Target Rich Environment 2 Read online

  I threw a quick wave of thanks to the Marine and sprinted after the fleeing demon.

  The demon loped away from me heading south. It was an odd feeling chasing it, since usually the demons were the ones doing the chasing. I had thirty rounds left for my Glock spread between two full mags in my pocket—not the ideal place to be carrying them—and the half-full mag in the gun. Hopefully I wouldn’t need any more than that for one demon.

  I sprinted through the campus noticing sickening patches of red decorating the sidewalks and walls of the buildings I was passing. A mangled leg stuck out from some bushes to my right. In the distance I could hear screams of terror and pain from people around the campus, and growls and howls from more demons.

  Where had they all come from? One person couldn’t have summoned this many, which told me this was a coordinated effort.

  I caught a flash of another demon ahead. Behind me I heard the sounds of running, so I shot a quick glance over my shoulder. It was the Marine.

  At least I had some sort of backup. There were at least two demons ahead of me now. Maybe more.

  What were they after?

  The so-called experts in the field said that demons were mindless predators that lived to hunt and kill. I knew demons could have far more intelligence. All demons were dangerous, but it was the intelligent ones that were scary.

  And these knew my name.

  I couldn’t have been running for more than a few minutes when I came around a bend and saw one of the FBI’s research buildings. Most people knew that we conducted all sorts of tests on materials, biological agents, and weaponry here. There was also an area at the back where we held most of our information on the supernatural.

  Fifty yards from the building, I slowed to a stop. There were no screams around this part of the campus, and the silence was just as eerie. The main research building ahead was two floors above ground, but I knew there was subterranean storage and laboratories as well. On a typical day there could be upwards of a hundred people inside.

  One hundred people that had likely never actually seen a demon. All their work was controlled. Theoretical. Safe.

  The double doors at the entrance were a pile of shattered glass, on top of which was the unmoving body of an agent in standard HRT gear. Geez. Even those guys hadn’t been ready for this. I ejected the half-full magazine and replaced it with a full one.

  The sound of footsteps came to halt beside me. The Marine. “I’ll take left,” he said. He actually sounded eager. Psycho. But he was a well-armed psycho, and I found myself wishing for a rifle like his—an M16 from the brief glance of it I got before he began moving quickly to the left side of the wrecked door.

  My Glock 23 felt a bit underpowered at the moment, but what could I do? I moved to the position on the right.

  As I got to the door I shifted to a left-handed grip on my gun and peered around the corner. There wasn’t just one guy from HRT dead in the doorway.

  There were eight.

  They were cast about like broken dolls, necks and limbs bent at impossible angles. I’ve seen my share of bloody scenes, and this wasn’t even the worst, but somehow being on the FBI Academy’s campus made it far worse psychologically. The walls of the entryway were painted in blood. The frightening thing was the lack of damage from gunfire . . . and the quiet.

  Practically at my feet was the trailing HRT member’s discarded weapon, an M4. It was a little shorter than the Marine’s own rifle, which I hoped would give me a slight bit more maneuverability if it got to close-quarters fighting.

  Of course if it came to that I might already be dead.

  Again.

  I checked the magazine. Completely full. I motioned for the Marine to cover me so I could pull the extra magazines from the corpse. I’d worry about feeling like a grave robber later. For now I needed more ammunition.

  We entered the building, leapfrogging one another for covering positions. Glass crunching under our feet was the only sound. The entire area looked as though explosives had been set off. Cubical walls were shredded, and sparks still flew from the exposed wires of shattered computers and other electronics. Bloody bodies and bloodier body parts littered the wreckage.

  The lack of natural sound was unnerving, but it didn’t seem to have any effect on the Marine. His eyes were constantly scanning. There was something about him that was different. It was like The Itch in my head wanted to have a reaction to him, but couldn’t because of all the supernatural interference in the room.

