Atonement (Heaven Sent Book 1) Page 14

  She furiously slashed at one of the demon’s legs bringing the Gutter Demon down. She took the opportunity to move past the female demon to head downhill, but the demon was fast. She caught up to Deb and pulled her back by the hair. Violently, the female demon tossed Deb toward the church. Rolling wildly, Deb hit the far end of the bird bath slowing her momentum but not stopping her. She tumbled to a halt just near the side door. It wasn’t with the same force the first demon struck her with, but she was now farther away from both Harry and Michael and struggling to catch her breath.

  Deb crawled to the church wall and used her hands to walk herself back up to a standing position. She saw Michael stumbling awkwardly toward Harry with several demons on his back. Each demon was stabbing, clawing, and biting their way into his skin. Fear propelled Deb off the building and sent her staggering toward Michael, but she stopped short when she heard Harry’s agonizing scream.

  Her boots covered in Gutter Demon blood she slid to a stop and turned left toward Harry, his head ablaze in demonic fire. Someone had doused him with Hell Fighter venom. His body swayed back and forth teetering on collapse, his hands trying to tamp down the flames, only to catch fire themselves.

  Deb screamed, her world folded in on itself. This is it, we’re not going to make it. Her own fear cascaded down upon her, a wave of self-defeat, was a crushing blow.

  She heard Michael’s voice just as he tore off the last of the demons on top of him and slid down the hill toward Harry’s collapsed body. Once I touch him project your shield Deb.

  No! Michael, don’t touch him, you’re sure to catch fire! she pleaded.

  Michael was able to get within a few feet of Harry. At this distance, free of the demons he had been carrying, Deb was able to see the entirety of Michael’s wounds. He was covered in blood, dirt blanketed his clothing, and she could see gouges up and down his spine. Several short-bladed weapons protruded from his leg and waist. On the side of his head, there were sections where his hair had been ripped out, bloody bald spots now covered his scalp. She could hear his thrashing heartbeat, the pain coursing through his body reverberated as her own.

  As a demon lunged toward Michael, he spoke to Deb. Don’t be afraid, you are much stronger than you know, Deb. They will come, family always does, remember that.

  Michael dove forward covering Harry’s body with his own and was consumed by the fire. Deb projected her shield and held her breath. Seconds passed as the demon flying made impact. He was aiming to come down on top of Michael, his crooked sword bent out in front. As the demon bounced off the shield she had projected, she noticed that a weight had lifted from the scene. Looking toward the street she heard cars and people talking, the cloak that had enveloped the church and surrounding gardens was broken.

  It worked Michael, it worked! she yelled to him but there was no reply.

  Marcus arrived behind the two angels. Deb knew he never saw her, and she watched him take Leo and Lucas and leave the scene immediately. Deb’s breaths were growing shorter and the pain was causing small black spots to dance throughout her vision.

  She shook her head to scatter them away and called out to her siblings, “Help! Michael and Harry are dying! Hurry!”

  Deb stumbled toward the burning heap in the center of the yard, not sure what she would find when she reached her brother and Harry.

  As she neared them, demons sprinted toward her, continuing to attack. She lifted her blade to fight one but didn’t have to, his throat was sliced from behind. She watched his decapitated head fall to the ground and roll away from her. When she looked up, she saw Frankie’s forehead creased with concern staring down at her. All her siblings had arrived and were now engaged with the demons.

  “Deb, where’s Michael?!” Frankie demanded.

  She shook her head, tears stung her eyes, she couldn’t speak so she pointed instead. The fire had all but burned out now, the shield starving it of its power. She continued toward the bodies growing more and more afraid with each step.

  Kelly was yelling, “Don’t touch that, Deb, it’s Hell Fighter venom, you’ll burn.”

  Deb knew her siblings had yet to grasp what was happening. Deb felt her stomach roll. Just as she neared the grisly heap two beings arrived above her brother and Harry. Their faces were obscured under oversized hooded sweatshirts. Reaching down, the two entities pierced Deb’s shield with ease and pulled the bodies up into their arms. They took a step or two back, half-dragging, half-carrying Michael and Harry. Before she could process what was happening, the two beings took her brother and Angel and disappeared as quickly as they had arrived.

