Collateral Damage (Demon Squad Book 8) (15 page)

“We still don’t know what they’ll do, so how does this help?”

“That’s the thing, cousin,” I said. “I
will
know what they’re planning.”

“You’ve someone inside.” Katon nodded his approval. “Can you trust them?”

“I have adequate insurance to feel comfortable, plus there’s an ulterior bonus for my
agent
to choose the side of the angels in this one.”

“So what do we do?”

“We wait. Shaw will come looking for us.”

The only thing that worried me about that was what she would do to get our attention. I had a damn good idea, and was fairly certain Shaw’s hatred of me was enough to move her that direction, especially how successful it had been the last time she’d done it. Hopefully I’d pissed her off enough by stealing Styg and kicking the crap out of her favorite Nephilim, and that she was under enough pressure from the bosses, that she played her ace first rather than scour her deck for options.

Only time would tell. Until then, though, there was shit to discuss.

Eighteen

“She’s done it,” Rachelle said, stirring us from the stupor that had settled over the group as we waited to see what my plans had instigated. Everyone stretched and groaned as they hopped up to get ready.

“About damn time,” I muttered, though my nerves were torn between exhilaration and horror. If we fumbled the ball on this, we wouldn’t get a second shot at it. My hands trembled as I checked the loads in my pistols.

“It’s hitting the news channels now.” Rachelle turned to me. “You want to see it.”

I waved her off. “No, I’d rather not.”

“You think they’re in place already?” Scarlett asked. “Or will they wait for us to show?”

The stiff-backed voice in my head gave me the answer. “A little of both, it seems.”

“Rahim laid a hand on my shoulder, giving it a reassuring squeeze. “We ready for this?”

I let out the stale breath lingering in my lungs and nodded. “Yeah, let’s do it.”

Not two seconds later, Rachelle had three portals peeled open and waiting. Scarlett, Rahim, and I stepped through a different one each, leaving Hell behind.

At least that’s what I wanted to think.

I came out the other side in one of the office buildings that surrounded the courthouse. A crowd gathered outside the windows, down in the street below. Cameras flashed and news crews filmed as Shaw’s plan played out for the world to see. Sickness washed over me as my gaze shifted from the crowd to the
bait
.

Karra’s headless body had been crucified to a giant, wooden cross that loomed above the onlookers, set dead center in the cement courtyard. My throat burned as I swallowed back my anger, tamping it down as best I could. Shaw had known exactly what seeing Karra splayed out like that would do to me, and she was counting on me to be stupid, to lose my temper and charge into the fray.

As much as I wanted to do just that, my greatest desire nailed to a cross just a short distance away, the bitch wasn’t gonna get my goat. Not this time.

I crept through the deserted halls of the records building, making my way to the other side of it. At the corner, I held my breath and glanced around it to see exactly what I’d been told to expect.

Twenty DSI snipers knelt before the great windows that looked out on the spectacle below, a handful of soldiers behind them as support. The lower half of the glass had been removed from the frames of all the windows, sheets of transparent film pulled tight across the new openings. From so far below it would be impossible to tell there was any difference between the sheeting and the glass, the early afternoon sun casting a bright sheen over the surrounding buildings.

I swallowed uncomfortably at their ingeniousness. Shaw had pros on her side. It was a good thing we’d known her plans ahead of time. Still, there was a chance for things to go sour when your enemy was good at their job. I didn’t want to think about that, though.

“They’re in position.” Michael’s voice slid gracefully into my skull. It was time. The waiting was over.

I ran around the corner belting out my best battle cry. Mind you, it was “Fucking Hostile” by Pantera but it damn sure suited my mood.

The soldiers spun, having expected their targets to appear in the courtyard below, not in the building with them. But how’s that saying go? `The best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men, often get screwed in the pooch.’ I’m paraphrasing, obviously, but the point’s the same. Somebody was fucked.

For once, it wasn’t me.

I opened the floodgates to my magic as the soldiers leveled their rifles. They looked confident, prepared, and downright vicious. Too bad this was a dick waving contest and I was John Holmes and all of them combined weren’t even on the same playing field as Pee-wee Herman.