  I guided us toward the back of the building where the secure access to the Supernatural Development Studies rooms—always abbreviated SDS in the acronym-friendly FBI.

  The entry to the SDS was a gaping hole. Inside, the place was a total loss. Any information not backed up to hard drives was gone. All physical material was destroyed. Was this the reason for the attack?

  Then we heard the demons’ howls.

  And they were close.

  Staff Sergeant Diego Santos

  SDS Research Building, FBI National Academy, Quantico

  IT WAS AN AMBUSH.

  And there was only one thing to do in an ambush.

  Fight your way through it.

  The demons spilled out of every doorway. They came out from behind desks and filing cabinets. They pushed over cubicle walls and charged. It was an unstoppable force of demonic fury. A normal response would have been to give in to despair, curl up, and die. However, I was not normal. I was on a mission from God and had been trained by the United States Marines Corps. Fuck these stupid demons. They didn’t have a chance.

  I had been born for this.

  Special Agent Lazarus Tombs

  SDS Research Building, FBI National Academy, Quantico

  THERE WERE DEMONS EVERYWHERE. Dozens of them. They’d lured us into a kill box, but we were holding our own. The Marine seemed to know the demons’ weak spots and was exploiting them with deadly accuracy. He was obviously the superior shot, so I took neck and body shots to slow them down, then he would finish them. Heads erupted in geysers of gore. The stench of sulfur and blood was enough to make me gag. I focused on breathing through my mouth, and pulling the trigger in three-shot bursts.

  Then they started coming through the ceiling.

  I swung my rifle and caught a demon through the armpit as it dropped three feet behind the Marine. It crumpled to the floor whimpering. Two more dropped down in front of the Marine, one of which he smashed in the face with the stock of his rifle, and the other he shot through the eye from six inches away. I used the final burst from my own rifle to put down the creature the Marine had stunned.

  Pushing my last magazine into the rifle, I opened up on the remaining demons.

  They were getting closer and closer. I shot one through the mouth as it launched itself at me. Its black blood sprayed onto my face and into my eyes. I screamed as it burned my eyelids. I squinted through the liquid and continued firing at the now hazy shapes of demons. They were fewer now. Much fewer.

  We were actually winning.

  I pulled the trigger and nothing happened. Empty.

  The rifle dropped from my hands and I drew the Glock in time to shoot one of the last demons five times in the face.

  And then there was pain.

  I looked down at my chest and saw a clawed hand stuck into it. Huh. Those are huge claws.

  My gun slid uselessly from my grip. My vision seemed to get even weirder. Couldn’t focus. The Marine was shooting everything that still moved.

  And now there was a guy walking toward us. My boss, Frank Shields. Finally we had a little backup. I was on the ground, on my side. Numbness was spreading through my chest. What was Shields doing? Even at the point of blacking out, The Itch grabbed my attention and made me focus on my boss. Shields raised his gun, and I saw the muzzle flash over and over as he shot the Marine.

  I couldn’t see the result. My vision tunneled until all I saw was a hazy blackness. I knew this feeling.

  I was dying.

  Agai
n.

  Third time’s the charm.

  I took one last breath, then nothing.

  Staff Sergeant Diego Santos

  SDS Research Building, FBI National Academy, Quantico

  EVEN IF TOMBS had been wearing a soft vest, those needle-tip claws would still have slid right through. The demon’s hand came out, red and dripping. The Fed took a couple of faltering steps, looked back at me seemingly surprised, mouth hanging open, eyes wide. The demon chuckled then shoved the Fed down.

  He couldn’t die. It wasn’t his time. I had faith. I lifted the M16A4 as the demon charged and took it apart, walking 5.56 rounds through it until it spilled over and slid to a wet stop at my feet. My rifle was empty and I reached for another magazine as I hit the release button.

  Somebody shot me.

  The bullet hit me in the MTV and the vest stopped it. Then a second bullet struck my rifle and knocked it from my hands. Several more bullets whipped past as I fell on my ass.

