27. Call of the Hound
Kais
H ow could I explain to the others that brief and ugly moment in my own mind when I’d considered—seriously given genuine thought to—agreeing to the demon general’s terms. One angel, only recently arrived, and a bit of a thorn in my side, in exchange for my town’s safety? Permanent safety?
“Not a fucking chance!” Jason bellowed. “That’s our goddamn angel!” He bent, grabbing a fist-sized rock from the ground as the rest of the crowd cheered around him, and whipped it across the gate and into the chest of the general. Impressive, actually.
The hellhound bucked, rising onto back legs the size of tree trunks, and our human cries of defiance were swept under the horrifying howl that followed, raising every hair on my body and piercing at my ear drums. Beside me, Azariah backed away with a pale face, his head shaking slowly, apologetic eyes on mine.
“I won’t go.” The howl covered his voice, but I read the words on his lips, the dark refusal in his eyes, and it reminded me of Deyva’s own terror. She was braver than him, our succubus, but I couldn’t blame him for his reluctance in getting dragged back to Hell.
“We won’t ask,” I said, nodding.
Az’s shoulders sagged and he nodded, before pointing up to the sky. “Then you better get ready to back that promise up. The hound has called for backup.”
“You said the gate will hold.”
“It will,” Az said, nodding, and then his hand pointed up to the sky. “But I’m not sure what we’re going to do about those!”
I looked up to the sky and released a string of curses at the sight of the winged creatures approaching, scaled, snarling faces spitting clods of fire down as they flew with bodies the size of house cats.
This was everything I’d been afraid of for years.
A mass of unarmed, untrained civilians about to face an enemy they were unprepared for.
The faces of my unit super-imposed themselves over the ones looking at me now, and it was only Deyva’s—her gold eyes too eerie, horns refusing to be replaced—that grounded me in the moment.
“Stavros, go and get the water hoses, those fuckers aren’t wearing trash bags. Azariah, fly defensively, but give us what you can against this. Candice, grab up anything on the ground that Jason can use to strike them out of the sky.”
Jason’s chest puffed proudly, another rock already fisted in his hand. He turned and faced the enemy, taking a brief breath before winding up and letting his weapon fly. It hit squarely on target, knocking the nearest flyer out of the sky before it could cross the gate.
“I’ll grab the cross bows,” Zach said, marching away.
“I’m going up high, I bet I can leap and grab some of those little gremlins,” Deyva said, squaring her shoulders and pulling away from Stavros’ arms.
My heart slammed in my chest, my eyes on the sky as it turned black with the flying hellions.
I grabbed Deyva’s elbow as she passed, yanking her closer, fighting the order on my tongue.
I wanted her to get into the church, to be hiding safely away, but I knew by now there was no chance of her agreeing.
“You don’t put a hair over the edge of that gate,” I snapped. The flyers had tiny little limbs, nothing serious enough for them to be able to grab her, but they had big jaws that might get a hold of her long enough to pull her within reach of the demon general.
“I’m not the target,” Deyva said.
“Doesn’t mean you wouldn’t make a good prisoner of war,” I tossed back. Her jaw ticked and her eyes narrowed, so I leaned in, whispering directly into her ear. “Remember what I said about how I can’t lose you?”
I wasn’t expecting the shadow I saw pass over her face, but she nodded. “I’ll target the stragglers and keep well away from the gate.”
I wanted to kiss her, not because she was listening to me, but just because her face was close and her lips were full and I always wanted to kiss Deyva.
But I already felt as though I was choking on the stress and panic barely contained in my chest, and I knew that any little indulgence might snap my restraint.
Her hand settled over mine on her elbow and she squeezed briefly before we both let go.
“Alright, everybody, keep your eyes up. Watch out for fire, and make sure we don’t lose track of any of these creepy crawlies in town!
Candice, get the word out around town. Tell families to get cover and…
” I hesitated over the next words, swallowing down the knife in my throat.
“And send anyone prepared to help out to meet us.”
Jason was fast and incredibly accurate, but he was only one person.
