The demon queen snarled as everyone shot at her, but there was no sign that she was going down. She opened her mouth and spat out a spray of green mist, right towards the group of third DSU soldiers. Small droplets rained down on the soldiers and they all began screaming.

All of the soldiers hit by this green mist dropped their weapons and grabbed at their faces. Wherever the droplets hit, their uniforms and skin burned and melted. It was as though they’d been hit with a spray of acid that burned through everything it touched.

“Kill her,” Colonel Hastings gasped as he dropped to his knees along with his men. In moments, they all collapsed to the ground but continued to spasm.

General Lawrence had been hit only in his arm and screamed, but he retained enough strength to pick up one of the dropped rifle and shoot it at the demon queen.

“I know you,” the demon queen exclaimed, staring at General Lawrence. “Yesss, I remember you…”

With that, General Lawrence dropped his weapon and ran away from her as fast as he could. The demon queen used her whole body like a coil and actually sprang up into the air, landing just a short distance from the General. Then she lunged at him, grabbing each of his limbs with one of her hands and lifting him up into the air.

“Let me go,” General Lawrence screamed in panic.

Then with a hiss, the demon queen yanked the general’s arms and legs off, then casually tossed aside his limbless torso. What was left of the general hit the ground with a splat.

“How the fuck is she still alive?” Dani screamed. “We blew her fucking head off.”

“You splattered her brains good,” Pete agreed, his voice shaking with fear though he stood his ground.

“Ssstupid humansss,” the demon queen exclaimed as she slowly came towards us. “Who sssaid my brainsss are in my head?”

My sisters and I ran to the demon queen, shooting at her, though it did little good. Her resurrection and further mutation had obviously made her even tougher than before. This was definitely not good.

“I sssee Dolenzzz,” the demon queen stated, looking towards the senator with a particularly predatory look on her face. “Yesss. I remembersss.”

Senator Dolenz was little more than a blubbering ball of terror, cowering behind Colonel Roberts. The colonel gave him a look of disgust but didn’t seem ready to just throw him to the demon.

“Uncle Gavin,” Lisa exclaimed, hobbling over to Dr. Merrit in spite of the fact that she’d been injured by the earlier use of the gatling gun. “We need to move back…”

“Sorry about this,” Rebecca told Hannah as she picked her up and moved back from the area that the demon queen was becoming too interested in. Lisa made sure that Dr. Merrit retreated as well while I brought Nicole.

“At least your wound isn’t as bad as the first time I patched you up,” I told Nicole with a weak chuckle.

“You don’t have time to patch me up right now,” she pointed out. “You have to help stop that thing…”

I nodded at that, telling her, “Keep pressure on the wound…”

“I’ll look after her,” Dr. Merrit announced, getting surprised looks from all of us. He pulled out some gloves, ones that went up to his elbows rather than just covering his hands. “I am quite aware of how to avoid infection. Now Lisa, please sit so I can check your injuries as well…”

The demon queen lunged for the helicopter that everyone had been gathered near, though they all ran away. Her tail hit the helicopter and actually knocked it on its side.

“Dolenzzz,” she hissed, watching the senator who desperately trying to run.

“Oh no you don’t,” Rebecca exclaimed, shooting at the demon queen’s torso. “He might be an asshole, but I can’t let you just kill him.”

The demon queen lashed out with her tail and Rebecca dove aside. Then she opened her mouth and spat out another spray of green mist. However, this time there was much less of it, perhaps because she’d already used most of her supply. Rebecca and Julie both ran to the side before it hit.

“Talk about bad breath,” Dani exclaimed, taking several more shots, then pausing to run away from the queen.

A moment later, the demon queen shot forward and grabbed hold of Dolenz by both feet, then raised him up into the air. She held up upside down in front of her and watched him with a predatory grin.

“Hold your fire,” Rebecca warned us. “We might hit Dolenz.”

“Maybe we should,” Julie offered while I nodded agreement.

“I remember you Dolenzzz,” the demon queen told him. “Yesss, I remember your wordsss. No sssuccesss without risssk.”

Dolenz was absolutely pathetic as he hung upside down, pleading, “Please don’t kill me…”

“I’ll not kill you,” the demon queen said with an evil grin that was just too wide to be human. “I will thank you inssstead…”

With that, the queen set Dolenz back on the ground, almost being gentle with him. But then she poked one of her claws right through his thigh before pulling back.

Dolenz screamed, then stared at his leg and exclaimed, “You’ve infected me… I don’t want to be a demon…”

“Not demonsss,” the demon queen responded with an eerie sounding laugh. “Godsss.” Then she looked back down at Dolenz and announced, “You will become my ssservant and I will be your queen.”

“That thing just infected the senator,” Julie exclaimed in stunned disbelief.

“At least he won’t be a problem for much longer,” Rebecca said with a faint smile.

“Yeah,” I muttered in response. “But they’ll probably blame us somehow.”

Just then, I noticed that the two remaining helicopters were finally taking off with some noncombatants now that the standoff was over. It was a bit late for that since most of the demons were dead, but then again, after the way the demon queen had knocked that other helicopter on its side...