  I looked up to see another blue and khaki Fed at the end of the room, and the stink on him told me that this was the asshole that had summoned these demons. He had a Glock in his hands and was walking toward me, covering me like he was going to arrest me or something. Old habits were hard to break.

  The man from my dream was down. His eyes were open, flat and empty. Those were dead eyes. I’d seen it hundreds of times. He was gone.

  It couldn’t be.

  I struggled to my feet as the summoner closed on me. He seemed surprised that we’d torn apart his monsters. The room was littered with bullet-riddled, discolored demon bodies. He flicked a cold glance at the body of the Fed. “Tombs is dead? Will wonders never cease? The mistress will be displeased. We needed him still.”

  “Your mistress can go fuck herself. He’s not dead.”

  The pistol moved back to me. The summoner was old, a senior agent, probably just another dumb shit cultist seduced by lies and pride. Probably a plant by the other side, trying to sneak one of their own into a position of authority. Up close I could see the name “Shields” embroidered on his polo. “They talked about your kind!” he said when he finally got a better look at me. The cockiness was replaced with nervousness. They always reacted like that when they realized what I was.

  “He’s not dead,” I repeated. “This is a test of faith.” I took a step forward. “This is a test of my dedication.”

  The asshole shot me again. The bullet slammed into the Kevlar weave covering my shoulder. I grunted, swayed back, then righted myself and took another angry step forward. The gun was shaking. I was unnerving him.

  “B’nai regesh!” Shields snarled in what I recognized as Hebrew.

  “I’ve been called that before.” I took one more step. “Among other things. The last asshole I met like you called me Boanerges.” Ten feet away, the Glock went off. He missed. The bullet tore up carpet between my boots. His rapidly blinking eyes betrayed his terror. His grip and stance were sloppy. “It means ‘son of thunder.’” One of the triceratops-looking demons was dead nearby. I put my boot on its bony neck shield, grabbed one of its horns, and wrenched hard on it until it cracked and broke free. I stepped off the demon’s corpse and held the wicked horn low at my side. It was dense and cold. “I am a faithful servant. I am your earthly judge.”

  He took a clumsy step back. “Your god is young and weak!”

  “Keep telling yourself that.” Another step closer. “You think you idiots are the first to try to move in on His turf?”

  “I’m going to kill you!”

  “I’ve seen the thing that kills me, and you ain’t shit compared to it.”

  He jerked the trigger. The bullet grazed my left forearm, just above my watch. I looked down at the nasty crease as blood ran down my hand. It hurt like a son of a bitch, but then I realized where I’d been struck. I started to laugh. “Fuckin’ A!” It was a sign.

  “What!” The summoner cringed. “What?”

  “I’ve seen that scar in my Vision for years! I’ve been wondering when I was going to get it. About damn time.” I nodded respectfully. “Thank you.”

  Now terrified, Shields tried to keep the gun up as he kept walking backwards. I followed. His back hit the far wall. “Stop! We’ve already got what we came for.” We were so close now that there was no way he could miss. The end of the .40 was a gaping hole aimed right between my eyes. “The vessel has been prepared. The end is near. Your god can’t protect you.”

  “Let’s find out.”

  CLICK.

  The demon summoner actually squealed like a little girl, but his training took over and he executed a malfunction clearance drill. He thumped the base of the magazine, grabbed the slide and racked it back to clear the dud round, but it was already too late. I knocked the muzzle aside and slammed the demon horn through his neck. I twisted the horn back and forth, widening the wound. Hot blood struck me in the face. Shields’ Glock hit the carpet as he sagged against the wall.

  I held him there and peered into his eyes, trying to understand what would cause a mortal man to believe the lies of the Rusted Vale. Those eyes were filled with terror and doubt, emotions I could no longer comprehend. “Told you so.” He tried to respond, but his mouth was too full of blood and it just spilled past his teeth and down his chin. “When you get to Hell, let your masters know they can’t win here. He won’t let them.”

