Abraxas pulled up in a polished and shining 4WD. He pulled the nose into a bend in the driveway such that he could only just make out the cabin at the end of the gravel. The baby and its unwitting protectors had proved themselves slippery, and he wasn't interested in a protracted chase. He moved cautiously around the outside of the cabin and noted the front and rear doors were the only exits.
He looked around and his brow furrowed, he cocked his head to one side and slowly reached out a hand towards the cabin, then swore under his breath. A fire seemed to light in his eyes and pulled a gleaming silver Zippo lighter from his pocket. His eyes still intent he tossed it up onto the back verandah and stared hard at it. The flame grew unnaturally fast and took on the boards with incredible speed.
Once the fire was well set, he moved back around the front of the cabin and watched the front door.
The smell of smoke alerted Cain first, who still lounged on the floor with a cushion under his head in only a pair of ratty denim shorts. He sat up abruptly and swore. "Grab the baby!"
Thomas hurried to do just that while John moved towards the front door but kept Lilly behind him.
"Shit. He's out there."
"He can't come in though!" Tom said.
"But the fire can! All he has to do it wait, we either come out where he can get us or we burn to death." John replied.
“Is he alone?” Tom asked as he rocked the baby to keep her calm.
John nodded, “Far as I can tell. He’s always been a wily little bastard though.”
“We’re going to have to make a break for it,” Cain moved up next to John at the door.
John nodded, “You and I rush him,” he looked back at Tom and Lilly, “You two get to the car. If the opportunity presents itself, run him the fuck over.”
Cain and John both turned and each kissed Lilly’s cheek gently. She lifted her chin bravely and nodded. “I’m ready. You guys be careful.”
“You too,” John insisted.
When John turned away he held his hand out in front of him in a strange gesture. Lilly watched in fascination as a sword made of fire seemed to grow from his hand. It dripped molten fire on the floor which sizzled and hissed as it scorched the carpet. He looked at Cain, “Ready?”
Cain picked up a cast iron fire poker that leaned against the door lintel and nodded. “Let's go.”
The door exploded outward in a shower of burning splinters as John obliterated it with his flaming sword. The small group charged down the stairs with John and Cain at the fore, weapons in hand and wild battle cries on their lips. Tom and Lilly broke left and hurried to the car. Lilly would never forget the calm, smug, confidence on Abraxas’ face. She saw it all in slow motion as Abraxas lifted a sawn-off shotgun from where it hung comfortably at his side, levelled it at the charging demons, and pulled the trigger.
Inarticulate horror and rage were given voice from Lilly and Tom who had frozen halfway to the car as John and Cain crumpled. Abraxas took a deep breath and let it out in a contented sigh.
“Glorious day, isn’t it?” He called.
“Lilly, take the baby,” Tom hissed and tried to shove the child into her arms. “Take her! Run!”
“I don’t recommend it.” Abraxas smiled. “You see, you’ve got probably five or ten minutes in which you can get those bullets out before those fellows shuffle off this mortal coil permanently. Blessed items being somewhat toxic to the infernal body..”
Tom snarled, and Abraxas laughed at the sound.
“You’ve been corrupted little imp, look at you. Doing God’s work?” Abraxus shook his head mockingly. “Honestly child, I’m not angry… just disappointed. As the good book says though, repent and come back to the fold. You can keep your human, of course, her corruption has been most impressive.” He held out a hand. “Come now, give me the abomination. Even God doesn’t want it. Give her to me. Then you can save your friends and go back to your orgy of debauchery like a good boy.”
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Tom’s nostrils flared and his eyes burned with demonic fire. He glanced down at the wriggling, crying baby in his arms and then at Lilly. Her expression was contorted in terrible pain as she struggled to breathe. “Take her,” Tom snarled.
Lilly whimpered but Tom gave her a warning look and she crumpled to the ground with her face hidden in her hands. Tom hurried forward to his brother’s side and put the baby down gently on the grass. He hooked one hand under Cain’s arm and bunched the other in the back of John’s ruined shirt. With great effort, he dragged them back to where Lilly still sobbed. Neither watched as Abraxus gathered the baby up and left without a backward glance.
“Lilly help me!” Tom sobbed.
She managed to look up but the sight of John’s chest, riddled as it was with tiny bleeding holes, made her gag.
“Pull it together!” Tom snapped. “There’s a knife in the door compartment of the car, get it. Go!”
