A Despair of Demons (Travelers, Book 1) (23 page)

Gin snorted. “How are we supposed to find stolen info-discs on a blazing
corpse?”

“Not gonna happen. Also not our problem. If there were disks, they’re
destroyed. If they can’t use it, they didn’t steal it.”

Gin conceded his point. “I hope the other one doesn’t run right into Trent
and Connor.”

Ben’s smile vanished. “Yeah, me too. I didn’t think it would be so fast to
duck and run.”

Too late now. Gin jerked her head to the right, indicating the hallway that
turned a corner to the left about thirty feet down. There was no posh carpeting
on this floor. The walls were sickly yellow cinderblock, and although they
stalked in a half-crouch, each footstep sounded tiny echoes off the
gold-flecked linoleum that had probably been new in the nineteen-seventies. The
windows into the various rooms were reinforced with diamond mesh and
steel-girder frames.

They turned the corner to see waffle-shaped light escaping through a gridded
window at the end of the hall. A pure beam slipped through a narrow crack in
the unlatched door. As they crept closer, Ben and Gin could hear demons’ voices
rumbling from within.

Ben looked at her, and she raised her eyebrows in question.
Now what?

He held up a finger, indicating he had an idea, and rummaged in his vest
pocket. When he pulled out another wildfyre grenade, she shook her head
frantically.
Bad idea!

He raised his eyebrows expectantly.
You
got a better one?

Reluctantly, she shook her head. She had no clue how else to kill the
demons.

They duck-walked under the window and stood shoulder-to-shoulder next to the
door. Usually, they’d enter from either side, but they couldn’t risk the demons
seeing one of them cross the opening. Ben, closest to the door, held up one
hand and counted down from three. He held the wildfyre grenade in the other
hand.

When he reached zero, they leapt through the door. This room was
state-of-the-art, gleaming with glass, steel, and a rainbow of lights blinking
from computers and control banks. Gin had no time to admire the equipment as
Ben pitched the grenade at the nearest demon’s chest. It sat in a wheeled
office chair about halfway down the narrow room. The demon started to rise from
its chair to leap at the intruders, but roared and abruptly reversed direction
to escape the flames. It succeeded only in spreading the wildfyre to its
nearest comrade.

Both demons flailed around the room in a panic while the third scrambled to
avoid their blundering movements. Their wings thrashed, knocking equipment to
the floor. Gin shot from the doorway, trying to herd them away from the
equipment, with no success.

Between the din of gunfire and the cacophonous pig-screams, she wondered if
her ears would ever be the same.

Wildfyre jumped from demon to computer, and suddenly the electronics were
burning, melting, and sparking at the far end of the narrow room, where the
third demon had taken refuge. Gin almost gagged on the smell of roasting demon
and frying plastic. Then the wildfyre leapt from the electronics to the third
demon.

However, it didn’t flail aimlessly, but ran straight at Ben and Gin who
still stood by the door.

“Oh, shit!” Gin swore as she dived out of the way. The demon fled through
the open doorway, its wings nearly lodging it in the opening, and ran down the
hall.

The other two demons collapsed onto the floor, setting it ablaze. One of the
rolling chairs began to sag as the plastic castors and then the plastic legs
melted. Its fabric caught as the seat drooped toward the floor, and acrid fumes
burned Gin’s nose. From the hall came the sound of the running demon’s
retreating footsteps, a huge tinkling-splintering crash, and then silence
except for the quiet roar of flames.

“Well, I think our work here is done,” Ben said brightly as he got to his
feet.

Gin cuffed him on the back of the head with an open hand. “Idiot.”

“What was that for?”

Gin gestured to the blazing electronics. “How am I supposed to get the
cameras down and find the missing workers when you’ve torched the system?”

“Did y’all forget to mention your better plan to clear the room of three otherwise
indestructible demons?”

Gin sighed. “No.”

“The fyre will probably fry the camera circuits. They won’t be able to see
us anyway.”

He had a point. She turned to the door. They’d better find out where the
third demon had ended up.

Ben followed her out and closed the door behind them in a probably futile
attempt to contain the fyre.

Gin crept quietly back down the hallway. But when she peered around the
corner, she dropped all attempts at stealth and continued down the hall.

There was a window at the end of the hallway, with the bank of elevators on
the left and the yellow cinderblock wall on the right. Glass hung in broken
shards in the window frame, and the diamond security grid bent outward in
tortured wire spirals around the demon-sized hole in the center. Gin felt cool
air on her face.

She and Ben walked to the window and looked down to the street five stories
below. The blazing demon was lying on the sidewalk.

Ben said, “I did not see that coming.”

