Sacrifice: The Demontouched Saga (Book 5) (7 page)

“And I ran,” she says. “I ran as fast as I could. Never even thought of my kids or husband until I was close to the highway.”

I want to say something. Anything. To make her feel better, but the words just won’t come. What do you say to someone when they tell you a story like that anyways? I can’t say I blame her for taking off, but it surprises me her motherly instinct didn’t kick in until she was long gone.

Suddenly a flash of lighting strikes just outside of the house. In a normal situation I wouldn’t have considered it out of place, except that it was completely clear when we walked into the house.

“Expecting a storm?” I say, walking to the door.

Robert shakes his head.

“You may want to be ready to run then,” I say. “Just in case.”

- 11 -

Up at the end of the street I see a group of three armed men walking down the street. They stop at the house on the corner, stopping only to unload rounds of machine gun fire into it.

Hearing the gunfire, the others on the street rush outside to see what is going on only to scream once they see the men I do. Either Israfil is getting lazy, or these guys aren’t with her.

“Over here!” I shout, hoping to get their attention. Thankfully it works as the men are watching me with my blades and not the crowd of people running down the street behind me.

“I’m not normally this way, but I’m going to give you a chance.” I say. “Drop your guns on the ground and run your happy little asses out of the neighborhood and you get to live.”

The fat one in the middle laughs. “Cute,” he says.

Before he fires, I send my knife into his throat. That doesn’t cause him to run down the street, but he drops his weapon when he pulls the knife out. Seconds later he places his hand on the now gushing wound, trying to stay alive but drops to the ground to bleed out moments later.

“Next?”

The two men must have a change of heart because they drop the guns on the ground and run as fast as they can back to the west. Before I can retrieve the weapons I hear two quick shots coming from the area around the roadblock.

I snort at the thought of Shelby taking out the thugs as they ran down the road. Just because I let them live doesn’t mean everyone else had to.

“Take these,” I say to Robert when he gets to my side. “You’re gonna need them.”

“Where are you going?” he asks before checking the magazine.

“I have a hunch my friend came here with another demon,” I say. “One who likes to play with the weather.”

“What do you need me to do?”

“Go back to your house and protect your wife and Julie.” Another single gunshot rings out from the east when I pull my knife back to my hand. “Sounds like Shelby is doing pretty good on her own.”

Once Robert is back at on his porch I walk down to the corner of the street, turning south since the thugs came from that direction. A few houses down I come up to another street and notice the man I’m looking for pushing the runners around with gusts of wind.

“You like picking on people less powerful than you?” I say, walking up to the man.

He laughs. “About as much as you like protecting them.”

“It’s a shame Azrael isn’t here,” I say. “He has been looking all over for you.”

He shakes his head before placing a gaudy ring on his finger. “He loves following false trails. A pity he couldn’t stay in Minnesota a while longer. I had hoped to have him meet a fond acquaintance of mine.”

“Don’t worry,” I say, walking forward. “I’ll tell him you said hi.”

Jogging up to Balthazel, I ready my sword for the strike. From here he doesn’t looked armed, but there is no telling what that ring does. I try not to think too hard about it as I swing the blade at his head.

He dodges my blow easily, dropping to a knee and pushing me back with a gust of wind.

“Not too bad, Demontouched. But, no match for a demon like me.”

“We’ll see,” I say, moving in again.

He dodges my thrust, retaliating with a jab to my jaw. Thankfully superhuman strength isn’t one of his powers, otherwise that would have hurt. As it is, I’m going to feel it in the morning.

Finally having enough of swordplay, I decide it’s time to send a care package at his chest. With a flick of my wrist, I send my knife at the demon, looking to end this fight once and for all. When it gets close, however, he moves out of the way at the last second and sends it into a nearby house with a gust of wind.

