by N. P. Martin
I opened my eyes and looked calmly at the demon who was once my father. Demon Black looked shocked for a moment when he saw into my eyes, which must have been a window to the pure light magic that filled every part of me. His next reaction was to squeeze his hands harder, but no matter how hard he squeezed, he didn't seem able to apply any pressure. Smiling, I took hold of his cold fingers and pried them from around my neck, my feet touching the ground again a second later.
“No,” he growled, staring at me with increased hate and rage in his face before letting fly with a punch at my chest.
"Yes," I said back, catching his fist in my hand as easily as if I was catching a child's fist. "I'm done with hating you. I'm done with allowing you to shroud me in darkness…Father.”
I pushed his arm back toward him, and before he knew what was happening, I rushed forward and jammed my other hand right inside his chest. There was no malice or aggression in my actions, just a calm sense of purpose and the certain knowledge of what needed to be done.
Demon Black howled as my hand dug around inside him, in search of his black soul. He grabbed my arm with both hands and tried to pull my hand out, but I was able to resist him without much trouble, as if he had lost all his dark power and was now just a frail old man again.
Above us, Rloth let out a mighty roar that sounded different to the previous ones. I doubted a timeless being like Rloth felt anything approximating an emotion, but his roar sounded to me like one of anger, and perhaps even fear, for the monster undoubtedly knew that if Demon Black's soul was annihilated, so too would his connection to the portal.
Still staring calmly into the increasingly worried face of Demon Black as he kept struggling to break free of me, I continued to search around inside him for his soul. I should explain that I wasn't rummaging through his guts, as you might think. I was searching instead within his spiritual essence, the realm of pure energy that the soul puts out, also known as the metaphysical realm. Depending on the person, such inner realms could be vast, or they could be shrunken if the outlook of the person was narrow and unenlightened enough. Demon Black's inner realm was as vast as any I've encountered before. It was also made up almost totally of darkness, which made it difficult for me to feel out his soul.
"You think you can defeat me, boy?" Demon Black bellowed, his eyes burning madly in their dark sockets, spilling over in rage. "YOU WILL NOT DEFEAT ME!"
A massive blast of energy then issued from Demon Black, so powerful it pushed me out of him and right across the warehouse floor, before landing on the concrete floor to wonder in a confused daze about what the hell just happened. Before I could even get a groan out of my mouth, or try to sit up, a searing pain hit my entire body all at once. My body bucked up off the floor like ten thousand volts of electricity was going through me, and through the pain, I glimpsed my father’s outstretched hands as red, crackling energy shot from them. I screamed as the unbearable burning pain continued, and after long seconds, it felt like my insides were beginning to melt.
Then, blessedly, the pain stopped as suddenly as it had started.
Demon Black stood over me. “You almost had me,” he said. “I’ll give you that. But like I said, you will never defeat me, boy. For all your light magic, you’re still a shadow under me. Everyone is.” His dark form came closer, eclipsing my entire vision. “I’m not going to kill you, boy. I’ll just let the great Rloth consume you along with everyone else on this pathetic planet.”
Demon Black then walked away whilst laughing in his triumph, and all I could do was close my eyes in defeat and agony, and wait for the world to end.
54
Sometimes They Come Back
“AUGUST.”
IT WAS the third time the voice had spoke. My eyes were still closed, but I vaguely recognized the soft Irish accent. My mother’s voice, which must have been some auditory hallucination, as I lay barely conscious with the darkness coming down steadily upon me…and the rest of the world.
“Open your eyes, August. The world needs you.”
My mother's voice sounded clearer this time, and something in me said, Hey, what the hell. Might as well.
I opened my eyes, and there was a shimmering, transparent figure standing over me. After blinking a few times to clear my vision, I saw the figure was indeed my mother. “Mother,” I said with a smile. “You’ve come to help me on my way.”
“No, August,” a different voice said, and I turned my head to see the translucent figure of my beautiful sister, Roisin standing there, wearing one of her pretty summer dresses that she used to wear, her long, dark locks flowing down over it.
“Roisin?” I said, confused, but delighted to see her, even if she was ephemeral.
“You have to get up, Gus. You have to stand up to him.”
I shook my head. “But I can’t. He’s too powerful.”
“Gus!” Standing directly in front of me now was my older brother, Fergal, wearing the shirt, trousers and waistcoat combo we grew up having to wear every day. His swarthy features were as dashing as I remembered. “Stop pissing about, will ya? Get yourself up!”
“Fergal,” I said in wonder, finally sitting up (albeit painfully). “You’re here as well.”
“Jesus Christ,” Fergal said. “Did you get hit on the head or something?”
"No. Maybe," I said as I looked at all three of them, from one to the other, with sheer joy. "You're all here. I've missed you all so much…" Tears rolled down my cheeks, and they all looked at each other like it was painful for them to be there. "How are you all here?”
“That doesn’t matter, August,” my mother said. “But you have to listen to us.”
“You have to stop him, Gus,” Roisin said. “He’s going to end the world.”
