A Despair of Demons (Travelers, Book 1) (26 page)

Liv and Jordan arrived in Hell together, Connor fading in a split second
later. When she followed the First Rule, Liv saw the demon they had beheaded
still lying in a pool of its own blood on the burgundy dirt floor. It was a
relief to get out of the strobing smoke-filled room on the other side, and she
took a grateful breath of clean air.

Here, there weren’t any windows. The building was just a giant pole barn
with exposed steel beams and metal sheeting on the outside. The floors above
were made of wood—as were the stairs, she noted as she looked toward the
hallway where the elevators had been in Home World.

Sweet.

Jordan looked around too. “You know, it’s weird. I didn’t think they had
steel I-beams. The buildings in the Wolf’s city didn’t have them.”

“If they can make sheeting, they can make beams, right?” Connor asked.

“Not necessarily.”

“So what does that mean?”

“I don’t know. It’s just interesting.”

Connor snorted. “Scientists find every-damn-thing interesting, whether it’s
pertinent to the mission or not. Move out.”

They headed for the staircase which was so steep it was more of a ladder.
The first seven levels went quickly: they were mostly empty and there were no
interior walls or rooms. At level seven, the floors became two-story warehouse
floors, still mostly empty. They reached level thirteen without finding
anything, but as soon as they stepped off the ladder they heard grunting
voices.

There were a lot more supplies stored on this floor—piled boxes,
mysterious objects draped in dusty sheets, and several shiny pieces of
machinery that looked as if they had just been set down.

Jordan whispered, “Con, I don’t know how, but I think this stuff is from
Home World too. See the manufacturer’s stamp?” He pointed to the serial number
stamped along the side of one of the machines that looked like a combination
car-engine and drill-press.

Connor glanced at it. “We searched this level before, but we were looking
for demons, so I didn’t pay much attention to the equipment. One problem at a
time.” He nodded to the growling voices coming from the far side of the room.

Connor indicated that he would take point, Jordan would follow, and Liv
would take rear guard. They moved forward, stopping at the last stack of boxes.

Four demons huddled around a piece of machinery in a clear area. One was
smaller and shorter than the others, and his movements seemed off. Connor held
up his fist in a
hold fire
command.

Liv wondered why, but her question was answered a moment later when the
demons stood.

One of them was a man.

Connor stepped out from behind the boxes and said, “Nathan Blank, I
presume.”

The man and the demons whirled to face the intruders. Liv recognized Nathan
as he spoke. “What are you doing here? How did you get here?”

“Probably the same way you did,” Connor answered. “Although I think I keep
much better company.”

Nathan snarled and said something to the demons in a guttural growl.

“Get them,” Jordan translated.

Nathan threw Jordan a startled look, but his face smoothed instantly as the
three demons leapt forward with matching snarls. Jordan took aim and fired on
the lead demon. Connor also opened fire, aiming for the neck.

Liv knew that wasn’t going to work, and she wracked her brain to figure out
how they could kill three demons without lasers. If only they’d been able to
take the P90-bayonettes with them!

As she expected, the bullets only made the demons angry.

Jordan holstered a gun, bent and pulled his boot knife, and threw
left-handed. The lead demon caught the knife with its eye, and it faltered and
slowed the others behind it. Liv sidled to the side as it regained momentum and
came at Jordan. It slowed to close with him, and she darted behind its wing and
reached up to shoot it point blank through the side of the neck.

Her knife took off its head, and its body fell to the floor as the head
rolled away, the now-sightless eyes still wide with surprise.

The demon behind her bellowed like a bull when it saw its fellow fall to the
ground, but plowed forward. Liv danced out of the way as it came at her, but
Connor’s and Jordan’s fire drew it back to them.

Jordan shot it in the throat as it reached to swipe at him, and it faltered
to a halt like a broken wind-up toy. Jordan reached forward with his knife as
it gurgled and wheezed, but it turned with that creepy speed to follow his
movement with razor-tipped fingers. He barely managed to leap back in time.

As the demon swiped at Jordan again, Liv shot it from behind. Another head
rolled away, this time with the expression frozen in terrifying rage.

