by Ryland Thorn
It makes no impact at all. Jack might as well have clubbed a boulder.
He tries to wrench his body out of the way, but the trident is already coming toward him.
Mere instants before he is impaled, Jack hears the surprisingly sweet sound of demonic words being pronounced and feels increasingly nauseous.
Chapter Fourteen: Hellfire Blasts
A blast of Hellfire collides with the minotaur’s side and sends it crashing to the floor. The trailing edge of the blast catches Jack as well, but he is already twisting his body out of the way as best as he can. Nevertheless, it is powerful enough to knock him flat onto the platform.
He hits his head against the concrete and sees stars for a moment. He shakes his head to clear it and forces himself to his knees. There is no time to waste on his own weakness. There is no time to waste even on the unexpected relief that is close to pure joy that he feels as a result of the blast.
Lennox is alive and conscious. He spies her sitting up against one of the columns. She has one of her hands pressed against her side and her complexion is pale. Nevertheless, there is determination mixed with anger in her expression.
She is not defeated.
Nor is she done. “Get down!” Lennox yells at him.
Jack doesn’t question her words. He simply drops flat, his face in the grime, and stays there, turning his head so he can see what has happened.
The minotaur is at least as powerful as the Cerberus had been. Lennox’s blast knocked it sideways, but even now it is climbing back to its feet. It fixes its malignant yellow gaze on Lennox and lets out a roar that is dripping with hate.
As Jack watches, a smoky spear appears in its grip. The minotaur’s intentions are plain. It intends to cast the spear at Lennox, killing her from afar.
But it is already too late. Demonic words of power are setting Jack’s teeth on edge. They are like sandpaper rubbing against the most primitive parts of his brain. Somehow, they have flavor, and are vile to his taste.
Nevertheless, he welcomes them as others would welcome an island vacation. He knows very well what comes next, and is not disappointed when Lennox unleashes a second Hellfire blast before the minotaur’s spear can fully coalesce.
This detonation is perhaps even greater than the first. Lennox’s Hellfire passes over Jack and slams into the minotaur, flinging it against the station wall with enough power to crack the tiles.
“Bastard,” Jack hears Lennox gasp. “I have a date tonight!”
Jack feels a satisfaction that is indistinguishable from hate. The cracks in the tiles are matched by the cracks across the minotaur’s stomach, which have opened enough that Jack can see what looks like lava flowing beneath. He thinks that this might be a weakness he and Lennox can exploit.
It won’t be easy. His shotgun is useless and his revolver is out of ammo. All he has left are his blades and the few tubes of holy water taken from the Lair.
And the minotaur is tough. Perhaps not as strong as the Cerberus had proved to be, but formidable enough. Even now, it is stepping away from the wall as if nothing can hurt it. It glares at them and then launches itself into the air. But this time, it isn’t simply leaping. The monster’s wings look as if they have been carved out of stone, and yet they are flexible enough to unfurl like those of a bat.
“Lennox!” Jack bellows as the monster flies across the station.
Lennox is up to the challenge. She unleashes a third powerful blast that catches the minotaur a glancing blow, engulfing a wing and the left side of its body in fiery magic.
The minotaur roars in anger as it crashes to the floor. But even then, the monstrous creature is far from done. It takes no time at all to start climbing back to its feet.
Jack is quicker. As well as the loathsome words of demonic power Lennox is pronouncing, Jack can also hear the pain in her voice. She has been hurt. How badly, Jack doesn’t yet know, but the mere thought of it is enough to spur him into action.
Heedless of the burning of the shrapnel in his thigh, he lurches to his feet. He casts his useless shotgun aside and draws both of his blades. What good they will do against a creature with skin as hard as concrete, he doesn’t know. Maybe he can find a weak point or two. The minotaur’s eyes. Perhaps its bull-like nose.
With his hate raging deep in his heart at the thought of Lennox in pain, Jack would give anything to plunge one of his blades into the cracks on the minotaur’s stomach.