Lilly scrabbled through the grass to the car and yanked the door open without standing. She found the knife easily enough and hurried back to John’s side. Across from her, Tom’s body had changed. She’d seen his red eyes and burnished skin but had never before noticed his nails, elongated and razor sharp. While Cain struggled to breathe, Tom carefully used his nails to slice gashes over the holes in his brother’s chest and lift out the buckshot that riddled him.
“You have to get the balls out,” Tom told her. “Cut them out.”
“I,” she gagged and nearly threw up, “I can’t, it’ll hurt him!”
“If you don’t he’ll die! Crazy motherfucker got hold of blessed buckshot!” As Lilly watched, Tom lifted another little ball bearing from his brother’s chest and it steamed and hissed as though it were scalding hot. “He’ll be fine, he’ll heal, but not if you don’t get them out!”
She whimpered and tore John’s ruined shirt open to reveal the constellation of bleeding holes in his chest. The knife shook in her hands and she held her breath as she gingerly put the point to the edge of one of the holes. Her hands shook terribly. She sat there unmoving until John’s bloodied hand wrapped around her wrist and she screamed once in fright.
“It’s okay.” He wheezed. “Lilly, It’s okay. I promise. Just do it,”
Across from them, Tom had already removed about half of the buckshot from Cain’s chest and the perforated demon winced and groaned his way through his brother’s ministrations. Lilly bit her lip, took a deep breath and held it as she sliced cleanly through the first hole. “Jesus…” she whimpered.
“Get in there, Lil,” Tom urged. “I’ll be with you in a minute, but you gotta get ‘em out!”
Her vision swam and all the colour drained from her face as she pressed two fingers into the widened wound and felt around for the little metal ball that fizzed and hissed in John’s flesh.
“You gave him the baby!” They all looked up as Metatron, barely restrained by Telemachus, charged from the tree line, with wide horrified eyes. “You just let him take my daughter!”
“No!” Tom snarled. “You let him take her. I made a decision to save my brother and my friend and live to fight another day.” He struggled to his feet covered in his brother’s blood. “Help him.” He pointed at John.
Lilly had managed to make a second cut and fished around inside for the blessed metal. Telemachus moved up beside her and nudged her with his knee. “Move.” He held a hand out over John’s chest and smoothly raised it a few inches. The buckshot lifted out just as smoothly and when Telemachus twitched his hand it flew off and embedded itself into the wooden railing around the verandah. John cried out and half rolled over to clutch at his chest.
“He took her!” Metatron cried again.
Tom crouched beside Cain and reached his other hand out to grip John’s shoulder. “If I hadn’t given her up they’d be dead, and I can’t fight Abraxas by myself so he’d have taken her anyway and you’d now be screwed. Lilly, breathe baby, it’s okay.”
Lilly whimpered and struggled to calm her breathing until John put an arm around her. “I got ya, s’okay. We’re okay.” He grimaced, “That stung.”
“You need to get her back,” Telemachus said sternly.
“How about you go get her back and we’ll convalesce?” John snapped. Lilly looked at him sharply but he waved her off, “Alright, alright I’m getting up.”
“How are we going to find her?” Lilly asked.
Tom shrugged, “We’re not.” Lilly levelled her horrified stare at him but like John, he waved her off. “Calm down, I mean ‘we can’t’, but the flyboys can. Wouldn’t hurt ‘em to get off their angelic asses and, you know, parent their own crotch-dropping.”
“We can track her,” Telemachus agreed, “but you know as well as I do we can’t get involved.”
The laugh Tom gave was sharp and harsh, “course not, getting involved with worldly affairs is a no-no. Tell me, buddy, how exactly did you manage to impregnate a woman with a perpetually limp noodle?”
“You’re not helping, Thomas,” Telemachus sighed. “Just shut up and get in the car. We’ll guide you as you drive.”
Then they were gone. Lilly frowned, “how exactly will they guide us?”
“You’ll see.” Cain looked back at the burning cabin, “they could at least have put that out. Better call the fire brigade from the road. Could burn the whole fuckin’ bush out.”
Neither Cain nor John had spare clothing in the car, so they sat hunkered down in the back. Lilly had pointed out that if a passing police car happened to notice two shirtless men covered with blood in the front, it was pretty likely they’d get pulled over. Initially, she’d insisted on driving, but Tom had overruled her and the first time they received their ‘directions’, she was just as glad. Telemachus appeared under a sign indicating that the next left went to Emerald. A heartbeat later he was gone.