He hit the ground, slamming the back of his head into the stone beneath hard enough to make his ears ring, but the sight of the insectoid demon now perched on his chest, the same one they’d seen on the rooftop earlier, sent a wave of horror coursing through his system. The accompanying adrenaline that followed in its wake kept him from graying out.
Thank heaven for that, too, for no sooner had they hit the ground that the demon went for his throat.
As it thrust its snout toward him, jaws gaping, Duncan jammed his left forearm under its chin and against the creature’s neck, holding it back as he groped for the knife on his belt with his right. He fumbled with it for a second and then pulled it free, bringing it up and around in a wide swing designed to sink the six-inch blade deep into the demon’s torso, but it skipped off the thing’s hide as if it were made of solid steel. When he tried a second time the knife snapped with an audible twang, the upper half of the blade spiraling away over his head.
The hellspawn wasn’t sitting still for all this, of course, but was pushing itself forward, forcing Duncan’s arm back as it tried to reach him. He strained to hold it at bay, even as it clawed at him with its legs. If he hadn’t been wearing his ballistic vest the demon would already have ripped his torso to shreds.
He could hear the sounds of fighting going on all around him, but due to his position on the ground he couldn’t see past the frenzied creature on his chest to see how the others were faring. The sounds of the conflict told him they hadn’t yet fallen, but that didn’t mean any of them were in a position to lend him a hand.
Which meant he was going to have to get out of this on his own.
Trouble was, he was losing the battle and he knew it. The struggle was sapping his strength at an alarming rate. He estimated he could hold off the creature for another minute, maybe two, but after that all bets were off. His arms were on the verge of failing and the minute they slipped…
The creature pulled back for a second, rearing above him as if preparing for another strike, and Duncan snatched the chance the move afforded him to wrap both his hands around the creature’s neck, doing what he could to squeeze the life out of it while still holding it at bay.
The demon, of course, went berserk, thrashing back and forth, throwing its head from side to side and doing everything it could to free itself from his grip. Duncan knew he was a dead man if the thing managed to break his hold and he held on with everything he had, digging his fingers into the loose skin about the demon’s neck and praying to God that he could keep those teeth from reaching him long enough to figure a way out of this mess.
He needed to find another solution and he needed it now!
As the creature twisted about, their gazes met for just a moment and in those all-too human eyes Duncan found the answer he was looking for.
Before the demon could summon its strength to press the attack once more, Duncan reached deep inside and called forth the healing power at the center of his soul, the one that had been with him ever since he was a small child, the one that had made his life a living hell on more occasions than he could count, and he pushed it down his arms, through his hands and into the flesh of the demon he was holding onto so fervently.
As the power poured forth, Duncan prayed that the human in front of him would be made whole and healthy, just as he had with thousands of others in the years before he had joined the Order. He imagined the demonic presence as something akin to a virus and sought to ‘cure’ it with his healing ability. He’d never tried anything of the sort, but he was desperate and it was the only thing he could think of.
The effect was… surprising.
The demon threw back its head and let loose with a howling cry that burrowed deep into Duncan’s psyche like a knife to the soul. He wanted to curl up with his hands over his ears to shut out the hateful sound, but held on instead, grimly determined to keep the thing from tearing out his throat even as he continued to pour more energy into the link between him and the demon.
The creature’s flesh began to ripple and twist right before his eyes; the thick spider-like hide that covered it receding in a wave down across the demon’s flesh even as the extra limbs it had grown began to retract back into its torso like slow-motion video in reverse.
The metamorphosis must have been painful, for the creature’s cry rose to an ear-splitting shriek, the sound so powerful that it brought tears of pain to Duncan’s eyes as he struggled to hold on in the face of it all. He didn’t think it could get any worse, but the next moment proved him wrong as every other demon in the room suddenly gave voice to the same cry, the sound echoing throughout the interior of the church.
If the defenders hadn’t been all but immobilized by the tortuous sound of that cry, they might have had the opportunity to finish off their opponents then and there, but by the time their thoughts had cleared and reason returned every single demon in the room was in full retreat, swarming back the way they had come like the retreating tide.
Duncan looked up to find Cade staring at him from across the room.
“What did you do?” the Knight Commander asked in an awed tone.
CHAPTER EIGHT
“I didn’t do anything!” Duncan said as he climbed to his feet, but Cade barely heard him. He was watching the last of the demons disappear through the remains of a door at the rear of the church. They were fleeing the battle, returning the way they had come…
Returning the way they had come.
Cade took off at a run after them.
He crossed the nave and reached the door, which was barely hanging by its hinges. A stairwell lay beyond, leading downward, no doubt to the church hall or basement. He hesitated at the top of the steps, staring down into the darkness below and wondering if the enemy might be lying in wait just beyond the edge of the light, then threw caution to the wind, hit the lights, and plunged down the steps, knowing that this might be their best opportunity to understand just how the creatures had gotten inside.
Enough light spilled out of the stairwell for him to see a few feet into the basement beyond and he could see that the room was quite large. Cade could hear movement somewhere out ahead of him, but it seemed to be coming from a good distance away.
Had they gotten outside already?
Noise from behind him caused him to spin about with his sword at the ready, but it was only Riley and the others, come to back him up.
“Easy, boss,” Riley said, gently pushing Cade’s sword away from where it was pointed at his chest. Thankfully he’d left a few steps between the two of them. “We thought you might get lonely rushing off on your own like that, so here we are.”
Cade answered Riley’s levity with a grin of his own; sometimes, that was the only way to face the hellish creatures they regularly fought against. It might not save their lives, but it had certainly saved their sanity over the years. “It’s your funeral,” he replied, as he made room for Riley to join him at the base of the steps. Duncan and Olsen stepped up behind the two of them, ready to go.
Cade hit the light switch on the wall, flooding the hall before them with light. The four men advanced as a unit, each of them turning as they did so to guard one quadrant of the compass, waiting for the enemy to come rushing at them as the darkness fell away.