Chapter 3: Yekong

Confused, the demon stared at me before spitting out an order. “Flee!”

Its voice was the sound of boots on shards of glass. I felt the compulsion, but easily shook it off. It was as strong as that of most of my siblings, but a pale shadow of the power to compel that Kallista employed.

Instead of running, I stepped forward and sunk a fist into its kidney. It looked down to where I had punched it and then back at me, more confusion obvious on its face. It was likely wondering how I had ignored what had always worked for it in the past. In turn, I wondered how Jennifer’s had so easily swept away the creature’s command. My father had been a Nephilim, my grandfather an angel. They say the demons are fallen angels. Maybe there was a link. Was that why I was immune?

But that didn’t explain Jennifer. What was different about her?

I followed the punch with a rising elbow to where its nose should be. By that time, Siobhan had gotten to her feet, sunk one arm around the creature’s neck and used the other arm to pin the first in place. Using her grip on its skull as leverage, she tightened the grip. The demon should be struggling for air or collapsing, but it merely stood there, supporting all of her weight, ignoring the lack of oxygen.

As it reached over its shoulder towards Siobhan, it kicked me in the chest, throwing me back at least ten feet. While I scrambled up, Siobhan screamed in pain and was thrown against the wall.

I slowly pulled the knives loaned to me by my brother from their sheaths and listened to their low humming as I closed on the demon. My slow approach was tactical, and when I was within striking distance, I accelerated. Moving as quickly as I had, the demon stepped back, grabbed Jennifer, and yanked her up as a shield.

She was doing something odd with her fingers, slamming them into her chest.

The demon now had a human shield in place between itself and me. That might’ve been effective against anyone else, but not against someone who had been fighting to the death since she was a child. When I was young, I had fought other children. As I grew older, I fought grown men. As a young adult, I began fighting animals and small groups of men. I fought, I fought, and I fought. Reaching past a shield wasn’t new.

My father’s rage swept through my veins as I shifted the position of the knife in my left hand, reached for Jennifer’s shoulder, and gently pulled her forward. As I did so, I also moved forward, reached past her with my right hand, and stabbed the demon in the back.

The humming grew louder, the knife singing of its thirst, and the demon matched its noise with a bellow of anger and pain. Its odor permeated my senses. It smelled of old sweat and hot iron.

Siobhan was on her feet again and had managed to grab a scarf from somewhere. As the creature lifted Jennifer off the ground, Siobhan snuck up, slipped the scarf over its head, and used it to pull the creature off balance. Jennifer pulled herself out of its grasp and I kicked the demon in its ribs as hard as I could.

Off-balance, it slipped to the floor. As I kicked again, Siobhan wrapped another loop around its neck and began pulling. The creature slid backwards and when it reached up to grab her arm or the scarf, I launched another kick, this time into its jaw. I was about to launch myself onto its body, stabbing it as quickly as possible, when it suddenly rolled to its right, grabbed Siobhan’s wrist and yanked her towards me.

Quickly pulling my hands back, I made sure that she wasn’t cut as the demon scrambled to his feet, ran towards the bay window in the front of the house and leaped through the glass.

I quickly went to the window, ready to follow, when I heard Jennifer moan. Cursing, I went back to check on my friend. She was all right. Bewildered and dealing with the aftermath of a flood of adrenaline, but not seriously harmed. Siobhan was a different story. As we had planned, I got them out the rear door, past the backyard neighbors, to the street opposite where we were, across that street, to the side and past another house, and into another street where a van was waiting for us.

Siobhan grabbed my arm fiercely and leaned forward. “Call Finn. Tell him we lost all of the equipment except for the drones.”

She leaned back and rested prone against the side of the van as we drove. Everyone was silent until we got onto the highway. Eventually, she spoke again.

“So, who’s going to explain what the hell just happened?”

Jokes weren’t my strong suit. I wasn’t sure if her use of the word hell was intentional. I barely knew Jim, the man employed by Jennifer and Finn, but he was driving. Should I be honest while he was within hearing? I didn’t care. The worst that would happen would be he thought I was a crazy Chinese lady telling silly stories.

“It was a demon. You have heard stories of such things?”

Clutching her side, she looked at me with skepticism. “I’ve heard stories. That’s all they are. Stories.”

I didn’t know what to say. If she preferred to not accept the truth, that was her right. Still, she had asked the question. “You felt what it could do when it told you not to use weapons. It’s power ... Is that the right word? Strength? Ability? With commanding you was not very strong. You were able to utilize other things except obvious and clear weapons. If it had more power, that would not have been possible.