  Deb’s mind reeled in confused terror and she collapsed to her knees.

  Looking up, Deb yelled after them, “No! Don’t you take them! No! No! No!” Her lungs burned, and her body quaked.

  “Michael!” Deb’s scream brought her siblings to a standstill.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Gen watched in horror as Deb collapsed to the ground screaming Michael’s name. She was yelling at two beings who had just hauled away bodies from the hillside.

  “Deb get up, there are too many demons, you need to keep fighting!” Gen yelled to her sister.

  Gen saw no movement, it was as if Deb was frozen in that spot.

  This was Gen’s worst nightmare, every terrible moment she had ever felt before could not compare to the utter agony coursing through her. She knew by Deb’s body language, the wounded burning bodies that had just been taken were Michael and Harry.

  What have I done? Gen thought in horror.

  Gen watched Kelly wrap her arms around Deb and help her to her feet. She needed to get to them, but her trembling legs were slow to move.

  How can I make this right? I need to find them, I need to bring them back. Oh God let them be alright, Gen agonized.

  Gen snapped out of her anguish when two Gutter Demons pounced on her. She viciously slashed at their throats, missing one but killing the other. The first Gutter Demon swung a crooked piece of metal toward her shoulder. Her skin slit open, blood burst out of the gaping wound and splashed onto the ground. When he pulled back and lunged again, she used his body weight against him grabbing hold of his torn-up shirt and pulling him down, tossing his body to the ground and away from her. Once below her, she quickly made her way on top of him, jabbing her blade through the back of his neck and taking him out. Looking up, she noticed the path between she and her sisters had been temporarily cleared by her brothers. Gen leapt up to her feet and began to run toward Kelly and Deb. As she neared them, she glanced to her right and spotted the demon that Antonio had revealed to them and stopped to stare in his direction. Her heart sped up, while her head spun with the throbbing pain of confusion and loss. Looking over at these giant larger-than-life demons flooded her with anger. Every step she took sent vibrations through the ground; she could feel the swell of hatred bubbling up.

  Gen’s head was a minefield. Did you do this to my family? Are you with Schlosser? What do you want?

  A second demon, wearing all black stood next to the first, each pair of luminescent eyes tried to intimidate her. She met their gaze and held it, but before she could yell toward them the first demon, the one with the white coat looked away.

  “Enough, you have failed us!” the first demon bellowed to the Gutter Demons still streaming from a portal one of them must have opened.

  Gen saw the second demon, the one enraptured in black, wave his arm swiftly out in front of him and then felt the ground shift underneath her. A strong wind whipped through her and the accompanying dust seemed to disintegrate every demon on the field. One by one the Gutter Demons decayed and turned to ash. The frantic screeching of the demons was distorted by the whistling wind that came crashing down upon them. The force of the green-eyed demon’s power knocked all her siblings to the ground, only Gen remained on her feet.

  Gen heard the one in black say to the other, “They don’t know anything. I already checked the female Guardian inside the church.”

  T
he white coat demon responded, “Something powerful enough to pierce a Guardian’s shield just took the strongest one off the field. We aren’t the only things here hunting them down, perhaps whatever that was shouldn’t be here either.”

  Gen pushed through her fear and walked toward them as she heard Tom’s warning in her head, Gen be smart, keep your distance, wait for us. They’re more powerful than anything we’ve ever encountered.

  Gen yelled to the demons, “Who was that? Who took our brother?”

  The first demon vanished, using his powers he faded into a cloud of dust and disappeared. The one in black looked over at Gen. “Return our brother and we’ll go. Do not, and your world will end.”

  The second demon turned his back to Gen and melted into a wall of shadows that seemed to drift up and out of sight.

  “What the Hell is going on? What happened?” Kelly asked.

