Summon Dorn (Archangels Creed) (30 page)

"
Well there is no more road." Devyn stated the obvious.

"
We'll walk." Lucian got out and pulled Sally with him.

Jessie exited the vehicle and got under Sally
's other arm. At least she didn't need help walking. She was more like a bull in the gates, strong as one too, and in need of a harness. And judging by the mountain, losing her off the cliff was a terrifying risk.

"
This is insane. We're just bringing her into the lion's den." Lucian clearly thought they needed a better plan.

"
Bringing
all of us."
Devyn didn't seem much happier than Lucian. "Where in hell are Troy and Kassern? I've been emergency-ing with my mind for the last hour."

"
Same here." Karly looked all around. "It's going to be getting dark soon. I hate this."

Jessie
glanced at the sun. "We still have a few hours of daylight and it's not like we have a choice, I mean look at her, she cannot take much more of this, her body should be shutting down, but it's not, and whatever devil has her is going to kill her!" Jessie finished her rant on a sob.
God, why is this happening? Please, help us. 

"
Okay, okay." Devyn's soft voice came like a rescue ship in the rising waters of hysteria. "But we need a plan." She looked at Lucian. "What's the plan?"

His eyes went wide.
"Pray we don't die?"

Devyn rolled her eyes.
"I mean more than what we're already doing, Choncho."

"
We stay alive until they come. Surely they will?" Karly didn't sound at all convinced.

"
Kill or be killed."

Everybody looked at Jessie like she
'd spoken another language.

"
What?" She stared back at all of them. "What else is there to do? Negotiate?"

"
Sunteți plin de surprize dulci
."

Jessie snorted.
"No need to go all Romanian."

He raised his brows at her.
"I merely said how full of sweet surprises you are."

Jessie couldn
't stop her smile. "Oops."

"
Oh shit, what is that?" Devyn whispered, looking ahead. "Please let it not be those things, please please." Her hoarse whisper broke with fear.

Terror gripped Jessie
's spine as the dark mass came closer. "Oh shit." She held Sally tighter.

"
Here we go," Karly held a set of ruby daggers. "Shit's gonna hit the fan Devyn."

"
They are here for Sally, no doubt?" Lucian said.

"
Do you think they expected us too?"

"
I have no earthly clue," Lucian muttered.

"
Dammit, why didn't we get the disappearing trick?" Karly shifted on her feet like the ground was on fire. "We sure need it more than the guy's do."

Devyn
's brows shot up. "Maybe we did!"

It only took a second for
Karly to catch on and gather them all together into a tight huddle. "All of us think of a location. The hotel?"

"
Yes," Lucian said. "On the count of three. One…two…three!" Everything blurred and an odd sense of weightlessness made Jessie more than a little nauseous. Then she opened her eyes. Not the hotel. A huge dark room with a beautiful glowing golden man on a magnificent throne. Sally dropped and crawled on her hands and knees toward him while he gave her a benevolent smile.

"
You're on
my
holy mountain now." The glowing man smiled at each of them in turn. "I wasn't expecting company, but I don't mind improvising. Seems that my loving little pet comes with attachments." He pointed to Jessie. "A sister." He looked at Karly and smiled. "I smell my blood on you." He turned his golden gaze to Lucian and stared until his handsome features turned fierce. "And you." He slid his gaze over his body. "You are unclean, aren't you?" He finally looked at Devyn and seemed to puzzle a moment. "I'm not entirely sure how you've become tangled in my web, but I'm more than happy to have you. I'm sure you'll be immensely entertaining."

****

"No speaking aloud,"
Dorn instructed telepathically when they reappeared in a dark tunnel.

"
What is this place?"
Troy looked all around, studying the damp stone walls that looked as if they could collapse at any second. A yellow phosphorescent material encrusted much of the surface.

Dorn
's nostrils burned from the evil stench all around them.

"
We're under the convent it seems,"
Kassern said.
"Their signal is being scattered. But they're all here. Alive."

"
Oh thank God,"
Troy whispered.

"
And thank God you were with us."
Kassern placed a hand on the cavern floor.
"We would have never known they were in trouble without you hearing Devyn's call. I wonder why the others didn't call."

Dorn
felt so utterly useless of late that he always wanted to dismantle molecules with a reckless fury.
"And how is it we couldn't hear our own triumvirate? Surely they called?"
He turned to Kassern.
"Why did Troy hear Devyn when you could not?"

"
Something…"
Kassern looked around
. "Something is preventing us."

"
Or someone."
Dorn closed his eyes. When he opened them again, the wavery blue veil over everything told him his pale blue irises emitted an eerie aqua glow.
"It's him, I can smell him. That bastard demon. If he's put his hands on her, I'm going to slowly strangle him with his spleen and pulverize his bones then feed his testicles to Max. Oh wait, he no longer has any."
Finally. A few fond memories. Dorn ignored Kassern's raised brows and Troy's grimace of disgust.

There was a universe of difference with Dorn
, but now wasn't the time to play cutesie about how hard he'd fallen on his face in his grievous miscalculations with nearly every aspect of his human affairs.