He’d already knocked six of the fliers out of the sky outside the gate, but twice that many had flown overhead, spitting fire down onto our town.
A shadow passed between us on the ground and the hellbats above, golden wings spread and a flash of light from Azariah as he covered us and then swooped away before reaching the gate.
“Kais!”
I turned, catching Teresa, my crossbow, mid-air in one hand, and then the sheath of bolts easily with the other, swinging it over my shoulder and loading a bolt into place.
All around me, Bethel’s residents launched into action.
A young boy—so young I wanted to scream and find his mother—joined Jason in chucking stones at the fliers.
He wasn’t as accurate, but he made them swerve away, missing their firing targets.
“This would be so simple, flesh bags. Just turn over the angel, and your town will be left in peace,” the general called across the gate. “I could call my minions off in a moment.”
“How about we just send you and your minions right back to Hell where they came from, barbecue face?” Heather McCann shouted, before charging forward, aiming a fire hose at the hellhound, and letting loose.
The hound howled and the general backed the beast away, but Heather just turned her spray up to the fliers, the water sizzling and burning through black, webbed wings.
From a tree branch, Deyva leapt through the air, catching two of the hellbats in her arms before she landed running on a rooftop, tearing the creatures apart and tossing the pieces back over the gate like gory confetti.
It was messy and vicious. Hellbats were dropping from the sky and Georgie, our elderly line chef with a long, white braid swinging down her back, was skewering them into the ground with a sharp rake.
The hellbats swarmed centrally above us and Az did his best, burning off the line of them at the edges without flying too close and risking getting himself snapped up in those ugly little fiery jaws.
Finally, distantly, I realized that I could relax.
Yes, we were in a new kind of battle, nothing had ever gotten so close to us like this.
But my people were fighting back, holding their own.
They weren’t frightened, and while we might’ve been underprepared, we knew what we were up against. This wasn’t like the frontlines in the early days.
Every man, woman, and child alive knew what Hell brought in war, and was prepared to match it.
“There’s a small cluster aiming for the gate, wash ‘em out!” I barked over the howl of the hellhound and the screeching of the bats.
Heather, and a couple of the other women armed with garden hoses, aimed up at the bats by the gate.
“Cover them!” I shouted to Zach and Jason and the others.
Deyva was getting caught by the water spraying up at the hellbats, but she leapt back and forth from roof to tree, snatching hellbats out of the air.
“Here, Father Kais.” I spun and blinked at the young man behind me, holding out a handful of crossbow bolts. “We’ve been pulling them out of the hellbats on the ground.”
I nodded my thanks and turned back to the fight, relaxing into the rhythm of aiming and firing, barking an order, and checking on my people. The hellhound paced in aggravation on the other side of the gate, and I lifted my voice to the air where Azariah was circling.
“Will these rodents back off if we take down the general?” I called.
“Maybe some. It’s the hound’s howl that controls them,” Az answered.
From the gate, a wild scream sounded, and Az and I both rushed forward. A hellbat that had broken free of formation was on Heather McCann’s back. Deyva landed at the gate first, tearing the creature off the young woman and then grabbing the gushing hose out of her hands, tossing it to Az.
“Get up in the air and fire it right down the hound’s throat,” I snarled, joining Deyva.
Az jumped into the sky, wings beating as the town covered him against the hellbats. I knelt with Deyva as Heather McCann crumbled, her back twisting as we both braced her by her shoulders and arms, keeping her from clawing at the wound on her spine.
“Holy water,” Deyva snapped at the woman to her left, who quickly turned the hose on us all.
I watched as the blackened bite from the hellbat sizzled and spat out a murky, brackish fluid before slowly rinsing red. Heather moaned and relaxed in between us.
“We need to get her back from the gate before anything else reaches her. Jeff was an EMT, he can patch her up,” I said.
And sure enough it only took a second of searching through the crowd of late arrivals to find Heather’s partner running for us. Deyva scooped the woman—who was at least Deyva’s size, if not a little bigger—up off her feet and marched her through the townspeople who closed in around us.
“Almost there, Azariah!” someone cheered from the ground.