part0017

Grant said, “Alright, we’re not using a missile. No point in taking the building down without an impossibly powerful demon to take out.”

Jacob interjected, “My team will take down the six witches. Allison is the only field witch I know, and Lily can counter their spells as well. The rest of us can shift our forms to frustrate their spells as well so they don’t gain purchase, humans have no defense against a witch’s spell and will just die.

“My advice is for the human tactical teams to back up the shifter teams taking out the thirty soul eaters and seven demons. This is important, ignore emotions, the soul eaters will try to distract you with emotional attacks, it’s harder than it sounds, even more critically, you must dodge any hellfire. Do not duck behind things or count on cover, hellfire can burn through anything and engulf you, the only way to avoid it is to not be hit by it. The good news is a bullet to the head will take out any of them, and the soul eaters will go down under bullets even easier.”

Grant nodded, “Split up, two by two front and back. Let’s move in.”

She wasn’t sure this was the best idea ever. There were forty-four of them, to the enemy’s forty-three, but only twenty-four of them were supernatural. They’d also be in tight quarters, and soul eaters were incredibly fast. Still, in theory the shifters could block and protect the humans, and the humans could help take them down a lot faster with their weapons.

In theory. Her team stayed together, but the rest split up into teams of two humans and two shifters that would stick together to clear the rooms. At least the enemy wasn’t all grouped together tightly.

“The witches are on the third floor, the others are spread out on the first and second.”

Jacob nodded, and they breached the building. The floor was a white tile, and the walls painted an off yellow that looked very faded. The lobby itself was empty, and they immediately headed for the marked stairs. Her team went first, followed by another shifter and human tactical team split into four combined teams who would take down the second floor.

She shifted her strength, speed, and eyes to see better in the dim light. She also double checked her shields were tightened up as they hit the second-floor landing, then kept going to the third floor and witches.

About then she started to hear explosions, and then short bursts of automatic weapons fire followed by screams. She tilted her head and decided that former must’ve been flash bangs. Maybe they did have a better chance than she thought.

When they reached the third floor landing her web spherical shield was hit by two spells. With a quick glance she saw Allison looked determined and was blocking spells as well, while the rest of them were shifting their bodies fluidly and constantly.

A witch’s spell locks onto and changes a specific thing inside the body. Stopping a heart, or reading or switching off a mind, paralyzing muscles, but the spell would fail if it couldn’t lock on. Constantly changing the body fluidly the way they were would greatly diminish the spells power if not completely dispel it.

As they breached the door, she formed a solid steel ball in one of her pipes, it looked more like a head of a spiked mace, or perhaps the spiked ball at the end of the chain on a flail. The tips of the spikes were made of lonsdaleite, and inside the ball was a spell to stop a heart. She launched it down the bright green web line of the witch that had attacked her, and pictured it spinning at great speed and ripping through the witch’s shield and tearing her mind apart, as it released the inner spell.

Two things were important in a witch duel, the strength of the witch, and the clarity of thought, visualization, and belief behind that magic. All things being equal, the stronger witch will always be able to defend from a weaker one, and break through a weaker one’s shield. All things weren’t equal though, visualization and strength of will were important factors as well. In short, she couldn’t ever afford to get lazy about her magical shields or weapons, or she could still lose, even being ten times more powerful than most witches. Of course, knowledge was important as well, but that was an intrinsic part of the visualizations.

The spinning spiked ball hit the other witch’s protections, and then ripped through them like a knife through wet tissue paper. They were completely shredded by the spinning spikes, and she heard a death scream as the inner spell was released.

Then they were in the room and running down the large open room between the cubicles. The witches were in the walled offices with windows, in the back of the building. Her and Allison could feel them there, and the shifters could scent them there, so there was no pause or need to clear the floor as the crossed it. They all knew no one was in those offices.

Another witch went down, presumably the one attacking Allison, and she felt a burst of pride for her close friend and temporary mentor while she had no memories. She wasn’t too surprised, the extra training a witch underwent when joining a team accounted for that, and Allison was quite strong as a witch, her power above the average even if just slightly so compared to her.

They reached the other side, and the last four witches went down under claw and knife, as Jacob, Jace, Meri, and Carl attacked. It was a grim reminder of why witches didn’t normally go into the field, and how brave Allison was to fight on their side. Witches were formidable from a distance and with spells, but they were physically no stronger or more powerful than a human. They died quickly.

No more witches, she sat down and her aura exploded outward, expanding to two hundred feet in all directions. She could feel the last four out of seven demons, and they were casting a lot of hellfire. She guessed they were pinned down somewhere, but the other teams couldn’t get in close enough to end it.

She formed four demon killing spells, and she sent them out. Usually she’d use an aural whip, but that wouldn’t work in this case since she couldn’t actually see them, but they were in her direct aura at that point and she didn’t need to. The spells slid through the cement and rebar floor like it wasn’t even there, and the impacted the demon’s magical shields. Three of the four went down hard, and she concentrated harder as she formed another spell, and launched it.

She rolled her body as the floor directly beneath her exploded outward in hellfire, and she felt a sigh of relief as the last demon went down. Shit, she hadn’t been expecting that. At least the rest of the hellfire had sputtered out and hadn’t set the building on fire. She’d lay money they’d been under orders not to risk their allies with an out of control fire.

She pulled in her aura, there were ten soul eaters left on the second floor, but that trick wouldn’t work with them at all, they’d just eat her spells no matter how powerful they were.

