits from the closet.

“Those days are done,” I say, shaking my head. With Eunie gone, I don’t think I could bring myself to wear the suits anymore. It was as much a part of him as it was me. With the wound of his loss still fresh, I’d rather not wear something that reminds me of him.

“I’m still bringing it,” she says. “You may change your mind.”

Fat chance.

Wanting to drop the subject, I walk back in the living room. I’m about to walk out to the car when I notice the laptop sitting on the couch. Taking my seat on the repaired cushion, I open the file on the drive.

The computer freezes when I first click the icon. I’m about to close the thing when the folder zips into existence once it is finally gone. On the drive are two icons, the top one labeled convention center that has a detailed map of the attack awhile back. The second one, however, still has the odd symbols below it.

“You ever decode that second file?”

“I had the program running when we left,” she says. “I figured the battery would have died by now.”

“Guess whoever shut it helped us out.”

I hand her the laptop, getting off the couch to let her have a good look.

“Looks like it finished,” she says with a wide grin on her face.

“What does it say?”

The look on her face shifts from ecstasy to one of horror in two seconds. “I think I know where those bombs are,” she says, turning the screen.

- 4 -

“Hold on,” I say, making the turn onto 14th at nearly forty miles an hour. The rear wheels of the car fishtail to the right while I struggle to maintain control. I never had a problem driving fast, but I wish I learned how to drift. That skill would have come in handy when I narrowly miss a parked car on the side of the road.

I weave through the city streets, narrowly missing vehicles and debris before ending back on Walnut. As I approach the new portal I see the damage and destruction of the battle below. A thick smoke fills the air underneath the southern pillar, near the same point where I parked the Expedition.

As we cross over Broadway, we get an even clearer view.

Three large cranes are lifting a piece of the pillar into location near the middle of the portal. Thankfully the piece isn’t large enough to fill the gap meaning there’s still time.

“Bridge is out!” Sara shouts, placing her hands against the dashboard.

I cut the wheel to the right, getting on Memorial. I take the road another block, stopping just past where Spruce connects.

“Gotta run from here,” I say, grabbing my gear. It isn’t an ideal solution, but the concrete medians should give us a little cover.

We follow the highway down a ways before crossing behind the construction vehicles left to fix the bridge and supporting roadways before shit went down.

As we get closer, the gunfire gets louder telling me things are shifting against Nal’s group. I figured it was just a matter of time before that happened. Things were a little too calm earlier. Bullets and other weapons may disable a demon for a short period, but it is impossible to kill them without specialty weapons like my sword or the knife. I can’t imagine they are here fighting on their own, either. They wouldn’t blink at the thought of abandoning a damaged body to take over another.

The only real assets Nal has going for him are the two angels fighting for our team, Azrael and Malachi. They are bad ass as far as fighters go, but even they can only do so much against large numbers. I haven’t seen Uriel fight, but imagine she is a force in her own right.

Up ahead we see the makeshift barrier the team is using as a command post still in one piece. Either the demons didn’t get the memo, or we got here on time. Commander Stevens walks around the side of the trucks, hand waving in the air when he sees us. Before I can wave back, the back door of the box truck blows open, sending shards of wood and metal into the commander.

The blast sends him flying in the air nearly five feet, only stopping when his body crashes into a parked minivan. He moves around sluggishly once he is on the ground, covering his hand with blood as he feels his body.

I drop my shotgun to the ground, pushing through the plastic construction barrier to get to the man. I don’t get to the other side of the street when another blast rocks the support of the bridge right below the roadway above.

“Get back to the car!” I shout to Sara, hoping she can hear me over the sound of panic below the bridge. I don’t look back again to see if she listens, instead I focus on the damage unfolding before my eyes.

One by one, the other pillars supporting the bridge explode. The concrete roadway above moans as it struggles to balance on what remains of the support beams. They may have been designed to withstand damage from a truck or a barge, I doubt they were built with this in mind.

Before I can get much closer, large pieces of concrete fall on the ground around me, the area further under the bridge is much of the same.

Not wanting to be crushed, I run back in the opening between the ramps and overpasses. The ground shakes violently around me as the bridges collapse to the ground, sending a cloud of concrete dust into the air easily four stories high. As the pillars continue to fall, I pull the collar of my tee shirt over my head to avoid breathing in any more of the dust than I have to.