A shield rippled to life in front of me before they could even pull their triggers, bullets
thudding
into it as soon as they started. But all that was for show. I let them burn rounds, the gunshots echoing as though a million children were banging metal spoons on pans. Trained to be fearless, they just kept on firing, making a racket that could be heard on Mars.

Just like I wanted them to.

I gave them a little time to be heard, and then turned up the juice. In all the noise, no one had noticed that the rounds weren’t being deflected by my shield, left to ricochet around the room. Instead, I’d been collecting them.

Hundreds of bullets undulated in the shimmer of my shield, maggots dancing in the rotten center of a discarded Pop Tart. They squirmed and turned until they faced the soldiers like a ballistic porcupine. Only then did the men start to realize what was happening. By then, it was too late.

I triggered all the bullets at once, sending a spark of magic through the shield holding them. An instant later, a hail of lead flew back at the soldiers and shredded them without mercy. Ammunition designed to ignore armor and punch through steel turned against them. Their defenses were paper against a hail of meteors. The men screamed as death tore them apart, but the sound was fleeting. They convulsed to the impacts, unable to fall until the bullet rain had run its course. They collapsed in a heap of gore, the hallway painted in blacks and reds that would never be washed away.

“Scarlett and Rahim are finished with their teams,” Michael told me, his voice loud in the sudden silence. “You?”

“Done,” I said aloud. I always sucked at this telepathy bullshit. “Where do we stand?”

I heard him mumbling in the background for a moment, then he popped back in. “They just showed up. Get ready.”

Teeth clenched against the inevitable fury, I went over and glanced out the window, a sense of power pecking at my senses. Trinity hovered in the air near Karra’s body. Their eyes swarmed over the buildings we’d raided. Just seeing them beside her set my heart on fire. I wanted nothing more than topple the building over on them, but they’d have to wait.

“Time to go.” Mike’s telepathic nag set me in motion.

I summoned a ball of energy as a portal opened at my back. A runty dread fiend stepped through. His feet had just barely steadied on the tiles when I pressed the ball of energy to his chest. The fiend grunted as the magic sank into his flesh.

“They’re coming!”

I nodded out of habit, though Michael couldn’t see me. Regardless, I was done.

“Time to play hide and don’t get caught, big boy.”

The fiend was gone before I’d even finished talking. He bolted down the hallway and around the corner, trailing my essence, and I stepped through the portal just before it sealed shut, back in Hell once more.

“How long will that fool them,” Rala asked, having joined our group earlier. She held Abigail to her chest, the kid watching me with goo-goo eyes.

“Not nearly long enough,” I said. “Let’s go, folks.” I blew Abby a kiss and turned to the mystic. There was no way I could look at Abby any longer than that and still do what needed to be done.

Rachelle sniffed her annoyance at me in lieu of words and peeled open another portal. She didn’t have my demon endurance, and she was wearing herself out. We’d been going full on for what seemed forever, already.

“I hope you’re right about this, Frank,” Scarlett said as she drew her sword and stepped through the new rift.

“You and me both.” I went through on her heels, Rahim just behind. “Keep an eye on the place while we’re gone, Katon!” I shouted. He gave me the finger, which I felt more than saw.

If we failed, he’d be Abby’s new daddy. I kicked myself as that thought rolled through my head. So much for leaving my baggage at home.

We landed on a wide roof speckled with air conditioning units, the combined hum of them covering our arrival. A stairwell hut stood just a few feet away.

“No offensive wards,” Rahim said as we advanced on the hut. Just like the last building I’d broken into, this one was defended by complicated security magic that limited teleportation and portaling in or out. It’d take forever to bypass them so we did it the easy way.

Scarlett took Rahim’s statement as her cue. She booted the door, collapsing it inward. It clanged down the stairs, ripped free of the hinges, and we went in after it. We found it embedded in the wall of the first landing and dodged around it on our way down. Fortunately, we didn’t need to go anywhere near as deep this time.

The operations office of the DSI enveloped the top five floors, but it was the top floor they were using for their special operatives. I knew this because I’d tagged Venai just like I had Fido. Poe’s intel helped, too.