Jacob asked, “What did you do?”

She winked, “Killed the last four demons. The first-floor teams were having trouble with them, and without any enemy witches around it was safe for me to expand my aura. There’re ten soul eaters left, second floor, but the other teams have it under control I think. First floor is clear.”

Meri asked, “Our teams?”

She sighed, “Two four-man teams were taken out. One on the first floor trying to get those last four demons didn’t dodge fast enough, the other four were lost breaching the second-floor entrance from the stairwell.”

Jacob nodded, “That’s actually better than I thought.”

It really was, but she tried to imagine losing two from her team, and the mere idea of it ignited rage in her heart. She pushed it away, that hadn’t happened, but then they still had to face Asmodai. What they did was dangerous, they’d been lucky so far. Yes, trained, powerful, and deadly, but also lucky. Luck played a part in any battle or war.

She smiled slightly, “Me too, I think it’s the human’s flash bangs. They stun soul eaters pretty badly before our teams breached the room, we need some of those.”

Jacob smirked, “I’ll see what I can do.”

There were a few more loud bangs below them, even louder now with the large hole in the floor, as the last of the soul eaters were taken down.

She touched Allison’s back, “Okay?”

Allison’s eyes narrowed, then softened at the concern in Lily’s face.

“I will be. I know a rogue is a rogue, but…”

She understood the sentiment, wrong or not she’d always found it hardest to hunt down a shifter, someone that should have been on their side. She wasn’t surprised Allison was struggling with idea of taking out a rogue witch. Besides that, killing should never be easy, even if it was well deserved and necessary.

Jacob said, “That’ll do it, let’s head back down. How many are left in the city?”

She said, “It constantly changes. Right now there’re seventy three soul eaters, no rogue witches or shifters. I couldn’t say about the warlock, but I’m fairly sure Asmodai was telling the truth.”

Carl asked, “How can you tell, they always lie.”

She nodded, “More twist the truth, than outright lie. Still, he was bragging, and showing us how awesome he was and that we suck way too much to ever put him down. He was telling us he couldn’t be stopped. Demons, hell, even good angels are incredibly arrogant, perhaps for good reason. For the most part, if a demon is boasting, they aren’t lying.”

Meri asked, “For the most part?”

Her lips twitched, “Well, there is self-delusion, because we’re going to kick his ass. We need a plan though.”

Meri laughed, “Now who’s boasting?”

When they got outside there were three humans on the ground with serious wounds. Two of them were shot, the third had a slash against his throat that missed the jugular.

She formed three healing spells and sent out aural whips as they walked past. The wounds knitted, the two with bullet wounds, their bodies pushed out the bullets before completely closing. A few people gasped and looked around in shock, and the ones performing first aid were frozen, but she just ignored it. Healing a body was incredibly complicated, but she’d learned a whole lot over her years.

Allison said, “That was well done.”

They saw Grant and Jessica over by one of the vans and moved to join them. Their emotions were jubilant at the success of the operation, but she also felt sorrow and survivor’s guilt from them. It was a natural thing to be glad to be alive and that most of them lived through it.

Grant smiled, “I assume we have you to thank for those four demons? We had them pinned down, but we couldn’t get an angle for a kill shot without eating hellfire.”

Jacob said, “Yes, Lily would’ve gotten them sooner, but what she did wasn’t safe with enemy witches around, they had to be neutralized first. So, what’s the plan? We’ve got seventy-three more soul eaters in the city, and we have to assume Asmodai is already recruiting more. He’ll be healed by now for sure.”

Right, he’d probably been healed as soon as he got a grip on his temper and was able to concentrate on it. She was actually a bit surprised he hadn’t come back.

Grant nodded, “We also need a better plan for Asmodai. Our people worked well with yours, especially given we haven’t trained on it at all, our fighting styles naturally meshed and complemented each other’s. We could send out nine groups of four, two of us and two of you, to hunt down the rest.”

Jacob shook his head, “Eight groups. Witches are worthless against a soul eater, so there’s no point in sending Allison out, and you’ll need Lily to coordinate and direct all the groups, which would be distracting if she was on a hunt as well. She can get the shifters close enough to where the soul eaters are to sniff them out.”

She frowned, he was right of course, but she hated the idea of him going hunting without her by his side, or at least being at equal risk in another group. She also didn’t argue, it made a lot of sense. With eight groups they would only need to take down five locations each. The seventy-three soul eaters were split up in ones, twos, and threes, in forty locations.

Allison didn’t look all that happy either, but truth was truth, and soul eaters would beat a witch every time, unless they were unconscious.

Grant grunted, “Very well, we’ll return to the building and get eight cars instead of four vans, and we can set Allison and Lily up in a command center with Jessica and I.”

She nodded, “We can also talk about how to get Asmodai. It won’t be easy to lure him into a trap. I think our best chance is some kind of blitz attack when he gets back to the city. We need to decide on resources and what we’ll need, and to have those all that ready and on standby. We can make the plan at the last minute when we know where he is. Hit him with missiles or something before we get in range, or he’ll read the plans from our minds. It will be very hard, magic requires concentration, but all he needs to escape again is to teleport out again.”

Well, her mind was protected, but it seemed more politic than saying human minds.

Jessica said, “Sounds like a plan, and I might have an idea for that. Let’s get moving, before the bastard floods us with a hundred more. We need to keep up with it.”