Sacrifice: The Demontouched Saga (Book 5) Read Free Page A

frankly scares me.
    She points her finger about two inches from my nose. “You will sit your butt down on that table, Mitchell Butler, and do as you are told.”
    I gasp, but keep my mouth shut as I don’t care to test her wrath. She takes her time as she looks me over, pressing any spot that looks remotely bruised until she gets a reaction out of me. The type of thing my mother used to do as a kid. She was the worrying type and I was her blood, so it made sense. Coming from this woman is almost frightening.
    “You don’t look that bad,” she says, turning around. “But you need to take it easy for a few days.”
    As much as I want to take her advice, I don’t have a few days to relax. Until I get Sara back, the only way I’m taking any time off is if my body physically shuts down.
    I refrain from telling her that however as she would just reward that remark with an IV drop with some sleeping medicine.
    “Mind some company?” Nal asks entering the room.
    “Come on in,” I say, scooting over to make room on the bed.
    “You aren’t going to believe this, but the men found three more orbs across the compound. All set up like the one you went after.”
    “Wow, so we have all four?”
    He shakes his head. “We got two. The one you saved and one more. They escaped with the other two.”
    “How?” I ask. “Stevens was supposed to have the other side covered.”
    “He did. But it’s hard to corner a demon who can jump over the walls.”
    I nod knowing it can be hard to pin a demon period. Even with my abilities.
    “How many did we lose?”
    “About thirty,” Nal says. “Which is amazing considering how well armed those people were.”
    “That’s a lot better than I expected.”
    He nods.
    “We should have plenty of weapons and ammunition now,” I say.
    “More than you could imagine,” he says. “Good timing on it too. We’ll need all of it soon.”
    “The only ammunition we need are more people like you,” Azrael says, entering the room. For the first time since I’ve met him his hood is relaxed on his shoulders, exposing his long brown hair.
    “Or you,” I say, smiling. “Not that I’m complaining, but I thought you would be in Minnesota for a while yet.”
    “I got there too late,” he says, sitting down on the stool next to the bed. “By the time I got to Hallock, Balthazel was long gone.”
    Az, by mere technicality, is supposed to be a neutral party in this fight. As a fallen angel, most would believe that he would be on Lucifer’s side in the war. Double that when you consider that he left heaven for the same reasons as Hell’s fearless leader.
    Fortunately for humanity, that’s where the similarities between the two fade. While he left heaven because he refused to worship humanity, he still felt the need to protect us. He didn’t hate God for creating us, he just felt like everything he created should be on even footing.
    “I guess he must be close if you came back here.”
    He nods. “The demons are on the move. In the last two months the amount of demonic activity in the area has nearly tripled according to my sources. Balthazel must want in on the fun.”
    Balthazel is fairly high in the ranks of the demon armies. While he isn’t a commander like Abaddon, he is still high enough on the food chain to make things happen. At first glance, his powers almost seem to be weak or pedestrian, but that would miss the point. Through the history of mankind we have been through countless weather disasters, Balthazel was responsible for some of the worst. The most recent example I know of was Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
    He has been rather quiet for the last few years from the reports I’ve heard, only surfacing recently.
    I pick up the glowing orb I placed on the table next to my bed, the second in my now growing collection. I place both my hands on the thing, trying to draw the souls into my body the same way I would out of a person.
    “Have you tried that spell of yours?” Nal