“Stay safe here, guys. In half an hour, they’ll let you go,” she said to her friends.
“Don’t!” Shinji whimpered and clutched his wounded head.
“I have to. You are forbidden from sacrificing yourself for another princess, Shinji. Live. And thank you all.”
Cat met her friends’ gazes, even the wolves. Jack sensed her incensed fighting spirit and nodded. Then she was off.
The girl ran as if hell was hot on her heels. Which it was. Quite literally. The soldiers didn’t block her as she went out of the gates and into the 7th avenue next to Dyker Beach Park. She didn’t stop moving north as she took her phone.
“Search for pawn shops nearby,” she shouted at the device’s assistant.
She glanced at the map and set on a jog. She was still tired and winded but she had every motivation to put her A-game. A demonspawn was coming. It took her ten of her fifteen minutes to reach the first pawnshop on 86th street. She barged in, panting.
“How can we help you, miss?” The shop clerk asked.
“Silver,” Cat panted. “Jewelry, cutlery, anything made of pure silver. And a shotgun.”
“I’ll need a driver’s license for that,” the clerk eyed condition. “What do you need a gun for?”
“Get the silver. Now, please. I don’t have much time.”
“Miss, do you want me to call the cops?”
The calm with which the clerk said it, less than a mile away from the chaos at the fort told her the demon had somehow suppressed the noise and smoke from the outside world. She didn’t look back while she ran so there was no way she could tell.
“Yes. Call the cops but finish the sale. Silver. I need pure silver, the oldest the better.”
“What are you killing, Miss?” The clerk joked. “A werewolf?”
Cat ruefully chuckled. “Nah. I’m okay with wolves. Look, President Benjamin Franklin wants you to hurry up,” She slid the banknote through the gap to the other side of the counter. “And his friends might be happy with you if you fulfill the order in less than… two minutes.”
She knew the shop would not last much longer than that if she was inside by that time. She’s seen what the demonspawn could do. Showing she had money this early could ruin everything. The clerk could call in some thugs to mug her.
“I’m calling 911. But please, I need the silver. Now,” she begged and repeated herself. The clerk looked at the phone in her hand and she called the emergency on the speakerphone.
“911, state your emergency?” The operator answered.
“I’m on the 86th street Brooklyn next to the Gowanus underpass. There’s a violent man causing property damage. He’s already injured, several people.” She hung up. “Silver! Now!”
The clerk slid her banknote back and showed her a pistol. “We won’t take your business, Miss. Please leave.”
She snatched the Benjamin and grumbled, “Asshole!” As she returned to the street, she noticed she had only a minute before the demonspawn was set loose. The FLYING demonspawn, she reckoned. She ran to the next pawn shop. Her mistake was mentioning the shotgun too early, which raised the clerk’s suspicion.
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Cat entered the next pawn shop, two blocks away. The demon would be out any time now as she didn’t spare a second to look at the phone. “Hello, good morning! I wish to buy silver antiques!” She tried to sound cheerful. “Jewelry, cutlery. I’m trying to cast my own necklaces and rings,” she lied.
The clerk took a 9mm pistol and nocked it. “I was warned by Jerry down the street, miss. Leave.”
“Sell me some silver!”
“Go away, you psycho!” The clerk shouted and threatened, displaying the gun.
Desperate, she said the first thing that came to her mind, “I’m Catherine Wallenstein! Sell me silver and you’ll be famous!”
The clerk took a good look at her, “You’re the one that wrecked the GW Bridge! Out of my shop!”
“Damn!” She ran outside.
Straight into a street gang coming from around the block. They saw her and pointed. “There’s the girl!”
Police sirens rang in the distant 4th avenue. Using a moment to consider her choices, she looked at the phone. A minute too late. A cacophony of sound erupted from the Fort. An ear-splitting roar shook the Narrows, sending the boats rocking. A demonspawn was loose in New York. Cat stowed her phone. The time to shop was over.
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“Hello, guys!” She said as she walked toward the gang that was probably out to mug her. It didn’t matter. She doubted they could mug her before the demonspawn arrived. “Say, do you want a job? I swear it pays better than mugging me with the cops underway.”
“She’s crazy!” One of the men said.
“Look, I’ll pay a grand to the guy that goes in that pawnshop and buys me all the silver they have. Now. Or mug me before the cops arrive. I swear by God that you should take the job offer.”
“CATHERINE!” The demonspawn shouted in the distance.
‘Of course, it has a homing feature,’ Cat ruefully acknowledged. She took the crumpled Benjamin from her other pocket and waved it. “Here is your sign-up bonus boys. Take it.” She offered the banknote and one of the guys took it. “Now, mug me or take the honest, easy, and paying job. Please let’s cooperate.”
