Daughter of Kali- Awakening

by Shiulie Ghosh

  "Darius?"

  "Kaz? Is that you? Christ, it's 2am! Are you okay?"

  His voice was instantly alert, and I tried to make myself sound calm and in control.

  "It's Mum. She's in danger. She needs our help."

  "Did she call you? Where is she?"

  "She's at Weston-Super-Mare. We need to get to her.

  "I'll call for back-up, give me her position."

  "I don't know exactly where she is."

  "Did she tell you anything? What did she say?"

  I was silent, and I could hear him breathing on the other end of the line.

  "Kaz? Are you there?"

  "She didn't call me, Darius, but I know she's in trouble." He was going to think I was insane. "I had a... a premonition. Look, I know it sounds stupid but please, you have to believe me. Please!"

  I could feel tears pricking the corners of my eyes. I didn't know what I'd do if he said no. There was a long pause, and my knuckles tightened on the phone.

  "Alright," he said finally, and I let my breathe out in one rush. "I'm on my way."

  He picked me up half an hour later. It was still dark, and the yellow street lamps cast sodium pools on the road as we sped towards the coast.

  "Thank you," I said, more grateful than I could express. He shook his head.

  "You sounded so certain on the phone. But she's going to be okay, Kaz. Your mother is one of the best fighters in the Guild. Scratch that, she is the best fighter. If she thought she was outnumbered, she would have called for back-up. She'll have comms on her."

  I didn't answer, fidgeting in the passenger seat, willing him to go faster. The feeling of disaster hadn't abated; if anything it had become worse. I forced myself to break the silence.

  "So nothing in Bournemouth then?"

  "Nope. There were some disappearances, but it was down to the local perv." I looked at him, startled.

  "Someone was kidnapping people?"

  "Girls. Students. The kidnapper was a university security guard with a side job as a rapist."

  "You found him?"

  "I got lucky. Traced one of the girls who'd gone missing with a locater spell Mrs P worked up for me. She was in his basement. Beaten pretty badly. And I found..." he stopped. "Never mind. I keep forgetting you're a civilian."

  "I'm not a civilian, I'm the daughter of two Warriors," I reminded him.

  "But you don't need to know the gory details.”

  "You found other girls down there, didn't you?" It wasn't a hard guess to make. Darius looked bleak, his eyes cold. He nodded reluctantly.

  "Two. Dead."

  I shuddered involuntarily. "I hope you made him regret it," I said viciously. "People like him deserve to die." He glanced at me, frowning.

  "I don't kill humans. But you can be sure he'll never hurt anyone ever again." He spoke with such certainty, I didn't ask him what he'd done. It was enough to know he'd done it.

  It took us over an hour to get to the coastal town, even with no-one else on the road and Darius pushing his sports car to the limit.

  "Michael mentioned a pier," said Darius thoughtfully, as we drove along the coast road.

  "I looked it up," I said. "Weston-Super-Mare has three piers, but only one abandoned one. Birnbeck. Head for that."

  The pier stood like the skeleton of an impossibly long-necked dinosaur, connecting the mainland to a little rocky outcrop. At the end of the walkway I could see a low building of some sort. According to Google, it used to be a cafe, but the pier had been badly damaged by storms and closed completely in the 1990s. It had never re-opened, partly because the Grand Pier a mile south had become a huge tourist attraction. Birnbeck Pier was now just a forgotten piece of history, run-down and dilapidated and loved only by historians.

  We knew immediately we were in the right place. Mum’s jeep was parked at the end of the road, next to a chainmail fence festooned with 'no entry' signs. As soon as the car stopped moving, I bolted towards the pier.

  "Kaz, wait!" hissed Darius.

  He had the boot of the car up, gathering his weapons, but I couldn't waste another minute. Ignoring his orders, I clambered over the fence.

  It was still dark, but out towards the horizon there was the faintest suggestion of lighter sky as dawn slowly approached. I tried to move stealthily as I jogged towards the building at the far end of the pier, but every step caused the old wood underfoot to creak.

