Snow fell slowly, in small flakes that didn’t melt when they landed on Cain’s shoulders and coat sleeves. A twister of debris roiled along the sidewalk a few feet away. In front of him like a gargantuan sentinel, stood a tall and thick stone mansion surrounded with a high wrought-iron fence. He checked behind him, noted nothing above the rooftops except for the faraway silhouette of the Olympic Stadium, Montreal’s white elephant, and its inclined tower.
Yet he could feel them. Growing closer. It hadn’t taken them long to sniff him out. Sometimes, he suspected spawns had nothing else to do than wait for a gate to open so they could swoop down on whatever came out.
Movement exploded left, right, above. Snow flew in thick ribbons that lashed and whipped him like tiny grains of salt.
“Here we go,” he snarled.
Cain cocked his shotgun a second before the first spawn swooped down to his left, missed and hit the pavement a couple of inches in front of him, creating a tiny but messy crater. This surprised him. They rarely missed their aerial attacks. They were being careless, therefore desperate. They’d make mistakes. Bad news for them. Very good news for him.
He pumped a quick pair of specialized maximum shredding rounds into the fiend. Each minced a wing and part of its torso and, on a long and angry hiss, the thing lay still. Others replaced it. They always did in his world of in-between — not on Earth, not in hell. Both at once, yet in neither place.
One landed right on top of him, sent him to his knees, dug talons and claws into his back and shoulders. It wailed in his ear a split-second before he aimed the AA-12 straight up and fired. A shower of gooey bits fell around him and burned like acid wherever the stuff touched. The burn of its claws spread to his body. Hellish fever. Cain ran across the deserted street, fired as he went, rounds hitting targets and downing them, others ricocheting on bony ridges and creating scuffs against the stone fence. To mortal eyes, nothing would show, no sound would be heard.
On a run, he leaped on top of the hood of his car, then on to the roof, where he whirled on himself and dispensed death at five rounds a second. One spawn thudded against the trunk, trashing and flailing. One of the wings caught Cain on the arm. His shotgun went sailing ten feet high and landed in the snow bank.
“Shit,” he snarled. His breath was ripped out of his lungs when a spawn struck him with its wing. The talon lacerated his coat across the chest. Despite the adrenaline, he heard a button land on the frozen sidewalk.
Cackling in delight, the spawn raised its misshapen, clawed hand. The final hit. This one would hurt. Cain only had time to pull his Luger out of its holster at his chest. Gold bullets with silver cores dipped in holy water. His best ones, usually reserved for full-fledged demons. Such a waste.
He levelled it at the thing’s chest, fired just as both its wings spread for the coming attack. The shock sent it flying back in a geyser of embers and ashes, sent it colliding against a hydro pole. It bent with the violent collision. Sparks coursed along the wires.
Burning pain exploded in his lower back.
Cain looked down, more shocked than hurt, and spotted a long, glistening claw coming out of his belly.
“Damn.”
Dying meant a split second of suspension where he’d be catapulted back to hell, where no wound was too great to “heal”, then another split second to be sent right back up to the mortal plane as if nothing had happened. Where half a dozen spawns waited for him. The circus would never end. Not until he’d accumulated enough secrets for Berith’s taste. The demon had told him that some day, when Cain had brought enough secrets to sell for souls, he’d be sent up to the purgatory. Still in hell, but a world better than the seventh level.
He aimed back and fired a bullet into the spawn that had backstabbed him. And then he died. Again.
Ashes and smoke, the smell of sulphur and charred flesh, cries and lamentations, crimson sky, black sun, and abruptly, snow replaced it all. It grated against his face as Cain realized he’d come back facedown into the street, where a spawn stood over him, no doubt ready — and delighted — to send him back for another spin downstairs.
“Oh, for Christ’s—”
BOOM.
The explosion drowned the spawn’s shriek just as a wave of energy traversed the air a couple inches above Cain’s head. Gunshot followed the detonation. A lot of gunshot. Someone had their finger on the trigger and wasn’t letting up. He floundered to his hands and knees, ashes choking him, still reeling from his short trip to hell, and turned in time to catch a scene that tore a curse from him.
A lone woman stood in the middle of the street, blond hair in a punk cut, dressed in white vinyl from head to toe except for black military boots that reached up to her knees and an assortment of belts that crisscrossed her muscular frame. Bethany Simard, infamous keeper for one of the most powerful demons, Asmodeus, pain in the butt extraordinaire and probably Cain’s one and only weak spot.
Great timing.
He couldn’t help giving her a good, long look. Hot and dangerous.
“I’m easy on the eyes, huh?” She cracked an irreverent grin. “Behind you, handsome.”
Cain whirled around, thanked his lucky star he still had his gun. A gold and silver bullet took off half of the fiend’s head. The rest hit the fence, dissipated in glowing coals and ash.
Movement registered in the corner of his eye. He turned back to the street. Bethany was gone. Mocking laughter, rapidly diminishing, floated to him from the other side of the fence.
“Shit.”
He took a moment to fish his silvery shotgun from the snow bank before chasing the woman over the fence. He knew exactly where she was going, and he intended to prevent it. Velvety silence greeted him once he landed on the other side of the fence. Cain circumvented the mansion, his heart thumping. Ahead into the gloom, he spotted a figure darting left and right amongst the skeletal bushes separating the mansion from its neighbour. He lengthened his paces, pumped his gun-free arm hard and fast. Cold air burned his lungs. From a tiny darting figure, the woman’s silhouette grew clearer. She’d reached the back porch. Bethany had always been fast. Thankfully, he was a tiny bit faster. Cain caught up to her just as she flipped back a sling strapped across her shoulder like a postman bag. A matte black MP5 submachine gun hung from the sling.
He gripped it, yanked sideways and sent the woman crashing against the stone wall. With a yelp, she extended a hand, caught herself against the balustrade. Cain used his long arms to seize her by an arm, whirled her around and pinned her there with the barrel of his shotgun pressed against her wrist.
“Hey!” She cocked her free arm to punch him, he caught that wrist, too. He knew her too well to let her have a free arm around him.
They stood face to face, their breaths mixing in puffs of steam. He’d neutralized both her arms, but that meant he didn’t have one left either. Cain angled one foot back so she wouldn’t get any ideas to kick him.
“That’s how you thank me?” Bethany twisted one arm then the other. “I thought you were one of the good ones.”
Cain squeezed harder. Her neck tendons corded like violin strings as she struggled to free herself. He wouldn’t hold the diminutive Valkyrie in place for much longer. “Why are you here?”
“Why are you here?” she snapped.
He glared at her. “Don’t make me send you back, Bethany.”
Black eyes heavily rimmed in kohl flared in fear a brief instant, then bravado replaced it. “You’re not like that.”
“You’d be surprised. Your master sends you, or are you on one of your ‘goodwill’ hunts?” He’d had to answer to a very displeased Berith once because of her. Demons didn’t like the idea that lowly keepers would do freelance hunts for others. Or that other keepers didn’t turn the renegades in.