Damoren (20 page)

You
’d better appreciate me, Allan.

The demon
’s tongue split three ways like some nightmarish flower, revealing a writhing knot of tendrils beneath. Matt dropped the machinegun, its sling yanking on his shoulder as he grabbed Dämoren’s ivory handle. The tendrils exploded toward him. Matt yanked the revolver out, hacking at the slimy strands with Dämoren’s blade as he spun out of the way and behind a copper statue.

A golden-eyed man came
through the far doorway. Lights glinted off his nickel snub-nose as he raised it. Matt shot Dämoren, blowing a gory hole in the would-be killer’s chest. Then he turned, stepping out from behind the statue. The strutter was right on top of him. Matt fired, hitting the beast in the bicep. It howled around its enormous tongue and the tendrils lashed out.

They
struck Matt like a thousand whips, wrapping his torso and face. Instantly the pain hit, burning him. Screaming, he tried to pull away, but the slender strands held strong, like pulling against red-hot rebar. He cocked Dämoren’s hammer, and tried to fire, but the tendrils had his arm, pushing it out and away. The slick worms found his bare wrist and hand, searing into them. It pulled him up, lifting him to his toes then off the floor. The burning continued growing, until all he could see or feel or imagine was pain.

The tendrils jolted, yanking Matt through the air.
They slacked and slid away as he fell to the floor. Dämoren fell from his grip. His skin still burned. He clutched his face, trying to wipe the slime away, but only managed to smear it onto his palm, burning it as well.

“
Here!” a voice growled.

A zipper sounded and something cold and wet splashed Matt
’s face. The thick gel dissolved and the burning lessened. He smelled alcohol. Matt rubbed it over his skin, killing the poison.

“
Can you stand?” he heard Luc ask.

Matt opened his eyes.
The left one squinted a little, still swelling. The huge man stood over him clutching his mace in one hand and holding a red plastic bottle in the other. Allan had issued everyone the alcohol after seeing the strutter in the video. Matt reached for it and Luc gave it to him. He poured it over his right hand and neck, washing away the remaining venom. “Thanks. And thanks for saving me.”

The demon lay crumpled against the far wall.
The plaster was cracked where it had evidently slammed into it. Its side was completely crushed, wet guts hemorrhaging from the jagged wound. Purple and orange flames spread across its body. The same fire dripped from Velnepo’s iron flanges.

“
Can you stand?” Luc repeated.

Matt nodded
, but the simple movement stung his inflamed neck. His skin still burned.

The blood. Need to.
..heal me,
Matt thought, struggling to his feet. Luc helped him up and Matt staggered to the demon’s corpse. He knelt, laying his blistering hand into the bloody hole punched into the creature’s side.

Nothing happened.

He shoved his hand deeper, spectral flames licking up his wrists and gooey blood running over it.
No! Why isn’t it working?
Was it the venom? Demon blood had always worked, broken bones, cuts, gun shots, illness, everything.

“
Everyone converge to the main room,” Malcolm’s voice shouted through the ear bud.

“
Matt, we need to move,” Luc said looking back.

Matt noticed the sounds of shouts still coming from the gallery below.
Frustrated, he clenched his fist, squeezing bits of gore between his tender fingers. He swallowed. Even that hurt. “Okay.”

He picked Dämoren off the floor from where he
’d dropped it. The hammer was down and he realized he must have pulled the trigger while entangled, though he didn’t remember it. He cocked the hammer back with his blistered thumb and squinted up to Luc. His left eye was swollen completely shut now. “You lead.”

They hurried through one of the doorways, past a tiny glass elevator and down the stairs.
Matt held Dämoren out, looking for movement.

“
Malcolm, we’ll be there in three minutes,” Jean’s tense voice said through the radio.

They reached the second floor.
A man in dark clothing lay on the floor, his head completely crushed. Blood and chunky bits of brain coated the wall beside him like shotgun splatter. Matt recognized Luc’s handiwork.

Two figures moved in the shadows, running toward them, a young man with black hair and another with sandy blonde.
Matt pushed Luc aside, knocking them both to the floor as a shot fired. Matt rolled behind a wide island case in the middle of the room. He leaned out, raising Dämoren and fired at the shooter. He missed.

The men split, crouching behind cases in the dim room.
Familiars don’t usually seek cover.

Matt cocked Dämoren
’s hammer and squinted into the darkness.

A silhouette moved.
Matt fired. In the moment of flash he could see the black-haired man frozen like a snapshot, his gun out front. The man stumbled back and fell with a thud.

Footsteps sprinted toward them.
Four loud shots fired and the second man fell dead.

Matt looked at Luc, tucked into a tight space behind a half-wall of original church stonework.
The hunter still held his tan pistol out, trained on the unmoving corpse. A wisp of smoke trickled out from the barrel.

“
Thank you,” Luc said.

“
Don’t mention it.” Matt hissed as he picked himself up and approached the nearest black-clad body. Dead eyes stared up at him as Matt patted the body down. No wallet. No ID. He noticed a metal chain around the man’s neck, leading down to a round shape beneath his wet, clinging shirt. Matt hooked a finger beneath the twisted chain and drew a flat pendant out from under the cloth. The image of a rearing, winged serpent with a woman’s head marked the medallion’s face.

Demon worshipers.
He’d found their symbol. Matt yanked the chain, breaking it free then he and Luc continued down the staircase.

Once they reached the first floor
, they hurried through the gallery, past the bronze rider and into the main room.

Malcolm stepped out as they entered.
He was splattered in blood. Three corpses lay around the entryway. He gave the men a nod, then seemed to grimace as he saw Matt’s face. “You see Anya and Ben?”

