14. The Bitch is back
“What the actual fuck?” Keri screamed and jumped from her seat. “Rayna, what is that?”
“That would be the ex-girlfriend.” I kept my cool while my friend freaked out. One of us had to be thinking clearly. Besides, I was already hurting and needed to reserve my energy for when shit really got real. “You believe me now?”
“Son of a bitch.” Keri pressed her hand against her forehead. “Demons are real. I’m too drunk for this shit.”
“I suggest you sober up real fast.” I shifted in my seat.
“You stupid human bitch!” Olian called out from the entrance. “Did you think I wouldn’t find you again?”
“You made it back.” I carefully stood, trying to hide any sign of my pain. “Did you have a pleasant trip?”
“Ray, maybe we shouldn’t taunt the demon woman.” Keri slowly moved to the box that held her friend. It didn’t matter what she did; Olian’s attention was locked on me as her hands gripped the doorframe.
“You think you can do that to me?” Olian screamed, and wood from the frame splintered in her hands. “Do you know who I am?”
“Metice’s ex.” I nodded. “He filled me in. Look, I’m sorry about what happened between you two, but that had nothing to do with me. I didn’t even know him when he broke up with you.”
“I am so much more than my attachment to some man,” Olian screamed as her eyes darkened to a fiery orange.
“And yet, here you are, stalking me because of an attachment to some man.” I pointed out the irony in her statement.
“Rayna.” Keri still moved towards the box but warned me to ease up.
“It’s fine, Keri.” I waved her off and kept my eyes trained on the demoness. “This is how Olian and I talk to each other. Just a bit of healthy banter, right?”
“Oh, look, the human found her confidence. Isn’t that cute? One little magic trick, and you think you can take me?” She flexed, and the skin on her arms rippled with energy as the tentacle sprouted from her back. The veining across her skin moved to accommodate the expanding muscles beneath. “Prove it.”
Olian ran forward, and I held my hand out, hoping the magic that had knocked her on her ass the first time would work. Of course, it didn’t. I stood there holding my hand out to her, focusing on energy, because that was the only piece of instruction I could remember. The magical girlies just focused on what they wanted the power to do, and it did it. Now, though, it looked like I was just standing there, waiting for a high five. Instead of a blast of power from my hand, three shots rang out. Pop, pop, pop. Three holes appeared in the demoness’ chest.
Olian stopped and looked at her chest, yellow blood spilling from the fresh wounds. She looked at Keri. “You stupid bitch.”
I looked to my right to find Keri standing there, her pink Glock 19 affectionately named Poppiana pointed at the demon’s chest.
“Take that, demon ho!” She jutted the gun forward.
Olian reached for Keri like she would attack. Then she choked, and the same yellow blood spilled from her lips. Her eyes rolled back into her head, and she fell forward. Her skull cracked against the hardwood floor, the sound echoing down the hall.
“Is she dead?” Keri leaned forward, peering down at the demoness. “I mean, did I just kill a demon? I didn’t think bullets were strong enough for that. Shit, they didn’t work in Constantine.”
“I don’t know. Damn, I thought dropping her from the sky would have killed her, but it clearly didn’t.”
“Yeah, okay. We need to get out of here.” Keri grabbed my bag and hers, then pulled her keys from her pocket. “On second thought, we can take your car. I just got mine detailed.”
“Seriously?” I followed her as she carefully tiptoed around the fallen demon.
“Hey, these are your demons,” Keri whispered. “I’m already going to have to deal with cleaning this up. How the hell do you get demon blood out of teakwood floors?”
“Hell if I know.” I made it past Olian’s body. “Let’s just get out of here in case she wakes up.”
“Still think it was a bad idea for me to get a gun?” Keri waved the weapon before stuffing it into her bag.
“Now is not the time to debate gun laws.” I shook my head as we headed for the car.
My body hurt terribly badly, but I moved as quickly as I could. There was no way I was taking my time to avoid further injury, because that would mean giving the demon the chance to regenerate and catch up to us. Keri took the wheel, and I sat in the passenger seat as she peeled off down the street, tires squealing.
“What the hell do we do now?” Keri gripped the steering wheel and adjusted her collar. “I really shouldn’t be driving right now.”
“I don’t know.” I glanced over my shoulder, afraid Olian had somehow healed that quickly and was chasing after us. When I saw nothing, some of the tension eased, and I felt my jaw unclench. There was no threat, only the passing of busy homes and trees dusted with the fresh snow that fell as we drove. “She shouldn’t have been able to get back here. I didn’t see that happening, and Metice isn’t here. He says he can feel me, sense when I’m in danger. This is the second time she has attacked me, and nothing. He’s nowhere to be found. Something must be wrong.”
“Maybe she found some way to block it. I mean, you said he had that one witch work her magic to block you from other demons. What if there’s some spell at play that doesn’t tell him when you’re a danger? At least, not when she’s there.” Keri offered what sounded like a totally plausible reason, considering everything that had happened.
“Is that the lawyer side of your brain kicking in?” I asked. “How the hell are you so calm right now?”
“Hey, I told you half of what I do is playing detective to figure out what’s really going on behind the story people give me.” She laughed. “You think criminals tell the truth to their lawyers?”
