The fight with the giant demon had been difficult and had left serious consequences for our group. The creature had utterly destroyed our helicopter, which not only removed our way of getting out of here for the moment, it had also left Julie trapped on the ground with us. Two of our backup soldiers had been brutally slaughtered, and two of my sisters had been injured.

Dani had a broken leg, though it wasn’t a very bad break and would likely heal fine within just a day or two. For now, I’d put a splint on her leg to keep it stable so that her injury wouldn’t get any worse.

Rebecca had been hit with a spray of nasty stone and shredded metal shrapnel, though her armor had protected her from the worst of it. But even so, two sharp projectiles had managed to hit weak spots, leaving her with a hole through her upper thigh and side, both of which I’d already patched up. She had a few nasty bruises as well, but there was nothing to do with those but let them heal on their own.

“I just got off the radio,” Rebecca told us. “They’re not sending another helicopter to pick us up just yet. Brooks said to just head over to where one of the other choppers landed and catch a ride with them.”

“That isn’t going to be practical,” Julie said thoughtfully. “Each chopper was already carrying a load of eight people, not including flight crew. That means they’ll only have space on board for two of us…three if we really cram in.”

“And since there are seven of us here,” I commented, looking at my sisters, Julie, and then the two remaining backup soldiers.

“We’ll have to split up among multiple choppers,” Julie agreed.

“We can worry about that later,” Dani said with a scowl. “For now, let’s just focus on completing our mission and getting to the collection point.”

Nicole gave Julie an apologetic look and said, “Sorry you’re stuck down here with us until then.”

“Not your fault,” Julie responded with a wry smile. “Besides, I always wondered what it was like being down here with you guys.”

“Sorry you have to satisfy your curiosity this way,” Rebecca told her with a faint smile. “Now we’d better get moving before more demons show up.”

We were on the outskirts of what had once been Deacon Falls, far enough from where the bombs hit that there were still bits and pieces of buildings intact, though mostly it was just parts of the foundations. As we walked through these ruins and around the scorched remains of cars, we kept a close watch for any signs of more demons. Sure, the bombs had probably killed most of them, but as we’d already seen first-hand, we couldn’t count on all of the demons being gone.

After we’d searched for an hour, Rebecca asked the backup soldiers to check our perimeter. Once they were gone, she stared at Julie for a moment and then quickly looked to Dani, Nicole, and myself. I immediately understood what she was saying, as did Dani and Nicole. We looked back and forth for a moment, each of us nodding agreement.

“The demon problem keeps getting worse and worse,” Rebecca commented, slowly looking around at the charred ruins that surrounded us. “We’re doing everything we can, but there just aren’t enough of us.”

“But we don’t just want anyone to be an angel,” Nicole said carefully, looking directly at Julie. “We only want people we really like and trust. The only people we want to become angels are ones we want as our sister.”

“What?” Julie asked, looking at Nicole and then Rebecca with a look of confusion.

Rebecca gave Julie a smile and told her, “What Nicole is saying is that if we were actively looking to recruit a new sister…we’d ask you to join us.”

“Of course we can’t do that,” Dani added with a smirk. “That would be completely against the rules.”

Now it was my turn to grin and comment, “Of course, accidents do happen out in the field…” I was more aware of that fact than most.

Julie blinked at that and then looked back and forth between us. “You’re serious,” she blurted out in surprise. “You want me to become one of you?”

My sisters and I all nodded at that. “We like you. We trust you. You’re already a good friend and we want you to be more. We want you to be our sister.”

With that, Rebecca held out her hand, which was covered with her own blood. She’d been holding her hand against the wound on her side, and even though I’d already patched it up, enough blood had already come out to soak her uniform and armor.

For a moment, Julie just stood back, staring at Rebecca’s hand. She looked back and forth between us, gulping visibly. Then she muttered, “I can’t believe I’m doing this.” And with that, she stepped forward and grabbed Rebecca’s hand, giving it a good shake.