“You saw it take a bullet. You felt that strength. I think you somehow felt it wasn’t right. Whether you like it or not, Siobhan, it was a demon. You have seen other things that were harder to believe. You helped my brother against arms smugglers after he had died and come back. You and Jim. Is this so hard to believe?”

She reached down to the bag between her feet, pulled out a small plastic container, and chewed up some pills. “Naproxen sodium. Don’t worry. I’m not taking anything stronger until I see a doctor. That’s complete bull, by the way. Demon? Ridiculous. I don’t know what it was, but demons don’t exist. Whatever it was, how did it affect me, but the two of you were fine?”

I shrugged, wondering how much I should tell her. “My father ... He wasn’t normal. We all inherited something from him. Me, Robert, Alistair, Kallista, all of us. What the demon did to you, it can’t be done to us.”

She shifted and took a deep breath. “Great. Things just get weirder. Okay, let’s ignore the big question of who and what your father was.” She turned to her sister-in-law. “How did you ignore it, Jen?”

Jennifer had been sitting there quietly, her fingertips running over the runes on the outside of the old pistol. “It’s part of, you know, the part of me that everyone gets worried about. I guess it’s a bit of what happened to me in Australia. Why I have to keep counting things, my problems with obsessions, my single-mindedness. It’s all part of the same thing. It doesn’t matter how persuasive someone is, if I don’t want to do it, they can’t force me.”

Siobhan barked a short, sad laugh, and I just stared at her. She finally took a deep breath and met my eyes. “I’ve tracked down a legendary assassin and killed him in front of a giant statue of Moloch. I killed my way to the top of a ring of criminals who were using slaves for pornography. I rescued one of my students from a kidnapper who was holding her in a Las Vegas casino just before its demolition. I’ve had my share of weird. Seriously, you helped me rescue a little girl caught between Chinese triads and the Russian mob. Shouldn’t that be enough? Now I’ve got to deal with a demon? And Jen, what the hell were you doing poking yourself in the chest?

Jennifer looked embarrassed. “Nothing. I saw someone do something once and I ... never mind.”

Siobhan called out to Jim. “Did you reach my brother?”

“Yeah. He said all the equipment was clean, and you wore gloves. Shouldn’t be a problem. The drones have been collected.”

I was concerned with how Siobhan kept leaning to her right as we sat in the back of the van. “Would you like us to stop at a hospital?”

She shook her head. “No. I think I fractured a rib. It’s not that bad. I’ll tape it up when we get home. Breathing hurts, but there’s no punctured lung. I’ve had worse.”

I wasn’t sure what the word was. I thought it might be aghast. Jennifer looked aghast as Siobhan spoke casually of a fractured rib. Siobhan wasn’t a normal woman. She was courageous to the point of insanity. The woman had just fought a demon with a scarf. I knew what she was made of because we were much the same. If she said she would be fine, she will be fine. We settled in for the drive back to Montauk and it was a half-hour before I said anything again.

“Finn said he knew where this man that sent the demon works. I’m going there tomorrow to end this.”

There was silence for a few seconds before Siobhan replied. “We’re going. Not you. Us.”

Jennifer jumped in. “You won’t be alone.”

Jim spoke as he drove. “You’re going there tomorrow? Are you people crazy? I get it, it would take a hydrogen bomb to slow Yekong down, but I’ve never seen Jennifer be so quiet. I’m wondering if she’s slipping into shock. And Siobhan thinks that she is fine because it is not a collapsed lung. What’s wrong with waiting a week or at least a few days? So, one of them escaped. Got it. The rest are dead. You think they’re just going to re-up and make another run tomorrow? You’ve got time. At the very least, they have to figure out where the families have been moved to.”

I waited for the others to respond. When they didn’t, I spoke up. It was clear that he either didn’t hear us or didn’t think we were serious about the demon. “We learned things that we can’t let go of. Things that need to be taken care of right away. You are right, though. I shall go and handle this. Siobhan and Jennifer can recuperate.”

As soon as I finished speaking, they both declared that they would be going. Hearing this, Jim laughed.

“If the three of you say you’re going, you’re going. You’re the most stubborn threesome I’ve ever seen. You can do your Charlie’s Angels impression, but I’m not staying out this time.”

My eyes immediately shifted to the back of his head as I watched him merge into traffic. What did he know about me and my genetics and who told him? None of my siblings were stupid. We all knew what would happen if the wrong people found out about us. I would again be captured, but this time it wouldn’t be as a fighter, instead I would be a lab rat.

And I could see how he thought Jennifer might also be descended from an angel. There was certainly something... different about her. But Jennifer was the product of training, will, and repressed rage. And who was Charlie?

I decided to keep an eye on him, but accepted that he would be there to help. Jim was competent in hand-to-hand fighting and exceptionally talented with a rifle.

