Demon Evolution (4 page)

Samantha screamed and tried to swerve, but
she couldn’t avoid driving directly through the wall of fire that
rose from the road. Luckily, the car was moving fast enough to
slice through the flames and emerge on the other side unscathed,
but due to the lack of visibility and Sam’s sudden turn of the
wheel, the car jumped the curb and clipped a fire hydrant. They
came to rest on the sidewalk and, amidst a shower from the burst
hydrant, Chris jumped out and pulled a stunned Samantha from the
car. He re-belted her into the backseat and took over as
driver.

Chris gunned the engine, reversed, and then
accelerated quickly, spraying rubber on the curb, as he tore back
onto the road. “Are they dead?” Taylor asked, referring to the
demons in the lead car.

“No, they should be fine,” Chris replied. “A
little banged up maybe, but a little fire doesn’t hurt our
kind.”

“What the hell was that?” Taylor said.

Chris answered in one word: “Angels.”

“I know that, but does it mean they defeated
the demon guard?”

“I don’t know. Let’s find out,” Chris
replied.

Pumping the radio to his mouth, he barked,
“Rear guard, what is your status?”

The radio crackled and they heard, “Mission
complete. We teleported onto the angels’ backs and were able to
force them to land. But then one of our men grabbed them and
teleported them to who knows where. Adrian is a traitor, sir.”

“Okay, there’s nothing we can do about that
now. We’ve been attacked by a second group of angels. Can you and
one of your squad members teleport to our vehicle? We are about two
blocks down Crown Street.”

Seconds later, they heard a thud on the roof
of their car. “Sam, move to the middle seat,” Chris ordered.
Obediently, his girlfriend undid her belt and slid over. After
rolling down his window, Chris shouted, “C’mon in!”

Even though she would have been expecting it,
Sam visibly twitched when the demons suddenly appeared on each side
of her. “Hiya, Sam,” one of them said.

“Hey, Chuck,” she replied. Charles Booth was
a close friend of Chris’s, and both Samantha and Taylor had talked
to him a few times before. Charles, or Chuck as most of the demons
called him, was an intelligent, but fit-looking demon, with dark
black eyes and sharp eyebrows that made him appear to be intensely
concentrating. He was also highly handsome—he kind of reminded
Taylor of the smart but sexy Dr. Karev from
Grey’s
Anatomy
.

Taylor didn’t know the other demon who had
appeared, but she looked strangely familiar. Her hair was a bright
shade of green, which contrasted sharply to her shadowy aura. “Hi,
I’m Kiren. I don’t think we’ve been formally introduced,” she said,
extending her hand.

Taylor shook her hand while looking at her
curiously. “Taylor. Do I know you from somewhere?”

Kiren laughed. “Sort of. I go to the
University of Trinton with you guys, too. I actually live on the
same floor as you in Shyloh Hall. My roommate is your
friend—Marla.”

“Seriously? Sorry, I should have known,”
Taylor said.

“No, no, don’t worry. I came to UT just to
keep an eye on you and Chris, and I was instructed to lay low. I
hope I didn’t freak Marla out too much, she seems like a sweet
girl.”

It was Sam’s turn to laugh. “Well, I think
she would like a roommate that actually talks to her and doesn’t
come out only at night, but other than that I think she loves you
as her roommate.”

Kiren’s eyebrows wrinkled into a frown. “I
guess I might have overplayed the strange and mysterious vibe a
little bit. I’ll try to be more social next semester, especially
now that my cover is blown anyway.”

Taylor was happy for some light conversation
to take her mind off of the near-death experience they had just
had. Her distraction was short lived, however, as she was jolted
back to reality when Chris cried out, “We’ve got company, hang on!”
Yanking the wheel hard to the left, he fish-tailed the car onto a
side street, just as a ball of light struck the road in front of
them.

The passengers turned around to gawk out the
back window. Three white cars made the same turn behind them, in
hot pursuit. “Uh, Chris,” Chuck said, “they’ve got better wheels
than us.”

“Yeah, thanks for pointing that out,” Chris
retorted. He was driving Sam’s red 2009 Honda Civic Hybrid. Not a
bad little car, and great for the gas mileage, but it was no match
for the souped up vehicles that were chasing them. In fact, Taylor
wasn’t sure that a jet would be any match for the angels’ rides: A
Porsche, Ferrari, and Lamborghini cruised down the road behind them
in a rare display of beauty and power that would surely draw the
gaze of anyone within sight. They needed to get to the highway.