“I just got to figure out somewhere safe to go. I can’t go back home. Not yet.” I looked out the window. “She’s been there. If she’s looking for me again, that’s the logical place for her to go next.”
“I think you better figure that out real quick.” Keri adjusted the rear-view mirror. “We got company.”
“What?” I asked.
“Something’s coming up behind us quick, and I don’t think that thing is a fucking car.”
I turned in my seat to look out the back window and damn near shit myself. Running behind us was a thing that looked like a demonic transformer. It ran on all fours, with massive talons that destroyed the concrete beneath it. The thing was the size of my car, with a yellow body and a blue spine and neck that reached down with a snarling face. Its beady red eyes and sharp teeth were a threat to what would happen if it caught us.
Luckily, the thing wasn’t accustomed to running on ice. The fresh snow on the road caused it to slip, and it slammed into a parked car as the sharp hook that stuck out from its forearm ripped through the door.
“What the hell is that?” I couldn’t take my eyes off the thing.
“You’re asking me? I’m not the one familiar with demons, you are,” Keri yelled. “Hang on.”
Keri whipped the car across two lanes and pulled onto the interstate, because that’s what you do when a monster is chasing you—you get on the expressway! I wasn’t sure what shocked me more: the monster chasing us, knocking unsuspecting drivers around the road, or Keri’s driving skills.
“The snow is coming down fast.” I looked out the window. It was like the clouds were just dumping out clumps of snow. There had barely been any at all when I arrived at Keri’s house, and now, you couldn’t even see the ground.
“What are the odds one of your demon buddies can control the weather?”
“God, I hope not.”
She weaved in and out of cars with ease and put a sizeable distance between us and the thing behind us. For a second, I thought we would outrun it, but of course, two seconds after I had the thought that we might actually survive this encounter, another one of the jacked beasts dropped in front of us. Just as we were hitting a turn beneath an overpass, it hit the road less than a hundred feet in front of us.
Keri tried to maneuver around it, but with us already turning at a high speed on an icy road, that spelled disaster. Keri’s scream rang out as everything spun around us. The crunching sound of metal against pavement broke what composure I had as the car flipped I didn’t know how many times. My leg twisted beneath me, the bone snapping as the force pulled my body in different directions. I cried out, but a moment later, my head slammed against the door, and everything went black.
“Ray? Ray? Are you okay?” Keri nudged my shoulder.
Her voice registered first, then the touch of her hand, then the pain in my leg. The car was upside down. I was on the ceiling. Keri was hanging from her seat, still strapped in.
“Ow!” I groaned. “Son of a bitch.”
“Are you okay?”
“I’m alive. Does that count?”
“We have to get out of here.” She pulled at her seatbelt. “I’m stuck. Can you reach my bag? I have a knife.”
I tried to reach for the bag in the back of the car by the rear window, but unfortunately, my leg wasn’t the only thing broken. The moment I moved my arm, the pain shot up into my shoulder. I looked down to see the bone sticking out the side of my arm.
“Fuck!” The hyperventilating started immediately.
“Ray,” Keri spoke calmly. “Breathe. You’re going to be okay. I know it hurts, but we have to get out of here.”
“Keri, I’m so sorry.” Tears ran down my face. “I shouldn’t have come to you. I shouldn’t have pulled you into this.”
“Not the time, Ray,” Keri said. “Breathe. You need to get the knife.”
“You’re right, okay.” I took a deep breath, and with my good leg, scooted myself across the ceiling of the car. It was a slow and painful process, but I made it.
Just as I touched the bag and slid it to Keri, we heard it: sharp talons crunching against the ground. Our time was up. Keri hurried to get the knife out of her bag and worked on the seatbelt. She dropped to the ceiling when I caught the first glimpse of the monster outside.
“Dammit,” Keri said, scooting toward me. She pulled Poppiana out of her bag. “Let’s hope this works just as well on their asses.”
We would have exactly six seconds to find out, because one of the things took that moment to rip the car in half. I watched as the bottom half of my car went flying and flinched at the ground shaking crash that rang out when it landed.
The snow fell in our faces as one beast became three. Two others stepped into view beside the original, and they were just as terrifying. Their heavy growls were echoed by their clawed fists pounding against the ground, like they were cheering for their own success. Whoever sent them would be proud.
And then my bold bestie started firing. Shots rang out and bullets bounced off their targets, but only one landed in the eye of the demonic creature, who fell over. If only she could do that exact thing two more times. She aimed the gun at the next one, but it was too late. In defense of its falling creature, it backhanded my friend, and her limp body went sliding across the snow-covered grass.
“Keri! No!” I called out, but there was nothing I could do.
Yelling pulled their attention back to me, and I could only hope that would save my friend’s life. The monsters surrounded me, growling and making a yipping sound that hurt my ears. I covered my ears but screamed out when the damn thing clawed my legs. Its grip wrapped around both my legs and crushed my already shattered bones.
I screamed, more from the pain than the fear, as the familiar tension of the shift wrapped around me. Everything went fuzzy, this time lasting longer than it had before. But when my vision cleared and I regained consciousness, I knew without a doubt that I was back in hell.