“As much as I would love to kill you now. I promised to let you be there for our little show.” He takes a few steps back before calling a thundercloud over his head. I take a few steps forward before I’m forced to leap out of the way to avoid being hit by a lighting bolt. Then, out of his personal cloud, a tornado drops down on top of him, the dark lining of the cloud enveloping him within moments. Then it disappears as fast as it started, leaving me in the middle of the street confused as ever.

“That was the strangest thing I’ve ever seen,” Shelby says approaching from the east.

“Tell me about it,” I say. “You see any more of them?”

She hakes her head. “No, but I captured one.”

I glance over and notice her swelling with pride. “How did you pull that off?”

“Duct tape,” she says. “Dad always keeps some in his car.”

I laugh. That is as good a way as any to tie someone up, speaking from personal experience. Ever since that day I decided I needed to be careful about where I got drunk. There isn’t anything like waking up tied to the chair with duct tape the morning after you polish off a couple of cases. I must have pissed myself twice before they cut me loose.

“Take me to him.”

She leads me down the street, back to the barricade they had set up in the street. A muscular man wearing black pants with a tight black shirt nods as we approach.

On the ground is one of the men that ran away from me earlier. It doesn’t take a genius to see why there were able to stop him as there as a nice pool of blood right below his knee.

I kneel down to him, noticing his blood shot eyes as I remove the duct tape gag.

“Looks like you messed with the wrong people,” I say with my knife in hand. “Tell me why you’re here.”

His head jerks around as he watches the three of us carefully, finally settling his gaze on me. “My boss came to send you a message.”

“Seems like he dropped the ball on that. Perhaps you would like to deliver it.”

He shakes his head as he wiggles on the ground trying to get away, screaming out when I grab his injured leg.

“Here’s how it’s going to work,” I say, placing my knife up to his good knee. “You are going to tell me the message, or you are going to have a matching set.”

He struggles on the ground for a moment before he opens his mouth. “Your lady friend is challenging Michael later today.”

“Where?”

At first he doesn’t want to answer, but his tune quickly changes as I press the edge of my knife against his leg. “Downtown,” he says. “Solider field.”

“Can you get me directions?” I ask, looking over at Shelby.

“My dad can. He used to have season tickets.”

- 12 -

I pull up to the curb at Solder Field sometime after midnight. Part of me wishes I could have gotten here sooner, but it was difficult to navigate the streets downtown with all the abandoned cars. I only hope I beat Michael to the punch.

When I approach the front entrance I know I’m in the right place as there is a big hole melted in the turnstiles leading into the stadium. On the floor, leading through doorway to the seats is a trail of scorched concrete allowing the paint to curl around on the edges of the char. Entering the seating area I see Sara standing where I believe the 50 yard line would be if the grass wasn’t so tall.

“Sara!” I yell, running as fast as I dare down the isle to avoid falling on the concrete stairs. As I come out from under higher levels and into the open air the sky lets loose, sending a torrent of rain. A stray bolt of lightning on the easy side of the stadium nearly sends me back, but I continue down to the field without skipping a beat.

“That’s quite far enough,” Balthazel says, standing up from the edge of the field as I approach. “This confrontation must go on.”

“Like hell it does!” I yell, grabbing my sword. I rush at the demon at full speed, leaping over the guardrail and onto the field when I get close. He just laughs and pulls out a blade of his own.

Ignoring the demon, I run directly for Sara. I make it ten steps before a large gust of wind knocks me on my ass, sending me nearly twenty yards down field.

“I told you, no interruptions!” He stomps his feet on the ground causing a bolt of lighting to strike the nearby goal post. It was close enough to feel the heat off it, but was otherwise harmless.

Very well. If he is in such a hurry to die, I feel the need to help him out.

Blade at my side, I charge at the demon hoping he gives me an opening to strike. He doesn’t, however, as he creates a sheet of ice on the ground that causes me to slide on past.

“Too afraid to fight me straight up?” I ask, picking myself off the ground.