Kiren opened her window and pulled her narrow
body through it. She looked back at their pursuers. “Incoming!” she
yelled. Taylor watched as another orb of light pulse from the white
Porsche. The top was down, making it easier for the angels to fire
off light attacks.

Chris slammed his foot down hard on the
accelerator, trying to outrun the ball of light. Thrusting her hand
out, Kiren was barely able to maintain her balance by clutching the
side of the car, while precariously dangling from the window. At
the same time, she fired her own weapon: three boulder-like balls
of fire bounced down the road. The first collided with the orb, in
an explosion of fire and light. The smoke and fire from the blast
temporarily blocked their rear vision, but it also allowed the
remaining two boulders of fire to charge towards their pursuers
unseen.

At the exact moment when the white Porsche
cut through the smokescreen, the fiery cannonball struck its front
bumper. Like a lever, the car was flipped high into the air and
then, reaching its peak, arced downwards, landing on top of the
next car in the line—the Ferrari—stopping it dead in its tracks.
The final pursuer deftly maneuvered around the mangled white metal
of its two predecessors, but met a similar fate when the third and
final fire boulder hurtled into its side, leaving the Lamborghini
incapacitated.

“Three for three—not bad,” Kiren said, as she
pulled herself back through the window.

“That was amazing,” Sam said, clearly in
awe.

Kiren grinned from ear to ear. “Nice work,
Kiren,” Chris said.

“No problem,” she replied.

Taylor looked in the rear-view mirror at the
female demon sitting beside Sam. She hadn’t really paid much
attention to her appearance when they first met, but now, after
seeing what she was able to do, Taylor couldn’t help but stare. She
was of average height, her muscles toned, but not too bulky. While
her green hair was cut short, like a boy, it was styled—spiky in
all directions—giving her a kind of punk rock star look. Her smile
was cute, infectious even. Taylor turned her attention back to the
road, thankful that for the moment they weren’t being pursued.

Two streets later, they were on the highway
and headed for the airport. While it would be easier to simply
teleport from where they were, they needed to maintain the charade
that they were taking a trip to Florida, just in case. Ten minutes
later, they pulled into the airport parking lot and quickly found a
spot as far away from any other cars as possible.

“Okay. Chuck, you teleport Sam and I’ll
teleport Taylor. Kiren, you’re on your own.” Chris gave orders like
they were in the military—he was still in mission mode.

They held hands with their teleport buddies
and, after a few seconds of the tell-tale
swirling-twisting-flipping feeling, they appeared in a dark room
with many rising seats in a U-shape on three sides of them. Dark
men and women stopped in mid-conversation to inspect the new
arrivals. Taylor had never been to the place before, but the rest
of them had.

“Hi, Cliff,” Sam said energetically.

Her remark was directed at a particularly old
demon, who was standing at a raised podium, set off from the other
seats. While he showed clear signs of aging, he was still a very
handsome man, like Sean Connery, or Bob Barker, with a full head of
dark hair and a well-kept beard. He smiled at Samantha. “Ahh, my
dear, how nice of you to return to us. And you’ve brought your
friend, I see.”

“This is Taylor,” she said, with a wave of
her hand.

Taylor waved casually.

“Welcome to the Eldership of the demons,”
Clifford said grandly.

“Thank you,” Taylor said. She had been in a
similar situation before, but in a room full of
angel
leaders. That hadn’t turned out too well, so she was wary of her
current situation.

“Now…,” Clifford started to say.

Taylor cut him off: “Have you rescued Gabriel
yet?”

Clifford looked at Taylor with pain in his
eyes. “The mission was going according to plan, but then we
received reports that, while they were making their escape, Gabriel
and his escort were recaptured by a contingent of particularly
nasty angels. A few minutes before you arrived, we sent our
special-attack squad to try to save them, but we haven’t heard back
from them yet. We are beginning to fear the worst.”