“Hit it again!” Jack bellows to Lennox.
The minotaur has regained its feet. It looks indomitable, a tower of strength standing nearly twice Jack’s own height. Yet between them, Jack and Lennox are formidable also.
Jack is tough and hard to kill. Lennox has the power to manipulate Hellfire however she chooses. Even though each use drains her, she is a match for the worst that Hell has to offer.
Despite the effort it costs, Lennox does as he says. She conjures the strength to hurl another blast at the minotaur. While weaker than the last, it is still sufficient to knock the monster to the ground.
Jack doesn’t hesitate. As well as durability and strength, he has madness within him. With his teeth clenched and a blade gripped in each hand, he launches himself through the air so that his trench coat flutters out behind him. He looks like a furious superhero on the attack. Or perhaps like a corpse bound in muslin and thrown from the bridge, the fabric flapping in the air on the way down.
He lands with his purple sneakers on the monster’s back, between where its wings join its shoulder blades.
Such is the difference in size between them that the minotaur barely flinches at the collision. But Jack isn’t done. His blades have been imbued with magic in the form of powerful glyphs embedded in the metal. They are poisonous to anything with demon blood in its veins.
The tar man’s flesh had rebelled at their touch, and would have done so even if Jack hadn’t dipped them in holy water first. Jack himself would not be able to withstand the blades being applied to his skin. He would burn just like any other of his kind. He can grip the blades only by the handles.
The minotaur’s skin is like a layer of stone. Whether it is susceptible to the power of Jack’s blades, he doesn’t know.
But he is determined to find out.
Before the minotaur can so much as twitch, Jack collapses over its head. He does this on purpose. It makes it easier for him to jam the tips of his blades into its eyes.
The effect is immediate. Unlike the rest of the minotaur’s flesh, its eyes are unprotected. It is too slow to defend itself. The first thrusts Jack makes burst both yellow orbs and send plumes of noxious vapor into the air.
The smell is revolting. It is like rotten eggs mixed with burnt hair. Encouraged, Jack attacks again and again, doing his best to drive his blades not just into the minotaur’s eye sockets but deep into its brain.
Blinded, the minotaur utters a roar that mixes torment with anger. It twists left and right in an effort to dislodge Jack from its back, but Jack wraps his forearms around its thick neck and holds on. He is muttering curses filled with rage under his breath and intends to keep stabbing as much as he can.
The minotaur’s eyes are now no more than sockets filled with ichor and vapor, but its strength is undiminished. Maddened by the pain, it reaches over its head and grabs Jack by the back of his trench coat.
Before Jack can move to defend himself, the minotaur rips him from his spot and hurls him toward the stairs at the back of the station.
The minotaur’s strength is prodigious. Jack flies through the air at high speed. He has time to kick out uselessly with his feet and bring his arms up in a feeble attempt to protect his head before he crashes head first onto the stairs.
The impact is incredibly jarring. Jack feels his bones rattle and his jaw clamps down on the edge of his tongue just before he smashes his forehead into the concrete edge of one of the stairs.
He has a moment to register pain from all over his body, and then the world turns black.
C
hapter Fifteen: Defeat
“Jack!” Lennox shouts. “Wake up!”
Jackson Kade is rarely able to relax. He lives a life filled with dangers and monsters too awful to contemplate. Every moment of his existence is spent either fighting or getting ready for the next fight.
For him, it is normal to face loathsome Hell-creatures that are capable of murdering him and everyone he holds dear. And while he can enjoy the time he spends with Lennox, that doesn’t mean he is not wound as tight as a spring ready to snap.
So when he finds himself lying down, relaxed and at peace for the first time in years, he is at first unwilling to open his eyes.
“Jack, damn you, don’t you do this to me! You’re not getting out of our date this easily!” Lennox shouts. Then she speaks words of power and grunts as she once more releases a blast of Hellfire. To Jack, the detonation seems distant. Somehow unreal.