I grinned at that, watching as Julie pulled her own hand back and stared at the angel blood on her palm. Every one of us knew that unless she’d already been infected by the giant demon, she’d now have the angel strain seeping into her blood stream. In just a few days, she’d begin changing and before long, she’d be one of us.

“Don’t let the backup guys see that,” Nicole said quietly as she went and put a hand on Julie’s shoulder. She gave Julie a grin and added, “Welcome to the family.”

“Wait a minute,” Julie said with a look of sudden realization. She stared down at her hand and asked, “Does this mean I won’t be able to fly anymore?”

“I don’t see why not,” Rebecca answered with a faint smile.

The backup soldiers returned a minute later and we all continued on without mentioning what had happened. Though we hadn’t talked about it, I assumed that we’d feign surprise when we got back to base and ‘discovered’ that Julie had somehow come in contact with Rebecca’s blood. After her encounter with the giant demon, everyone would be relieved that she’d become infected with the angel strain rather than the demon.

“Heads up,” Rebecca called out to us. “I just heard from Captain Brooks. Another group ran into a demon and took it down with an RPG. It looks like our guy wasn’t the only one to survive the bombing.”

“We need to start carrying an RPG too,” Dani muttered. “These demons keep getting bigger and nastier.”

Less than a minute later, almost as if it had been waiting on Rebecca’s comments, a demon let out a roar from a short distance away. Almost as one, we all turned and hurried towards it. Dani was still using Nicole for support while Rebecca managed to move on her own, in spite of her injured leg. We quickly saw the source of the roar, a disgusting looking demon that vaguely resembled a 5 foot tall toad with sickly purple skin.

“Ugly bastard,” Nicole commented.

One of the backup soldiers told Julie, “Stay back… Whatever you do, don’t let it touch you.”

“I wouldn’t let that thing touch me even if it wasn’t contagious,” Julie commented, though she did back up.

The demon leapt right towards one of the backup soldiers, though Dani and Rebecca were already trying to shoot it while it was still in the air. I dove for the soldier, pulling him out of the way before the demon landed.

“Be careful,” I told the soldier, turning to shoot at the demon, though it had obviously already been hit. It was bleeding a nasty black blood from several large wounds.

After letting out a gurgling hiss, which sounded more like it had come from a sick lizard than a toad, the demon opened its mouth. I half expected a giant tongue to come shooting out, but instead, it sprayed some kind of liquid. I was already jumping to the side, pulling the soldier with me so that neither of us was hit. I didn’t know what that spray was, but I had a feeling that I’d be happier not knowing.

A moment later, the demon leapt away, getting shot one more time in the process. It hit the ground and continued try to escape, though we chased after it. After several more shots, the demon finally stopped moving.

“At least that was easier than the last one,” Dani commented with a scowl. She walked towards the demon’s body, limping badly as she did so. “And almost as ugly.”

“How the hell did this one survive the bombing?” one of the soldiers asked. “I can understand that big one. It was armored like a tank. But this thing…”

“Good point,” Rebecca responded with a scowl.

Seconds later, the other soldier called out, “Over here…”

He’d gone a short distance ahead, following the path where the demon had been trying to go. We all went to where he was standing and looked to where he was pointing. One of the building foundations went down pretty deep, revealing that it must have had a pretty large basement. But more than that, there was another hole in the bottom of the basement, one which had obviously not been man made.

“A tunnel,” Rebecca said grimly. “Some of the demons must have been hiding underground.”

“Next time, we need to drop bunker busters on their asses,” Dani stated. “A lot of them.”

“No shit,” one of the soldiers responded.

Nicole scowled and asked, “Why do I have a bad feeling about what comes next?”

“Because you’re not an idiot,” I responded, having the very same bad feeling as I looked towards the tunnel at the bottom of the basement. That was where the demon was trying to escape to, which meant we would have to check it out.

“It would probably be best if you stayed out here,” one of the soldiers told Julie. He patted the biohazard outfit he was wearing and added, “We’ve got protection and I’m still terrified of getting infected down there.”

