Back down the hill, in the smelly house previously scouted by Nika and Devaney, one of Lilith’s Helbourne demons was reading the screen of a phone that didn’t originally belong to it. It threw it down and turned to its remaining companion. “We are go,” it said, pointing at a supine male body lying on the dingy apartment couch.
The other Helbourne turned to the jar of black, sulfurous, bilious crud that earlier had been their third companion. It picked up the jar, twisted off the lid, and turned to the barely breathing form on the couch. Bending in an awkward, strangely inhuman manner, it poured the greasy demon essence into the slightly opened mouth of the unconscious, grungy man. Instantly, the body arced up, back bending almost past human limits. It stayed that way, straining upward for a full twenty seconds before collapsing back into the sprung coils of the couch.
Fifteen seconds later, the man on the couch sat up, moving fast but in a stiff manner. The eyes opened, revealing the orbs to be completely black, a condition that didn’t last more than a few seconds. The white of the sclera began to appear as blackness drained away, leaving black irises behind. A moment later, the mouth worked, awkwardly, eventually producing words.
“Where?” It asked, looking at its hands, arms, legs, and feet.
“Opioid addiction. Overdose,” the one who had answered the phone said.
“Ah. Useful. The Duchess?”
“Has activated us. We are to conduct our missions.”
The re-bodied Helbourne nodded once, then stood up, robot stiff. All three turned to the front door and moved out of the house. At the base of the porch steps, they split apart, one left, one right, and the newly re-housed one heading straight ahead, uphill toward the campus.
Overhead, a single silver orb observed them, keeping all three in sight for as long as possible.
Up in the Davis Center, Chris Gordon, the oh-so-powerful Hammer of God, was hemmed in by fragile autograph and selfie-seeking students. Justin, who was unknown to the wider world, had an easier time moving about the perimeters of the first floor.
“Chris. Three individuals have just left one of the target houses under observation. I have positively identified one individual as a recent dropout of a drug rehabilitation center. One matches the Vermont driver’s license of a missing person case out from Montpellier. The third is still unidentified. I can only follow one of them. All other drone units are occupied.”
“Pull surveillance units from the other two houses. Cover all three. They might be Helbourne,” Chris said. He looked at Justin as the big were shook his head. Negative on the demon search. She had lost them somehow, probably by changing forms.
“‘Sos, a little help here, buddy,” he said. There was a noticeable space around the huge wolf, a space that doubled as the furry figure blurred, growing into a truly enormous Kodiak.
Students stumbled back in a sudden panic, clearing yards of distance in a rush of yells and screams. Until Chris raised his voice. “Quiet!” he yelled. Most of the kids were startled all over again, this time remembering who was standing with them, and they froze, even the ones facing the giant grizzly. Most of the eyes turned his way, although more than a couple kept watching the monster bear standing quietly in their midst.
“If you’ll excuse us, we have work to do,” Chris said, loud enough to be heard by the now quiet students and the handful of adults who had turned out to see what was going on.
Using the path helpfully cleared by his were-bear-wolf, Chris moved out of the Davis Center, Justin following as ‘Sos trundled ahead like a furry bulldozer. A few students started to follow, but once outside, Chris turned immediately toward Route 2, which ran right through the center of the campus. As he and his two companions got to the road, a big black SUV pulled up almost as if it was somehow coordinated. They piled into the car and it pulled away.
“Omega, we lost her in the center. Is there any way for you to keep watch?”
“I have subverted all of the university’s camera systems and am actively using cameras on students’ cell phones and laptop computers. I have found an interesting anomaly, albeit too late to be of much use.”
A screen rose up in the back of the SUV, lighting up to show a picture of pair of young female students walking somewhere on campus. A blonde and a brunette, both wearing jeans, LL Bean boots, and thick sweaters. The picture shrunk and another opened next to it, showing the blonde, now wearing UVM sweats and flip-flops.
