We’d tracked Denuriel to the slums of New York, where the commission buildings housed families torn apart by the prevailing drug and gang culture. The city had tried to clean up its image, fixing some of the houses and providing an opportunity for employment to many of the people who resided here. But the stench of despair and resignation hung in the air and had attracted many unscrupulous denizens of the Underworld here. Denuriel was the fifth, and he was also by far the strongest. A prince of Hell, ruler of the Upper Circle Two. He was a demon of lust, and one of the most dangerous because of it.
The father was blessing me and Matilda, the only two members of this strike force. There were only two of us because this was a demon from the second circle, and any more or less and the mission would almost certainly fail. The other members – Rolf, Jonathan, Stefan, Marie, Julietta – remained behind on alert, in case we did not succeed. The priest hummed a religious chant. It was the Lord’s Prayer. I felt the presence of God and smiled. Matilda smiled too, or at least I think she did. We were both wearing face masks and filters just in case Denuriel was a plague-demon variant. The priest finished chanting and I flicked the safety off my modified H&K MP5. Matilda did the same. I gave the priest brief nod, and he bowed his head. Together with Matilda, we entered the derelict building, its walls peeling and rotting. The smell would have been horrible if we weren’t wearing the filters; there were dirty clothes stained with faeces and urine piled in one corner and I could feel the aura of despair cling to me through all my body armour.
We progressed up the stairs as silently as we could, towards the source of demonic activity. The higher we climbed the more the filth increased, and the stronger the presence of Denuriel became. After a few more flights of stairs, we reached the top level, and an image of utter depravity assaulted all our senses, even through the masks. There were men and women sitting blankly on top of a bloodstained floor, dressed in nothing more than rags and silently chewing on what seemed to be one of the many dismembered body parts scattered around this level. The walls were pulsating in our augmented vision, throbbing with an ungodly energy that was only made visible because of our inauguration into the Militant Chapter. They were carved with runes that projected a fierce amount of energy, but in amidst it all I could see the demon we were after, standing casually at the far end of the large mess hall, though I could not make out his shape.
I signalled Matilda to halt and she did, though I could hear retching as she took note of the full depravity of the scene. As we drew closer, though, the people that were sitting blank-eyed suddenly snapped into focus, and they glared at us with a furious bloodlust. They picked themselves up off the ground and charged with an inhuman wail, teeth bared and eyes wide. I raised the MP5 to my shoulder and Matilda did the same. Then with an utterance of Luke 23:34 – Forgive them Father, for they know not what they do – I pulled the trigger and riddled their bodies full of blessed bullets.
