Sacrifice: The Demontouched Saga (Book 5) (4 page)

“Too close to the airport,” he says. “If I was in their shoes I’d be watching them.”

Me too, come to think about it.

Even mentioning the airport brings back memories of the past. Out of all the things we restored and then destroyed since the Rising, air travel was never one of them. Before this all went down, the last time any of us had seen clear skies for any reason was right after 9/11. After terrorists flew planes into the towers in New York and the Pentagon, the government shut down air travel. In the end, I believe it was a good decision as they couldn’t know if there were other flights and targets planned throughout the day. But I can still remember looking up in the night sky that week and finding it odd that there wasn’t a single plane in the sky.

For the most part, that’s how things went down this time too. When the Rising hit, dozens of pilots were taken along with the rest of the population. It didn’t matter what they were doing at the time either. If your name was on the reapers’ lists, you were taken. They didn’t care if they killed four hundred people in the process either.

At first, the government blamed another terrorist attack until they put two and two together and realized we were hit by something much bigger than another group of jihadists. We were being thrust into a holy war of our own.

“Hold on,” Azrael says as he turns into the field. The grass on the side of the road was nearly four foot high, reducing our view as we climbed up the hill. The path he took was very bumpy, but relatively straight, getting us on the flat pavement of the overpass in mere seconds.

Once we cross the bridge he makes the first right turn into the vast sea of grass and weeds.

“She lives off of this road, a few miles up on the right.”

He slows down as we approach a small ranch house. He pulls into the gravel driveway, parking about ten feet from the side of the house. The house is nothing like I imagined it would, being nestled into a small area of the surrounding farmland.

“There are a few houses down further that house the actual farm,” he says. “Her father had this house built for her when she was old enough to be on her own. Even after her parents died, she stayed here instead of moving into their larger house.”

“She have any company down the road?” I say, not wanting to be surprised in the middle of the night.

“She used to rent them out to the people who farmed the land after her parents died. As far as I know, they are still occupied,” he says. “But you know how that goes.”

I nod. They could easily be gone like over half the world at this point.

He walks ahead to the screen door in the front of the house. He opens it only to have someone open the wooden door from the inside. An old woman, very short with long gray hair wearing an ankle length brown dress.

“Azrael!” she yells in excitement. “I hoped you would bless me with your company one last time before I died.” She walks out of the house to give him a hug when she notices me. “Who is your friend?”

“Esther Parker, meet Mitchell Butler.”

I walk over to shake her hand but instead find myself wrapped in her arms around the waist. “Any friend of Azrael is a friend of mine.” She walks over and takes Azrael’s hand. “So what brings you back home?”

My eyes nearly bulge out of my head when she says the words. That would explain a lot of things from his affinity for the woman and why they are wearing matching outfits.

“My friend here is having trouble with a group of demons in St Louis.”

“The portal?” she says.

Az nods. “He has two objects they were using to collect the souls of the dead.”

“Destroyed another,” I say.

“Let me see these things.”

I walk back to the car and open up my backpack, revealing the two glowing orbs to the woman. Her eyes light up at the sight of them as she reaches out eagerly to take them from me.

“Interesting,” she says, examining the first one. In her hands the orb is still glowing yellow, but the area around her fingertips almost seems to get dark.

“Is there any way to free them?” I ask.

Her head darts in my direction, her expression growing serious when her gaze meets mine. “Why would you want to do that?”

“So nobody else can to it,” I say. “They didn’t collect these souls just to be doing it. I need to clear them out so they can’t use them for whatever sick plan they have in mind.”

She sighs, her back slumping as she hands back the orb. “I’m sure I have a spell for that somewhere inside. Come inside the house and help me look.”

She opens the door for us as we walk inside. The front room is rather quaintly furnished with an old sofa on one wall with a loveseat next to a very dated recliner on another. Around the room are hundreds of glass angel figurines decorating the room. Looking over at Azrael I can tell he is the one to blame. Probably a last ditch effort to save the woman before the Rising hit.

Through the doorway to the kitchen I see two large bookshelves where the refrigerator would be in my house. On them are old leather-bound books of varying sizes from top to bottom.

Esther urges us to sit while she walks back in the kitchen to get us something to drink.

“Are you and her…”

“Married?” he says, answering no when I nod. “I am forbidden to marry a human wife.”

“You left heaven because you hate the rules, yet still follow them?” I say, trying to find a spot on the couch where the springs don’t poke through.

“I left for my own reasons, but that doesn’t mean I don’t follow the rules.”

I shake my head when I notice one of the larger figurines painted like Az. It is a nearly one foot tall porcelain figurine with its robes painted white. I can’t tell from this side, but I only assume the wings were broken off as this is the only one in the room without a pair.

“Sun tea,” Esther says when she enters the room. “No ice though. Haven’t had electricity in years.”

“Just like the gold ole days,” I say, getting nasty glares for the remark.

“Any word from Caruthersville?” Az asks as Esther sits down next to him.

“Not in weeks,” she says. “Little Clay down the street went that way a week ago and never came back.”

“Little Clay has to be about twenty-five now,” Az says laughing.

She just smiles at him, not saying a word.

“About that spell,” I say, before clearing my throat.

“Your friend is impatient,” she says.

“He worries about his own lover,” he says. “He lost her about a week ago.”

“How?”

“With this,” I say, pulling the amulet out of my shirt.

“Is that?” she asks Az, eyes full of terror.

“It is. But her bond is not pure. There may be a chance to save her yet.”

She leans over and kisses him on the lips, forcing me to turn my head to keep my breakfast in my stomach. I realize she is the younger one of the two, but my mind can’t help pointing out how it looks so obviously reversed.