Yet the fear in Lennox’s voice sounds very real and immediate.
Jack cannot help but wonder at this. There is little that Lennox is truly afraid of. He finds himself wondering what is the matter.
And then the pain returns.
It is like his semi-conscious state has been protecting him. But now he is closer to being awake. He is no longer in that relaxed, peaceful place that he visits so seldom. Instead, he is aware of the way his skull aches, particularly his forehead and jaw. He can feel the sharp pain where his forearms crashed into the stairs, and the scrapes and hard bruises on his hips and legs.
He can also taste the coppery blood in his mouth from where he has bitten his tongue.
But not even this is enough to coerce him into full wakefulness. He resents it instead, and wills himself to relax once again, heedless of whatever Lennox might be talking about.
Then the minotaur roars.
“Jack!” Lennox shouts, and this time there is real terror in her voice.
Even in his semi-awake state, Jack understands why. The minotaur’s roar had come from right above him.
It is enough. With an act of sheer will, Jack opens his eyes. He senses the minotaur’s shadow shift over him and commands his weary body to move!
He rolls out of the way just as the minotaur’s club crashes down into the stairs where he had just been. The blow is tremendous enough that chips of concrete go flying. Jack catches a couple of them on his face and forces his tired and aching limbs into action once more.
On his hands and knees, Jack scuttles as fast as he can to one side. He is durable far beyond what is normal, but he is not invulnerable. His impact with the stairs has left him dazed and sore. Jack’s muscles lack much of their normal strength and the ache in his thigh is nearly crippling.
Amazingly, he finds that he is still holding onto one of his knives.
Again, the minotaur roars and swings its club. Again concrete flies. But it is apparent to Jack that the monster’s movements are no longer certain. It is unsteady, as if its balance is unsure, and it is holding its free hand in front of itself like a poor man begging for alms.
If Jack needed confirmation, that is enough. The monster can no longer see. The first blow that had almost crushed Jack where he lay had been no more than chance.
His head is still fuzzy. It feels as if his skull is caught in a vice and somebody is jumping up and down on the handle. He feels as nauseous as he does when Lennox is casting a spell, but he does not know if that is because of the magical ward or if it is because he hit his head too hard.
But he thinks he knows how to end this battle.
“Lex! Can you blast him again?”
With all the Hellfire she has been flinging about, Jack knows that she must be exhausted. Nevertheless, he can see no other option. Jack is desperate. Still crouched on his hands and knees, he looks at her as he speaks.
She hasn’t moved since last time he saw her. Her teeth are gritted against the pain in her side. Yet there is still strength in her. Still a willingness to fight. She holds his eyes and gives him a determined nod.
Jack hauls himself to his feet through a mixture of stubbornness and anger, and almost collapses as one of his legs struggles to hold. He promises himself that he will get the wound in his thigh tended to at his first opportunity.
First, though, he has this monster to deal with.
Jack reaches for the pouch that he wears at his waist. The only question is whether the tubes of holy water survived his collision with the stairs. A quick check is enough to tell him that at least one of them has.
The others are broken. Jack’s fingers sizzle as his skin comes into contact with the holy water that has escaped. It is as if he has thrust his hand into a fire, or into a pool of acid. The same awful vapor that spilled from the minotaur’s eye sockets rises from Jack’s fingers and he grits his teeth against the pain.
Ignoring the way his flesh is being eaten as best as he can, he brings out the unbroken tube and wipes both it and his hand clean on his shirt. The sizzling fades but the pain continues to linger.
“Do it,” he snarls to Lennox.
At the same time, he lurches unsteadily across some of the distance between himself the monster. Despite his various aches and pains, despite the risks and the fact that he has no idea what the chances of success might be, he is willing to give it his all.
Before they can even think about the ward or the sorcerer they are after, the minotaur has to be killed.