I couldn’t help but be pissed off they were even mentioning the monster who was currently hovering near the hole in the roof, singing his deranged praises to his coming master of darkness. “Why are you talking about him? Are you not here to take me with you to wherever you’ve been all this time? Is it some sort of Heaven? A different dimension? I’ve tried so many times over the years to locate all your souls, but I couldn’t—”
“Enough, Gus!” Fergal shouted, floating his shimmering, silvery head right close to mine. “Your place is still here. You aren’t going anywhere yet, you here me? Instead, you’re going to get back up, and then you’re going to finish that bastard off. You got that, little brother?”
“But how, Fergal?” I asked him.
He pulled back, and Roisin’s head was suddenly there in front of me now. “You find that light again, Gus.”
“I tried that.”
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “Find the light that kept us together, Gus. The light that helped us survive that tyrant for so many years.”
“But you didn’t,” I said.
“We’re still here, aren't we?” Fergal said. “We’re just in a different place now, that’s all.”
“Where? I want to go there with you.”
“Stop being daft, Gus, and bloody listen,” Fergal said in that big brother way I missed so much. “This battle is not about how much power you have, but the kind of power you have. You have a kind of power he could never have because it would destroy him.”
“Love,” Roisin said.
“Our love, son” my mother said.
"It's what used to hold us together," Fergal said. "It still does. Use it, Gus. Use it to defeat him."
I shook my head. “How?”
Rloth bellowed an almighty roar just then, and it seemed to ripple right through my family's ephemeral forms
"You'll find a way, August," my mother said, just as all three of them started to fade from view, as if someone was turning down a dimmer switch on them.
“Wait, don’t go!” I said, springing to my feet.
But a second later, they had disappeared back to wherever they came from. I stared sadly at the empty air for a moment, crushed that my family had gone from my life once more.
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Then, in my head, I heard my big brother’s voice as if he was still there. “Stop your whining, Gus,” he said, “and get the hell on with it. We love you.”
“I love you too…”
55
Consumed
WHILE I WAS speaking to my family (or their Astral forms—I still hadn’t had time to process what had just occurred), Demon Black was still hovering up by the hole in the roof, using his dark magic to rapidly accelerate Rloth’s entry into the world. Pure black energy belted out from his hands as he channeled it into the portal, ensuring the portal expanded and tore the sky further, so the great Rloth could fit through. Rloth’s giant tentacle protruded from the mouth of the portal, looking like it belonged to some monstrous Kraken. However monstrous it was, I knew it wouldn't be anywhere near as monstrous as the rest of Rloth. Few people had ever laid eyes on a being like Rloth and lived to tell about it. Beings such as Rloth tended to live in the deepest, most primordial parts of the universe, unless, like Rloth, they created their own dimension for whatever reason. One of the oldest grimoires in my Sanctum, contains pages that hold a few rough sketches of beings like Rloth, and I can tell you right now that none of them are pretty to look at. If you want to know the kind of creature about to spill through that portal like a defective birth, then go and read Lovecraft, a fellow magicslinger. His descriptions of Cthulhu and the rest are based on fact.
So this was it, the last stand before the world ended: me against my demon father and an ancient being with power beyond imagination. You gotta love those odds.
I wasn’t even sure at the time what I was going to do to stop Demon Black. There was no real plan in my head, so I decided just to go with the flow and see what happened. Although it did occur to me that fighting against Demon Black and his dark power wouldn’t get me anywhere, and indeed, would only exacerbate the problem. The more I fought against him, the stronger he seemed to get. So now it was time to go all Gandhi on his ass and see where that got me.
The words of my family were still fresh in my head, telling me to tap into the love and compassion that kept us all together. The more I focused on this, the more I remembered the terrific strength and bond that came with those feelings we had for each other, especially in the face of my father’s tyrannical and abusive behavior.
“Father!” I shouted, refusing to let any fear arise in me. Even when Demon Black spun around to glare at me, I focused on maintaining that sense of love and inner calm that I felt in the presence of my family. I knew above all else, that I had to trust in them the same way I did as a kid, trusting the light would always be there for me to turn to; even when darkness was all around.
Demon Black's leather smock billowed underneath him in the tornado-like winds that were gathering pace outside. His face changed when he realized there was something different about me. Which there was.
I was no longer afraid of him.
“Boy!” he shouted, his face twisting in anger. “Why do you never learn?”
I smiled at him then. “See, that’s always been your problem, father,” I said. “You always thought I didn’t learn anything. But I did learn. I learned exactly what kind of man you were. I learned about everything you are doing now. But most of all father, I have learned how to finally defeat you.”
Demon Black glared at me for another few seconds, then let out a scream of pure rage as he came barreling down through the air toward me, his hands thrust out so he could direct his dark energy right into me. When it infiltrated my body, I made no move to fight or to counter the attack with one of my own. A part of me wanted to, of course, the part of me that wanted to react only out of fear, but I wouldn’t let it. The only thing I focused on was the light inside me, the light that grew from my love for my family, and from my joy at seeing them again after all those years. My father could never break that love when he was still human, even when he sacrificed them all to that demon. He may have destroyed their bodies, but their love remained.
