Sacrifice: The Demontouched Saga (Book 5) (3 page)

“To the riverfront?” Nal asks.

“I believe so though I don’t know for certain.”

“So if she is outside of the city, how bad could it get?” I ask, getting antsy to leave.

“She is the type of person they would love to get their hands on,” Nancy says. “I would be surprised if they haven’t already.”

“I saw her about two months ago,” Az says, glaring at Nancy. “She has a strong will.”

She folds her hands under her breasts. “If they can break the girl,” she says looking at me. “They can break her too.”

“Then we settle this the easy way. I go talk to Stevens and get us a unit or two to go down there with you,” Nal says.

Azrael shakes his head. “It would generate too much attention. We would need to go alone.”

I shrug. I would feel a lot more comfortable with a few more people, but my track record with help isn’t too good recently. Besides, having an angel as powerful as Azrael around means a lot more to me than a few random soldiers.

“How long do I have until that window to save Sara opens?” I ask, looking over at Nancy.

“Four days,” she says. “After that, there are no promises.”

“Plenty of time,” I say, leaning back in the bed. “We’ll only need two.”

“I wish I had your confidence,” Nal says, laughing.

“You are better served with your planning and patience,” Nancy says to Nal before walking out the door.

“The world needs men of every type,” Azrael says. “You all have an important part to play in the coming days.”

With those words I close my eyes and let myself drift off to sleep. She may not be the answer, but with a few days to kill, it is worth the shot. Even if it means coming inches away from a hornet’s nest.

- 4 -

“You try to bring him back in one piece,” Nal says leaning into the driver’s side of my Ford Expedition. “You know how he likes to try getting himself killed.”

“I’ve noticed,” Az laughs. “He will be fine. Just try to leave something for me to fight when we get back.”

“No promises there,” Nal says. He walks around the car, reaching deep into his right pants pocket and pulls out a necklace. This is not any normal necklace though. The one he hands me is the shell of the vessel that once held the demon Israfil. The same demon that’s invading Sara’s body.

“Remember, you have four days to learn what you need to learn before our window to save her opens.”

“I’ll be back long before that,” I say, placing the amulet around my neck. “Just do me a favor. If something happens…”

“We leave Thursday either way,” he says, face full of concern. “Just don’t make me do it without you.”

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world,” I say, forcing a smile on my face.

Nal backs up a few steps allowing Az to back the car down the driveway. I let him drive because he has a better idea about where we are going than I do. That and it would be nice to relax awhile longer.

Once we are a few miles outside of the compound I look at Az to get some answers.

“So, tell me what you know about this woman,” I say, leaning my chair back.

“She is a very old woman, easily in her nineties, though she doesn’t know her birthday to know for sure. She was born on the same farm we are about to visit.”

“Family farm?”

Az nods his head. “As a child she grew up loving nature. As you can imagine, the farm played a large part in that.”

“Makes sense,” I say. “If she was truly a Wiccan.”

“She is. That is why she was approached at a young age to join a local coven.”

“Let me ask you an honest question,” I say looking over at him. “Do they really cast spells?”

In the entertainment industry, Wiccans were usually portrayed as having various magical abilities. The actual spells they could use would vary depending on what show you were watching, but they all could to some extent.

“Not in the way that most assume,” he says. “Most of what they do are rituals that are not so different than what many ancient cultures used to do. Some of them are not so different than the power of exorcism you have.”

“Anything special about this farm?”

“About seventy acres on the north side of Caruthersville. They used to keep about half of it with corn and the other half soybeans until recently. Before the Rising, she rented the land to other farmers to use.”

“Take it that means she never took a husband.”

He shakes his head. “The coven she joined was against marriage,” he says looking over. “And childbirth before you ask.”

That I found odd. I’ve heard about groups that would recommend unions with certain people or groups of people, but never one that didn’t allow it at all.

“If they were against marriage and having children, how did they grow?”

“They didn’t. That is why she is the last member of her coven.”

That is the reason I found it odd. As members leave, or die, the survivors must seek new members constantly to rebuild the ranks. In a smaller group of people, that may have been a realistic solution, but as the group gets larger it becomes more and more difficult.

The other option is that the rest of the members died off relatively quickly, leaving her as the sole member by default. I suppose we’ll have that answer before too long.

Az takes the exit ramp from 64 onto 270 south. Back in its heyday, this stretch of road could be treacherous at the best of times. The next exit, Manchester, was a major traffic hub from east to west with part of it being on the historic Route 66. Around that area there were hundreds of businesses set up handling everything from fast food to manufacturing.

“Looks like trouble,” Az says, pointing out the roadblock up ahead. “Is there another way around?”

“A few miles back,” I say. “We can hit some of the back roads to pass.”

Az pulls the car next to three other cars that are set up longways, blocking the highway. I get out of the car, quickly crossing the vehicle barricade to see what the trouble is up ahead.

“Looks like we may need another way after all,” I say, pointing at the large crater in the road right before the exit ramp.

“You won’t be going anywhere,” I hear a man say from behind me shortly before I hear the sound of him cocking his shotgun.

I turn around to see a middle aged man, probably in his thirties holding a fancy camouflage shotgun at Az. Behind him is a woman who looks the same age. While she isn’t armed, she stands with an unmistakable aura of confidence. Given our current situation, I decide to treat her like a demon until she proves otherwise. If I don’t she may not give me a second chance.

“What’s this supposed to be,” I say, stifling a laugh. “A robbery?”

“Something like that,” he says, training the gun on me. “I want anything of value you have on you. Money. Jewelry. Those fancy swords. Throw them on the ground and walk away nice and slowly.”

“And if we don’t?”