“Oh, shit! Look at this idiot.” Gin watched helplessly as a civilian
approached the flaming body. From the person’s posture, it was obvious that he
or she was talking on a cell phone, almost certainly to the police or 911.

As the good Samaritan stepped closer to the body, it suddenly jerked, and then
lurched to its feet.

“Oh fuck, it’s not dead!” Ben said.

Gin pulled her sidearm. She knew it wasn’t going to be much use from five
stories up, but she had to try to protect the civilian. Before she could fire,
the demon fled down the street, a beacon limned in wildfyre that swirled into
nothingness and vanished in the dark. “It Traveled out,” Gin said. “Shit.”

Ben scowled after it. “Nothing we can do about it now.”

Gin spotted a fire extinguisher on the wall. She grabbed it and headed back
for the security room. “Let’s see if we can salvage anything.”

Ben held the door handle as she took a deep breath. He opened the door at
her signal. She squinted against the blast of heat and smoke and turned the
fire extinguisher on the nearest pile of burning equipment. The cloud of
fire-dousing chemical burst out, but it was about as useful as spit. She kept
spraying, determined that the blaze would die. Her eyebrows felt like they were
on fire, the skin of her forehead and cheeks was crack-glazed, and she was
seriously afraid that her eyeballs might melt.

Then the fire extinguisher hissed as it ran empty.

She backed out of the room and Ben slammed the door behind her. “Apparently,
fyre is immune to extinguishing. Fuck.”

“Yeah.” She glanced at him. “Let’s get to the lobby. They know we’re coming
now, but we might be able to take them out before they can do anything about
it. Maybe I can use the security booth there to locate our missing workers.”
She clicked her radio twice to let Liv and Jordan know she needed to talk. She
continued, “I sure hope there aren’t any more Travelers on the other side,
because we’ve let two get back to them now. We could be looking at an army
coming down on our heads.”

“So we should probably move,” Ben said.

Jordan picked lock after lock as they silently searched offices, but he and
Liv found nothing on the twentieth floor. By the time they’d finished their
search, they still hadn’t heard from Gin. Liv raised her eyebrows at him, and
he pointed to the corner office. She nodded and they silently slipped inside.

“We might as well make ourselves comfortable while we wait,” Jordan said as
he slid down to sit along one wall.

“Okay.” Liv followed his example, sliding down to sit next to him.

Jordan reached for her hand, but she pulled it out of his grasp.

He turned his head to look at her. “So, Nathan. The two of you dated.”

She glanced at him. “Yes.”

“Was it serious?”

“It was a lifetime ago. I was in college.”

“So you aren’t still harboring a secret love for him.”

Her stomach fluttered as she gave him a withering stare.

He smiled. “Just checking. So what’s going on?”

“This is not the time to discuss this.”

“Then when?”

“Why doesn’t Gin call already?”

Jordan didn’t break his unwavering stare. “Liv, talk to me. What’s going on?
You’ve been…secretive about something. I thought, when I saw you’ve still got
some hang-up over Blank, that maybe you’re still in love with him.”

When he saw she was about to launch a protest, he interrupted, “I was
relieved! At least it was an answer. Just tell me.”

“I don’t have a hang-up over him.”

“No, but when his name comes up, you flinch and change the subject. What
happened?”

She glanced at him. “We work together.”

“You and I?”

She nodded.

He waited for more, and finally said, “What a news flash. And, so, but,
therefore?”

“So we can’t do this.”

“Do what?” His voice had become as cold as Connor’s when he was angry.

She pushed gamely ahead. “Us. We can’t be together. It would be a disaster.
Eventually, it’ll fall apart, and I’ll have to see you, and work with you in
these extreme situations, and I couldn’t do it.”

“Why do you assume it would fall apart?”

His expression broke her control. “Because it always does! Look at Nathan.
He was wonderful, an idealist, a Traveler, we went everywhere together, worked
in the lab under the same professor as assistants, his physics complementing my
neuroscience. Then Nathan changed, and he was really this greedy, arrogant
bastard. We broke up, and it was horrible having to work with him after that.”

“So you’re comparing me to Nathan Blank? You think I’m pretending to be
somebody you’ll want to be with?”

“No! But I just couldn’t stand it when it ends.”

“Why do you assume it will end?”

“Something always happens. I just…” She looked at him. “You’re the last
person I should be talking about another man with.”

“I’m the only person you should be talking about another man with. Spill.”

She thought back, choosing her words carefully. “I…Nathan was wonderful,
dashing, exciting. Attractive. I was so in love with him.”

She checked to see what kind of effect that had, but Jordan just made a
moving on
gesture.