  Tom answered, “I don’t know, I don’t know what they are.”

  Dan asked, “How are we going to figure out who has their brother if we don’t know who they are?”

  “We should get out of here.” Xavier looked around the yard. “We don’t know what might arrive next and we’re all a little roughed up.”

  “No Watcher, there’s not even a hint that one was ever here,” Greg told them.

  “I know, that is strange. I think Xavier’s right, we should make a quick exit,” Tom told them. “Let’s get Deb home and healed up so we can talk through this.”

  Gen and Kelly used their powers to bring Deb back to the house. They arrived in the kitchen. Kelly pulled out a chair and gently sat Deb on it. Gen felt useless, she could barely move herself she was so stunned.

  Kelly quickly made her way toward the cabinet.

  “What are you doing Kell? Let’s just heal her,” Gen stated.

  Kelly continued to rummage. “We will. Her hands and body are unstable. We need to calm her nerves as much as we can, otherwise she won’t be able to handle the strain of the healing. That could cause things to heal incorrectly and cause more damage.” She moved on to the bottom cabinets and then returned with a bottle of Irish whiskey. Removing the cap Kelly took a quick sip, then handed the half-filled bottle to Deb. Their sister paused, but then shakily grabbed the bottle and took a swig. Deb’s face contorted and scrunched up. She let out a half-breath, half-cough accompanied by a trickle of blood.

  “Good, now take a few deep breathes and try to calm your racing heart, Deb,” Kelly instructed.

  A slight change come over Deb; the whiskey had helped, her convulsing slowed to a shake. Though she was panting, her breathing got steadier.

  “That was a good idea, Kell,” Gen told her.

  “Sometimes I have them,” Kelly quipped.

  A small smile flashed across Deb’s face before an assault of pain crumbled it away. The moaning nearly made Gen cry, her sister was obviously severely injured internally from that battle.

  Gen and Kelly stood over Deb attempting to heal her. They were drained from the fight, and Deb was weak from the trauma, so the healing was taking too long to be effective.

  Gen’s patience ran out. “This is taking too long. Why aren’t they back here yet? We need Frankie to boost our powers.”

  “Frankie get your butt over here already,” Kelly barked.

  Frankie arrived behind them moments later sporting a black eye of his own. He looked a little pale, but he put a hand on each one of their shoulders. Gen could feel his power enter her body, the healing strength she sent Deb magnified and she watched her sister’s wounds begin to heal and fade. It took more time to get all the internal injuries sorted, but Gen felt relief when she realized Deb would be alright.

  Stepping back Gen stared at Deb. On the surface she looked good as new, but she knew Deb was anything but.

  Gen had been so focused on healing Deb that she missed the rest of her brothers setting up a command post in the kitchen. There was a large white board placed in front of the double French doors out to the yard. Greg and Dan were standing in front of it creating some sort of timeline. Xavier and Tom were comparing notes they had scribbled in a notebook.

  “What’s going on?” Kelly asked them.

  “We’re going to try and work backward to piece this together, maybe we can unlock something we’ve overlooked,” Dan answered.

  “Can you tell us what happened, Deb?” Tom asked her. Everyone turned their attention to Deb. She sat quietly in the seat Kelly had placed her in. She looks so frail and lost, Gen thought.

  “I can try, it’s still so foggy and everything happened so fast,” Deb replied.

  “Do the best you can, it’s all we have right now,” Frankie told her.

  Gen fell into silence with the rest of her siblings during Deb’s horrifying retelling of what happened. Deb spent the next hour answering the barrage of questions her brothers threw at her.

  You are so much stronger than me, Deb, thought Gen. There is no way I could have sat through this near interrogation like you just did. Deb was emotional yet amazingly resilient under the pressure.

  Gen’s brothers periodically added to the board with notations of who, what, when, and where. It felt like an excruciatingly long exercise that Gen knew no one wanted to be a part of.

  I can’t believe this. I can’t believe they’re gone. Gen’s mind drifted, she came back to the conversation when she felt Kelly healing her shoulder. Up until that moment she forgot all about her own injuries.

