The paladin—Julian Heroux—scrabbled for his sword and lunged toward them, sinking the blade through the woman’s chest. She gasped as the black faded from her eyes. Guilt cut through Nathan, but they didn’t have a choice. It was her or them.
He picked up the handgun. It wouldn’t kill a demon, but it was better than nothing.
“Thanks, Captain Accardi,” Julian said, panting. His body trembled with adrenaline, and a sheen of sweat coated his forehead.
Nathan nodded. “Where are Nicolas and Daniel?”
“I don’t know. We got separated.”
“Okay. Come on. Let’s go help who we can.”
Julian straightened. “Yes, sir.”
Inside, this section of the building was dark. Screams came to them from further down the long hallway, so Nathan led the way toward the worst of it, holding the gun down and ready in front of him.
“Those are possessed people, right?” Julian asked in a hushed whisper as he followed on Nathan’s heels.
“Yeah.”
“So—there are people trapped in those bodies. Each one we kill…”
Nathan turned without stopping, grabbing Julian’s shoulder and squeezing as they drew even with each other. “Don’t think about that right now, okay? We don’t have a choice. If we don’t defend ourselves, they’ll kill us. And if they bring down the guild, countless more will die without our protection.”
Julian nodded, his face twisting. “Right, yeah. It’s just…”
“I know. Survive now. Repent later.” It wasn’t ideal, but they had no choice, did they?
At the end of the hall, debris from upstairs had fallen into the doorway. Between the two of them, they managed to push the doors open, scraping brick and shattered wood aside and clambering over the pieces they couldn’t move.
What once was the grand foyer was now open to the night sky. The front wall was almost completely gone. The upstairs was exposed in two places and seemed dangerously precarious in places. Bodies littered the rubble, and even more were still fighting, the gleam of blades in the last dying light of the sun catching his eye.
Some of the bodies were ripped apart, and possessor demons climbed up the remaining walls, pouncing on paladins below and ripping into them with vicious snarls. Their bodies were emaciated, with leathery brown skin dripping with the blood of the victims they’d climbed out of.
Crumpled amongst the rubble, Nathan saw a familiar face, brick dust caught in his curly hair.
“Judah!” He fell to his knees beside the boy and pulled a heavy wooden beam off his chest.
Judah didn’t respond. Nathan leaned in, feeling for a pulse, and his breath hitched when he found none. He was gone. Another young casualty in this never-ending war.
Nathan dashed a tear from the corner of his eye and stood, rage boiling in his blood. He didn’t have a holy weapon, but the gun could stop the possessed humans. Gritting his teeth, he opened fire. They had guns of their own, using them to pick off the paladins who didn’t have long-range weapons. Julian was nearby, kneeling behind some rubble. When Nathan picked off the shooters near him, he popped up and stabbed another, his face a mask of determination.
In the middle of the battlefield, a lone figure stood still. One of Nathan’s bullets hit him in the chest, but he didn’t react. Black eyes locked onto his, and the strange man smiled. His teeth lengthened into points. The color leached from his skin, turning him unnaturally white. His fingers hooked into claws, and heroared. Whatever this thing was, it wasn’t a possessor.
Nearby, one of the possessed sent a spray of bullets into the crowd. Nathan, barely able to take his eyes off the monster in the middle of the battle, felt a hot ball of fire hit him in the gut. It slammed into him like a baseball bat, sending him spinning to the ground. He lost his grip on the gun and brought his trembling hands to the wound near his hip, shocked to find it sticky with hot blood.
He rolled over, gasping for breath. Pain radiated from the wound like an alarm blaring in his skull. Blood bloomed on his shirt. Shit, this wasn’t good.
His vision blurred, and when he blinked, two familiar figures appeared in the fray. Talon and Shadrach, wielding holy blades, circled the monster. His mind had trouble processing what he was seeing. Talon and Shadrach? In HQ? With holy swords? Maybe he was hallucinating.
Around them, the guns stopped. Everything stopped. The paladins drew up short as the black faded from all the attackers’ eyes. Nathan knew what was about to happen, but he couldn’t seem to draw enough breath to shout out a warning.
Between Talon and Shadrach, the monster laughed, a guttural sound that sent a chill down Nathan’s spine.
“Time to end the fun,” the monster said.
The thing barely looked human anymore, its skin as white as snow. Long, bat-like wings grew from its back. A long, black tongue flicked from its mouth. It looked like a marble gargoyle.
“Step aside, and let me kill them,” the monster said. “They will hunt us no more.”
