Sacrifice: The Demontouched Saga (Book 5) (2 page)

“Do you see that?” Nal asks, pointing to a blue house about two blocks away.

“Another orb?” I ask. Out in front of the house, almost set up like a lawn ornament is the distinct yellow glow of an orb of souls.

“Why would they set one up there?” he says, scratching his chin.

“I don’t know, but I’m going to grab it.”

Nal nods as I make the slow decent down the ladder. The moment my feet touch the ground I run for the relative cover of the nearby houses. They won’t do much to protect me if someone runs up in front or behind me, but it will keep me from being caught out in the open.

I take a route that keeps the outer wall on my left side since the outer ring of houses should be clear by this point. Up above in the first tower I pass, the bodies of the two sentries are slumped over the guardrail surrounding the platform, weapons slung on their backs obviously killed before they could react.

Once I’m through the backyard of the first house I notice activity on the other side of the wooden privacy fence. To my left I see a group of our soldiers exiting a house walking next door unaware of the threat they are about to walk into.

Between the houses a small group of three men are tucked back behind some decorative bushes alongside the neighboring house, ready to strike. Why they haven’t already is beyond me, but maybe they hoped to be able to take them out quietly so they could attack another group. With that in mind I jump the fence with the machine gun at the ready, hoping to save the day.

I fire my weapon before my feet even touch the ground. While I’m capable with a pistol, firing the machine gun is another matter entirely, emptying the magazine in a matter of seconds without scoring a single hit. My efforts were at least successful at sending the enemy out of the cover of the bushes and toward the safety of the two vehicles in the driveway.

The men approaching the house hesitate for a moment, lifting their weapons at me in reaction, but quickly turn their attention to the men running away once they see who I am.

I drop the empty gun, opting instead for the relative familiarity of my bladed weapons. Behind the cars I can almost make out laughter from a blond guy with an amazingly festive mohawk as he looks at me, a small handgun aimed in my direction. With a flick of my wrist, I decide to end his fun.

He lets out scream that gets muffled the moment my blade enters his tender throat. He collapses back into the two men behind him, squirting blood over both of them. I can almost make out the final death twitches of his boots when I reach the rear bumper of the car.

The second man, wearing a blue tee shirt and a black Yankee’s cap is the next to go when I send the knife into his chest. When he stands up in the open to pull out the blade the soldiers open fire, sending him to the ground in a heap, sending a spray of blood over the cars behind them.

I almost laugh when I notice the last, an older man easily in his fifties with a body full of wrinkled tattoos playing dead under the body of the first man. To anyone else, seeing the man covered with blood would be a sign he was definitely gone. This one, however, obviously wasn’t aware that I was the one that killed his friend.

Without a hint of hesitation I take my angel blade and shove it through the chest of the top man. The older man lets out a blood curdling scream as the sword penetrates the flesh of his abdomen. With one hand he reaches for the blade in his gut, but opts to grab his switchblade with the other, sending it twisting in the air at me. I turn my head at the last second, sending the blade whizzing past my ear and clanging into the street behind me.

“Almost,” I say, pulling the sword out of his gut before sticking it into his throat. He looks at me mouthing something that looks like an insult before passing out from the blood loss. I bend over and retrieve his soul, making a mental note on where it needs to go.

“You good?” one of the soldiers, Mark, says checking the bodies.

“I’m fine.” I retrieve my blades, wiping them off on the tattooed guy’s pants.

They thank me for the save before moving into the house. With the coast clear I dart between the houses, crossing the back yards with little effort.

Entering the front I make out two groups of four soldiers about four houses down making their sweeps with precision. Two enter the house to make the sweep while the other two remain outside to cover each direction in the front.

As I cross the street, the two covering my direction jerk their weapons at me, quickly reverting them to a neutral position once I’m in the open.