She took a deep breath. “I ignored the signs. He wasn’t a model lover even
before he changed. Caught up in his work, ignoring me for himself. I was too
blind to see it. When he became, presumably, the person he’d always been, I
wanted to be surprised.”

“But you weren’t.”

“No. He was a selfish, self-centered, greedy, using bastard. And I was in
love with him.”

“So now you don’t trust your feelings.”

“I never have since.” She came up short. That was a news flash to her. She’d
never thought of it that way.

Liv’s radio gave two rapid clicks, the signal for
Is it safe to talk?

“Liv, that’s so unfair on so many levels, to yourself and to me. Give me a
chance here.”

She tapped her radio with a finger and continued to stare over his shoulder.
She didn’t want to see disappointment in his eyes.

He heaved an exasperated sigh and ran a hand through his hair. “Fine. This
isn’t over.”

She depressed the radio button. “Go ahead.”

Gin’s voice crackled through. “We’ve taken care of the security suite. Sort
of. You guys are on your own up there for now. We’ve got a little…situation.
We’re heading to the lobby.”

“Do you need backup?”

“No, we’re fine. You figure out what they’re here for. Before the security suite
was demolished, I got a look at the scrolling search they were doing. I think
they want something specific.”

“Any idea what it might be?”

“I don’t know. You guys are the scientists.”

Jordan asked, “Did you see any evidence of people?”

“No, you?”

Liv said, “No.”

“Well, see if you can find anything interesting.”

“Will do.”

Jordan said, “You heard the lady, let’s go find something interesting.”

“How are we going to find out what they want?”

“We can search the lab floors first. That’s where the research is.”

“And the missing people?”

“We’re already going floor to floor. We’ll run across them sooner or later.”

She frowned, deeply uneasy about the lack of any signs of the missing
workers. The DoD had sent over a list of twenty-seven people who had signed into
the building today and never signed out. Something was wrong here, even more
wrong than a building full of demon invaders from another world would
ordinarily suggest.

“You feel it too?” Jordan asked.

“Yeah, something’s wrong here.”

They took the elevator to fifteen, the highest lab floor. Both drew their
guns as the elevator
dinged
, and when
the doors opened, they went through as one. The hallway was snot-colored cinder
block with yellowing linoleum, and deserted.

There was a
thud
from around the
corner. They exchanged a glance and slipped silently down the hallway. A glance
around the corner proved the next hallway was as empty as this one. Another
thud
. This time Liv could tell it came
from one of the labs. They continued to the lab door and crouched on either
side below the window. Liv slowly reached for the handle.

A growling voice sounded directly from the other side of the door, speaking
the demons’ language.

“Take those and let’s go,” Jordan whispered in translation. He silently
counted down, and Liv spun the knob and pulled. He whipped through the door
with her on his heels. They each spun to the side, covering their half of the
room, but it was empty.

It was an anteroom to the lab, packed like a storage closet with pieces of
equipment set haphazardly on the worktables or floor and covered with
semi-transparent plastic. A large window in the opposite wall looked into the
lab itself, although most of it was blocked by a huge centrifuge and a small
refrigerator.

Both the anteroom and the lab were deserted. Liv and Jordan moved through
the room in a crouch to the far door, using the machinery and worktables for
cover.

At the door, Liv grasped the knob, but it wouldn’t turn.
Locked,
she mouthed.

Jordan pulled out his lock picks. Liv barely had time to wish she was half
as good before the lock clicked. Jordan pulled the picks and stowed them.

They repeated their previous entry, but the lab was silent and still.
Something had been moved recently, judging by the dust tracks on the floor. Liv
relaxed when she saw no signs of demons. She saw no signs of a computer that
the demons could have accessed either.

“What the hell?” Liv asked.

Jordan studied the tracks on the floor, then pinched the bridge of his nose.
“They’re looking for something. They pop in, look around, and pop back out.
They’re not breaking door locks.”

“Why the hell not? There’s no one here to stop them. How are we going to
know where they’ve been?”

Jordan shook his head.

“And what did they mean by ‘take those’? It had to be data. Nothing else
would Travel with them.”

Jordan dropped his hand as his eyes widened.
 

“What?” she asked.

“Travelers would Travel with them.”

She stared back, her stomach turning to ice. “You mean Blank’s employees.”

“It’s the only other thing they might be after.”

“You think some of them were in here?”

“It’s possible.”

“No. We would have heard people, wouldn’t we?”

Jordan shook his head. “I don’t know. What else could they want?”

“It could be anything.”

“How many floors of this building are labs?”

“Eight.”

“Let’s get searching.”

She turned back toward the door, now filled with two snarling demons.

