by Ben Zackheim
Lucas glanced up at me, brows tight. I rolled my eyes.
“It isn’t something you can shoot, woman,” Lucas said with a slight growl. She was about two stupid utterances away from breaking his fragile temper. I was starting to feel like I’d be helpless to stop the two of them from going at it until there was nowhere else to go but the graveyard. “It’s a spell. A trap. Meant to snag non-demons. But you’re lucky to have a fine specimen of a demon with you.”
“It’s always handy to have a demon in your bag,” I said, smiling. No one else joined me in my mirth. “What’s the trap do?”
“Well, from the severity of the smell, which originates from the intent of the spell, and from the dimness of that hellglow, I’d say the town is rigged to blow up.”
Ronin and I waited for him to laugh. He didn’t.
“Isn’t that a little extreme?” I asked.
Lucas shrugged. “It depends on what you’re protecting. If it’s not anything of consequence then you’re looking at a building or two. But then the smell would be as elusive to your dim senses as the glow is. The Hellglow Spell is more powerful the dimmer the glow.”
“So it’s a tripwire of some kind?” Ronin asked, finally contributing something useful to the discussion.
“Of some kind, yes,” Lucas said as he studied the cobblestone under his feet.
I gestured to the street to our left. “So we go around it. Take another path.”
Lucas shook his head. His long nose swayed back and forth. “If the treasure is important enough to justify a spell of this magnitude, then there will not be a way around it, trust me.”
“I don’t trust you,” Ronin said gruffly. She started walking. “Let’s get a better view of the scene and come up with a plan.” She approached the door of a small townhouse like she owned the place. The door was locked so she shot the knob and shoved her way inside, mumbling something. I’m pretty sure she called the splintered door an asshole. She ran up the entryway stairs and out of sight.
“Should we let her get herself killed?” Lucas asked. “Please say yes.”
“She’s got a point. If we can get a view of the neighborhood, we could spot a weakness.”
Lucas shrugged. “There won’t be one, but you’re the boss for some reason.”
“Because I know what I’m doing.”
“I’m delighted to know that. It would be nice if you knew what she was doing, too.”
That made me smile. He sighed and shook his head. “I’ll never understand you humans. You always seem to find the most humor in your own inevitable demise.”
I gestured for the demon to enter the darkness first. “What else is there to laugh about, old friend?”
Lucas and I climbed three levels of stairs before we heard the gunshot.
I took the stairs three at a time while Lucas rode piggyback.
I imagined all of the scenarios we were about to face. Demon hordes, vampire swarms, demigod temper tantrums. None of the guesses were right. In fact, they weren’t even close.
I spotted our restless third-wheel on the top floor. Her scrambling legs disappeared into a hole in the ceiling.
Plaster and pieces of wood fell in chunks onto the formerly nice rug under my feet.
“What the hell are you doing?” Lucas yelled, as he released his tight hold on my shoulders and dropped to the floor.
Ronin peeked through the hole, her hair dangling over her face.
“I want roof access!”
I threw my arms up. “Why didn’t you take the stairs?”
She rolled her eyes. “There aren’t any, genius!” She disappeared back into her self-made crawl space.
“So she made her own,” I said to myself out loud.
Lucas sighed. “Two gunshots in two minutes. I’m sure she’s alerted every living and dead thing in the area to our presence.”
As if to prove his point, a loud wail surrounded us.
“Demons,” Lucas and I mumbled together.
“I might be able to hold them off,” Lucas said. “You two run.”
“No way, Lucas. You’re coming with us. When they find out you’re on our side, they’ll tear you to pieces.”
He shrugged. “Wouldn’t be the first time.”
I pointed to the hole in the ceiling. “Up. Now. You can work your powers of influence later. The demons will have to check every building before they’ll find us. We have time to get a better look at the trap spell. They don’t know where we are for now. We need to take advantage of the time we…”
“Come and get us motherfuckers!” Ronin yelled from above us as she fired off a few shots.
“Fuck,” Lucas and I said together.
Chapter 17
I got to the roof first.
Ronin stood on the flat surface with her legs spread, and the small handgun gripped with both hands. She’d watched too many movies. It looked hot, but that was no way to aim a gun.
To make things worse, a mass of shapes moved over the walls of nearby buildings, like an oil slick spilling from the rooftops. I couldn’t get a peg on any single demon. The darkness of night blended with them like a second skin.
Ronin then did something odd. I should have known she was up to something. I’d find out just how crafty she was soon enough, but in that moment, I wondered how she had enough brain cells to know how to breathe.
She waited until the demons were climbing the walls of our building before she ran toward another rooftop.
“Where’s she going?” Lucas asked.
“No idea,” I said. I tried to open my Vault Portal. I didn’t have a plan. I didn’t have time to plan. The little shits were seconds away from being on top of us.
But the portal didn’t even make an appearance.
My disappointment clashed with my terror at the sight before me. Dozens of demons scurried over the ledge twenty feet ahead of us. They spotted us and stopped short.
