The Demon Conspiracy Series continues with Book #2:
The Doomsday Shroud
1
DEMONS DON’T DIE
KELLY
When the demon alarm went off in our house at three in the morning (on a school night no less!) it felt like spikes were being pounded into my eardrums. It was so loud! I hated that thing! But there wasn’t time to worry about the noise. I had to be quick or I’d be demon fast food before dawn. Let’s face it, there’s only one reason for the demon alarm to go off. Demons! They were after me again. I put on shoes, grabbed a metal baseball bat and got ready to rumble.
In the hallway I met Travis, who was loading up a slingshot with an egg-sized steel marble. His snow-white hair stuck up worse than usual and he was barefoot, but he was ready for battle. I was scared, but he looked like he wanted a good fight. I don’t think he realized what kind of danger we were in.
I gotchur back, said Travis inside my head. Go to the panic room.
Not yet, I thought back to him. I want to see the demon.
You sure?
I nodded. Our mental connection was loud and clear in spite of the blaring alarm.
All at once Granny flew out of her bedroom still dressed in work clothes. She had on blue jeans, a white blouse and her black leather jacket with the logo and name of her motorcycle club printed on the back. Satan’s Sidekicks. Granny shouted over the irritating alarm.
“Where’s Angie?” She hefted a ten-pound sledgehammer, though in my opinion she really didn’t need a weapon. That woman is strong. She’s fearless, too. She’d risk her life to protect Travis and me. She already had.
A moment later Angie burst from her room carrying an i-Pad and a container of Mace the size of a large bug spray can.
“One demon!” she shouted. “Behind the Christmas tree! This one’s got two heads.” She held up the iPad, which contained an App that ran our security system. On the screen I saw a digital thermal image of a two-headed something waiting for us in the den downstairs.
Granny squared her broad shoulders. “Crikey, how’d it get in?”
“We’ll figure that out later.”
“Should we wait for the police?” I only asked because some demons can be tough to fight. Plus the alarm system was hooked into the local police department, so a squad car would be at the house any moment.
Angie shook her head and pointed to the stairs. “It took them twenty minutes to get here last time. I’ll take lead.”
Granny raised her hammer. “I got rear.” It actually sounded more like I got reah. I loved her Australian accent.
This was the third time in a month demons had tried to grab me in the night. The first time had been right after Thanksgiving, when my family saved us, but not before the demons made a wreck of our house.
It took two weeks to get the place fixed the way Angie wanted. The same night we moved back in another demon came after me. It was like they’d been watching, waiting for their next chance to get me. But that time we were ready.
Motion detectors had caught the creature’s image and security lights lit up the outside like a football field. The demon had run off. Video surveillance cameras got some great shots of it, so we knew it wasn’t a deer or some other large animal that set off the alarm. That particular demon had bright yellow skin, four arms and his name was Grund. We’d met before. But unlike Grund, the two-headed demon downstairs had somehow gotten past the security system and inside the house.
So why were demons after me, little ol’ Kelly Bishop? It could be because I knew about their secret plan to take over the surface of the earth in the next five years. Or maybe it was my telepathy, though I couldn’t read a demon’s mind at all, so technically I wasn’t a threat to them. But demons have human friends and one of them had a serious problem with me being telepathic.
Until a few weeks ago I figured I was the only telepath in the world, and I’ll admit I got a little cocky. But then I ran into a man named Mogen Deel, who’s got the same ability, only he’s way stronger and dangerous, too. He nearly killed me with his mind! It’s like Granny once said, it doesn’t matter how good you are at something, there’s always going to be someone else who’s better. When it came to demons, Mr. Deel called the shots and they did mostly what he said. For some reason he wanted me on the demon menu.
I wish Jon and Chris were here, I thought to Travis. We could use the manpower.
Travis nodded. Jon Bishop, our sixteen-year-old brother, was pretty much an expert with swords and martial arts in general. But Jon couldn’t help us now; he’d gone off to New York City to become the greatest magician in the world, though, honestly, we almost felt safer that he wasn’t around. I think he might be demonically possessed.
Chris McCormick was our foster dad who’d invented a fruit drink a few months ago that made the family rich. He went crazy and they locked him away in a psycho ward. I figure he’s probably possessed too.
Travis and I followed Angie down the stairway. The foyer was shadowy, but the den was so black I couldn’t even see the sofa in front of us. Angie slowly reached into the room for the light switch. We tensed, ready for action. She flipped the switch.