The carnage lasts nearly a minute leaving us with one less way out of the state. From the rubble I hear the faint screams of people trapped under the ruins. Without hesitation I run forward to help.

I come up on a small red car pinned against a pile of construction materials with a woman banging on the windshield, trapped thanks to a large concrete boulder blocking the other door.

“Get back!” I yell at the woman, pulling the pistol out of my belt. Once the woman is in the back seat, I fire at the window.

It takes me a few solid shots to get anywhere with the windshield as the tempered glass is designed to not shatter under these circumstances. Thankfully, I don’t need to remove all the glass, just a big enough hole for her to get through.

After putting six bullets through the window, I stomp my foot on the glass to expand the hole.

“Come on!” I shout, holding my hand to help the woman through. She struggles, cutting her exposed hands and knees as she climbs through the shards of glass, but at least she is in one piece. I point to the area I last saw Sara and tell the woman to wait over there. An act she doesn’t hesitate to do.

One down, hundreds to go.

As the dust settles I make out the survivors all working together to pull the ones fortunate enough not to be under the bridge out. Under the center, between the two connecting bridges that make up the Poplar I see the crushed remains of the box trucks with a large block of the bridge sitting on the top.

I feel my stomach drop knowing Nal was under there. Part of me wants to go over to help, but I know I won’t do any good on my own. That’s when I see it. A backhoe sitting in the construction zone near the river. I’ve never driven one before, but today seems like the perfect day to learn.

Sprinting down the street, I jump over anything that gets in my way.

Cars.

Debris.

Even a soldier giving CPR to someone he pulled out from under a car.

If it was in my way, I leapt over it or juked around until I open the door of the backhoe.

Sitting in the seat, I find the ignition on the console just left of the controls without the key. I franticly search the cab, looking for any place they may have stashed the keys. Part of me knew finding the tractor here was too good to be true. I wouldn’t leave the keys around on a piece of equipment I wasn’t around to watch either.

I look around, trying to find the office. Construction sites like this usually have a place for the managers to oversee the project. When I see the single-wide trailer peeking over the top of the debris, I know I have my spot.

I sprint back alongside the rubble, looking for a place to cross, eventually finding a small passage. What we call the bridge is actually a series of interconnected ramps and highways all on a short span of land. It merged three different highways together to cross the Mississippi in this one spot. Not the smartest idea, but I never had to deal with the traffic personally.

One of the entrance ramps below the main bridge was still intact though it is not clear for how much longer as it is holding two large slabs of the road on top. The only other option I see is to go further west to pass near the stadium as that stretch of the bridge still looks solid. Not wanting to waste any more time than I have to, I cross underneath.

Even crossing quickly, the bridge whines and pops under the extreme stress. The ramp may be holding now, but it wouldn’t for much longer.

Reaching the other side, I run to the trailer a short distance away only to find it locked. I would have been surprised if it wasn’t. This door, however, leaves me a much better solution.

I take a few steps back to get a running start. Steeling myself for the blow, I rush forward, kicking the door open with a loud pop. Two steps into the building I find what I am looking for. A cork board on the wall with a few dozen hooks screwed into it. Most of the hooks are empty, but there are a few with keys tagged with equipment numbers. I do the logical thing and take them all since I didn’t take the time to look.

Outside the door, I see the support beams of the lower ramp cracking, the whines getting louder. Not wasting time, I break into a full on sprint, nearly tripping myself on the gravel lot.

Underneath, the sounds get much louder as the support beams give sending dust and rocks falling around me. The ground rumbles violently as I follow under the bridge as the supports give out behind me. My mind races, sending my legs into another gear to get me out of the carnage faster.

The bridge behind me lets out a loud pop when I clear the other side. I don’t stop to look behind me, even as a large boulder rolls to my left. I just keep my head down until I get back to the backhoe.

Leaping into the door I left open, I shove the key into the ignition. With a turn of the key, the engine whines and moans as it sends a plume of black smoke into the air, shaking me violently, but doesn’t start.

I give it two more tries, eventually slamming my head down into the steering wheel in frustration.