Out of all the ways I thought I’d die, demon snack was not in the top 10. I’d never really had a problem with them. In fact, the ones I’d met were my kind of people. But I was pretty damn sure I was about to run into my story’s ending that night. I had a naughty Vault Portal, no chance to use the Swap Portal safely, and I was reeling on my heels as I backed away from the rush of death ahead of me.
“Stop!” Lucas yelled. I’d never heard his voice go that low. Actually, I’d never heard anyone’s voice go that low. His bellow sounded like a force of nature — a cross between a lion’s roar and a wind storm breaking through a mountain pass.
It was magnificent.
Even I stopped moving. I wondered if he’d cast a Paralysis Spell, but I felt all of my limbs just fine. I turned my head to look at him.
I’m not sure what he said next, but he said it in his own voice. Demonish was not a language I’d ever heard with my own ears. After three seconds of hearing my librarian speak it, I never wanted to hear it again. What did it sound like? If you’ve ever heard someone barf up a recent meal — that. It was enough to make me queasy, as I watched my life flash before my eyes.
But enough time passed for me to realize I wasn’t dead. The horde was as still as an ocean wave trapped in a moment. Their deep breaths raised and lowered the mass of their bodies. Their hidden faces and black eyes against the night sky left a lot to the imagination.
I shivered at the force of nature that waited to spring on us.
Lucas walked in front of me and pulled my chin down so I was looking directly into his eyes.
“You must give them your name,” Lucas said.
“What happ…”
“Don’t waste time, sir! You must give them your name to survive.”
I felt the urgency, glanced up at the closest demon and said, “Kane Arkwright.”
The rage-wail knocked me on my heels again. Lucas turned back to his fellow hellspawn and raised his arms. A few seconds passed before they settled down. Lucas’ head dropped forward, as if he were tired.
He turned to me again, slo
wly.
“Your real name,” he whispered to me.
Chapter 18
“I don’t know what you mean,” I whispered. “Help me out here, Lucas.”
“What do you think I’m doing?” he mumbled out the side of his mouth. “Tell them your real name and you may get out of here alive.”
I bent down slowly, trying not to make any sudden moves that could be interpreted as an attack. “I don’t have another name.”
The librarian looked at me sideways as if he thought I was lying. “You don’t know your real name?” I eyed the restless monsters and nodded my head slightly. “You realize that you’re killing yourself if you’re lying here, right?” I nodded slightly. I didn’t want to make any moves that would set off the horde again. “Well, what do you know? And all of these years I thought you were just hiding it from me.” He cackled and turned on his heels.
The mob bent low, ready to pounce, when Lucas yelled something barfy at them.
The sound of laughter echoed through the streets below.
“Is this good?” I asked Lucas, just loud enough to be heard over the steady mirth of a thousand amused demons. “This sounds good to me.”
“It depends,” he said thoughtfully.
The laughter was waning. “Depends on what, dammit, Lucas?”
“Depends on whether you’re telling the truth.”
I’m not sure why I lost it. Maybe it was his tone — a mix of suspicion and amusement. Maybe it was the weight of the months of war on my shoulders, and soul, and heart. But ‘lost it’, I did.
“What the fuck do you want me to say?” I yelled. “That I have blackouts where I’m in someone else’s head? Is that proof? You want me to tell you that I feel like I’m someone else and everyone except me knows who that is? You fuckers think that’s funny?”
They sure did. The sound of hundreds of demon belly laughs was enough to shake me out of my fury. I’d reached exhaustion. I’d just used my death scene as a therapy session. I’d just revealed my deepest secret to the last beings on the planet you want to have leverage over you.
Amateur move. I always knew an amateur move would end me.
I had a lot of issues with Ronin. But one of the things she consistently pulled off was timing. Sometimes her timing was in my favor, sometimes it worked against me. But, all bullshit aside, she probably saved my life when she fired off those four shots.
We all turned to see her perched on the roof of the building next door. She cut a fine figure against the moon on the horizon. I wondered if she’d meant to do that. Probably. Poser.
“Come and get me, boys!” she yelled, and she turned, hopped off a perch, and sprinted away.
The demons bit.
They squealed and swarmed in her direction. It was like I’d never existed. Not a single one of them stayed behind to try their luck. Except Lucas. Lucas watched the whole scene with the same dumb look I probably had on my face.
“What a moron,” he said.
“Yeah, well, that’s one I owe her. Come on.”
He threw his arms up. “Where are you going?”
“To pay back the favor! We have to help her.”
“She just sacrificed herself so you could commit suicide?”
I didn’t have time to argue. I ran and leaped across the narrow gap between buildings and rolled onto the sloping roof. The demons were scrambling to get through the windows of another townhouse.
Gunshots rang out from inside. Ronin was already cornered.
I pulled out my Glocks and went for head shots.
One by one, the demons at the rear of the gaggle dropped. The spray of black blood settled over the ones at the front of the line.
I wanted to distract them, the same way Ronin had distracted them for me. But as the demons’ fury turned into confusion at their blood-covered bodies, they turned to face me in dangerous silence.
My plan had worked far too well.
