The barricade was built well and it didn’t shift too much under the men’s weight as they clambered upward. Cade paused at the top, giving the others a few moments to get down the far side. When they were safely off the barricade he unscrewed the top of the can and poured the gasoline onto the barrier on either side of where he stood. Tossing the empty can aside, he quickly unzipped the emergency road kit and took out the flare stored inside.
Cade glanced back down the street and saw the first of their pursuers, a sleek dog-shaped creature with three legs on each side, come charging around the corner. He didn’t wait around to see any more. Igniting the flare, he climbed down the far side a few feet before turning back and tossing the flare onto the gasoline-soaked furniture at the top of the barricade. There was a loud whoomp and the gas ignited with a flash, flames racing across the length of the barricade and rising six feet into the air.
That should make them think twice. He turned his back on the flames and hurried down the other side. As he hit the pavement a terrible shrieking cry sounded from above him. He spun, simultaneously drawing his gun in one smooth motion, to find the six-legged demon standing at the top of the barricade, engulfed entirely in flames.
Cade shook his head; the demons might be hard to kill, but apparently they weren’t all that intelligent. While the thing was preoccupied with the flames writhing around its body, Cade put a bullet through its skull and then watched in satisfaction as it tumbled out of sight back down the opposite side of the barrier.
Time to get moving.
The street ahead of him was empty, however.
His companions had disappeared from sight.
Frowning, Cade headed onward. He knew he couldn’t stay near the barricade. The fire would only burn hot for so long; the minute it fell to manageable levels the hellspawn would pour over the top and begin pursuing them anew. He needed to be out of sight before that happened.
The buildings had seemed unwelcoming before he knew the town was infested with hellspawn; now they were downright ominous. Every hard-to-see corner and darkened shadow were potential hiding places where a demon might be lurking and Cade quickly discovered that he couldn’t keep his eye on all of them at once. His adrenaline was pumping from what he and his men had already been through and it took all his restraint to keep from putting a bullet through Duncan’s head when the young sergeant popped it out of the door of a nearby butcher shop as Cade hurried past.
“Commander! This way!” Duncan called softly and Cade needed no further urging to slip past him into the darkened interior.
The shop was small, fifteen feet square, if that, and the smell of twenty different kinds of meat assailed him the moment he came through the doorway. For a moment the location seemed an odd one for his teammate to choose, but then Cade recognized the genius behind Olsen’s choice — the hellspawn would have a hard time tracking them over the smell of all that meat.
Olsen stood by the deli counter, looking nonchalant as he took bites from a stick of hard salami, but Cade had known him long enough to know that Olsen wasn’t any happier about their current situation than Cade was. Riley had a bandage around his forehead to deal with the gash he’d sustained in the crash, but Cade was relieved to find him otherwise healthy and ready to go.
Turning to Olsen, Cade asked, “How are we doing?”
The other man grimaced. “Not great, but we’ve been in worse scrapes in the past. We’ve got enough ammo for one, maybe two more major firefights. After that we’re down to swords.”
Cade nodded; that was about what he’d expected. They came here to investigate, not to face off against a horde of demons all on their own. They simply weren’t equipped for it. If the entire village was infected, that lack of ammo was going to be critical before too long.
“This place have another way out?”
“Yeah, there’s a back door that leads to an alley running behind the building, which in turn curves back around to the main street about three doors down from where we are now.”
In other words, it wasn’t going to do them that much good from a tactical perspective. Still, Cade felt better knowing that they weren’t trapped in a rabbit hole with no way out.
Before Cade could say anything further, Duncan called from the front.
“Here they come!”
CHAPTER THREE
From his position at the front of the butcher shop, Sergeant Sean Duncan watched through a narrow opening in the wooden shutters covering the main window as the creatures they’d faced off against less than fifteen minutes earlier poured over the still-smoking barricade and came in search of them.
He shuddered as they surged forward.
Duncan had joined the Echo Team only a few weeks earlier and in that time he’d already seen enough of the horrors roaming the dark corners of the world to make him long for the quiet days he’d spent on the Preceptor’s security detail. It didn’t matter if they were at home or abroad; somehow Commander Williams, Cade, always managed to get them into the thick of things, and more often than not the creatures they encountered seemed to come straight out of someone’s nightmare. Tonight’s foes were no exception. Duncan knew the world was full of such things — he was a Templar after all — but he had discovered that knowledge and first-hand experience were two different things. Since facing off against the necromantic Council of Nine in the swamps of Louisiana, Duncan had come to learn just how little that knowledge prepared you for the reality of the twisted, perverted creatures that called the darkness their home.
Duncan alerted the others and then stepped back to give Commander Williams a chance to look out at the street and the creatures it now contained. The thought that just a pair of flimsy shutters and a few panes of glass separated him from those things out there made him more than a little uneasy, but he did his best to conceal it from the veterans around him.
If they can deal with this, so can I.
Still, it took all his nerve to stay silent and still as the creatures flooded down the street in search of them. A few paused in front of the building as if sensing the men were hiding inside, one going so far as to come right up to the door. Duncan kept expecting Commander Williams to give the order to evacuate through the rear door — an order he would have willingly followed if it took them away from the freakish things outside — but it was not to be. Cade merely put a finger to his lips, signaling for them to be silent, and waited for the intruder to give up and leave before he went back to watching the creatures pass by outside.
Eventually — it felt like hours later to Duncan — the street was empty and Cade signaled the all-clear.
The butcher shop and its contents did the job; the shutters hid them from view and the creatures hadn’t been able to smell them over the hefty scents of the meat and cheese that filled the shelves. The creatures might be back and there was no telling what they would do when they discovered the Templars had escaped their wrath, but for now, they were safe.
Duncan broke the silence first.
“What the hell are those things?” he asked, gesturing toward the window and the street beyond.
The gesture wasn’t necessary; everyone in the room knew what he was referring to. After a moment, when it didn’t look like Cade was going to answer the sergeant’s question, Riley chimed in.
“Protean demons.”