  My foreboding grew as I neared the cafe. It was wreathed in shadows, dark tendrils crawling as if they were alive and seeking a way in. I felt my scalp prickling. I dropped down low beneath one of the windows to catch my breath and clear my vision. The building was in bad shape; none of the windows had any glass in them. Cautiously, I peered through into the stuff of nightmares.

  Mum stood in the centre of the room, sword in one hand, dagger in the other, her bare arms burnished with sweat. She had a cut to her shoulder which was bleeding, though even as I watched it seemed to be healing. There was a monster lying motionless at her feet.

  Its body was hairless and heavily muscled, with six legs all ending in lethal looking claws. Its head was a mess of tentacles, its mouth gaping open in a snarl of fangs and a long black tongue protruding onto the floor. It was clearly dead, and as I watched its body turned to ash and crumbled away to nothing.

  It would have been over seven feet tall had it been standing. I knew that, because there were three others surrounding Mum, two of them hanging off the beams above her head and one on the floor in the corner. They all looked identical. These must be drones, I thought.

  I remembered the Professor's description. Not as powerful or intelligent as Named Ones. But bright enough, it seemed, to attack in unison and not allow themselves to get picked off one by one.

  With a scream of rage the one in the corner came bounding towards her at impossible speed. The other two dropped on her. But in the time it took for them to fall, Mum had already moved. She spun like a dancer, elegantly lethal, somersaulting to land on the back of the first creature before plunging the dagger into its skull. It fell screeching to the floor. Mum turned to face the other drones, as the one she'd skewered turned to dust. Her eyes shone silver.

  "I told you to wait!" said a furious voice next to me. I jumped.

  Darius had caught up with me, a sword strapped to his back, a shorter blade at his hip.

  "She's in there, she's alive," I muttered, ignoring his anger. Darius peered through the window.

  "Two drones. Why didn't she call this in?"

  I bit my lip. I knew even two drones were no match for Mum. Why had I had such a powerful intuition that she was in danger?

  “She looks okay.”

  "I'm going in to help. You stay here. Take this, just in case." Darius fished in his pocket and handed me a small knife, its blade just three inches long, its handle some kind of polished stone. It looked like the kind of thing you'd peel potatoes with.

  "Ooh, thanks," I muttered sarcastically, as I shoved it in my jeans belt. "Maybe I can pick my nails with it later."

  "Just do as I say, for once. Stay out of the way."

  I flipped a salute. Darius turned from the window. And froze.

  Miss Smith was standing directly behind us, her eyes bright and inquisitive. Behind her, something dark and hulking moved in the shadows. She wasn't alone.

  "It's Ed, isn't it?" Miss Smith asked, as if we'd just bumped into her at the supermarket. "And Kaz. So lovely to see you both again."

  "It's Darius. Likewise," said Darius. In the blink of an eye, he had a blade in his hand, arcing it towards the demon's exposed neck. He's so fast, I thought. But he wasn't fast enough.

  Miss Smith grabbed his arm and stopped it dead. Her fingers tightened on his wrist, and he clenched his jaw. He didn't make a sound, but I saw that it cost him. The dagger clattered to the ground.

  "You Warriors, always so rude," she sighed. And snapped his wrist like a twig. He went white.

  "Darius!"

  I aimed a punch at her fac
e but she moved like lightening, ducking the blow almost casually. She grabbed Darius by the front of his shirt and smacked his head sharply against the window sill. Then she simply threw him over her shoulder.

  His limp body disappeared into the dark, and for one terrifying moment I thought he'd slid unconscious into the sea. Then I heard him hit the pier with a muffled thump, followed by silence.

  Miss Smith smiled, her mouth too wide, reminding me of that night at the caravan park. She looked like she was about to say something, but I wasn't staying around for the conversation. In one movement I boosted myself straight through the window, landing in an untidy tangle of arms and legs on the other side, the breath knocked out of me.

  "Kaz!"

  Mum had taken out another drone, and the remaining one was circling her cautiously at a distance. She was bloodied and scarred, but the drone looked even worse. One of its legs was dragging on the ground, and a black substance was dripping from what I assumed was its ear.

  "What the hell are you doing here?" Mum was by my side, her blade still pointed towards the drone.

  "Named Ones," I croaked, still winded. "Out there."