The patrol cars entered the 86th from the 4th avenue less than a thousand feet away and Cat glanced back to see the red and blue flashing lights. One of the gang members walked forward. “I’ll take the job, Marco by the way. I know the clerk here, he’s a friend of my cousin. I need cash to buy the silver.”
“You’re hired, Marco. I’m Catherine Wallenstein, nice to meet you. Buy as much silver as you can in a minute and also a wirecutter and a shotgun, I don’t mind if you need to rough it up a bit so long you get my silver, pure silver,” she said as she gave him a few banknotes without even looking at the denominations. The smaller she had was fifty bucks anyway. “But be FAST.” He went inside as the other guys stared between her and the approaching cops. They were wondering what she was going to do that needed a wirecutter and a shotgun along with silver. The former two were perfect for a second-story job but the silver threw them off.
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“I told you she was the real deal, Johnny!” One of the would-be thugs elbowed the other. “I follow her on Instagram, she’s the one!”
“Hey, nice guy. Thanks for following me! You’re hired too!” She shot back and took another stack of banknotes from her purse. “Go on that other pawnshop and get their silver and a shotgun. Hurry up!”
The Instagram follower and Johnny ran to the other pawn shop across the street, dodging traffic.
“What do we do, boss?” The other guys asked.
Cat distributed the last cash she had with her. “You’ll help the police and evacuate civilians. Then help the other guys bring me the silver and the shotguns.”
“WHAT?” The gang members did a double-take, then de demonspawn touched down.
“CATHERINE! YOU DIE NOW, BITCH.”
She tried to control her pounding heart, “The show is on, guys. You got your tasks, there’s a cash bonus if you pull it off. That big one there? He’s mine.”
“Shit! That motherfucker is huge!” One of them whimpered.
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The ten feet tall demonspawn jaywalked and was promptly ran over by a speeding car that was probably running away from the cops from the heavy smell of pot coming from the vehicle. It was the Brooklyn and getaway drivers ain’t stopping for no demon. Then the car rammed into the one in front who stopped to look at the monster in the rearview mirror, crushing the demonspawn between both vehicles. The engine on the first car revved as the driver refused to let go of the gas.
The other cars turned away on the side streets as the police cruisers approached fast. At least she wouldn’t be charged with a false report now. There was a guy causing property damage. However, a car crash on 5th avenue blocked the crossing because one stupid driver slowed down to see what was going on and was tailgated into oblivion by the idiot behind them.
People rushed to the windows to take photos and film what was going on. Then the general public noticed the still bleeding demonspawn flipping the car that was pinning him and shouting obscenities, mostly what he’d do to Cat once he put his hands on her. Her first instinct was to run away but she couldn’t. Her mother’s future was on the line and she doubted she could outrun a flying demonspawn who could cross a mile in a fifth of the time she took to run it.
The occupants of the getaway car crawled out of their vehicle and shot at the demonspawn, shouting more obscenities. Flashes from idiots who didn’t know how that worked snapped from the windows around them. The cops were running on foot around the car crash, their radios buzzing with activity as they probably requested reinforcements.
“GAAAAAAAAAH!” The monster shouted and jumped into the drug dealers. With swings of his massive clawed hands, he killed them. Cat noticed his bullet wounds were dripping ichorous black blood, a thing that didn’t happen back at the military base.
The demonspawn looked at her and roared before opening a wicked grin, showing his mutated pointy teeth. Cat felt the instinctive fear of her, Catherine’s rapist but she was running high on adrenalin. Instead of resignation, she felt a calming certainty that she could pull it off should all parts fall in place. But the monster’s show of power had the benefit of drawing the police’s attention fully.
The cops ran past her group and shouted at the creature. “NYPD, halt!”
He didn’t halt. Instead, the creature ran toward the cops, which opened fire even as their faces visibly shifted into a mask of fear and dread. Black blood dripped from the demonspawn’s claws and wounds both new and old.
Her first hired thug left the second pawnshop with a nylon backpack jiggling with metal and what she hoped was a shotgun in a canvas case. Whispering a prayer for the cops, she went to meet him and take her prize.
“Get the pieces that look like pure silver and cut them into shards with the wirecutter. Anyone that knows how to use one, check if the shotgun is loaded.”
“It’s not,” Marco replied. “Sorry, he wouldn’t sell me the shells.”
She snapped her fingers, “Guys, I need one shotgun shell. Make it happen, STAT!”