“The young lady with the blonde hair is Celia Torres, a freshman student. The picture was taken from campus security memory storage date stamped fifteen minutes ago, on the sidewalk that heads Redstone Campus. The second picture was taken fourteen minutes ago in the Davis Center. Currently, Celia is in her dorm room wearing the same clothes pictured here. The other Celia disappeared off campus, heading downtown.”
“Gonna be hard to find her if she just copies little girls all over campus,” Justin noted.
“Yeah, almost impossible. Anything else?”
“One of my drones found this behind a bush. Residual radiation triggered its sensors.”
The pictures of the students or students and demon in disguise vanished, replaced by a picture of a chain and a cylindrical lump of twisted metal.
“Expended bullet?” Chris asked. “A big one. DU?”
“30mm x 173mm anti-tank cannon round.”
“She used it to block me,” Chris said. “This might be a break.”
“How so?” Justin asked.
“Chris gets visions of demons.” Nika’s voice came through the SUV’s stereo.
“Nika, where are you guys?” Chris asked.
“Behind you, in our own black-tinted creeper mobile,” she answered. “You might want to tell Stevens to pull out, as the Gordon Fan club is starting to collect outside.”
They looked out the windows and saw more kids gathering, holding phones up to video.
“Stevens—” Chris started but the driver waved a hand and took off, pulling out into traffic.
“Nika or Omega, where’s Declan and Stacia?” Chris asked.
“She reported that she’s taking the demon bait back to Arcane. He wanted to stay and get into it with this Lilith bitch, but she wasn’t having any part of that. Told him to leave the demon to the expert.”
“How are they getting there? He could still be vulnerable,” he said.
“She took the car you all arrived in.”
“Father and Stacia have arrived back at Arcane. I have drones on two of the suspected Helbourne but my third drone was too far away and I believe I am just ten seconds behind the third one. Based on their current activity, I would raise the probability that they are indeed Helbourne to ninety-five percent.”
The view on the monitor changed to a feed from a moving drone, following a fast-running figure that looked to be on one of the streets near their location.
“The southbound entity is heading for the intersection of Route 7 and Route 2, approximately two hundred and seventy-six yards ahead.”
The figure ran right out into traffic and they almost instantly heard horns and squealing brakes up ahead of them even as they watched the action on the camera. The Helbourne ran right up to a braking tanker truck, jumped onto the driver’s side step, and ripped the truck door open with a single yank of one thin arm. “Hey—” was all the driver had time to say before a fist smashed into his jaw with enough force to visibly knock his lower mandible out of alignment.
The demon attempted to unbuckle the instantly unconscious man, but the camera view got real close, filling the frame with the red plaid shirt of the demon, as the drone shot forward and hit it at least as hard if not harder than it had hit the driver.
Justin heard the car door open, looking up in time to just catch the barest glimpse of Chris jumping out of the vehicle and running flat-out for the action. Following as fast as he could, which was just behind Awasos, he arrived at the stopped tanker in time to see the Hammer of God yank the demon person out of the truck and throw him twenty feet like a rag doll.
The Helbourne jumped to its feet just as Chris blurred to a stop in front of it, the Hammer of God grabbing it and proceeding to hold it in both arms off the ground as if it was a hollow plastic mannequin. The demon-ridden started to shake and buck like fifty thousand volts was running through it, and then a black crud came bubbling out of its mouth and nose, pooling up around Chris Gordon’s left hand. A second later, he dropped the limp body and held the black-coated hand over his head.
Something popped into existence, the noise of its entry almost like that of a big bubble bursting. Giant wings flapped as the smoky form of a gargantuan eagle or hawk descended, plucking the putrid excrescence from Gordon’s upraised hand, flapping hard twice before disappearing with another audible pop.
“One down,” Chris said, turning to Justin. A loud scream back up toward the campus and another sharp squeal of brakes snapped both of their heads around to look. Justin noted that the second black SUV with Nika and her crew was missing.
“They could use your assistance back up in front of the Billings Library, Chris,” Omega said through the speakers of the five closest cars simultaneously. But Chris was already gone, disappearing in a pop of air.