I slow down to a crawl once I’m across the street and into the front yard of the blue house I saw from the tower. It is one of the larger houses in the area, a two story split foyer with three sets of windows on each side. Even more impressive is the attached three-car garage. Whoever owned this house before the Rising had to be proud of himself as it much bigger than the others.

In front of the house, attached to a polished marble bird feeder is the orb. Around the sides I make out metal bars holding it in place with a steel plate on top to hold it in. I’m not sure why they put it here, but it really isn’t important. From here I don’t want to give them a chance to retrieve it.

As I get closer I notice the bars protruding through the top with large nuts and washers holding the plate in place. Not exactly the type of security that I’ve come to expect from these things, but I’m not about to complain.

Without a wrench, I loosen the nuts the best I can using my hands. It is slow, painful work, but I’m making progress. Within a few minutes I have one nut off, followed by another two minutes later.

“What do you think you’re doing?” I hear when I’m halfway through the third.

I turn around to see two large men behind me. One is big and tall, almost built like an NFL linebacker if it wasn’t for the spare tire he’s hiding under his shirt. The other one, is almost a perfect contrast. Short and skinny with a variety of piercings throughout his face and ears.

I decide not to speak, knowing they won’t care for my answer anyways. Instead, rushing forward to meet the two in melee. Wanting to take out the weakest target first I head for Pierce, swinging my sword at his head. He dodges the blow with a burst of speed I expected out of a man his size. What I didn’t expect was his strength. The moment my blade passes over his head, missing him by nearly a foot, he thrusts his fist into my gut, sending me flying into the street behind me. Before I even stand up, Linebacker rushes forward lining up his field goal attempt with my skull.

I roll out of his path, swinging my sword in a low arc, slicing off his foot. Pierce doesn’t give me a chance to revel in my victory, however, as he knocks me back to the ground with a vicious clothesline.

“Once I’m finished with you, I’m going to hang your body from the front gates as a reminder of what happens to those who attack us.”

Before giving me a chance to give him a witty reply he grabs me by the throat, lifting me a few feet off the ground. I try to kick and claw my way free, but without any luck. After a few seconds my body gives in to the lack of oxygen, reducing what little effect my blows had on him.

With a last ditch effort, I place my hands on his head. Sensing my resistance he rewards me with a quick thrust to my gut with his freehand, stopping any chance I had at completing my exorcism.

“Time to die,” he says, cackling maniacally.

I open my eyes to take one last look at the world when the end of a sword juts out of Pierce’s mouth. With one swift twist, the blade decapitates the man, sending the top half of his head to the ground. I gasp, noticing the one responsible.

Azrael.

After a few seconds the body finally catches onto the fact the head is no longer in charge and it drops to the ground, releasing me in the process.

“You looked like you needed a hand,” Azrael says, wearing the same deep brown hoodie as the last time I saw him.

“What are you doing back?” I say, rubbing my neck.

“We’ll talk later,” he says moments before running down the street and into the action, leaving me sitting on the pavement to contemplate the ass whooping I just received.

- 3 -

“Go take care of someone who really needs it,” I say to the nurse sent over to look me over. From her appearance I can tell she loves her line of work, but there is an aura of authority that radiates from her that frankly scares me.

She points her finger about two inches from my nose. “You will sit your butt down on that table, Mitchell Butler, and do as you are told.”

I gasp, but keep my mouth shut as I don’t care to test her wrath. She takes her time as she looks me over, pressing any spot that looks remotely bruised until she gets a reaction out of me. The type of thing my mother used to do as a kid. She was the worrying type and I was her blood, so it made sense. Coming from this woman is almost frightening.

“You don’t look that bad,” she says, turning around. “But you need to take it easy for a few days.”

As much as I want to take her advice, I don’t have a few days to relax. Until I get Sara back, the only way I’m taking any time off is if my body physically shuts down.

I refrain from telling her that however as she would just reward that remark with an IV drop with some sleeping medicine.

“Mind some company?” Nal asks entering the room.

“Come on in,” I say, scooting over to make room on the bed.