  Shields slid down the wall, still staring at me with a fanatic’s fervor. I waited for him to die, just to make sure there were no other tricks.

  I could hear sirens outside, but no more gunfire. Gunnery Sergeant Moss had come up behind me while I’d been distracted. He joined me, standing over the corpse, but didn’t say anything.

  “So, how much of that did you catch, Guns?”

  “Enough to know that I don’t want to know.” He bent over and picked up the .40 cartridge that had been ejected from the Glock. He looked at it and then handed it over. The primer had been solidly dented by the firing pin. “About that psych evaluation . . .”

  It wasn’t anything to worry about anymore. “My enlistment is up soon. I’ve got a feeling I’m supposed to go do something else for a while.” I looked back at Tombs, who was still obviously dead. This was turning out to be more complicated than expected, but I had faith that everything would work out in the end.

  Special Agent Lazarus Tombs

  Personal Dormitory, FBI National Academy, Quantico

  I OPENED MY EYES to a view of a ceiling, and my brain reminded me that I should be dead. I instantly panicked and tried to sit up. This situation wasn’t anything new to me, but just because I’ve been dead before doesn’t mean I enjoy revisiting. The last time I’d died I had woken up on a surgical table with half my chest sliced open.

  Three months of therapy followed.

  My body screamed in protest, and if felt like a cleansing fire was coursing through my veins. The fire was familiar, the same as it had been the last two times I’d woken up from the dead. It hurt more than anything, but at the same time felt absolutely I'm wonderful. I knew where the wound was that the demon has inflicted on me, but I was more than a little afraid to look down. I didn’t really know if my mind could cope with seeing massive surgical cuts or another huge Y-incision. There was no putting it off. I looked down at my chest.

  A clean white bandage was wrapped around my middle. No blood was soaked through. Confused, I looked around and realized I was in my room.

  I also noticed the Marine I’d seen earlier lounging in one of my chairs. He had a cigar in one hand and a glass of amber liquid sitting on the table by him.

  “You do this?” I asked pointing at the bandage.

  “Yep.”

  “Thanks.”

  “No worries,” he said taking a puff on the cigar. “I figured saving you the bullshit of waking up all cut on would save you some sanity. And a trip to a shrink. What a waste of time that is.”

  I nodded in agreement. “While I do appreciate it, how’d you know I wasn’t totally dead?”<
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  He cocked an eyebrow at me. “You were totally dead. I just knew it wouldn’t take.”

  “Oh?”

  “Dreamed it.” As if that were the only answer possible.

  I looked at him a little closer and felt just the faintest hint of The Itch. He was touched by the supernatural. Barely, but touched even still. Who—or what—was he?

  “I also saved this for you,” he said. He reached forward and pulled an ID wallet off the table and tossed it to me. It was mine. “Came out of your pocket when you got killed. Says your name is Jarvis Tombs. I’m Diego Santos. Nice you meet you.”

  “Call me Lazarus. Or just Tombs. No one calls me Jarvis. And thanks again.”

  “Lazarus?” he asked with a smirk. “This ‘death’ thing happen before?”

  “Twice.” That wiped the smirk off his face. “Really, though, how’d you know I’d come back?”

  “Told you. I dreamed it. Don’t like repeating myself.”

  “Then clarify it for me,” I said laying back down.

  “Look, I know when I’m gonna die. To the minute. I’ve seen it coming in my dreams—a Vision—for years. And you’re in my dream. You’re there when I die. Good enough?”

  He wasn’t big on explanations, and I could think of one hundred follow-up questions. I didn’t bother even trying to ask them. I sighed and rubbed my face. I should just be happy that Santos had spared me the therapy.

  “I gotta say though,” he continued, “that’s pretty crazy you not being able to stay dead. You’re not a zombie, are you? That’d be some messed-up shit, and I’d probably have to shoot you in the head or something.”