A Cat's Chance in Hell Read Free Page A

getting ready. There was a hushed, anxious kind of excitement running through them. Byron had called up everyone he could get hold of (and a few he couldn’t); he was obviously going with the concept of ‘throw the kitchen sink’ at them. Mind you, half a dozen Demons coming out of the Etherworld at once, was something you would want to throw the kitchen sink at, if that kitchen sink happened to contained a nuclear bomb. Demons hated everyone, other Demons included. They very rarely, if ever, made any kind of attack in numbers over two or three, and generally attacked alone. He briefly wondered if the Magi at SMV Headquarters could have been mistaken, but shook that off. They had never been wrong about an attack in all the time he’d been part of the SMV. Sure, they missed some attacks, it was impossible to monitor every inch of a city the size of this one, but when they said there was an attack coming they were right.
    He looked around again re-counting the numbers of SMV members who were milling around in an ordered sort of chaos. Normal Elimination Teams consisted of two Hunters, one Magus who was strong at sending Demons back to the Etherworld, known as a Banisher, and a Clean-up Crew in a specially kitted out van. The Clean-up Crew consisted of a Magus who was gifted at wiping human memories, known as an Eraser, a Medic, and a Driver/Muscle person to help with hauling bodies when necessary. The Driver was most often a Werewolf but occasionally a Magus or Shapeshifter. There were different team set-ups for captures and for street patrols, but those details he left to Byron and the rest of the SMV Council, it wasn’t for him to worry about, and as long as they teamed him and Gabi together as much as possible he didn’t interfere. Tonight he saw all three of the other Hunters; Douglas, a 6 ft 6 Shapeshifter who knew more about weapons than he and Gabi put together; Matthew, a Werewolf, particularly welcome tonight as Werewolf saliva was fatally poisonous to Demons; and Lance, a very powerful Magus who could launch fireballs at you as easily as he could set you alight where you stood, he was affectionately called Zippo by the rest of the Team, and nobody tread too hard on his toes – not even Gabi. Kyle didn’t know all the other members who had shown up; he knew a few of the ‘Offensive’ Magi, the ones who had some kind of gift that could be used in a fight, and most of the Banishers he had worked with before, but the Clean-up crews he rarely interacted with and they were switched out on a regular basis, he knew some faces but not names. The Medics he knew intimately of course, both of them had patched him up more often than he cared to remember. He blew out a deep breath, hoping that the Medics wouldn’t be needed tonight.
    Gabi had resorted to muttering and cussing to herself and Kyle glanced back at her. He almost grinned, but thought better of it and bit it back at the last second. Her vocabulary got more inventive in direct proportion to her adrenaline level. She’d had a short temper and florid vocabulary for as long as he’d known her. He turned back to the van as his memories finally cracked through the controlled mask he’d tried to cover his grin with. He started to get various weapons strapped to his own body as an excuse to keep his face turned away from her, as he remembered their very first meeting.

 
    Chapter 2
     
    Saying that he switched schools a lot as a child was rather like saying the Pope prayed a lot. In fact, he couldn’t remember spending more than two terms at any one school. His mother was a single parent, and they lived on the small wage she made from casual work on farms or in factories or restaurants, moving on once work dried up or his mother felt it was time to go. When he got into his teens he finally put his foot down and told her if they moved again he was dropping out of school permanently. That seemed to be the incentive she needed to settle down and keep one job. She