“You aren’t going to believe this, but the men found three more orbs across the compound. All set up like the one you went after.”

“Wow, so we have all four?”

He shakes his head. “We got two. The one you saved and one more. They escaped with the other two.”

“How?” I ask. “Stevens was supposed to have the other side covered.”

“He did. But it’s hard to corner a demon who can jump over the walls.”

I nod knowing it can be hard to pin a demon period. Even with my abilities.

“How many did we lose?”

“About thirty,” Nal says. “Which is amazing considering how well armed those people were.”

“That’s a lot better than I expected.”

He nods.

“We should have plenty of weapons and ammunition now,” I say.

“More than you could imagine,” he says. “Good timing on it too. We’ll need all of it soon.”

“The only ammunition we need are more people like you,” Azrael says, entering the room. For the first time since I’ve met him his hood is relaxed on his shoulders, exposing his long brown hair.

“Or you,” I say, smiling. “Not that I’m complaining, but I thought you would be in Minnesota for a while yet.”

“I got there too late,” he says, sitting down on the stool next to the bed. “By the time I got to Hallock, Balthazel was long gone.”

Az, by mere technicality, is supposed to be a neutral party in this fight. As a fallen angel, most would believe that he would be on Lucifer’s side in the war. Double that when you consider that he left heaven for the same reasons as Hell’s fearless leader.

Fortunately for humanity, that’s where the similarities between the two fade. While he left heaven because he refused to worship humanity, he still felt the need to protect us. He didn’t hate God for creating us, he just felt like everything he created should be on even footing.

“I guess he must be close if you came back here.”

He nods. “The demons are on the move. In the last two months the amount of demonic activity in the area has nearly tripled according to my sources. Balthazel must want in on the fun.”

Balthazel is fairly high in the ranks of the demon armies. While he isn’t a commander like Abaddon, he is still high enough on the food chain to make things happen. At first glance, his powers almost seem to be weak or pedestrian, but that would miss the point. Through the history of mankind we have been through countless weather disasters, Balthazel was responsible for some of the worst. The most recent example I know of was Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

He has been rather quiet for the last few years from the reports I’ve heard, only surfacing recently.

I pick up the glowing orb I placed on the table next to my bed, the second in my now growing collection. I place both my hands on the thing, trying to draw the souls into my body the same way I would out of a person.

“Have you tried that spell of yours?” Nal says.

I shake my head. “I don’t think an exorcism works on an object.”

“It won’t,” Azrael says, looking the orb over. “But there might be another option.”

“I’m game for anything at this point,” I say.

“Well south, near the Bootheel, there is a woman who has the power to remove spirits from objects. I don’t know if it will work on the orbs, but it’s worth a try.”

“The Witch,” Nancy says, stomping into the room. From the scowl on her face I can tell she doesn’t like the person Az is talking about.

“Wiccan,” Az says, shaking his head. “She is a rather pleasant woman if you would give her a chance, Malachi.”

“Pleasant or not, she does not follow the ways.”

“And that is why she is still here!” Az says, stepping into her face. “Is that not punishment enough?”

Nal stands up and gets between the two angels. If the trio wouldn’t give me dirty looks for trying, I would do the same thing. The last thing we can afford right now is to have fighting in the ranks.

“Azrael is on our side, like it or not,” I say. “And if he says this woman might be able to free the souls, then I think we need to give it a shot.”

Nal nods his head. “We don’t have a better plan. I’d be all for destroying them if it would work.” A fact we learned the hard way when one shattered in my fight against Duncan. A few days later the demons charged the compound to free the demon trapped inside.

“I take it you know how to get to her,” I say to Az as I sit up on the bed.

“I do,” he says, walking to the door. “The trip won’t be easy. So you should get some rest.”

“What’s so hard about a three hour trip down 55?”

“She lives on a farm just outside Caruthersville. There is a force of demons in the Bootheel using the city to ship construction materials upriver.”