Echoes of the Past (Demon Squad) (19 page)

That’s the beauty of magic. It doesn’t have to make sense.

As the dragon swooped for me, I swung the flaming piece of ice like a sword and darted out of the way as it hit. The sharpened edge enhanced by the mystical fire, the makeshift sword cut through the dragon’s front leg without resistance. It crashed to earth, missing the support of its limb, its head slamming into the ground. Before it could recover, I strafed its wing and cut several chunks from it, making sure the thing couldn’t fly.

It snapped at me as I ducked under its wounded wing, drawing my
blade
across its flank. The ice hissed and sizzled as I cut a long groove into its side and down its back thigh. The dragon went to stand and collapsed, its legs too damaged to support its weight. A sharp crack sounded as a huge piece of its back end broke away. It shrieked and howled and swiped at me with its good wing, still trying to take me out despite its wounds.

I dodged the ineffective swats and ran up to its head. It rolled its neck to look back at me just as I drove the flaming icicle into its eyes. The dragon shrieked once more and twitched violently, going still in a sudden rush of silence. The whole of it melted, a wash of cold water soaking me from the thighs down.

I wondered how many experience points he was worth. It’d be nice to level up.

The dragon and Mihheer gone, I focused in on the vial of my blood he’d been carrying and went over to where he dropped it. Caught up as I was in the moment when I’d first arrived, I hadn’t any clue where I was. Now that I was no longer on the menu, it all came rushing back.

I was in the Siberian tundra. It was where I’d buried my mother.

The village of our birth was long gone, our people wiped out by my father after Lucifer turned them against him. Where the village used to sit was nothing more than an open field. It was surrounded by an ancient forest that had stood watch long since before I was born. By now, there was nothing left of my mother but dust and memories. I’d left the vial of blood to mark the place I’d buried her. No headstone would have survived the harsh conditions, but my demonic blood would last into eternity.

Its essence was just enough to allow me to find her grave on those rare occasions when I returned to Russia. It had apparently been enough to draw Mihheer here, too. He’d shown he could find me, but perhaps he’d been confused by all my gate-hopping back and forth between Hell and Earth. Not that it mattered much. He was done with me and was going after Scarlett. I needed to warn her.

I stuck the frozen vial back into the deep hole Mihheer had pulled it from and expended some energy to make the tundra melt back over.

“I’m sorry, Mom.” It was all I could tell her, still upset. There wasn’t time for me to air my frustrations, so I bent over and kissed the ground, willing it to my mother, and headed off.

With no clue how I ended up in Russia, and lacking a ride home, I trekked across the tundra to find a portal. Fortunately, demons and angels have been traversing the world since the days of the dinosaurs. It’s become common practice to stash gates around the globe to allow for easy travel for the
supernaturals
who can’t teleport. I knew where a few were, seeing how I used one in particular when I came out to visit my mom.

Lucky for me it was
only
three miles away.

Yeah…lucky.

Chapter Nineteen

It was a long, cold walk to civilization. Being back only created grief of its own kind, almost making me wish I’d stayed in the quiet tundra. Normal communication from Hell was impossible, and I couldn’t go home with the DSI goons hanging out. They’d proven they weren’t looking to put me in cuffs anymore, preferring to put me in a grave; a literal one, not the metaphysical representation of the actual, real grave I’d fallen into.

Blame the confusion on my college psychology professor. I didn’t need more than one semester to realize I had an abnormal psyche. That and a five dollar bill would get you a hit television show.

Stuck for a place to go, I finally decided on the old DRAC base where we’d kept Lilith’s body after she’d been sacrificed to bring Longinus back to life. It had been attacked and everyone there murdered by the
Nephilim
, the half breed bastards of angels. Kind of like me, only from the other side of the supernatural tracks.

It was a pretty good bet no one from DRAC had even bothered to do anything but collect bodies and shut the place down considering all that’s happened since. I figured it was a chance work taking. I was right.