Siobhan was calling her brother and convincing Finn to get architectural designs for the building we would be visiting. While she did that, I used the phone that Finn had given me to call Kallista. I needed someone that I trusted to keep Jennifer safe while Siobhan and I did what we had to. Alistair was in Europe trying to find the man he used to be, and Robert had disappeared after what happened in Denver.

Kallista answered after the second ring. “Are you all right?”

“Yes. I am fine physically. Something odd has happened here. Would you be able to fly to New York?”

“Are Janelle and Tony all right?”

“Yes. We are all fine.”

Her voice sounded less panicked as she replied. “When do you need me? I have to be in Connecticut the week after next. I could take the ferry across the sound and spend a day or two in Montauk.”

“Tonight. We were attacked by a demon. We shall be hunting it down tomorrow.”

“Wait, what? A demon? A literal demon? And who is we?”

I explained everything that I could, speaking softly in the hopes that Jim would not hear. He obviously already knew more than I could’ve ever anticipated. She promised that when she hung up, she would have her pilot and ground people get her jet ready and they would leave as soon as possible. When I was done, I put the phone back in my pocket, stretched out, and closed my eyes. Jennifer snorted. When I popped one eye opened I saw her staring at me, shaking her head.

“What?”

“You can just go to sleep?”

I shrugged. “I have slept after and before worse. Nothing is going to happen to us in the van. There is no reason not to rest.”

When we returned to Montauk, Finn had the doctor that ran the clinic he funded with Jennifer come over to his home and check on Siobhan. While that was happening, Siobhan treated it as a nuisance and spent the time being prodded and taped-up, speaking to her brother and formulating plans.

They needed a reason for us to be on the grounds of the building. If we just showed up at their doorstep loaded with weapons, they would lock the building down and call the authorities.

Finn still had one of the men with him that had worked on the facial recognition software. The computer specialist worked his magic and found who the criminals used for catering. Every day, they would bring in lunch for everyone in the building. He somehow managed to get into their security feed and watched three days of video from the loading bay between ten-thirty in the morning and one in the afternoon. The van with the food arrived always at eleven-thirty, did what they had to do, unloaded and distributed the food, and were back and on the road by twelve-fifteen.

Pete, Alistair’s childhood friend, owned a number of auto repair shops. Finn called him, spoke about vans and something called detailing and said we would have our own copy of that van ready to go. At that point, it was well after midnight. Yesterday had the demon behind us, today the demon and the mobster were ahead of us.

With the life I had led, falling asleep anywhere, and at any time was a valuable skill. Putting my feet up on the couch, I quickly fell asleep to the background noise of their chattering.

I felt someone touch my cheek. Springing out of sleep, I pinned that hand to my cheekbone, twisted my head, and the arm went with it. The elbow was now facing the ceiling. I sat up and put my other forearm on that elbow, pressing down.

“Stop! It’s me!” As I stood and moved in a circular motion so that the arm continued to be under my control, Kallista was ground down into the couch. Recognizing her, I let go, took a deep breath, and stepped back.

“Please do not touch me while I sleep.”

She looked at me, eyes wide, and rubbed her shoulder. “Never again. Where is Tony? Alistair and Robert are still out on their own?”

I nodded. “Tony is at the house with Janelle.”

“Okay, he can go with us, but she obviously can’t.”

“No, he cannot. One of us needs to stay here to watch over Cynthia and William and their cousins.”

I hoped that she would understand what I was saying. By one of us, I meant one of my siblings. I was sure that Finn’s security knew how to do their job, but there was a demon involved. I could reasonably expect them to stop thieves, assassins, or kidnappers. Demons? That was too much to ask.

Tony may have been the most powerful of us. It was impossible to gauge, since his ability was linked to luck. It was a slippery quality to quantify, but I had seen it at play, and it was impressive. We convinced him to stay and watch over the children. It was the same concern as the previous night. If the criminal behind this had done as much research into us as we had done into him, I did not want the children vulnerable. If I couldn’t stay behind to protect them, I wanted my brother there.

“How was your flight?”

She rolled her eyes as if it was odd for me to ask such a mundane question. “It was fine, Yekong. I need to know everything about what’s being planned. I brought you new body armor. It’s over by the door.”

“Thank you. I have decided to learn how to drive. Jim seems to be a good driver. I think I shall ask him to teach me. And...” I lowered my voice and leaned in close. “I think he knows too much about us. When I was with Jennifer and Siobhan, he called us Charlie’s Angels. I do not know who Charles is, but someone told Jim about our lineage.”

My sister just stared at me open mouth when I finished. “Are you serious?”