“This!” The man pulls the trigger on the camouflage shotgun, sending a spray of pellets my way. Shotgun pellets are a little more tricky to stop, thanks to their small size. I was prepared for him to pull the trigger the moment I saw the loaded gun, however. With a push at the end of his gun, I stop the majority of the shot, leaving the rest to scatter wildly away from me.

Times like this makes me wish someone was shooting a video of the encounter because the look on his face is priceless. The kind of video I could watch on Youtube for hours. From the looks it’s almost like he didn’t expect someone to do that.

Sometimes it’s nice to have a unique ability.

Without hesitation, he cocks his gun back for another shot. Not wanting to stop another round of pellets, I push the spray I already control into his legs, causing him to yell out in pain as the pellets penetrate his skin.

“What’s the matter? Don’t like being shot?” I say as I pull his shotgun over to me.

The man drops to the ground, holding his bloody legs. “You just going to stand there woman? Get them!”

She looks at the two of us and shakes her head. I’m not sure what he had in mind, but she doesn’t seem to want any part of it as she makes a wide circle around us back up the highway.

“I guess these cars are all yours?” Az says, walking up to the mid eighties station wagon with heavily tinted windows on the left. He opens the rear door of the car sending boxes of food and ammunition crashing to the ground.

“Not a bad haul,” I say, walking over to the edge of the crater. The hole is large, nearly a football field across and probably half as far down. There is one thing that stands out more than anything though. The bottom of the crater is empty, not a single car or piece of asphalt is down in the pit. I find it hard to believe that this big of a hole could spawn out in the middle of the highway without having some debris at the bottom.

Testing my hunch, I bend over and pick up a large rock from the side of the road before giving it a nice toss into the center.

“Well look at that,” Az says when the rock skips off the top of the hole, halfway to the other side. “Seems one of these two can veil.”

I look down at the man in a heap on the ground. “I bet I know which one it is too.”

Before I can point her out she leaps ten feet in the air, sending a shock wave through the ground when her knee impacts the pavement. The vibrations of the earth nearly send me to the ground, but I’m able to maintain my balance by holding onto the hood of the old Buick nearby.

Out of all the powers a demon can possess, terrakinesis is one of the rarest. They can create small earthquakes and tremors in the ground, potentially damaging buildings and roadways. The crater here, even if it were real, would be well out of the ability of one demon like her, though with the help of some friends they might pull it off.

No, in her case she has a secondary ability, making her truly unique.

“I got this,” Az says, leaping at the woman with his angel blade in hand. The woman, anticipating the move, stomps the pavement before darting out of his path. The force of the resulting shock wave trips him up, sending him rolling on the ground.

Without saying a word I pull out my knife and throw it at the woman, using my power to direct the blade at the last moment. A victory smile forms on my lips the moment the knife hits her in the chest, but my success is short lived.

The moment the blade hits my target, her image shimmers before fading completely. My heart sinks knowing she is still alive and kicking somewhere, but my eyes fail to find her.

“She has to be around here somewhere,” Az says, dusting himself off.

Sword in hand, I turn around to search the only spot she could hide if she was close. The inside of the cars. Being close to the Buick already, I reach down to open the handle but find it was locked.

“Think I found her,” I say, pulling the knife to my hand. With my hands around the handle, I use a power increased punch to break the window with the end of the knife. Inside I hear a scream as the woman jumps over the seats to hide in the back.

Az, now back on his feet, runs to block her escape out of the other side.

With the woman pinned between us, I unlock the back door through the busted front window and let myself in.

“We can do this one of two ways,” I say. “The hard way.” I twist the blade in my hand. “Or the easy way.”

“What’s the easy way,” she says, jaw trembling in fear.

Az opens the other door and grabs the woman’s arms, holding her back. When I see she is secured, I place the palm of my head over her face.

“Exorcizamus,” I say, watching her eyes.

Moments after I say the word, her body convulses rapidly in the back seat of the car. Az releases his grip on her arms to hold her head upright, trying to keep her from hurting herself more than necessary. My grip, however, stays firmly on her face.

The process lasts nearly two minutes before the shadowy tendrils of the demon soul evacuates her body. Though not without consequence.

“I think she’s gone,” Az says checking her pulse.

Part of me wants to try CPR on the woman, but the amount of blood dribbling from her mouth stops me in my tracks.

“You can’t save them all,” he says, laying the body down.

I knew this was the case the moment I learned this ability, but it doesn’t keep me from feeling bad for her. No doubt she is in a better place now than where she was headed, which is a small consolation.

“What did you do to my wife?” the man on the ground says, still holding his thigh.

“I saved her,” I say, walking back to my car. “More than I’m going to do for you.”

“Like hell you did!”

I hear the audible click of him releasing the safety followed by the sound of something hitting the ground.

“Watch yourself,” Az says.

I turn around in time to move out of the way of the man’s rolling head. Behind it, his body collapses to the ground in a heap, squirting blood onto the pavement.

Not wanting to leave a weapon for someone else to grab, I pull his pistol to my hand and set it in the back seat.

While I may feel bad for killing the woman, I have no sympathy for the man. It is one thing to attack me for differing beliefs, but setting up an ambush like this to rob innocent people crosses the line.

With the mess done, and the veil lifted on the area, I hop back in the passenger seat so we can finish our trip south.

- 5 -

“Time to get up, sunshine,” Az says, poking me in the side. “Need you alert for the last part of this trip.”

“Where are we at?” I say, rubbing my eyes.

“Just got on 155,” he says.

This part of the road is a divided highway with nothing but miles of old farmland that hasn’t seen a crop in years on each side.

“We are turning off early just in case they have someone watching the highway,” he says, pointing to an overpass without a visible ramp. “I hope you don’t mind if we test your shocks.”

“Wouldn’t it have been faster to take 84?” I say, looking at the GPS.