“No!” Taylor yelled. “Send another squad; you
can’t let them take him. They’re going to kill him.” She felt her
muscles tense under her clothing. Sweat beaded on her forehead,
although she wasn’t warm. Images of Gabriel whipped through her
mind like a whirlwind: Gabriel sitting in a dark cell; Gabriel
being taunted by the angel guards; and finally, Gabriel being
murdered, his body burned to prevent him from pulling himself back
together.

B
odies crashed into
bodies, like a game of Twister gone horribly wrong. Someone
screamed. Then, like a row of dominos, they collapsed in a heap of
flesh.

Taylor had the wind knocked out of her when a
large body landed on her. Gasping for breath, she croaked, “Get the
hell off of me.” That’s when she saw the blood, black and
pooling—demon blood. “Help!” she yelled as loudly as she could.

In response to her plea, the lifeless body
was lifted from her small frame by two hands. The hands were
strong. And familiar, somehow. The hands said, “Take him.”
That
voice
, she thought.

The body was passed to a second pair of hands
and a face came into view. “Taylor,” the face said.

Just another dream.
Gabriel’s
beautiful face peered down at her and he reached for her hand. “You
can’t keep doing this to me,” Taylor said. “I have to learn to let
you go.”

Gabriel looked puzzled. “What do you mean?”
he asked. He grabbed her hand, pulling her up.

His touch felt so good, so real. Taylor
looked around her. She was still in the room with the rising
chairs. She saw Chris helping Sam to her feet, and a dozen other
demons were in the room now. Something was different about this
dream. Taylor was afraid to hope, but still….She pinched herself
hard on the arm. “Oww!” she exclaimed.

Gabriel looked amused. Taylor reached out and
pinched him equally hard. “Ouch!” he yelped. “What did you do that
for?”

Taylor’s muscles tensed again, but not in
anger or frustration…in anticipation. Wrapping her arms around him,
she hugged Gabriel tightly, as if anything less would allow him to
disappear. “I thought I’d lost you,” she whispered.

Gabriel tilted her head back to look into her
eyes. He said, “I thought I’d lost your love.”

“You should have,” she said, an edge creeping
into her voice.

“Why didn’t I?” Gabriel asked.

“I don’t know,” Taylor said honestly. A
sudden rage surged through her. She had the desire to punch him, to
kick him, to swear at him. He had hurt her so badly, he deserved to
be hurt too. He
had
been hurt, she reminded herself. His
punishment had been sufficient.

Abruptly, Taylor noticed that everyone in the
room was watching them now, but she continued to hold Gabriel
fiercely, afraid to let go. She spotted Sampson, and her eyes
widened. “But what—? What are you doing here?”

His face bursting into a massive smile,
Sampson said, “Oh, come on now. You didn’t think I would leave
Gabriel all by himself, did you?”

Taylor smiled back. “No, I guess not,” she
said.

Clifford approached them and said to Gabriel,
“We have much to discuss, young angel, but first you should eat…and
rest.”

“Thank you,” Gabriel said. “Thank you for
everything.”

“W
hose body was
that?” Taylor asked. Taylor, Gabriel, Sam, Chris, and Sampson were
in the demon café watching Gabriel inhale a massive plate of food.
They had already eaten. Gabriel was working on his third plate.

Gabriel looked up from his feeding, like a
pig above its slop bucket. “I dunno. Chris?”

Keeping his voice even, Chris said, “It was
Dom. He was dead before they even got him to the medical center. He
was a friend of mine.” Samantha put her arm around her boyfriend’s
back and pulled him towards her.

“Oh, Chris, I’m so sorry,” she said.

“Who killed him?” Chris asked.

Gabriel finished chewing the mouthful he was
working on and replied, “A filthy angel named Lucas. He is the
Archangel Council’s new toy. They will try to use him to kill me
and abduct Taylor. But I’m going to kill him first.”

Taylor frowned. “That would be stupid,
considering you’ve just been rescued.”

Chris interjected, “Don’t worry, we won’t be
doing anything right away. The Elders will need to discuss the
situation and decide what to do next. For now, no one is going
anywhere.”

The scowl that had formed on Gabriel’s face
when he was talking about Lucas lingered for a moment, and then
dissipated, as he apparently resigned himself to the fact that he
needed to involve the demons in any plans going forward. “Fair
enough,” he said. “Besides, I have everything I need right here.”
He smiled at Taylor, although she continued to frown at him.