Lucas’ kind words came from somewhere way behind me. “You’re an idiot, too, sir!”
I backed away from the pissed demons slowly. If I could just make it to the edge I’d take my chances with a leap of faith over a heap of faithless.
They ran at me. I wasn’t going to make it, so I winged it.
I closed my eyes. I focused. “MY TRUE NAME IS…” I yelled, casting my arms into the air with too much drama. But it did the trick. The demons slowed down just enough for me to turn and jump off the roof, screaming, “TIMMY!”
Chapter 19
I jumped into my Swap Portal.
It’s always a dice roll when I swap. I could end up flying where a vampire had once floated, ten thousand feet above the ground. I could end up in a tomb, getting my beauty sleep with a thousand other hemogoblins.
Or I could end up in the middle of the street, surrounded by the same demons I’d just tried to escape.
I rolled across the cobblestones and came to a stop about twenty feet away from where I’d been falling.
“Shit,” I said. I pushed myself to my feet and tried not to picture the scene behind me. The shrieks and screeches were filled with a confused rage that would only be sated by Kane guts flowing freely over the sidewalk.
I liked to think I was a solo kind of guy. The loner. The independent type.
I wasn’t.
I was separated from my friends. Rebel wasn’t there to bounce ideas (or jokes) off of.
The only support I had was in my shoes, and even those were shot to hell.
The hordes of demons caught up to me and flanked me on the buildings to my left and right. Then they spread across my vision like a blanket of flesh, swarming the buildings, the dead street lamps, the abandoned cars like gigantic bugs. Their collective hiss grew louder as they skittered closer, closer.
Until I could see the blacks of their eyes.
The moment before I got hammered in the chest by the cursed front-line, I noticed something in those eyes. But what was it? A hunger, maybe.
Desperation.
Something in the moment, some unseen energy, opened my Vault Portal right in my face. I’d given up on opening it. I had no idea how it activated. It was as if the thing had a mind of its own. But that wasn’t possible. It was just a portal. Not a sentient being.
I reached in and my hand grasped the sceptre just as I felt claws and fangs pierce my torso and legs.
I screamed loud enough to match the pain.
If I wasn’t in the middle of becoming a horde’s meal I would have been more careful with the sceptre. I knew its power was unknowable, uncontrollable. But I might have been a little more careful.
I wanted to be free of the pain and the terror of being smothered under the mass of monsters.
Yeah, I panicked. And the sceptre panicked with me.
Eyes clenched, I willed anything to happen.
When I opened my eyes I was alone. The creatures were nearby. I could hear their movement. But I could feel their distance too. The black mass moved sideways, making a slow circle of curious, cautious hellspawn.
One of them broke free from the crowd and moved closer to me. He kept low, using his front hands like another set of legs.
I’d seen this movement before from demons.
But only in the presence of a master.
The thing worked its way up to my feet. I showed him the sceptre as a warning. He squealed but kept moving toward me, head down. When he reached my feet, he tapped them. He reminded me of a dog begging for a scrap of dinner meat.
“Stand up,” I said. I was surprised by the sound of my own voice. For a moment, I worried I was slipping back into my other state of being. But my thoughts were clear. My plan was clear. My voice was just following suit.
The demon pushed himself upright with great effort. It was almost as if he were in pain to follow my orders. He kept his gaze on my feet and, again, tapped my shoes, only this time he did it with his own toes.
I pointed the sceptre at the other demons. “Tell them to back off.” But he didn’t have
to. A sound like locusts rolled over the cobblestone streets as they scurried backwards, tripping over each other to be the first to follow my orders.
I was definitely still Kane Arkwright because I got a huge kick out of the whole thing. It took everything I had to not break out in a shit-eating grin and make the demons square dance. I always wanted to lead a square dance.
That would have made one hell of an Instagram moment.
“Now go back to where you came from,” I said.
Within seconds, the streets of the village were empty. It was as if thousands of demons had never even been there.
I smiled, then I hit the ground like a two hundred pound sack of exhaustion.
The adrenaline faded and the pain started to creep in.
Chapter 20
I managed a weak, “Lucas?”
No answer.
I used our comm to reach out to him. Nothing. Then Ronin. Nothing.
I slid on my ass backward until I could lean on the wall of a shop. The wood sign hung from a pole above the front entrance.
‘La Porte.’
‘The Door’ in French.
The Door? What kind of a shop was that? It was a testament to my weak state of mind that I spent about a minute wondering if The Door sold doors. Maybe it was ironic and it sold windows. Was that ironic in France? I never could understand their sense of humor. Maybe The Door was just a shop with a door and a sign pointing out that there was a door to walk into. Right there.
Just get up and walk into it.
I did.
I was delirious, yes. But I also knew I had to enter The Door.
It was locked. I leaned on it and tried to catch my breath. I needed a Healer. I didn’t know what was wrong, but I could feel myself fading.
I felt a hand grasp my elbow. I had the distinct sensation of being led through the door, but I couldn’t be sure. The whole world was a swirling mess.
“Welcome home,” I heard someone say as pitch black took over my world.
***
I remember a long hallway.