Collateral Damage (Demon Squad Book 8) (9 page)

Katon got there first. Coated in the blood of the DSI men, he looked like a Walking Dead cast member left out in the sun too long. He came up behind the revenant and cut a hunk of its ghostly essence away with a vicious overhand swing. Its arm and shoulder vanished in a hissing burst of gray smoke. The Holy Spirit roared and whipped about only to be stabbed in the chest and driven back as Katon gouged more of its hoary flesh.

“You okay?” he asked Scarlett, but he kept his eyes on the ghost. That was when the old man jumped back into the fight.

A blast of energy slammed into the assassin, and he raised an arm to cover his face. A grunt slipped free of his lips as the power tore at him, searing flesh. He ducked beneath it, trailing wisps of blackened smoke while he dodged away.

A furious roar cut through all the clatter as Rahim tore through the last of the DSI agents and flung himself at the old man. The Father turned his attack on the wizard, setting Rahim on fire, but old man apparently had a pretty good grasp on physics. Half a ton of angry bear flying through the air isn’t something you’re gonna stop. His magic fluttered, and then so did he, the old man vanishing an instant later. Rahim hit the ground with a reverberating thump, slashing at empty air.

The revenant hissed, shaking her remaining fist at us. “We will see all of you slaughtered.” She unleashed a burst of energy that went wild, a brimstone stench welling up. That’s when she disappeared.

Katon screamed then.

I spun to see the kid riding the vampire’s back, Longinus’s blade cutting a line across Katon’s eyes. The Son grinned maniacally, his face a charred mess, teeth gleaming between melted lips.

“Our lord has decreed you abomination. He will have your souls!”

Katon shrugged the Son off before any of us could reach them, but the kid vanished without hitting the ground. His smile still stayed seared across my retinas.

Scarlett caught Katon as he stumbled, wrapping her arms around him for support. “I’m here, my love. I’m here.” She stared at his injury, eyes narrowed in sympathy.

He growled low in his throat, but he leaned into her. “I’ll be fine,” he said, but the deep trough cut across his eyes told a different story.

Both of his eyes were gone.

Ten

We rushed Katon back to Hell as quickly as possible. He complained the entire time.

“Leave me be, damn it. I am not some child who needs to be coddled.”

“Maybe not, buddy, but you’re gonna need a service dog and a pair of Stevie Wonder glasses for a while.”

As if to prove my point, he bumped into the chair Scarlett was trying to get him settled into. He grunted and flopped into it, clasping at the stone arms as though he might fall through it. Dude was tough as shit but losing your eyes had to screw him up.

“Be quiet, Frank,” Scarlett told me as she dropped down on the floor beside him, a painful hiss slipping loose. She touched her hand to the slice in her thigh and pulled it away, blood staining her palm red. She glanced at Katon’s face for a few quiet moments, then over at me. My hand was plastered to my side but there was no missing the blackened seep than ran between my fingers.

Her eyes met mine. “Am I wrong in thinking I recognize the blade that did all this?” she held up her hand, blood dripping.

I drew in a deep breath. “Nope, you’d be right on the money.”

“We can discuss this later,” Rahim cut in. “First, we need to see what we can do to help Katon.”

“Can he be helped?” Scarlett rounded on the wizard, getting back to her feet. “If Longinus’s sword did this, will he heal?” Her emerald gaze came back to me with all the hardness of diamonds.

Fortunately, Katon reached out and, though fumbling, took her hand in his. “I’m already healing,” he told her. “It will simply take time. I’ll be fine.”

Scarlett, not known for her restraint, clearly bit back a comment, her mouth half-opening to spit it out before easing shut. She glared at me for a while, though, not willing to let it go. “How they’d get the sword, Frank?”

Rahim swooped in again in an effort to save me some grief, but I waved him off.

“They killed Karra and took it,” I said, fighting not to choke on each and every word.

The hard expression on her face shattered like broken glass. She gave Katon’s hand a quick squeeze before letting go and flying across the room to wrap me in her arms.

“I’m so sorry, Frank,” she said, clinging to me as though she never intended to let me go.

Regardless what she thought of Karra—I think she actually liked her, surprisingly enough—and even more so what she thought of me, Scarlett was blood; family in a way no one else could be. We hated each other, loved each other, tolerated each other, and did all we could to avoid each other on a regular basis, but at the end of the day both of us would move Heaven and Earth for the other. She clung to me, her tears warming my neck. For all my devilish inheritance, she cared; she understood what Karra had meant to me.

I stood holding her as she whispered apologies and quiet words of sympathy. She trembled in my arms, all raw emotion and heart, feeling sorry for my loss like the true angel she was. I held her and did what any self-respecting man in my position would do in a moment like that.