  She grabbed me with one hand and pulled me away from the wall, just as it exploded in a shower of brick and plaster. Miss Smith glided in, followed by the monstrous shape I had half glimpsed outside. It looked even worse out of the shadows.

  Its head was black and shiny, insectile, curved backwards, almost like a cycling helmet. Four liquid black spheres sat at the front, like spider eyes, above a narrow mouth filled with needle sharp teeth. Its body was huge and hairless, ridged with muscle, cords bulging on its neck and forearms. It clearly had a thing for leather straps, and there were two samurai swords crossed over its broad back.

  As it caught sight of me and Mum, it opened its mouth in a soundless snarl, threads of drool looping between its teeth. Alien meets Terminator, my terrified brain supplied. Not helpful.

  "Kaz. Is this your mother?" Miss Smith's voice was bright, friendly. "Well, well. I didn't think it was possible for a Warrior to procreate."

  I felt Mum tense.

  "Don't talk to her. Talk to me," she said through gritted teeth. I glanced at her face. Her eyes were, for the moment, brown. "What are you doing here, demon?"

  Miss Smith's face hardened.

  "I brought you here, Warrior, to avenge my brother Asghal. I planted the visions that showed you this place. Don't you think we know all about the blasted humans who escape possession? I made sure they saw what I wanted them to see, and you followed the trail faithfully like the little bitch hound you are."

  "So this is about revenge?" Mum sounded incredulous.

  "This is about getting you out of the way. We are close to pulling off our grand plan, the one we have worked so hard to achieve. We will annihilate everything the Guild has worked for. We will annihilate the human race."

  She said it dramatically, triumphantly, as if expecting gasps of horror. Mum rolled her eyes.

  "Blah blah blah. Shut up and fight already."

  Miss Smith looked as if she'd been slapped.

  "Falroq! Kill her."

  The monster rippled forward, samurai swords both drawn. It moved at an impossible speed but Mum was already gone, drawing the creature away from me.

  She was tiny compared to the demon, but where it relied on brute strength, she had more agility. It came at her fast, little more than a blur, its blades hissing through the air. Mum threw herself backwards, allowing them pass over her before flipping 360 degrees to land on her feet.

  Without pausing, she used a nearby wall to push off, gaining height as she snapped a foot at the creature's head. As she landed she twisted like a cat, drawing her blade across its torso.

  One movement flowed into the next, like silk rippling in the breeze. But it wasn't all going her way. The demon blocked the next parry and drove a knee into her ribs. As she jerked backwards, the tip of a sword caught her on the cheekbone, splitting the skin.

  They both fell back, circling each other cautiously. Her eyes were blazing silver now, and I saw the cut below her eye had already started to close. And Miss Smith noticed too.

  The possessed woman was staring fixedly at Mum, her face a rictus of shock. She looked round wildly and saw the remaining drone, injured and trying to stay out of the way.

  "You. Secure the girl," she snapped.

  Before I could move, the drone was on me, its weight pinning me to the ground, its gaping maw almost touching my cheek. I strained away from it, and something dug sharply into my side.

  "Kaz!"

  Mum looked at me desperately but Falroq gave her no quarter. It moved in, samurai blades flashing as it thrust and parried, again and again, driving her away from me.

  The weight of the drone was forcing the breath out of my lungs, and I could feel its heat radiating through my clothes.

  Its drool dripped into my face, and I turned frantically to avoid getting it in my mouth. Its breath smelled of garbage and tooth decay and sulphur, almost making me gag. A black tongue lolled towards me, the tip licking my cheek obscenely.

  "Hungry," it moaned. "Want..." Its jaw started to unhinge.

  Desperately, I struggled, my fear giving me extra strength. I managed to free an arm and I grabbed at its head, shuddering as its cranial tentacles slithered through my fingers, warm and unpleasantly moist. I yanked hard, but it didn't move an inch. Its teeth were almost touching my ear, the warm slime of its stinking saliva dripping down my neck.

  "This will hurt," it snickered.

  Again I felt something digging into my side, just above my hip. Realisation dawned. I wriggled my hand down to my jeans, my fingers feeling for polished stone.