The remaining demon stopped, stared at the two heads and two lifeless bodies
of its companions, and turned tail. It was out of sight in seconds.

Connor leveled his gun at Nathan while Jordan did the same.

Liv held her dripping knife in one hand and her gun in the other, both
pointed at the floor.

Nathan turned to look after his fleeing demon. “Coward!” When he got no
answer, he turned back to Connor’s group with a pleasant smile, as if he hadn’t
just ordered demons to kill them and then screamed in anger when they failed.

“So. Gentlemen, Liv, what can I do for you?”

“We’re here rescue you from the demons raiding your company headquarters,”
Connor said, “but I feel a little superfluous now.”

“It’s my company; I can do what I want with its assets.”

Liv glared. “The technology isn’t yours, though, is it? You’re stealing from
the DoD and literally giving our technology to the demons. I just can’t figure
out how.”

Nathan laughed. “It’s so simple. I’m insanely intelligent. More than a mere
genius. I discovered that things can be moved between worlds, if you simply
change their orientation. So I developed a machine that does exactly that.”

Connor asked, “What do you get out of funding the demons’ raids?”

“Genetic research. An army. New technology from countless worlds.”

“Why?” Liv asked. She’d known what kind of person he was, but even she
hadn’t thought he’d stoop so low.

“Woolfe and I had a plan to rule worlds.” He put his hand to his heart in a
mock gesture of fealty. “My greatest lieutenant. He harvested that World of the
Damned for me. You didn’t notice? You must have at least wondered where all the
corpses went.”

Liv spoke through suddenly numb lips. “He’s talking about Necropolis. We
wondered where their bodies were. It was him.”

Nathan smiled widely. “Where do you think they got the bioweapon that killed
them all in the first place?”

Liv snarled, “You bastard.”

“You took the bodies? All of them?” Connor’s glare should have frozen Nathan
solid. “Why?”

“I needed DNA. I’m trying to create a new super-demon. I needed the right
raw material.”

Liv was stunned. “Demons with human DNA?”

Nathan nodded. “Hybrids with all the power but more intelligence, and the
ability to interbreed.”

Jordan said, “That’s why Woolfe was raiding all those worlds? You gave him
your orientation machine so he could steal raw materials and technology, and in
return he and the demons stole people as DNA samples for you?”

Nathan bowed. “You understand.”

Jordan’s gaze sharpened. “Where did you finally find the right DNA?”

“I’ll never tell,” Nathan sing-songed, and laughed, a high skittering sound
that echoed in the warehouse.

“Why do this?” Connor asked.

Nathan stopped laughing abruptly. “Because I can. Obviously.”

“So,” Jordan asked, “why call in a distress signal tonight if you were the
one breaking in? Did you think you wouldn’t get caught?”

“Well, it would be pretty incriminating if I was in my building and didn’t
notice a horde of demons come to steal my research, now wouldn’t it?”

“And that’s why the demons were going from room to room and floor to floor,”
Jordan said. “It would be incriminating if they knew right where to look to
find what they wanted.”

“You understand,” Nathan repeated.

“Do you really think anyone’s going to believe that demons figured out how
to change an object’s orientation?”

“Oh no, they stole that from me, too. Along with the machine that should
have kept you in Hell.” Nathan’s grin looked like a shark’s. “Woolfe screwed up
there, but he’ll be punished.”

Jordan asked, “What about the punishment for your failure?”

“I haven’t failed. This plan is still going perfectly.”

Connor ground his teeth together, but when he spoke, his voice was calm.
“This is all fascinating, but we’re on a timetable. What say we take him back
with us?”

“No.” Nathan dashed to the side, then burst into a whirlwind of atoms.

“No!” Liv echoed, and dived for him. His mad leap had put him closer to her.

“Liv!” Jordan yelled as he saw what she was going to do.

Liv just got a hand into the whirlwind that had been Nathan when he
disappeared. She threw herself into the space between worlds and followed.

*
         
*
         
*

Liv would have liked to rematerialize with a hand on Nathan’s arm, just
before she threw him to the ground, tied him up, and stomped on his face for
good measure.