Inside of me.
A black mass of undulating energy was beginning to build up around me as Demon Black continued to fuel it with his rage. A dark, wet mass that spread up over my body like a rapidly growing fungus. “May the darkness consume you…son,” Demon Black said with a sneer on his face. A sneer that almost disappeared once I smiled calmly back at him.
“Creed!”
The shout came from behind me, and I recognized the voice instantly. It was Leona. Somehow she had found me.
I quickly turned around to see where she was before the dark mass running up my whole body prevented me from doing so.
There she was, standing just past the doors, her two Berettas pointed out in front of her, her face constantly changing as she tried to take in what was happening to me. When she realized I would soon be overcome by the dark mass enveloping me, her face relayed her devastation as she realized I was going to die.
Then, before I knew it, the creeping blackness had reached my face, and I was trapped in that twisted position as I looked around at the woman I loved more than anyone else in the world. I took that love, and I added it to the beacon of light within me, making it stronger, brighter.
"Creed," Leona mouthed again, tears streaming down her face, at which point her expression changed quickly to one of pure anger, as she then rushed forward, rapidly firing both of her Berettas at Demon Black, all the while screaming as if doing so would make the bullets hit harder. It was a magnificent sight, seeing the woman I love in full badass mode, firing those guns like the incredible soldier she was. She had never looked sexier as she kept advancing forward, no doubt every one of her bullets hitting Demon Black, but undoubtedly having no effect on him whatsoever.
Immensely proud, I continued to smile at Leona and her heroic actions, right up until I became engulfed completely by the black, suffocating mass, and I could see no more.
56
Light Against Dark
Trapped in that thick mass of undulating darkness, I felt it worm its way into my every pore as it tried to consume every part of me, including my immortal soul.
And I let it. I let the darkness seep into me. Resisting it would have made it stronger while also weakening the light magic that continued to grow with it.
So I merely relaxed (which wasn't so easy, given that I was trapped in a suffocating cocoon) and trusted that the light magic would save me.
The whole time, I focused on, a mental picture of those family members in whom I love, and the love I have for Leona. All the people that I loved the most in the world (I think even Uncle Ray was in that mental picture somewhere, skulking reluctantly in the background with Sanaka, like reluctant subjects in a family photo).
Then I felt it. A steady vibration that seemed to emanate from my core, as the light finally opened itself up, and began to break down the darkness all around me, as it extinguished it all with its divine illumination.
The dark magic resisted, screeching and squirming all around me, but the more it resisted, the deeper the light magic penetrated into it, eventually neutralizing and consuming it like it had never been brought forth in the first place.
At some point, I opened my eyes to find myself standing within a sphere of utterly beautiful bright light that had all sorts of colors (cobalt blues, sparkling reds, deep yellows and purples and oranges), swirling and crackling through it. It was like I was standing within the source of all creation, the source of all love in the universe. My soul cried out in joy as the light seemed to heal me on every level.
And then my eyes fell upon Leona, who was still standing by the doors, crying, a look of disbelief on her face, but also unmistakable joy and relief that I was alive. More than alive. Illuminated. A conduit for the divine, and no doubt the closest she's ever seen and been to divine angelic grace, the sort of light present at the humblest beginnings of creation in this realm.
Then I turned around to face the biggest source of darkness and pain I had ever known.
My father.
Demon Black
.
He was no longer in his demon form. Instead, he had taken on his old form of Christopher McCreedy; the tall, gray-haired man in the dark suit that I always remembered him to be. His face was full of fear. “My boy,” he said, flabbergasted by what was happening, by the power of the light issuing from me. It killed him even to look at me as the darkness in him was so repulsed by the light. Even Rloth increased the frequency and pitch of his ear-splitting roars. The ancient being of darkness could sense the light below it, and it was afraid of its power.
I held my hands out. "Come to me, father," I said with only love in my voice. "Come to me, and we can end this darkness."
My father shook his head. “No! Never! Rloth will come! The world will end! I shall ascend as a higher power!”
The placid smile on my face widened. “No, father. You won’t.”
Tendrils of arcing light suddenly sprang forth from me like vines from a tree, attaching themselves to the body of my father, who screamed and struggled and tried to bring forth his dark magic again. But whenever he did, the magic was immediately snuffed out by the greater force of mine. The tendrils of light then pulled my father toward me, holding him at arm's length.
"Please, August," he said, genuinely afraid now. "I'm your father. Please don't do this."
Reaching out a hand, I gently stroked his cheek. "I should probably thank you. If it weren't for you, I wouldn't have gotten a visit from Mother and Fergal and Roisin.”
His eyes widened, and I thought I saw a hint of guilt, something I had never seen in them before. “You saw them?”
I nodded. "They convinced me I could defeat you. And I have."
Before he even realized what I was doing, my hand had slipped gently inside his chest, emerging a few seconds later with a hard ball of darkness in the palm of my hand.