The place hadn’t even been sealed off. The DRAC workers apparently busted their asses to get all the people out and strip the place of anything that might be seen as out of the ordinary, but they left the mundane stuff there. The compound off the beaten path, they weren’t worried about anyone stumbling across the place before they could give it a proper shutdown. All the security systems had been deactivated. The place was abandoned.

I went inside and was amazed by how spotless it was. There wasn’t a hint of the bloodbath that occurred there. The desks and chairs and computer equipment were clean, though it was clear many were missing, damaged in the battle, but only someone who’d been there before would have noticed. I knew the hard drives on the computers would be replaced or removed and all the lines scrubbed and cleared of recording devices and electronic triggers that translated the coded messages sent over them in order to forward it to the appropriate responders.

Worried about Scarlett, I called her first, musing on the strange mix of magic and technology that allowed mundane conveniences to work in Heaven but not in Hell. There was no answer. I tried again and again but wasn’t able to reach her. I called
Karra
next, looking to let her know I was okay, but I couldn’t get a hold of her either. It was frustrating, and it scared me. With Mihheer able to track me down, he might go after
Karra
just out spite. She’d been there with me when he first showed up, so he may well have picked up her essence. At least with
Karra
, I could reach her through Chatterbox. Once I got back to Hell, I’d send a message that way and check in on her. Right then, I just needed to make sure Scarlett was safe.

I called Katon. A few seconds later a telepathic connection was opened between the two of us. “Hey, I need to find Scarlett. Have you seen her?”

His distinctive voice cut through the psychic ether and sounded inside my head. “I haven’t. What’s wrong?” I could hear the concern in his telepathic voice.

“I don’t know for sure that anything is, but I need to warn her…just in case. The alien and I duked it out over Lucifer. The guy got away, but before he left he told me he would hunt down another person on Earth who shared my uncle’s bloodline. That’s Scarlett.” I heard Katon growl.

“I’ll find her.” He got straight to the point, empty static ringing in my head right after.

He’d developed a crush on my cousin recently, so I could count on him to race to her rescue. Better still, he was capable of defending her, or at least backing her up more than proficiently as Scarlett could take care of herself in a fight. The two together could probably whoop
Mihheer’s
foreign butt. Figuring Katon had already cut the link, I headed out to hop a ride back to Hell.

Katon surprised me when he cut back in. “Frank?”

I nodded, and then remembered he couldn’t see me. “Yeah?”

“I couldn’t find anything about your alien buddy…”

Seeing how he was trapped in my uncle’s basement for a millennium, I pretty much expected that.

“…I did, however, come across a report of a couple of dimensional anomalies that happened during the fight for Heaven,” he continued. “The first one was just a tiny blip, several dimensions away. It happened at the height of the storms. The contact was blurred and unsteady, and only lasted for a few moments before disappearing or being shielded. It originated from somewhere outside of our connected dimensions so there was no way to trace its origin. The second one was a far more powerful disturbance. It came from within Hell and reached out into the unknown, right around the time we were gathered outside Eden. Rachelle wasn’t able to track that one either, but upon reflection, she said it probably lasted for several hours before it went away. She couldn’t even be sure where in Hell it came from, given how little attention she’d paid it.”

I sighed, thanking Katon for the information. He signed off to find Scarlett, promising to let me know as soon as he did. Once he was gone, I made my way to a portal to Hell, all the ones at DRAC shut down. It gave me some time to think about what Katon had told me.

The first blip was most likely
Hasstor
. He’d said his arrival would most be noticed, and it seemed he was right. While Rachelle had been with us then, she was still unconsciously scanning the integrity of the dimensional walls to be sure nothing came through and surprised us. A powerful mystic, she was in tune with the ether and would have reported the disturbances had she not been so distracted.