  “I’m sorry, were you talking to me? I drifted off,” Gen said.

  “What else do you know about Schlosser?” Tom asked.

  “Nothing really. He gave off the aura of a Roamer Demon. He was after Becky, he seemed to be able to read her mind, use her worst memories against her. I tried countering, but I wasn’t in the car. I don’t know if that made a difference or not.”

  “You stayed on the roof of a car all night?” Greg asked.

  “Yes, I didn’t want to lose her, I couldn’t lose her, she’d been through enough.”

  “That must have taken a tremendous amount of your energy to stay up there and concealed from the demon,” Greg commented.

  “Yes, I think we’ve concluded I made the wrong call already. And now this, I know it’s my fault. None of this would have happened if it hadn’t been …” Tears rushed to Gen’s eyes as she choked on the end of her words and stopped talking.

  “Don’t do that to yourself, Gen,” Kelly told her. “We don’t know that these demons have anything to do with Schlosser.”

  “I just can’t get it out of my mind. I should have gone with Michael, that should have been me on that field, not Deb, not Michael, not Harry!” Gen’s voice cracked.

  “You would have been dead and so would they,” Deb told her. “I projected my shield, and it worked, the demons were bouncing off, but then …”

  “But then what, Deb?” Kelly asked her.

  “But then, they were taken. How did someone pierce my shield, how did they get through?” Deb was shaking her head, there would be no answers tonight.

  “We should stay in pairs as Michael suggested and split up into teams.” Tom was doing his best to fill Michael’s shoes, but it was a lot to ask. “We need to get out there and see what people know.”

  Gen never realized how lost they would be without Michael. His leadership had carried them through every battle. How were they supposed to just carry on without him now?

  “I’ll take Dan and meet up with the closest Guardians to see if they can lend a hand,” Xavier told him.

  Greg added, “I’ll head out with Frankie to find Lacey, perhaps she can help. Maybe she can find out why no Watcher was at the scene today.”

  Tom looked at Gen. “What are you three doing?”

  Kelly answered first. “I’m getting food and taking them with me.”

  “No, I need to lie down, I don’t feel well. I haven’t slept in days and I’m too drained to do anyone any good out there,” Gen told him.

  “Fine,” Tom said. “Deb
you should go with Kelly. Food will help your energy for continued healing. I’ll stay here with Gen.”

  “Maybe we can find Marcus and get some information,” Deb said.

  “Are you sure, Deb?” Gen asked. “Are you up for going out tonight?”

  Deb paused before answering. “I couldn’t sleep even if I wanted to right now. A distraction would be welcome while I process all this.”

  Tom shook his head in understanding. “I will stay and work here in the library. There’s a lot of research to be done. Make it a quick cheeseburger, Kell. I could use the help back here.”

  Gen was the first to leave the kitchen and make her way upstairs. She closed the bathroom door and took a deep breath. The quiet of the house felt like a hammer of regret. She slipped into a hot shower and quickly found herself on the tile floor quietly sobbing into her hands.

  Please, please, please, don’t let anything happen to Michael and Harry. I just can’t take it. I can’t take another loss, I can’t. I won’t make it, I’m not strong enough. Gen’s muddled brain snapped free when the hot water cooled. She had remained in the shower so long her fingers pruned.

  She turned the shower off, made her way into her bedroom to the warmth and comfort of pajamas, and collapsed into bed. She wasn’t expecting to be able to sleep—she told her siblings she needed to stay behind so she could be alone—but sleep raptured her swiftly.

  Deb could see Jake’s Bar up ahead and felt Kelly pick up her pace. “You are practically vibrating with excitement.”

  “I’m just really famished,” Kelly told her. “I’m always a little hungry, but then after an intense battle like that one, I’m almost ravenous.”

  “There’s a line already?” Deb commented.

  “No worries, we always get in,” Kelly told her.

  “No, I know you always get in, but why is there a line this early?” Deb asked aloud.