“Just because you are stupid enough to fight me without your powers doesn’t mean I’m going to do the same.” He lets out a blood curdling laugh that echoes through the empty stadium.

When I turn to face him again, the sky opens up even more, drenching me and an area of the stadium nearly ten yards around me leaving him, and Sara, dry.

From here I do the first sensible thing I could think of and pull my demon killing knife off of my waist. I may not be able to get close enough to stab him with the sword, but I’ll at least stand a better chance if I have two ways to kill him.

No sooner than I’m about to toss my knife, I notice a man walking on the upper deck on the south side of the stadium. From here he looks tall with a head of long blond hair. I can’t say who the man is, but I’d bet everything it’s Michael.

“You dare challenge me, Israfil?” the man says, leaping off of the upper level down onto the field. “I’ll gladly send you back to hell!”

I make a move to run into the field to stop him, but slip on the patch of ice still under my feet. Balthazel laughs, wagging his finger at me like a parent would a kid who tried to sneak a cookie.

This demon is really pissing me off.

I rush forward, attention firmly on Balthazel even as the grass in the center of the field ignites. As I get close I throw my knife at him followed by a swing of my sword at his head. He dodges the first blow easily, but I end up slicing off an ear with the sword.

“You still want to dance?” I say, squaring off once again. He only smiles before sending a bolt of lighting my way I only dodge by jumping out of the way at the last possible second.

As I get to my feet, I see Sara locked up with Michael in the middle of the stadium. I notice the white sleeveless shirt he has on go up in flames before Balthazel sends another warning shot into the goalpost.

I sigh before turning to face him once more.

With a yell that reverberates through the stadium, I run at the demon one last time. For the first time I can see the fear in his eyes as I get close. By the time I’m nearly five yards away he takes a step back, sending another bolt of electricity at my head. I corkscrew jump to my right before latching onto the blade of my knife a short distance away. I hit the ground hard, yet fling my wrist at the demon. One moment later you can tell he was not prepared for the move as the blade lodges into his left eye.

Balthazel screams in pain and then collapses to his knees on the grass field. As I approach, he pulls the blade out of his head, discarding it onto the ground. He looks up at me, with his one remaining eye right in time to see the tip of my angel blade go into the other. From there I keep pushing on it until the sword bursts through the back of his head.

With the demon dead, I pull the sword out of his head allowing the body to fall to the ground. I don’t bother to collect that soul though. It can play in purgatory with all the other tortured souls.

“Sara!” I say, finally turning my full attention to her battle.

I pull my knife to my hand before running at the battle at full speed. As I get close, however, the grass ignites once more. Without a clear path I stop for a moment to watch the battle unfold.

My heart drops when I notice Sara take a vicious backhand to the cheek, but get surprised shortly after when she returns the favor with a kick to the groin. I know it’s not her doing the fighting, but seeing her body handle an angel has me in awe. It is short lived, however, as I have to leap back to avoid being caught in the raging inferno spreading across the field.

I look around, trying to find a way through the fire when I come up with an idea. I rush toward the end of the field where the locker rooms are located, hoping I choose the right one. The Rising happened early in the football season, so it reasons to believe that some of the players may have left their belongings inside as they worried about finding their missing loved ones.

My wishes come true when I round a corner and see a pair of cleats. To the uninformed, you may assume that football cleats are made of hard plastic. To the naked eye, they can be. But there are players that will use a pair that has a steel tip on the end that helps dig into the loose ground. On artificial turf, they may opt to use something more forgiving. But for the often icy Soldier Field, you want something that can penetrate the ground a bit.

I luck out and find a pair with steel tips after the second locker. Unfortunately, they are two sizes too big. But in my position I don’t have time to be choosy, so I slip of my shoes and place the bulky cleats on my feet.

Armed with some new kicks, I run back to the field. As I walk through the entryway I can see that Michal has gained the upper hand since I’ve been gone as Sara is backed to wall on the edge of the field. I watch her take another vicious backhand seconds before I reach the fire.