Unfortunately, as she assessed her surroundings, she realized the only
evidence of him was the sound of footsteps coming from her right.

She was in a dark room with light shining in from the hallway. The walls
were drywall and the door was metal, so they must be back in Home World. As
high up in the air as they had been, there was nowhere else for Nathan to go.

All this took less than a second. As she moved to sprint for the door,
Jordan materialized at her side. “Come on!” she shouted, and tore out the door,
Jordan on her heels.

They hit the hallway, and she caught a glimpse of Nathan as he dashed around
the corner ahead of them. As she ran, she clicked her radio. “Trent, come in.”

She waited, pounding after Jordan around the corner, but there was no
answer.

“Ben, Gin, do you read?”

Still nothing.

A door slammed ahead of them and Liv followed Jordan into the stairwell
beyond. The stairs were industrial metal grid with a flimsy-looking railing
bolted to the wall.

“This doesn’t look like Innerstellar Technologies.”

“No,” Jordan agreed as he took the stairs two and three at a time. “I don’t
think we’re in Home World.”

“Then how did you follow me?” Liv set up a two-stair rhythm to keep up with
him. She tried not to look down—the grating was too see-through and the
ground was far too far beneath them. It made her dizzy.

“I just felt for you, and followed.”

Below, another door slammed.

They reached the landing and Jordan reached for the door’s metal handle.

“Jordan, wait.”

He turned, questioning. “He’s getting away.”

“I know, but we should have a plan of attack instead of just bursting in
half cocked.”

He settled back as if this was just a debate while they waited for an
elevator. “What do you propose?”

“We need to think. How do we keep him from just Traveling out again? We
could chase him around the multiverse forever.”

“I thought of that, actually. I’m going to shoot him. That should distract him
enough to keep him from Traveling.”

“Jordan! What if you kill him?”

He gave her a withering look. She had to admit, he was such a good shot that
the possibility was vanishingly remote.

Unless he wanted to kill Nathan. After this, she wouldn’t blame him. She
sure wanted to. “All right. After you.”

Jordan reached for the door knob, but hesitated. “You don’t think—”

A bolt of electricity sizzled through the doorjamb with a sound like an
angry snake. Jordan and Liv both jumped back, but it was already gone.

Liv stared at the door. “That bastard tried to fry us!”

Jordan turned to her with a smile. “Now do you mind if I shoot him?”

“You’ll have to beat me to it!”

“I’m the better shot, no offense. Leave it to me, okay?”

She glared at him. She wasn’t making any promises.

“Do you think it’s safe to touch the door?”

“No. It was dumb luck he didn’t fry us the first time. It must have grounded
to the building instead of through the grate we’re standing on.”

“Think our rubber boot soles are any protection?”

“Maybe a little—Jordan, wait!”

He’d already lifted his scorched and partially melted boot to the door
handle. It was the lever kind, and he pushed it downward, pulled the door
toward them, and kicked it wide. Liv went through fast, gun raised and aiming
for where she hoped Nathan’s heart would be—if he had one.

Jordan came through just behind her, covering the left as she covered the
right.

“Liv!” came Jordan’s strangled cry, and before she could turn, he had
knocked her forward with a body block.

She turned in time to see Nathan at the end of the hall, and much closer,
the clips of his Taser as they fell harmlessly to the floor. When he saw that
his weapon hadn’t worked, he dropped it and ran.

“That would be perfect to incapacitate him,” Jordan said. “Think you can get
it working?”

“Oh yeah, let me just pull out my spare compressed nitrogen cartridge.”

“So that’s a no.” Jordan stepped over the electrodes and jogged down the
hall. Liv followed.

They turned the corner, expecting another attack, but Nathan was nowhere to
be seen.

“Great.” Liv looked both ways down the hallway as if a sign would present
itself: ‘Nathan Blank went this way.’ She saw only the empty hallway lined with
identical metal doors.

Jordan, meanwhile, was inspecting each door carefully, moving as fast as
possible from one to the next. Liv couldn’t believe that he’d actually find
something, but within a minute, he called, “Here.”