Standing at roughly eight feet tall, Lawsons human visage had apparently eloped with my chances of getting out of this without a shitload of trouble, and the shotgun wedding was just in time to give birth to a giant fucking mess. Alex was likewise encased in hysterical civilian, one of his brunette companions, Abby I think, was clinging to him wailing as she stared at the body that had been under that blanket with Lawson, the other having bolted at the first opportunity.

The cold wind whipping through the clearing picked up speed, the unearthly howl of the night blending with screams of terror into a harmony of bone chilling fear. I looked over at my brother, his face having gone pale “Alex what the actual fuck? Infernals cant just change race like that, most human infernals have less that one tenth demonic blood, if they could just upgrade to higher levels of demonic power by killing hot girls, there would be way fewer tens in the world.”

Alex shook his head as he frantically tried to reach around his cheerleader shaped limpet to draw one of his knives “He didn’t upgrade anything, the idiot got himself possessed. Lawson isn’t home any more, that’s a greater imp.” The screaming gale around us carried the unmistakable scent of brimstone as the snow swirled around us, snapping tree branches and dousing the flickering fire in the barrel.

I just gave him a dumbfounded look “An IMP? Imps are supposed to be irritating little pests. Dad says theyre basically the rats of hell. That thing is almost the height of a basketball hoop.” Manifested true born demons are rare as hell. To be fair imps aren’t actually full demon any more than any other infernal, they aren’t even really from hell as much being native to the areas of limbo nearest to the infernal realms, but still, despite knowing the rep demons have, I figured their version of the cockroach would be tiny irritating little nuisances, not a red version of Andre the Giant on steroids.

Alex just shook his head, having finally managed to slip a nastily sharp miserichord from one of the sheathes he keeps hidden on him “First of all I said it’s a GREATER imp. Second of all, Imps are third generation infernal, so they aren’t very high in hells hierarchy, but any infernal can get strong if it lives long enough, and that one seems pretty fucking old. Regardless we need to kill the damn thing. If it manages to establish a portal to its nest this whole town is going to be swarming with the damn things, that’s what happened to Sommersville in Iowa, and Ali’s Dad is still paying off that damn nuke.”

I winced at that. The member of the Tierney family that had screwed up that operation had been killed by his family for the failure. Our foster…something, Allison, one of my best friends and my older brothers fiancé, was a Tierney, and she had ranted for weeks about the stupidity of her cousin Doug and how she wished she could’ve shot the stupid asshole herself (and no I’m not paraphrasing).

Doing anything as overt as a nuclear strike on sovereign US soil had cost the families decades worth of political favors and burned dozens of bridges, not to mention the financial problems it had caused. Dad had expounded at length on how glad he was that our family didn’t have any members that stupid. It wasn’t so much not stopping the portal that had every one so angry, as much as not calling for backup because of pride. That incident was the closest to an actual infernal invasion anyone had heard of and people were understandably still jumpy about the whole thing.

Admittedly the incursion in iowa hadn’t been anything as benign as imps, greater or otherwise, but still, if we didn’t put the thing down, or failing that, call for help if it gave us the slip this could quickly turn pear shaped. I gave Alex a nod and pushed Sarah and her friend back to hide behind a tree while he took off for the gas station where we’d left all the really nasty stuff we brought just in case. With the civvies out of the way and heavy weapons incoming all that was left was to distract the imp.

I gave a heavy sigh, I always ended up playing decoy. I put my fingers to my lips and cut a shrill whistle through the howling wind around us. “Hey big red! Yeah that’s right ugly I’m talking to you.” I didn’t know shit about this thing or its kind, so anything personal was out, and it wasn’t Lawson so I couldn’t use that either, but nobody liked being called ugly. I scooped up an icy rock off the ground and lobbed it at the things head (which I missed because throwing a rock ten feet in the air in a snowstorm is way harder than it sounds, but I still got its attention by hitting its shoulder) “Oh sorry. I was aiming for your face, I figured any damage I could do would be an improvement.”

The imp gave me the kind of look people often give gnats that just wont stop buzzing around in front of their faces, but it was focused on me and not the civilians so hey, small miracles. A massive red hand tipped with gleaming claws lashed out and a sizzling ball of flames came hurtling towards my head. I screamed (in a very low pitch because that’s totally how I scream) and threw myself down in the snow, barely avoiding the hissing torrent of flame that scythed through the freezing air right where my head had been.

At this point I was desperately missing my rifle, if not to shoot with then at least as a makeshift club to try to beat the damn thing with. I felt snow slide down my short as I rolled to avoid a stomping cloven hoof through the ribcage. I scrambled back up, only managing to avoid getting decapitated with a hooved roundhouse because I slipped on the goddamn snow. It seemed that the imp had gotten a face full of steam after that flame burst and had decided to switch to a brute force approach.

At this point I was sore and angry and just about out of energy so when I heard Alex shout “Down” convincing my body to drop was pretty damn easy. I heard a swish over my head and looked up to see a fucking spear embed itself in the imps chest. I spun around to glare at my brother, still on my knees and he just shrugged “Sorry, but I did tell you to duck.”