Nothing happened. Demons had cut off the power again! So now we had to enter a pitch-black room to fight a two-headed monster that could see in the dark. And the monster wanted to kill me. Nice.
Angie touched the screen on the monitor and the annoying alarm stopped. OMG! The silence surprised me so much I stumbled into Travis.
“Computer, backup lights!” Angie shouted it, probably because her ears were still ringing from the alarm. Her voice triggered the security computer system to use a different power source and just like that auxiliary lights came on.
I saw the husky demon crouched in the corner of the den behind the Christmas tree. Sure enough, it had two ugly heads, both covered with scab-like discolored skin with four green eyes on the front each head. Most of the demons I’d seen before were brightly colored, but this one was drab olive green with thin, orange tiger stripes all down its body. The demon’s eight eyes bulged in surprise when it realized we could see it. It quickly gathered its wits.
“You-ah!” It pointed right at me with a meaty arm. “Da Kelly Bishop-ah. Yer mine-ah!”
One thing about demons is they all have a different way of speaking. Some pronounce words perfectly, while others use accents from all over the world. A few talk kind of weird, like this one. All the ones I’d heard so far spoke English.
The demon blinked its eight glow-in-the-dark eyes, then swatted our Christmas tree out of the way with webbed hands. Glass shattered as lights and decorations flew everywhere. The creature lumbered straight at me, crushing presents on the floor in its haste.
Since I was the one-and-only person in the house that demons ever came for, my job was to get to the panic room that Angie had built in the basement. The rest of my family would do the fighting. Sounds kind of wimpy, but I’m definitely not one of those super girls who beats up all the bad guys. I gripped the bat firmly and started toward the kitchen.
The demon charged. Angie stepped in its way. She sprayed a long blast of Mace straight into the eyes on its left head. The demon yelped and covered the burning eyes with one hand. But it could still see just fine with the four eyes on its right head. It stiff-armed Angie. She flipped over the recliner chair and fell out of sight. A second later her head popped over the chair.
“Mom!”
“Got it, Angie!” Granny took the sledgehammer and popped the demon under its right chin. The demon straightened up with the blow. It back-peddled a few steps. Granny popped it again. And again. Each time the hammer struck, the demon stumbled in reverse. But this beast was tough, and strong, too. It yanked the sledgehammer out of Granny’s hands and let it fly across the room. I heard it crash into something. So what else in our house had been destroyed?
While Granny wrestled with the creature, she yelled. “Kelly, go!” A moment later the monster tossed her out of the way and came after me again.
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I sprinted through the kitchen to the basement steps. Travis and the demon were on my heels. In the distance I heard police sirens making record time, but again probably too late. Travis turned and fired off the steel marble. Thwuck! The demon roared in pain and crashed into the kitchen table. It thrashed and floundered, then sent the table and all the chairs clattering across the floor. Travis ducked out of its way. The demon kept coming.
“Run Kelly!” I heard Travis fire off another steel marble. Thwuck! The demon roared.
As I flew down the stairs I glanced over my shoulder. The demon was a few feet behind. Two of its nasty green eyes were focused on me. Four more were swollen shut from the mace and the last two had big steel marbles stuck in them. Could I beat it to the panic room? I leaped off the steps and landed in a full sprint.
Just as I got to the door of the concrete and steel reinforced room, a gnarled, slimy hand caught my arm and jerked me into the center of the basement.
“Gotcha now-ah! Come wid me-ah! I take you to-ah the Demon Nation!”
Demon Nation. I was starting to hate those words. I broke free and answered with the bat. I struck the demon in the shoulder. Thump! I hit it again on top of its left head—my left, that is. Crack! The last shot I took was on one of its twelve-toed feet. Whack! The demon danced a brief jig of pain. I can fight when I have to.
But demons recover quickly. It knocked the bat out of my hands. It bounced across the concrete floor. The monster slapped a vise-like grip on my wrist and pulled me toward the back door. I fought it all the way. I dragged my feet and grabbed for the stairs, but I couldn’t stop it. That sucker was too strong. Just as the demon grabbed the doorknob to go outside, I heard a booming voice.
“Kelly! Hit the deck!” I went limp as a rag and dropped to the floor. The demon growled at me.
“Get up-ah!”
Gunfire erupted. POW! POW! POW! POW!
Gooey black blood sprayed all over me. The demon released my arm and fell like a lump to the floor.