  The demon had now fully unlocked its jaws, and its drooling fangs filled my vision. There! I grabbed the little knife and yanked it out of my jeans.

  I brought my arm round as high as I could, then stabbed downwards with all my strength. I grunted with effort as I drove the blade into one monstrous eye, piercing flesh and bone and brain.

  The demon shut its mouth with a snap.

  And exploded.

  I shut my eyes as ash and sulphur and charred bits of demon rained down on me. The crushing weight on me was suddenly gone; I inhaled shakily, my lungs greedily pulling in air. Hauling myself to my feet, I looked anxiously towards Mum. The demon had backed her into one of the wooden pillars holding up what was left of the ceiling, its blades crossed against hers. It leered down at her, gloating.

  "Your breath stinks," she told it coldly, before throwing a knee into its groin.

  Falroq bellowed in pain, and Mum twisted out of reach, pausing just long enough to jump-kick the pillar with both feet. She was already clear when the rest of the roof came down on the demon, burying him in heavy debris.

  She turned towards me, and stopped dead. Too late, I realised Miss Smith was next to me. A hand closed around my throat, and lifted me off the ground.

  "Kaz!"

  I heard the panic in Mum's voice as nausea swirled through me. The instant Miss Smith had touched me, I had seen the possessed woman for what she was. A walking corpse. The body was even more decayed than the first time I'd seen it. I wondered wildly how it was even holding together.

  It cocked its head on one side, its milky eyes regarding me coldly.

  "Like mother, like daughter, I see."

  The voice was rough, the vocal cords strained and rotting. I could see the jaw muscles working through a hole in its neck. "Warrior, drop your sword or the last thing you see will be your daughter's head on the floor."

  Mum did as she was told. Behind her, plaster and concrete erupted outwards as a furious Falroq got to its feet. In two swift strides the Named One was on Mum, smashing her across the face with a fist. Mum fell to one knee, her lip split. She spat blood onto the floor, then stood. Again, the demon drove her to her knees.

  "Stay down," hissed what was left of Miss Smith. "Do exactly what I say and your daughter won't be harmed." Mum stayed on he
r knees.

  "It'll be okay, Kaz," she said, looking at me. "Trust me. Everything will be okay."

  "Trust you?" The demon's voice dripped with contempt. "You're a hypocrite and a liar. Show me your eyes, Warrior."

  "My eyes are right here, demon."

  "Your real eyes. Show me. Now!"

  Slowly, Mum let her eyes turn silver. Miss Smith stared at her, and although it was very hard for me to make out any expression on that ruined face, I sensed disbelief and shock.

  "You!" it breathed in astonishment. "It is you! Belzael, my sister!" The demon lowered me until my feet touched the ground, though its hand was still coiled about my throat. "After all these years! I thought you had perished. Belzael, do you not know me? It is I, Nisgath! Your comrade, your ally! Why haven't you killed this miserable human?"

  Mum smiled viciously, her eyes the cold flat grey of a shark.

  "Belzael is under my control. You'll never see your sister again, you disgusting harpy." Miss Smith, or Nisgath, tightened its hand about my neck.

  "You are an abomination," it hissed. "But my sister's purgatory shall soon be ended. I have the means to free her, just as I have the means to kill every human on the planet. Your pathetic Guild won't stop us. We've been planning this under your noses, under your very feet, for years."

  "I'd be happy to discuss it with you. Just let my daughter go. You don't need her."

  "On the contrary." The demon shook me like a dog, and Mum's hands clenched. "She is my insurance. I want you to stay very still, Warrior, or she will pay the price. Do you understand?"

  Mum nodded once. Nisgath's gaze shifted to the huge demon behind her.

  "Falroq. Break the Warrior's neck."

  I screamed.

  “Mum!”

  Falroq reached down, one huge arm bracing Mum's shoulders, the other poised at her chin. I twisted helplessly, unable to break the grip on my throat. Mum stayed on her knees and didn't move.

  "Fear not, Warrior child," Nisgath purred. "If she has Belzael's strength, a broken neck will heal. If she hasn't, then she will die. It is, how do you humans put it, a win-win for me."

  Mum looked at me steadily, ignoring the beast behind her.