We hit the floor with conviction. Rahim blew through the office door—reinforced, but hardly on the level of the one at their
home
—and we charged in, guns a’ blazing. Security met us inside, our entry loud and obvious. The humans didn’t do much for their cause. Bullets flew and men shouted, but we mowed them down and pushed on, leaving a wake of battered men behind. They weren’t the targets.

The first hint of real resistance came in the form of Kit.

“Incoming,” Scarlett called out at seeing the metal-mouthed little girl. And sure enough, she was packing.

In each hand she carried a pistol that looked like the ones Princess Leia used in Star Wars. She came out firing. Bolts of blue energy buzzed around us, but Scarlett’s warning had been good. Those blasts that might have done real damage met my shield without doing anything. That didn’t deter her, though. She just kept on shooting, bold as brass.

“She’s setting us up,” I whispered to the others, and then changed the paradigm.

Instead of leaving my shield sit where it was, I willed it to advance down the hallway, closing the space between it and Kit. She snarled when she realized what I’d done and started backing away slowly, clearly not wanting us to go any further than we had. I widened my senses then, expanding my search area only to ping on two more targets inbound.

“Damn it! Watch the flan—” I started to shout as a ham-sized fist burst through the wall beside me and clobbered me right in the face.

My skull slammed into the opposite wall, leaving an egg-shaped divot in the plasterboard. At the same time I’d been hit, another arm burst through the wall and struck Scarlett. She growled across from me, knocked opposite of where she’d been.

“Switch!” I said, and grabbed the arm that had hit Scarlett and pulled with everything I had. Venai was torn through the wall. At least she was clothed this time.

Scarlett followed my example, yanking Thud into the hallway with us, but we weren’t done yet. As if we’d thought the same thing at the same time, Scarlett and I spun our respective dance partners around in a tight circle. They both
eeped!
in unison; right before they collided. The impact was like two sumo wrestlers doing belly flops off the high dive.

It wasn’t enough to take them out, but they sure as shit would be feeling that later. That was fine with me. We’d only one purpose in raiding the DSI building. That was to do as much damage as possible before we were forced to leave.

Rahim stepped through the hole made by Thud and starting tearing shit up. His magic sang against my senses as he leveled the offices and anything that got in his way. Kit went after him, pushed out of her choke point at the end of the hallway.

Scarlett took her frustrations out on Thud.

“What the hell, Tits!” the demon shouted, just before she smashed his teeth in with the pommel of her sword. He stumbled back, swinging at her despite it all, but with the little stubs of his arms he didn’t land anywhere near.

Venai had more luck. She grazed me with an elbow as she broke free of her companion, but there wasn’t much on it. I rabbit-punched her kidney a couple of times and ducked the spinning back fist she threw. Then I headbutted her into the wall.

“I’ve seen your hoohaw,” I said. “Arby’s should hire you to promote their sandwiches.”

Apparently suggesting she use her God-given attributes for the good of mankind was the wrong thing to say.

She roared and charged, trying to tackle me, but it was exactly what I’d wanted her to do. I turned sideways and matadored her into the wall. If there was one thing I’d learned in all the time spent fighting with this woman, it was that she was predictable. She grunted as she hit, and I helped her on through with my boot in her ass. The ass I was picturing naked right then.

I groaned as I realized what I was doing. Fortunately, Michael’s psychic bullhorn cleared that image from my head. I just hoped he hadn’t take a peek before he started talking. Now
that
would be embarrassing.

“They’ve found your lure. Portal’s up in five…” he said, starting a countdown.

Rahim stepped back into the hallway just as Scarlett sent Thud flying into the offices at the end of the hall. He screamed something about having copped a feel before he disappeared into a tumble of cubicles. He was clearly a demon after my own heart.

Thunder rumbled somewhere above us, and Rachelle’s portal tore open at our backs, the air sizzling in its wake. None of us said a word as we ran through it, a massive explosion tearing up the offices behind us just as Rachelle closed the rift.

The sound had been Trinity arriving.

Back in Hell, the stress I’d been fighting off damn near flattened me. “Did it work?” I shouted, my voice trembling.