The Devil's Apprentice by Patrick Stewart (polar express read aloud TXT) 📕

jump from the ground up and over the roof of the warehouse. A mean feat, no doubt. His lips spread apart in a smile.

“You scream funny,” Karen said, as she held out a hand.

Alex stopped smiling. “I do?” he asked, as he took her hand and climbed to his feet.

Karen nodded, then paused, as if mulling it over. “Actually, maybe your scream is normal. It’s just, I don’t recall ever hearing a Demon Hunter scream.”

Alex, who was dusting his clothes when she said that, stared at her, his eyes narrow. Was she was mocking him? But Karen had moved on. Literally. She stood by the white door that led out of the darkened room. Alex followed after her. Walking past the wooden desk with the widescreen computer, he stood behind Karen as she opened the door.

They’d broken into the first-floor office of the warehouse. From there, a set of stairs led down onto the floor of the warehouse.

It was big. Much bigger than it looked possible from the front. It was rectangular in shape. There were large tinted glass panels on the wall, and moonlight shone in, giving the place a blue tinge. Strange, because Alex didn’t recall the moon being visible in the sky.

Karen climbed down the stairs. With both blades in hand, she was like a silent ninja. Alex on the other hand, not so much. The damned steps creaked and the silent night accentuated their cries. Twice, she turned to glare at him as he trod heavy, and both times, he mouthed exaggerated apologies.

Once at the bottom, they navigated around the large crates until they came to what appeared to a showroom in the centre of the warehouse. Surrounded on all sides by large crates, the floor opened up to furniture displayed in a showroom format. Glass coffee tables surrounded in a square by leather settees.

Karen slumped onto the armrest of one of the sofas. “Where are the demons?”

It was a good question. Alex had been thinking the same. This place did not look like a human-body-parts-smuggling base of operations for demons. Said demons were supposed to be living here too. It was too quiet and too tidy for that.

“This isn’t normal,” Karen muttered.

She glanced around warily and her blades held defensively, as if she expected a demon to jump out from behind one of the crates. But none did. It was silent, dead silent. No sounds of any movement.

“Maybe the intel was wrong?” Alex asked.

Karen shook her head. “I got the intel myself. Marvin was telling the truth.”

Alex was about to ask how she could be so sure, but he stopped as their eyes met. Torture. She’d tortured him. Of course she had. He wondered why he was surprised. He doubted there were any demon rights organisations that would come to Marvin’s aid. It was a cruel world, the one occupied by demons and Demon Hunters.

“What now?” Alex asked.

Karen climbed to her feet. Feeling deflated, her blades hung loosely by her sides. “I’m going to kill Marvin.”

She stated it as a fact, and Alex didn’t doubt her. But there was nothing here. No sign of demons living here, of ever having lived here. They were about to head back the way they had come when Alex spotted it.

The shadow swept across the floor to his left. He looked up at the large crate, the one it had vanished behind. He felt around for Karen, his eyes still on the crate, he found her ass. He could feel her eyes on him now. Playful eyes.

Alex let go of her ass and pointed at the crate. “I think there’s something behind it.”

Karen glanced towards it. It was just a crate. Nothing happened. No demon jumped out from behind it.

“What do you think you saw?”

“I don’t think. I definitely saw a shadow,” Alex said defensively. “It was really big.”

“Shadows sometimes are,” Karen said.

Alex shook his head. This was more than simply a stretched shadow. The shape was strange. It was big in a hulking way, but with… they seemed like horns on the back, but sharp, like spikes. He saw a tail too…

“Demons don't have spikes on their backs,” Karen said, when he told her as much. “Or tails,” she added, as an afterthought. “At least, most don’t.”

Karen raised her blades as if sensing something. There was a sudden roar. The crate rose up off the ground. Karen and Alex got their first proper sight of the beast behind it.

It was fucking huge.

Its body was over ten feet tall. Its arms were enormous, like the legs of a T-Rex. The skin was scaly and a reptilian-like green. The creature was naked, much like an animal would be. It most resembled an overgrown standing crocodile with enormous legs and arms bulging with muscle.

“That’s not a demon,” Karen mumbled.

The beast through the crate at them. Karen slid aside, moving out of the crate’s way. Alex stood still, frozen to the spot, his eyes wide and his mouth open as the wooden crate came down on him.

Chapter 23

 

 

 

 

Alex watched in horror as the large wooden crate hurtled towards him in slow motion. It seemed to take forever as it inched towards him. Yet he was still unable to react, to move out of the way. No, he seemed better able to analyse the crate than use his brain to move his other muscles.

The wood was of a lighter beige colour. The planks were half a foot wide, each separated by a gap of a couple of inches. Through the gap, Alex could see white foam wrapped around something.

As he stood there like an idiot, his brain continued to work and conjure up completely useless things. Right now, it was conjuring images of his death. The bottom of the crate would