Daemons Are Forever

They destroy lives, and eat souls. And the family brought them here, for its own purposes. We should have known they’d get out of control.

“Sometimes they take over whole towns,” said Harry unexpectedly. “They start with one family, and then take over the entire community, house by house. When they’ve taken control of everyone, they force the town out of our reality and into some kind of pocket dimension, hidden from human detection. Then they use this hidden base to launch attacks on adjoining towns. Luckily they always give themselves away by being too greedy. The family wipes these towns out as fast as we find them.

“I was involved in one such cleansing, a few years back. It was in France, down in the Bordeaux region. They call such towns ghoulvilles. The local authorities sent out a call for help after they stumbled across one during a routine missing persons investigation. I was the nearest field agent, so I took the call. Joined up with a French demon specialist; Mallorie, her name was. A bit bookish, but she knew her business. The Armourer whipped up a dimensional key and shipped it out to us by the usual u

He stopped for a moment, remembering. His face was calm, reflective, but his eyes were haunted.

“Terrible place. Every nightmare you’ve ever had. The light was fierce, almost too bright for human eyes to bear. The gravity fluctuated, and directions seemed to switch back and forth when you weren’t looking. The air was barely breathable, and it stank of blood and offal and rot. We’d come in hoping to find someone to rescue, but it soon became clear we were too late. There were men and women and even children all over the ghoulville, but all of them were infected. The Loathly Ones had eaten their souls. The children were the worst. They tried to hide what they were, to trick us into getting too close, but they had no idea how to act like children.

“They attacked us. Not even trying to act like humans anymore. They came ru

“When we were finished, we burned the town down. Left nothing standing. It took us hours, to be sure we’d got all of them. We searched all the houses, sometimes dragging them out of hiding places under stairs, or in the backs of wardrobes. By the end, as we tramped back out of the burning ghoulville, and back to our own world, even hardened French ex-paratroopers were weeping openly. Sometimes … I dream I’m still back there, and always will be.”

He looked around. We were all listening intently. He’d dropped his armour so we could all see his face while he talked, but now he armoured up again, becoming a faceless silver statue. As though he could keep out the memories that still haunted him.

“So when we get down there,” he said, “remember; they may look like people, but they’re not. They’re demons. Kill them for what they’ve done. And for what they make us do, to put things right again.”

The watching Droods nodded, and murmured quietly to each other, hefting their weapons. Mr. Stab was still looking down at the plain, apparently unmoved by what he’d heard. But I liked Harry rather better, for hearing what he’d been through. And I even liked Roger Morningstar a little more, when he put an arm around Harry’s silver shoulders, to comfort him.

“So,” said Mr. Stab, still not looking around. “The infected humans are drones. And that thing down there is …?”

“A nest,” I said. “And we’re the exterminators.”

“Splendid,” said Mr. Stab. “When do we start?”

Janissary Jane split us up into the arranged squads, with designated team leaders. Every group had some torced Droods, to lead the charge and, hopefully, soak up some of the initial punishment. She gave us a brief refresher talk on tactics, which basically boiled down to Don’t bunch up. Don’t get separated. Kill everything down there that isn’t us and Destroy that thing they’re building before they can get it working. There were no last-minute questions, no discussions or dropouts. We were all ready for action. Molly called up the spell she’d been working on since we got there, and a great wind arose, picked us all up surprisingly gently, and carried us down the side of the cliff to deposit us safely on the Nazca Plain.

We all started ru

More of them came ru

The fighting had barely begun, and already we were hopelessly outnumbered. But I couldn’t call for a retreat. I’d committed us to this assault. We had to go on, and we had to win, before the Loathly Ones could open their gateway. Our two forces tore into each other, silver fists beating down inhuman faces, but already a terrible sense of hopelessness was seeping through me.

There were just so many of them…

The drones hit us hard, all of them supernaturally strong from the alien energies burning within their stolen, dead, or dying bodies. They threw themselves upon the first torced Droods, trying to bowl them over through sheer force of numbers. When that didn’t work, they clung on to silver arms, clasped silver legs, trying to force them off balance and drag them down. The armoured Droods stood firm, striking about them with their silver fists. Human skulls smashed and splintered under the terrible force of these blows, necks snapped, and heads were torn right off bodies. The armoured Droods broke backs and arms and legs, smashed in chests, and stamped on heads. Blood and guts flew on the air, and ran in streams down gleaming silver armour. Dozens of drones died in the first few moments of the battle, but the sheer mass of numbers soaked up the momentum of our charge, and all too soon we were stopped dead in our tracks. Killing and killing, but making no progress.

The Droods without armour opened up with the weapons the Armourer had provided. Heavy-duty hand ca