I bawled like a little baby.

There was no holding it back. Soon it was her who was propping me up, keeping me from collapsing. Every time I thought I’d run dry I plumbed a new well of sorrow. California would ransom Hollywood to have as much rain as I was spewing tears. They just kept coming until I was a shaking, wretched mess.

At some point she’d led me to the chair beside Katon, and I hadn’t even realized it. I snapped to with his hand on my shoulder and Scarlett hunched over my back, doing her best to lend me her strength. Where her fingers clasped, white outlines on my skin told of her fierceness. She wasn’t gonna let me go until I was okay. Neither was Katon. For that matter, no one there would.

Rahim and Rachelle stood arm in arm in front of me. Rachelle’s cheeks were rosy, streaked with silver trails. She saw me looking at her and forced a smile I knew she didn’t feel. We’d come a long way since Abraham’s death, and that brought even more tears to my eyes. I hadn’t been there for her while she’d been suffering it. No, I’d been too worried about being the cause of his death that I stayed away, that I hadn’t shown her how much I cared like she was doing for me.

“I’m sorry,” I said to her, to all of them; to no one. Life had changed for all of us. There’d been so much loss and pain since the leashes on Heaven and Hell had been severed. Not that life was ever a weekend at Disneyland, mind you, but the two sides had kept things in relative balance. Humanity was still a pile of stinking shit on occasion, but they could be managed, held in check. There was no reining in the supernaturals now, at least not without a fight that would eventually result in us losing someone else. That’s how it’d been the last fifty years. Death had reared its ugly head for the rest of us not labeled as human, and the changing reality was as easily for us to swallow as a poop sandwich. We’d become the shock troopers in a war we never wanted, and all we’d lost was only the beginning. There would be so much more suffering before it was over.

“The baby?” Scarlett asked as if realizing where my mind was headed.

“She’s fine,” Rachelle answered. “She’s here and has several of our people looking after her.

“And she has Chatterbox,” I said, wiping my face on my sleeve.

“That’s a relief.” Scarlett chuckled. She wiped her brow in mock relief. “I was worried you might have left her alone with the dread fiends.” Her smile gleamed above me.

Rahim laughed but chose to keep his mouth shut regarding my earlier actions.

“Speaking of Abigail,” Rachelle started, “I’d best check in on her.” She sighed and wandered off. It was strange seeing her so focused. She’d always been flighty, so off in her own world, but since I’d been back around she seemed more grounded. I let out a sigh as she left the room. Guess death has a way of lashing you to the here and now.

Rahim closed the door behind her, a great stone slab, the sound like a prison gate slamming shut. We were trapped in there with our thoughts. It wasn’t a good thing.

“Are you okay, Frank?” Katon asked me after Rachelle was gone.

I shook my head but realized he couldn’t see me. “No, but I will be,” I lied, wanting more than anything for it to be true. Life would go on—I’m not one to commit suicide despite what my past choices might have you believe—but it would never be the same. Life would never be as good as it had been these last four months.

“Who are these people who attacked us?” Scarlett asked. She knew me well enough to know that the only cure I’d ever known for sadness was fury.

“They call themselves Trinity,” Rahim answered, stepping in for me. “And we know next to nothing as to what they’re capable of. Without any resources available to our people, I have no idea how we’ll learn more, either. The only certainty is that they are working in conjunction with the head of the Department of Supernatural Investigation.”

Scarlett growled. “The woman who was trapped with you in the other dimension? What was her name? Shaw?”

I nodded. “Yup. That’d be the one.”

“So this is some petty play at revenge for what happened with Azrael?”

“I think there’s more to it than that,” I answered, measuring my words. They needed to know what I did, but I wanted to keep Poe out of it. They didn’t need to know he was involved. “There’s someone else pulling the strings, but I’ll be damned if I know who or what their purpose is. All I know is that Trinity is an old foe of Lucifer and Longinus, which is all anyone needs to know to understand why they’d be pissed at me and Karra. The DSI simply look to be siding with the team they think is gonna win.” Just the thought of that set my cheeks to boiling. “We need to go play Whac-A-Mole with the DSI folks and find out what the hell they have to do with all this. Maybe that’ll lead back to whoever is standing behind the curtain, yanking our chains.”

“Now is not a good time for that, Frank.” Rahim gestured to the room, my eyes following his hand.

Katon sat blind, no hint that he’d really even begun to heal yet. The Grand Canyon yawning across his eyes was a black and red mess that made him look like a bizarro Cyclops from the X-Men comics. Then there was Scarlett. While I’d definitely seen her hurt worse than this, she wasn’t exactly in pristine condition. Her leg still seeped blood and it probably would for a while even after we’d bandaged it up. Wounds inflicted by magical means were a true anathema to our kind. Without some mystical means to counteract the injury, she’d retain it until it healed naturally. She was tough as hell but there was only so much anyone could do with a huge gash ripped in their leg.