“I’ll look for the spell for your friend,” she says. “You two should go to the riverfront to see what they are up to these days.”

“Sounds like a good plan,” I say, walking to the door.

“Sit down, Mitch.” Azrael says. “I want to see what they are up to as much as anyone, but leaving in the middle of the day isn’t such a great idea.”

“You have three to four foot tall weeds for miles around,” I say. “It would be easier to see what they are up to in the daylight.”

“You don’t need the light to see what they are up to,” she says. “You can almost see it from here.”

“What are you talking about?” I say, confused.

“The fires.”

- 6 -

It’s now two hours after sunset and I see what she is talking about. Outside just to the north-east of the house sky is lit up like a large fireball where the shipyard should be.

“What are they doing?” I ask Azrael as he walks outside.

“Forging the metal to create the new portal.”

“In what? The fires of hell?”

“Something like that,” Az says, walking off.

We walk to the north-east following the old sprinkler lines in what used to be a sod farm. Every so often, having to watch our steps as we cross the wheel ruts. After a few minutes of walking the old fields, Azrael stops me as we come to a clearing.

“This is 84. Past here it is important to stay away from the clearings at all costs. The last time I was here they had nearly a thousand demons around the shipyard.”

My jaw drops when I hear that number. One thousand demons?

In a little town like this?

Part of me doesn’t want to believe the number he threw out, but the other part knows it’s true. Just by seeing the light in the sky here, there is no way they could have forged the steel in St. Louis without drawing attention. While a veil can create an illusion around an area to mask it, it can only do so much. It would take a very powerful being to create an illusion big enough to just hide the lights here, let alone having to mask the area downtown as well.

“How close are they?” I say. “That light looks like they are just a mile or two out.”

“That’s about right,” he says. “Dead east at this point. But we don’t need to get that close. From here we’ll cross to the north, staying in the woods until we reach the riverfront. We should have a clear view south from there.”

“That explains the binoculars,” I say, touching the strap on my neck.

After watching the road for a few minutes, we cross it as quick as possible. We didn’t see any activity either direction, but there wasn’t any chance risking it by taking our time. From there we stay in the fields, keeping well away from the old radio station.

A few minutes later, we are finally through the field and up to a gravel road we cross quickly before running into the woods. If there is one thing that creeps me out it is wandering into a strange forest you have never been in before. Double that if I do it in the dark. There is something about the sounds the animals make this time of the night that has always bothered me.

Thankfully the trip through the woods doesn’t take that long. A few minutes at best. Once I reach the riverbank I can see exactly what they were talking about.

“That fire is huge!” I say, walking as close to the river as I can to get a better view.

“That’s not a fire. That is a portal into hell.”

“Then why not flood the world through that one?”

“It would take too much time,” he says. “That one is much smaller than the one they opened at the arch. Even that one was small compared to what they have planned.”

“Even bigger?” I say, kneeling closer to the ground.

“Three times as large. If that one is allowed to open, the United states will be decimated within three weeks. The rest of the world will be lucky to last a month beyond that.”

“If that long.”

I pull the binoculars out to see a better view of the action. While the riverfront angles in, blocking the whole scene, I can easily make out the large chunks of metal being loaded onto the barges.

“Let me guess,” I say. “The portal?”

He nods before pointing out another ship heading our way. We duck back into the brush to watch the ship as it passes by. The ship heading out way is the same barges that have traveled the river for the last few decades. Depending on the time of year, they can be loaded with either shipping containers full of products or produce from the nearby farms and fields. The one approaching us is carrying two large pieces of metal, angled slightly to form the pillars of the portal.

“It’s going to be huge,” I say, noticing the etchings on the side of the metal. “Is that writing demonic?”

“Yes. They etched the same runes into the side of the arch before opening the first portal. It is important for them to put the pieces in the correct sequence otherwise the portal will not open properly.”

“So you are telling me that all we have to do is mess up the runes to stop this whole thing from going down?” I say, ready to charge out there and stop the boat.

“It wouldn’t do any good,” he says. “I destroyed three of them a few months back, all with the same runes.”

That’s what I was afraid of. They have demons overseeing the process from both sides. If the necessary pieces don’t show up, they just keep at the process until it finally does. All that means is the best we can do is delay the portal from opening, there is no real way to stop it.

We wait until the boat is well out of our sight before we head back to Esther’s. I have a lot of information I need to process in a short order, not to mention a spell to learn if I want a chance to stop this whole thing from happening.

- 7 -

“Wake up sleepy head,” Esther says, poking me with a stick.

Out of instinct, I look at the clock on her wall to check the time and notice it is dead. Living without electricity will take some getting used to.

“Are you always up this early?” I ask, yawning.

“For the last ninety six years, yes.” She hands me another glass of sun tea and a can of those little sausages. I’m not usually a fan of the things, but my stomach is telling me not to argue. After I scarf down a few a I decide to get down to business.

“Did you find the spell?”

“Yes,” she says. She reaches to the coffee table next to her and pulls out a large, black leather-bound tome. On the front is a large golden tree in the middle of a brown circle. Not exactly the type of book you expect to find at the neighborhood library.

She opens the book about three-quarters of the way through, stopping on a page burnt on the edges yet with most of the writing still intact.

“This is a ritual we used to use to clear spirits out of houses back when the covenant was more active. It should work on your orbs as well.”

“Sounds good,” I say. “What’s involved?”

“Two things,” she says. “Blood from both an angel and a demon.”

“One of those is easy,” Azrael says, walking in the room. “The other may be a little more difficult.”