The second incident was Baalth’s little science project. He’d always underestimated Rachelle and her ability to pierce the gloom of protective wards and spells. She was far more powerful than anyone gave her credit for, her flighty and distracted nature the perfect cover for her astounding abilities. She, no doubt, picked up on Baalth’s gate as he tried to block it from view. I smiled at that, the information giving me something to dig at Baalth with. He hated being one-upped.

As I headed off to the portal, laughing, a cold realization popped into my head. My laughter died.

Baalth was already gone by the time we reached Iran. He was with Lucifer then.

All of sudden it made sense. It couldn’t have been Baalth’s portal that Rachelle sensed. It had to be another one; one that had been used to summon Mihheer to our universe.

Gorath was in Hell.

Panic fueled my rush to find a portal. If Mihheer could track me using just the tiny bit of my essence found in the vial I’d buried at my mother’s grave, would he have a problem finding Lucifer were Baalth’s portal to be opened? In the midst of a war, it was a good bet they’d be calling on the power fairly regularly, opening up a glowing beacon that led straight to my uncle.

Another thought came to me, smashing into the insides of my skull like a bullet train. Mihheer finding Lucifer wasn’t the worst that could happen.

Chapter Twenty

Back in Hell, my heart was drumming a blast beat in my chest. I ran through the corridors of Lucifer’s chambers and down into the fiend room. Barely able to breathe, I pointed at the wall where Poe had
magicked
his way into the hidden chambers and set the dread fiends loose on it. I didn’t have time to figure out how to open the door, but I sure as shit could tear it down. In a whirlwind of claws, hundreds of the sub-demons attacking it without hesitation, the wall gave way and revealed the corridor beyond. I waved the fiends aside and ran through the ravaged opening, sucking in deep breaths of gray dust, which had yet to settle.

After another minute or so, I was at the door to Baalth’s portal. The cadre of fiends still outside was a good sign. I shooed them aside and burst into the room, slamming the door shut behind me. The flux of energy nearly knocked me on my ass as I charged for the tub that held McConnell.

Poe met me halfway and blocked my path, but I ignored him and looked over his shoulder to see Baalth. He stood before the tub, his hands aglow with power. Sweat streamed across his forehead as he unleashed burst after burst of magical energy to be absorbed by McConnell and the system they’d devised. The wizard’s shadow flopped about inside as Baalth fed more and more of his power into the tub. At last, the barrage stopped and Baalth crumpled to his knees.

Poe gave me a dirty look and ran to help his boss. I followed after. He gently eased Baalth to his feet. There was nothing resembling the demon lieutenant I remembered. He was exhausted, drained of nearly every drop of his energy. His essence felt like a trickle in the ocean against my senses.

Baalth hung nearly lifeless in Poe’s arm as the mentalist growled at me. “What the hell are you doing here?” He’d left out
Mister Trigg
, so I knew he was pissed.

“Has the portal been opened?” I asked him, in a rush. “Has it?”

Poe must have caught on to my panic and looked to Baalth. The demon nodded.

I felt my ball sack retract. “We’re in deep shit.”

Poe stared at me without understanding. “What are you—“ He didn’t get any further.

The door to the room exploded off the hinges and flew inward in pieces. Chunks of dread fiend came with it, coating the floor in stinky yellow bile and demon guts. I spun to meet Mihheer as he leapt inside. Poe twisted away to defend Baalth, the two hobbling off in the other direction.

Mihheer didn’t seem surprised to see me. He laughed as he charged straight ahead. There was a book in his hand, and it was glowing blue. I drew my power to me just as a swarm of mutant spiders exploded from the pages in an arachnid volcano.

Mihheer tossed the book in my direction. My first instinct was to throw up a shield. Thousands of creepy little twelve-legged spiders slammed into it as though it were a windshield on the highway to Hell. The book hit a second later and I spied the author’s name as it bounced off. I cringed when I noticed it was the Stephen King story,
The Mist
. Great read, but I sure didn’t want to be part of the story.