Four of the first DSU soldiers who’d been wearing Lisa’s armor arrived to continue fighting the demon queen. I knew that only one of them had been killed by a demon, which was actually pretty good considering the fact they all would have been wiped out or infected without the armor. And unfortunately, another had been taken out of action when hit by ‘friendly’ fire from the reckless use of the gatling gun.

“Give her everything you’ve got,” Mike called out loudly.

Other soldiers were rejoining the fight as well, including a couple from the third DSU which had been pretty much wiped out. The demon queen howled in rage as we kept shooting at her, but she didn’t go down.

“Too many ssstings,” she exclaimed in obvious annoyance. Then she noticed that one of the soldiers was trying to get Dolenz away and she snarled, “MINE,” then lunged at the soldier.

Suddenly, I heard the sound of the gatling gun again just as bullet holes began appearing over the demon queen’s tail. I glanced to Dani, who’d gone to retrieve the weapon and was now firing it with an almost manic grin.

The demon queen let out a shrieking roar and suddenly turned and began slither away from us as fast as she could. I grinned at that, glad that we’d finally begun getting to her again. However, she hadn’t gone too far when Dani ran out of ammunition for the gatling gun.

It didn’t take the demon queen long to realize that we’d lost our big gun and she turned around and used her body like a coil to launch herself into the air and at us. She spit out more the green spray before hitting, but there wasn’t enough to cover much area. However, there was enough for a few drops to hit Mason.

“It burns,” Mason screamed, grabbing his arm where he’d been hit. He hadn’t been hit nearly as bad as the third DSU soldiers, but he dropped to his knees and gasped, “It’s hard to move…”

“Poison,” I exclaimed, rushing to his side to try checking his wound.

But then the queen dove at Pete with her claws extended. There was no way that Pete could move fast enough to avoid her attack so I threw myself at him, using my body and armor to protect him from her sharp claws.

“Damn,” I exclaimed as I felt a sharp sting on my cheek.

“She almost got me,” Pete exclaimed as I climbed off him. “Thanks…”

“Oh shit,” Mike exclaimed, pointing to Pete. “She got you…”

I looked at Pete and saw that he had several drops of blood on his face. Pete reached up and wiped it with his fingers, then gasped, “This isn’t my blood…” Then he froze and stared at me with a look of horror. “Oh shit…”

I reached up and felt the deep gouge over my cheek, and when I pulled my hand back it was covered with my blood. I stared at Pete with my eyes going wide and gasped, “I’m sorry…”

“Not your fault,” he said, his voice shaking a bit as he tried wiping the blood off as quickly as he could.

“Look out,” Julie cried, bringing my attention back to the demon queen who was coming in for another attack.

I snapped around just as the demon queen was about to reach me and shot her right in the face before diving aside. The demon queen’s head was completely destroyed, but she flailed around, still swiping her claws through the air.

“She can’t see,” I called out, diving to the side again to avoid her claws.

The demon queen could no longer see, but she lunged at us when we spoke so she could obviously still hear us somehow. Maybe she could somehow feel the vibrations from sound. I could only guess how she was still sensing us, but her blindness could only benefit us.

“She’s lost her head AGAIN,” Dani exclaimed. “How the hell do we actually kill this thing?”

“Thermonuclear weapons?” Gene offered.

“Might be a bit overkill,” Rebecca responded. “Of course, if we don’t take her down, Uncle Sam might very well go that route.

The demon queen’s tail hit one of the third DSU soldiers who’d gotten too close and he was sent flying back. I ran to his side, seeing that he was barely alive. Blood was coming from his mouth and I was pretty sure that he wouldn’t live for very long unless he could get immediate medical attention, more than I could possibly provide.

“I’m sorry,” I said, talking not just to him but to everyone who was dying around me.

Then I noticed the grenade’s on his belt and I grabbed them. Grenades had worked against that tough as nails demon back in Hell Town, but then again, the demon queen no longer had a mouth to throw them into.

I pulled the pins from the grenades and tossed them in front of me. Then I called out, “Over here ugly…”

The demon queen lunged at me again, then the grenades exploded right when she was on top of them. She threw her body aside and if she still had a head, she would have been shrieking in pain. The two grenades had torn a nasty hole in her body.

“Concentrate your fire,” Rebecca called out and everyone began shooting at the hole.

At this point, the demon queen tried escaping, though she appeared to just be slithering away as fast as she could in a random direction. Everyone kept shooting, alternating between the remains of her human part and the huge hole in her snake body. After a minute, she collapsed to the ground and just twitched.

“Don’t let up,” Mike yelled, rushing forward and firing at her body at almost point blank range.

Everyone else rushed up as well and continued shooting into her body at close range. She’d already stopped moving, but as we’ve seen twice before, that didn’t necessarily mean anything.

Only once everyone had completely run out of ammunition did we finally stop shooting and step back to look at the mess we’d created. The demon’s body was so torn up and full of holes that I didn’t think that there was any way she was coming back this time. Her brain might not be in her head, but we’d covered so much of her body that we’d probably taken it out anyway.

“We got her,” Julie exclaimed in amazement.

“Again,” I added wryly.

“So…what now?” Julie asked, looking at Rebecca.

Dani kicked the dead demon and said, “I vote we find the base armory and pick up a shitload of thermite and explosives. When it comes to this bitch, it’s better to be safe than sorry.”