“
No,” Luc said.

“
They were in the south galleries before the power went out,” Matt said, his swollen lips making him slur. “Ben first floor. Anya second.”

Malcolm thumbed his radio.
“Ben, Anya, do you read?”

No response.

Matt hurried past the corpses to the dead vampire, sheathed in blue-green fire. Kneeling, he laid his hand flat in the bloody puddle spread around it.

Nothing.

Several shots echoed down the hall.
Matt looked up, but saw nothing.

“
Ben is hurt!” Anya’s voice yelled shrilly through the ear bud, causing Matt to wince.

“
Where are you?” Malcolm asked.

“
First floor by the entrance.”

“
I’ll go,” Luc said, already running.

Malcolm looked back, seeing Matt
’s hand in the vampire’s blood. Wariness flickered in his eyes.

Why isn
’t this working?
Matt thought, standing. Unconsciously he wiped his sticky palm on his thigh, then immediately regretted it. He saw Kazuo before the northern door, katana in hand. The light down the passage ahead shone red through the filter of smeared blood. A pile of chopped corpses lay on the other side of the glass. Matt couldn’t guess how many. He eyed the dead ghoul lying near the swordsman. “Third time’s the charm,” he mumbled.

Matt crouched beside the ghoul
’s corpse and rested his palm against the bloody bullet hole blown through its leathery flesh.
This had better work.

A soothing wave flowed up his arm, cooling his burning skin.
He exhaled a sigh as the wave hit his shoulder and up his neck. Instantly the swelling receded. His pounding heart slowed and the lash-like welts and blisters sank and melted away.

“
Amazing,” Kazuo said. The short hunter didn’t seem afraid or concerned, simply impressed.

Matt stood and glanced down at the still-burning body.
Already it had begun transforming back into its human form.
So I guess I have to kill it for the blood to heal me.
Before, when he was the only hunter, they’d just assumed it was demon’s blood in general. Being with multiple hunters changed things.
But I was with another hunter,
he realized.
Clay. I could heal off the demons he killed before I inherited Dämoren.
Was it because Clay was his mentor at the time? Or maybe...Dämoren?
Every demon that healed me had died by her.
Nowhere in the dozens of hunters who had carried and loved her did anyone mention healing. He touched his chest.

A gunshot
echoed up the hall.

Worry about it later.
Matt opened the latch behind Dämoren’s gold-inlaid cylinder and ejected a spent shell.
Six fired. Thirteen bullets remaining,
he mused, loading a fresh round and ejecting the next shell. Matt didn’t believe in unlucky numbers, but that didn’t stop him from noticing them. He scanned the balconies above for movement as he worked.

“
I found Ben” Luc said in the radio. “Arm is broken. No bites. Anya secured a prisoner.”

“
Prisoner?” Malcolm asked.

“
She had him at gunpoint when I got here. I have him in handcuffs now.”

“
Are you sure he isn’t possessed. He could turn if he is.”

“
I can’t tell,” Luc’s deep voice made it hard to hear on the radio. “You’ll need to check that.”

“
I’ll check once Jean’s team arrives,” Malcolm said. “Until then, keep a close eye on him. Jean, what’s your ETA?”

“
Almost there,” Jean said.

“
Do you have a med bag?” Malcolm asked.

“
We have one.”

A dark form moved in the hall, beyond the blood-streaked door.
Kazuo tensed. Matt looked to see orange veins of light worm across the silhouette’s body and green eyes ignite. Orange flames erupted, sheathing the ifrit in fire as it stepped forward. A wedge of red light shone through the door as it neared the dim, round gallery. Matt stepped beside Kazuo, Dämoren trained on the bulletproof shield between them and the demon. Its flaming body cast no shadow.

“
Mal,” Matt yelled stepping back. “We have a problem.”

The walls around the ifrit caught fire as did the clothes of the bodies at its feet.
Black soot clouded the clear door. The demon’s brilliant green eyes stared hatefully from the blaze.

Sprinklers popped and water rained down from the ceiling.
Steam and smoke filled the passage, squelching the burning walls, but did nothing but mildly dim the ifrit’s fiery body still visible through the clouds.

“
Luc!” Mal called into the radio. “We need you.”

A terrible crash thundered to the side as a monstrous form burst through the barred stained glass windows in the back of the west wing.
Matt turned as a huge blue creature dressed in banded armor smashed its way through the opening. A single curved horn jutted from its forehead. An oni.

Matt ran for the door, nearly slipping on the slick marble floor.
Malcolm beat him there, drawing his sawed-off and shoving it through the narrow gap between the door and the wall.

He fired.

Most of the shot deflected off the demon
’s armor, but some found its exposed shoulder and neck. The oni howled. All but two of the wounds instantly closed. Matt guessed those were the jade pellets.

The demon leapt to the side before Malcolm could fire the second barrel.
It raised its hands in a double fist and smashed it into one of the island cases in the middle of the room. Glass and wood exploded as the case flew end over end toward them. Matt yanked Malcolm back before the case smashed into the door gap, spraying broken shrapnel through the tight opening.

The oni roared and raced to the case with the toki poutangata inside.
Sparks glittered off its skin as it crossed the line of warding powder. It smashed its fist down, shattering the glass top.

“
Push it!” Malcolm yelled as he and Matt fought with the broken case leaning endwise against the gap, trying to get their weapons through.

The oni snatched the holy weapon and turned back toward the hole in the wall.
Matt jammed Dämoren hard into a broken plank of white particle board and knocked it aside. He fired. The bullet missed by a fraction, blowing out one of the remaining colored panes as the demon jumped into the raining night.