“If that’s where the demons have been holding up,” Rebecca said, “then anyone who went down there without some kind of protection would probably get infected.”

I looked at Julie, wondering if the angel strain had gotten enough of a hold to prevent an infection of the demon strain. Whether it had or not, it wasn’t a risk worth taking and my sisters seemed to agree.

“I’ll stay up here with Julie,” Dani said, rubbing her leg and wincing. “I can’t move as well as I need to.” Rebecca nodded at that but didn’t point out that her leg had been injured as well.

“Our gear will protect us,” one of the soldiers pointed out, though he still sounded more than a little nervous.

We started down into the tunnel, and I desperately wished that I’d stayed back with Dani and Julie. I definitely didn’t like the idea of going into a dark demon tunnel, even if we did all have lights on us. That made the tunnel easier to see in, though did little to reduce the scary factor.

“Keep on your toes,” Rebecca whispered to us. “We don’t know if more demons might be down here.”

I nodded at that while simultaneously grimacing at the horrible smell. “I just wish we brought nose plugs.”

“At least I have that,” one of the backup soldiers joked from inside his biohazard gear.

The tunnel split into two a short distance in, which made me worry a little at the implications. A single demon tunnel was a problem but if there were actually a network of tunnels… I tried not to think of that or of the claustrophobia I was starting to feel. Instead, I focused trying to stay calm as we continued down the larger tunnel.

“I think this part used to be a mine,” Rebecca quietly announced, shining her light on some thick wooden supports that were holding up the ceiling. “It makes sense… If there were mines around the town, they’d be the perfect place for the demons to survive.”

“I’m amazed any of the mines survived the bombing,” Nicole commented. “I mean, they sure don’t build things to last like that anymore…”

Now that I knew what to look for, it was obvious that this part of the tunnel had been made by people. The walls and ceiling were mostly flat and there were various supports holding things together. That made me feel relieved yet nervous at the same time.

We continued following the tunnel a little longer and I was sure we were moving away from the town. Then we came to a wide open cavern that actually had a faint green glow from within. I slowly looked over the cavern, sweeping my light to the source of the green glow.

“Oh shit,” I whispered, seeing a dozen slimy green footballs.

“There’s more over here,” Nicole whispered, her voice sounding just as nervous as I felt.

“And over there,” Rebecca added quietly. “And over there…”

“Those damn things are all over,” one of the soldiers said.

Just then, the hairs on the back of my neck all stood on end and I looked across the cavern, feeling something moving. Almost as one, the five of us all aimed our lights in that direction, revealing the source of the movement…and the eggs.

The demon was enormous, but not in quite the same way as the monster that had destroyed the helicopter. From the waist up, she resembled a human woman…but bigger. If she had proportionate human legs, she would have stood at over fifteen feet tall. As it was, her top part was shaped like a very busty woman, though she had scaly green skin and four arms. Her face still looked largely human, though she had yellow eyes and waves of dark green hair. From her waist down, she was a massive snake, covered with green and gray scales. She wasn’t as bulky as the other demon, but from head to tail she was definitely longer.

“Oh shit,” I whispered, half sure I was about to piss myself.

I stared at the demon in terror, relieved that she hadn’t attacked us quite yet. She stared at us with a malevolent glare, but for the moment, she seemed content to watch us. I didn’t think that would last for very long though, especially since her coils seemed to be tensing.

“So this is the demon queen,” Rebecca said with a gulp, slowly raising her rifle so as not to startled the demon and make it attack any sooner.

Suddenly, a new voice said, “Queen…” It was a woman’s voice, but raspy and odd sounding. But even more surprising than that was the source. It had come from the demon.

“What the hell?” Nicole blurted in disbelief.

I stared up at the demon in stunned confusion, sure that I must have heard wrong. Everyone knew that demons were nothing more than rabid monsters, that they completely lost their minds when they changed.

“Yesss,” the demon announced as she stared down at us with a predatory grin. “Thisss I am… I am queen…”