"
Oh my God, what the hell is this?"
Troy stood at a nearby arched opening in the wall. A foul stench, seemingly a blend of sulfur and raw sewage, emanated from the portal with eye watering intensity. It made Dorn want to generate a shield of fresh air, but he resisted the temptation, not wanting to risk missing any vital details.

Dorn and Kassern joined him and Kassern
choked on shock.
"What in the Seven Universes?"
They all stared out at the mass of squirming things packed onto the floor of a stadium-sized cavern. The white hairless infants, roughly the size of human newborns, wriggled and kicked and squalled, mouths in strangely elongated snouts gaping to show deadly looking teeth.

Troy looked at Kassern
, horror clear on his face. "
They look like a miniature version of those ape men."

Kassern nodded in disgust.
"
That's exactly what I was thinking. And there's one hell of a lot of them too. We can't leave them to become adults."

"
We need to find Sally and the others and get them out of here. Then we come back and nuke this place,"
Dorn said.
"We have to be sure not even a dust mite survives."

They hurried down the narrow tunnel
with Troy leading. Dorn paused at another opening in the wall. He glanced nervously at Kassern.

The ruby archangel peered in
.
"Holy Father
," he said.

Troy looked next
then turned wide eyes to Dorn.
"What the hell
is
that?"

Dorn
's upper lip curled as he studied the nightmarish scene. Fat white maggots covered with glistening slime wriggled about in multiple layers several feet deep on the floor. Each one at nearly one foot long and almost as thick meant they must have a serious food source.
"Some kind of larvae. They've been creating those things longer than we imagined. Surely they couldn't have bred so many in the few weeks since we learned of them?
"

Off to the left of the maggots, at least a hundred naked and grotesquely obese creatures were strewn about with smaller larvae, many only a few inches long, suckling between folds of fat. Two of the creatures, on the fringe of the gathering, weren
't nearly so large and had black garments covering them.

On looking closer, the covering looked creepily like a nun
's habit. Just as he thought it, one of the things turned, revealing a human face and head! Odd colorless eyes were the only remaining human traits of the reanimated hominids. And these were nuns?

Dorn really wanted to fly over the whole mess to investigate, but the risk of the demon detecting them
grew with every passing second. The other archangels would have to settle for the limited perspective he could give from the door.

"
You think these grow into those other things?"
Troy pointed to the previous cavern.

Dorn nodded, unable to tear his eyes from the abomination,
Maxwell stirred, tossing his head and snorting, eager to come out and destroy them right then. And convincing him of the need to wait was becoming a monumental feat. "
That would be my guess at this point
."

"
How are they creating those things, is what I want to know
," Kassern said.

"
Kharef's behind it
," Dorn informed grimly. "
The opportunity to see into his scheme didn't present itself the first time I came for Sally, but we need to determine that immediately. We can't even estimate how many of those abominations they've spawned already. They don't need any more than what we've seen. We need to annihilate all of them."

They proceeded through the catacombs
on Troy's heels while he followed the weak link to Devyn. Dorn tried his connection to Sally and was once again met with a black wall. He would allow nothing to delay their consummation at the soonest available opportunity. Of that he was infinitely sure. Once they were one spirit and one body, nothing could come between them.

  Troy paused and put his ear against the stone wall.

"Are they in there?"
Dorn no longer cared that he had to ask a human what he should know.

Troy shook his head and searched the wall
, running his fingertips over the joints between the stones. He found a crack where the rocks didn't meet completely and peered through it. He jerked back, eyes wide as he pointed to the hole.

Kassern looked.
"Holy Father
," he said before looking at Dorn.
"They've definitely been at this a lot longer than we know."

He moved and Dorn had a look.
"
This is senseless. How could they have gotten so far without us learning of it?"

"
Maybe the process is quick
?" Troy offered.
"Would be helpful to know the process and how long each stage takes."

"
It seems they breed, hatch, and raise them here.
Kassern had another look. "
There must be a hundred thousand of those little monsters."
 

"
They're not so little
," Troy said.
"Aren’t those the full grown ones? Kassern, you know the most about them, I think."

Kassern
gestured for Troy to continue leading before telling Dorn,
"You fought them in the field a few hours ago. They’re incredibly lethal with their ability to evolve on the spot in groups. They are not to be trifled with
."

So that’s why they began to not stay dead after fifteen minutes of killing them. They’d evolved to adapt to what he was doing.
"
I want the women out of here,"
Dorn said.

"
Amen to that,"
Kassern said.

Chapter Twenty Nine

Lucian had to fi
gure a plan to get the women away from that monster of a beautiful man. Dorn, Kassern and Troy had trusted him to keep them safe. Having failed that, he had to get them out of the shitload of trouble they were in.

But how was he supposed to do that with Sally
all curled up in the man's lap? She held onto him like a baby clinging to a parent, her face pressed into his neck. What was he doing to her? It was almost as if whatever he had in her head, connected directly to his and she was now plugged, positive to negative.

T
he strange man wanted Sally badly enough to call her to him, so he probably didn't plan on killing her. Lucian, Jessie, Karly and Devyn were most likely expendable. Which meant he needed to attack the man without hurting Sally. Maybe lure him to fight. Of course he'd get his own ass kicked, but maybe he could hold things until Dorn and Kassern could get there. He wasn't sure why, but including Troy in the rescue scenario didn't sit right with him.