“Shit.” Liv’s hand dropped to her hip holster as Jordan reached for his
guns, but she knew how futile gunfire would be. And how dangerous wildfyre
would be.

Both demons launched themselves forward with creepy-incredible speed.

*
         
*
         
*

Connor strode out of the elevator on level seven and into a darkened hallway
that looked exactly like the one thirteen floors above, except that it was
decorated with cheaper carpet and fake potted plants. He peered through the
nearest doorways and turned to Trent, who spoke at the same time he did. “Offices.”

“Why this level, sir?” Trent asked. “We’re still awfully high up.”

“I didn’t want to draw demons to the levels Liv and Jordan are searching. And
if the building’s not there, we’ll have time to Travel back before we hit
bottom.”

“Cool.”

“On my mark. If you’re falling, instant Travel back here.”

They appeared in the middle of what looked like a huge warehouse. There were
boxes and wooden crates and stacks of machinery everywhere. The ceiling was two
stories above.

“Good floor choice, Commander,” Trent said with a wry smile.

“Thank you, Petty Officer.” Trent was his best friend, but Connor could
count on one hand the times Trent had called him by name. Connor gave him a
gentle dig about it whenever he got a chance, but Trent was as unflappable in
his formality as in all other things.

Connor scanned the piles of equipment. “Come on, let’s look around.”

They walked toward the nearest mountain of cardboard boxes. “Trent, do
demons make cardboard?”

“I don’t know. We’ll have to ask Jordan.”

Connor opened a couple of the boxes and they peered inside. In one, they
found strange plastic guns. Another held some sort of metal canisters. Connor
didn’t understand the language, but he recognized the picture of a skull. A
third contained sterile gauze bandages.

Trent pulled the plastic sheet off a shapeless mound to reveal a huge
telescope, semi-dismantled. The cloth-shrouded mound next to it turned out to
be a Gatling gun, sitting on a stand on top of a stack of ammunition boxes.

“I never knew they manufactured so much stuff,” Trent said. “Why would they
store all this here?”

Connor held up another canister as if peering at it more closely would
suddenly make him able to read it. He memorized it for Jordan. “Maybe they
decided that since they built the building, they might as well use it. Or they
might think they can bring this stuff through when they Travel.”

Trent looked around at all of the shrouded equipment, his gaze lingering on
the Gatling gun. “That’s a pleasant thought. At least the scary things are too
big.”

They worked their way up. The next two levels were empty, and the two levels
after that were full of junk.

They reached the equivalent of floor fifteen. They walked down parallel
aisles, holding their guns aimed at the floor since they’d encountered no one
so far. Connor stepped around a stack of boxes and came face to face with two
demons. Reflexively, he brought his gun up and shot each of them in the head.
One demon took a shot in the nose, the other squarely between the eyes.

He heard Trent’s voice from his aisle: “Shit!” then three more shots.

Connor ran toward Trent’s aisle and rounded the corner to see him backing
away from two blazing demons. A roar from behind him made Connor spin back to
see the demon he had shot in the nose racing his way, Forehead Shot in hot
pursuit, the bullet flattened on its frontal bone.

Trent pulled out another wildfyre grenade and pitched it at the newcomer.
The wildfyre splashed against its chest and it blazed up like a torch. The last
flame-free demon slid to a stop, scrambled to get out of the way of its
comrades, and crashed into a stack of boxes. Cardboard broke open to spew
equipment everywhere.

The demons encased in flame winked out one by one as they Traveled to escape
the fyre. The remaining demon looked from Connor to Trent and swirled into
nothingness. Amazingly, the wooden floor hadn’t caught, but the smoke and
stench of burning demon lingered in the air.

Connor looked over the mess of equipment: big plastic containers, glass
beakers and tubes, incomprehensible brass thingys that might have been parts of
a ship’s sextant or a witch’s scrying device for all he knew. A grenade rolled
toward his foot and he picked it up. It was olive green, oval, painted with
yellow markings, and read M61.

“Sir, we should get out of here,” Trent coughed through the hand that
covered his nose and mouth against the persistent smoke.

“Trent, you see this?” Connor glanced at him and winced at his red streaming
eyes. “What are you, allergic to burning demons?”

Trent answered the first question. “It’s an M61 fragmentation grenade. From
the Vietnam war. They’ve been replaced by the M67.”

“Yes,” Connor said dryly, “I know. What’s it doing here when it belongs in
some storage locker in Home World?”

“I don’t know.”

Connor pocketed the grenade. “Let’s get out of here. On mark.”

They arrived on level fifteen, into a lab which was completely empty except
for a thick layer of undisturbed dust on the floor and worktables.