It worked. While Marco snapped the silver right on the sidewalk, another guy entered the pawnshop. Instagram and Johnny left the first shop and almost ran into the fight between the monster and the cops. More like a massacre. More cops were coming and the thugs hid the shotgun between them.
“Instagram, Johnny, over here! Hurry!” She shouted.
The two crossed the street, needing no further incentive to get away from the shitshow. One of the cops stopped to glance at the highly suspicious duo that did nothing to hide the weapon they were openly carrying and took a claw to the face for his distraction.
“Are you going to shot silver at the monster?” One of the thugs asked. When she nodded, he offered, “I have some pliers with me,” he knelt next to Marco to help cut the silver.
The newly arrived cops looked at the group and Cat waved at them, pretending to be recording the fight on her phone. They saw the fight and joined their fellow officers, leaving them alone as the monster was a higher priority target than the bunch.
“I got the sh-sea shells,” The guy who ran into Marco’s cousin acquaintance's pawn shop said and corrected himself before the cops could decide to investigate a group of bystanders.
Always the asshole, the demonspawn stole a glance every now and then at her to make sure she was watching as he relished in the violence and carnage he was inflicting on the police. Cat could swear he was even posing and making a show of displaying his overgrown and disgustingly mutated genitalia.
She conjectured that Rorgramathan might not have informed him of a time limit, as she only had to survive for another four minutes to grant her friends their freedom. Doable? Maybe. Granting her friends and her mother their freedom was almost worth her life. She (William) was living on borrowed time and the certainty of an afterlife was enough to take away some of that fear of the unknown that surrounded death. The only regret was that Catherine would go to Hell. She pressed a hand against her chest and puckered her lips.
[We are going to make it, partner. Believe we can survive.]
[I love you too, silly girl.]
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The thugs snapped her from her reverie. “What?” Cat asked.
“Should we put the silver shavings in the shotgun?” Marco repeated.
“Sure, that’s the idea. Buckshot of silver straight into that mutated cock of his,” she coldly stated, causing some of the guys to cover their family jewels.
“You need to cap the muzzle to hold the shrapnel in place,” Instagram suggested.
“Rip some stuffing from your jacket,” Cat said. “I’ll buy you another five later.”
In a hurry, they primed the two shotguns with silver shrapnel, then shoved a nest from the jacket’s insulation to hold it in place.
“Stow one of the shotguns in the case, give me the other. It’s time to fight. Guys, you should make yourselves scarce. Marco, do you have Paypal? I’ll transfer some cash and you share it with the guys.”
She slung her weapons and paid the thugs ten thousand dollars before they went on their way, hounding Marco to keep him from running away with the payday.
With a deep breath, Cat ran to fight her monster.
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“Good Samaritan coming through! Hold your fire, please!” She shouted to the few surviving cops taking cover behind some abandoned vehicles.
The monster was raging and bleeding, content in thrashing cars and turning dead bodies to paste.
“Get away from here, lady!” A cop shouted back at her from fifteen yards away. “And drop your guns.”
“No can do, officer,” she shouted back as she climbed on a car. “That’s my demon to slay, a cousin to the ‘Florida Walker’. Can you cover me? Please?” Tired, wounded, and scared, the cop still tried to get her to back down but she evaded by quickly climbing on the roof of a van. “Look, this guy is a registered sex offender and my rapist. I’m going to unload my two shotguns here on him, then you can arrest me. Deal?”
She didn’t wait for an answer as the demon noticed her. “Catherine!” He seemed happy. His not-so-little friend was happy to see her too as it hoisted to full mast. Cat pulled the shotgun and aimed at him. The demonspawn chortled. “What can one little gun do, when I was shot thousands of times today alone?”
“Hey, do you know the story of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight?” She asked.
“NYPD, freeze!” A police officer summoned the guts to stand up and point his gun at the demon who promptly ripped a car door free and prepared to throw it. “Drop your… door.”
“No,” Cat whined. “Back off!”
The gun rang and echoed in the now-empty street. Flashes from the cameras reflected on the metallic coating of the door as it flew toward the officer. Cat braced and shot. The shotgun groaned and roared as it propelled the silver shrapnel at point-blank range. Around his crotch, demonic flesh sizzled and burned as a few bits of silver were pure enough to damage him. The demonspawn fell on his knees, keening and clutching his member. She dropped the first shotgun and removed the second one from the half-opened case, dropping the canvas container and jumping from the van.
The officers also abandoned their cover and unloaded their guns on the monster. Cat stopped two yards from the creature and aimed the shotgun at his ear hole. She pulled the trigger and the gun exploded in her face as it backfired.
She felt her face burning and her sight went dark but not before she saw the demonspawn without a chunk of his head. She soon fell unconscious.