Then they have to tell the Brotherhood what they have found.
Lennox doesn’t need to be told twice. Almost as soon as Jack’s words are said, Lennox is casting her spell. At the sound of the demonic words, Jack feels the bile rising at the back of his throat. It is an awful feeling, made worse by the way his head continues to pound.
Fortunately, it is mercifully quick. Lennox finishes her spell and another powerful blast of Hellfire erupts from her outstretched fingers and arcs toward the minotaur.
The blinded monster is still stumbling about, still waving its club as it tries to defeat them. Instead of focusing on the sounds of Jack’s and Lennox’s voices, it is roaring loudly and swinging its club almost at random.
It gets the full force of Lennox’s blast right in the face.
Lennox utters a gasp of pain and looks to Jack as the minotaur crashes to the station floor once again. “Whatever you going to do, do it now,” she says.
Jack’s body is like a piece of lead. It is unwilling to move without great effort. But he is close to his target. He doesn’t have to move far.
As fast as he can, Jack stumbles across to the prone minotaur, moving his wounded leg through sheer force of will. Lennox’s Hellfire blasts have been known to take out many Hell-creatures before, but as far as the minotaur is concerned, she might as well have been casting water balloons. It is simply too strong.
Yet the cracks on its stomach are wider.
The minotaur is howling its own frustration and rage from where it is lying. In moments, it will be back on its feet and as dangerous as ever. But as it is right now, its club has dissolved into smoke and it is comparatively helpless.
Jack swears to himself as a form of encouragement and takes a deep breath. Without a single moment of hesitation, he flings himself onto the monster and plunges his blade deep into one of the cracks in its flesh.
The minotaur roars and thrashes left and right. Jack ducks under its massive hands. He has only moments before it clutches at him and rips him into pieces.
But moments are all he needs.
He twists the blade in its flesh with everything he has, opening the crack far wider than normal. With his other hand, Jack pops the top from the tube of holy water and forces it inside.
Then he jerks his blade free and skitters away as best as he can.
Chapter Sixteen: A Violent Death
Jack is done. He has nothing left. The beating his body has taken over the past couple of days combined with the minotaur’s treatment has left him totally drained. Skittering away from the monster has taken the last of his strength.
Once he makes it to Lennox’s side, it is all he can do to lean his bruised and weary back against her column and slide to the ground beside her.
He is still holding onto his knife, but his grip is weak and the muscles in his forearm are almost vibrating through the abuse he has put them through. He feels Lennox squeeze his leg and he flinches.
“Are you okay?” she asks with concern in her voice.
Jack doesn’t have an answer. As well as the concern, he hears her weakness and pain, and lacks the immediate strength to ask her the same question. He is watching the minotaur writhe in agony on the station floor and needs to believe that Lennox is fine, that she is not mortally wounded. Acknowledging the extent of her pain will take more from him than he has, and this battle might not be over.
He has lost too many people over too many years to face the fact that Lennox needs help. And he knows that she would not appreciate his concern with the job only half done.
Jack will do whatever he can for Lennox when he can. For the moment, he deliberately keeps his attention on the monster. Whether or not the holy water Jack has introduced to its guts is enough to prevent it from attacking again, he doesn’t know. Nor does he know if he has the strength to act if it does.
He suspects that he does not. All he can do is keep a grip on his knife and hope that the battle with the minotaur is done.
He doesn’t even want to think about what the ward might be for. Or where the sorcerer might be.
The minotaur is roaring so loudly in agony and rage it is a wonder that the noise doesn’t shake the entire station to pieces. The monster hasn’t managed to regain its feet. Instead, it is lying on its back and wings with is arms and legs flailing about, kicking and grasping at nothing.
Smoke coalesces into an ax, a club, then a morning star, but none of these weapons can help the monster right now. Nor does it have the focus it needs to maintain them. They fade back into smoke just as fast as they form.