I wasn’t much better off. The little shithead had skewered me through the side as if I were the olive to his martini. The fact that he used Karra’s sword made it feel worse than it was, but there was no way to pretend it wouldn’t impact us moving forward. As much as I wanted to see if my inherited powers were up to the task of healing, I was afraid I’d make things worse. I didn’t have the subtlety for that kind of magical manipulation even if I had the power. Wasn’t sure I even had that after the devourers had taken a bite out of me while I reclaimed my original body.

“Damn it! Why isn’t there a user’s guide that comes with magic?”

Rahim chuckled, but he was right. We weren’t ready for another fight yet, but there was one brewing regardless. Hell might be locked down tight but we couldn’t stay there forever. Even if we could, I wouldn’t put it past Trinity to figure out another way to break in. For all my supposed dominion over the place, I was like the weekend janitor who’d been handed a wad of keys. Fuck if I knew what all they went to. I felt pretty confident I’d locked down all the main doors but if there was one hidden away somewhere, I sure as shit didn’t know about it. That made me nervous. There was no certainty we were safe, though I guess there never is in life.

“As much as I agree, Rahim, I think we need to take it to Shaw, at the very least. If we can put a hurting on her people, maybe that will back them up some and give us room to breathe.”

“We already have room to breathe,” Rahim said, shaking his head. “And we damn well need it, Frank. Look at us.”

“I have, and I get your point, but do you see this getting any better?”

“The longer we can hold out, the more time we have to heal and to learn more about our enemies, learn best how to defeat them. We have no clue who is behind this, but to imagine Trinity is the worst we’ll have to face is sheer foolishness.” He let out a tired groan, rubbing at his bald head. There wasn’t shit to learn and he knew it. All the information DRAC had gathered over the years was tied up in their holdings. Holdings that were now a burning wreck or pounded rubble.

“So we give them time to coordinate and get all their ducks in a row?” I shouted. “I don’t know how safe we are here. I really don’t, and that scares the crap out of me. What if we’ve done exactly that they wanted us to? What if they lured us here and plan to take us out once we’ve nowhere else to go? They’ve attacked Hell before.”

“Then we can fight our last here as well as we can anywhere. Better even considering the assistance of the dread fiends and the means to build fortified defenses.” He waved his arms about. “Our enemies have been steps ahead of us this entire time, Frank, and are likely even further than that.”

“So we just sit here and wait to take it in the ass?”

“That’s not what I said.”

“But you implied it. We sit and twiddle our thumbs until we’re stronger knowing damn well that the odds between us aren’t gonna get any better?”

“We can hold against all of them if we’re prepared.”

“Hold?” I growled, my anger getting the best of me. “What the fuck are we, the 300 Spartans?” I spun to Scarlett. “And you. What would you do?”

She looked to Katon sitting uncomfortably in the chair, eyes a line of emptiness, and I knew her answer before she even said it. “We can’t fight them like this, Frank. I know what they did to—”

“This isn’t all about Karra!” I shouted, but it mostly was, and I wasn’t fooling anyone. I changed tack. “You know sitting here and waiting for them to storm Hell and kill my child the same way is something I can’t accept. You’re part of that blood line they’re gunning for, too.”

Rahim clasped my shoulder. “Our enemies have set the notes out before us and watched us play each one in turn. To go after them head on is exactly what they want.” He spun me around to face him, eyes furious but desperate. “Shaw has rallied the nation against us, the world for all we know. It was one thing to fight a small group of them to reclaim Karra, but it’s something entirely different to wage an open war on the seat of the DSI’s power. If we aren’t number one on the list of public enemies already, than we most assuredly would be after we assailed the U.S. government. Win
or
lose, there is no victory there.”

I shook him loose, snarling. As much as I agreed with the sentiment, Shaw and Trinity had already set that ball in motion. We were on the defensive, and it wasn’t gonna get any better. Nothing we did now would impact it one way or another. They’d set me up to be the bad guy in the eyes of the world, and maybe that was exactly what I needed to be to end all this.

Without another word I stormed out and made my way to the God-proof room, sealing it tight behind me so none of the others could follow or see what I was doing. There were enough voices in my head that I didn’t need theirs too.

I sat there for a while, breathing in the silence, letting my anger cool as best as it could. We were gonna have to fight soon enough, I knew that, and I still felt it best to take it to them before they took it to us, but going at it alone would only make Trinity and Shaw’s job easier. Then what would happen to Abby?