by Aderyn Wood
I heave him aside as easily as I would a cushion and pull the stake from my pocket and fly to Asha. She has turned to her lover and doesn’t see my approach. I aim the stake at her back, but a shrill voice cries out. “No!”
I turn to see a blonde frizz of hair poke out from a boulder. Georgette waves her hands in the air, shaking her head. Nearby another movement catches my eye. Amynta is conscious and struggling with her binds. Then all is a tumble when I am hit once again.
Nathaniel has healed, and he has come for me, once again he covers me with his body, and once again I shake him off.
He rises before me and opens his mouth to speak. “Emma—”
I snarl, allowing the length of my fangs to show. “Don’t you dare, bastard,” I growl, clenching the stake. Beyond, Asha has pushed Michael away from her lover, and they are engaged in their own battle. I must help him. But Nathaniel blocks my path.
Nathaniel’s eyes look down at the stake in my hand. His mouth opens and the whispered word, “Emma,” floats before me, and it is filled with kindness and compassion. But it is far too late for kindness from my maker. I raise my hand, but my arm won’t do what it’s supposed to. He is my maker. My father. I cannot kill him.
“Damn you,” I snarl and push him with both hands and he flies to the rubble at the back of the cavern.
The arm belonging to the corpse, half flesh and sinew, half bone and raw muscle, shoots up like a viper and grabs Nathaniel before he has even touched the ground. He is flung around like a viper’s prey. The corpse’s gaping mouth opens further, long fangs extend and the clawed hand clasps Nathaniel’s throat, before he sinks his teeth into Nathaniel’s flesh and drinks. My connection to my maker intensifies in that moment and I feel his shock of pain, then rage, and above all his defiance. Nathaniel also opens his own mouth and bites into the corpse and drinks. I stand stupefied. I feel the thrill Nathaniel experiences. The blood of the corpse is pure power, and it builds and builds, healing all his wounds, even the strange cut on his arm, until Nathaniel finally pulls away. His gaze connects with the corpse whose fiery eyes have also finally opened. And then Nathaniel is destroyed to nothing but dust. Dissolving in the air like powder.
I gasp at the gap in my being. A gap that is large and unfathomable. But Michael’s chants fill the chamber and seem to pull on my psyche. I turn in time to see his hands spark with blue. His incantations follow like thunder and it seems Asha hesitates.
“Emma, Michael!” A scream comes from the back of the chamber. It is Georgette again who now runs forward. “Hold her down.” She is pointing at Asha who picks up the lance and comes for me.
“Hold her down,” Georgette shouts, her own voice seemingly amplified in the cavernous space.
Do as she says. It’s Michael’s voice in my head, I read his thoughts without the slightest trouble.
Michael moves as quick as I do to Asha. I have the momentary thought not to trust Georgette, but Michael does so unquestionably, and I follow his lead. Asha thrusts the lance toward us, but we dodge easily. Michael takes one arm and I the other. Asha thrashes and calls out to her corpse lover. But Michael and I are too strong and we hold her down.
The few remaining vampires have come alert and some attempt to block Georgette. But she seems well prepared for this and throws water their way and it burns their flesh to the very bone.
Other vampires attack Michael and I as we pick Asha up by the arms and run from them to the very back of the cave. Asha screams in an old forgotten language to the corpse as we fly by.
Georgette turns to follow us, but stops at Amynta to untie her, and the pair of them fight through the vampires to us.
Asha thrashes and we tighten our grip.
“Hold her head back!” Georgette yells as she approaches.
“Quickly!” Amynta adds.
Michael nods at me and we do as they ask and force Asha’s head back by gripping a handful of black hair and pulling down. She screams, her mouth open, her fangs exposed.
Amynta gets to us first and rips the chain from around Asha’s neck and thrusts the vial up to Georgette who has a small silver tool in hand. With it she cuts open the wax seal and together they force the vial toward Asha, pouring its red contents down her throat.
Chapter 27
Extract from Nathaniel Chartley’s diary
A red vial on a thin thread hung around her neck…
Get the lance, Michael. The Lance!
The voice called to Michael through an electric haze, but it was hard to focus. His sight and mind were split between the grey swirling spirit realm and the world of flesh and blood.
He glanced at Asha. In this vision Michael could see auras more clearly than flesh. The cavern remained filled with vampires. He knew Emma, Georgette and Amynta were in the throes of a battle, fending off the vampires who now attacked them as they struggled to protect Asha.
The auras of Georgette and Amynta were golden contours of light in this realm and burned as bright as his own, but the vampires’, including Emma’s, were black voids.
All but Asha’s.
“Michael! The Lance!”
The shout came to him again, but Michael couldn’t discern the meaning of it. His gaze remained fixed on Asha. She had an aura.
A vampire had an aura.
“How?” he whispered and the act of speaking tore at his vision. Glimpses of the real interrupted his scope. In the corporeal world, Asha’s form had transformed. No longer was she the monster, nor the young beauty. Ashayet was a withered, elderly woman who took her final breaths. The vial of her child-blood had achieved its purpose. Asha’s soul had returned to her, along with her mortality.
“Michael. Get the bloody lance!” Georgette’s scream broke through to him and he came to his senses. Georgette, Amynta and Emma fought the line of vampires – kicking, punching, staking. And beyond that line, posing like a king stood a new entity. Not vampire. Not even demon.
Fear thundered through Michael’s entire being and bolts of lightning flickered from his skin.
The Dark Lord watched him with fiery eyes and threw back his head, that gaping maw, laughing before raising his clawed hands and hurling two fists forward.
The entire row of vampires were thrown at them. Georgette screamed louder for Michael to act.
Finally, the meaning of her words made sense. But the lance lay still by the rubble, on the ground by the Dark One’s feet.
Michael! Emma’s fear penetrated his mind.
I must smite him with the lance, he thought back to her.
She glimpsed at him with her red eyes then turned back to look where the lance rested. She held out her hand and Michael read her thoughts willing the lance to fly to him. “Catch,” she said, and the lance flew.
Michael caught it and the whole thing charged with electricity, glowing a hot red with the touch of his flesh.
He held it aloft and the line of vampires shrunk away from the blade, making a path for him to walk through. They fell back once he had done so and continued battling.
The Dark One waited with a sinister smirk. “I know you, Michaelspawn. This moment has been foreseen, but here I am, you have not prevented my entry to this realm. I have been reborn in human flesh, but with the powers of the Underworld. The precedence was set once before,” his grin hardened. “Now it’s my turn. Fight me if you dare.”
All at once a dozen images scrolled through Michael’s consciousness. Foremost among them, a painting he’d spied in the Louvre – Raphael’s St Michael Vanquishing Satan.
The awareness of his purpose, the very reason he was here now in this cavern at this moment filled his consciousness, and power descended upon him in fiery bolts, snapping and twisting over his entire body. Thunder boomed. His vision returned to the spirit world.
Words filled his mind. Words he’d also seen before in the secret pages of the Foliss Abesse: And the guardian Michael shall bear the Lance of Constantine that smote the Son of Justice, and with which he shall vanquish the Spawn of C
haos in the final exorcism, the final reckoning.
“I know who you are,” Michael said.
The Dark One shook his head, slowly from side to side. “You know nothing.”
“You are evil in its most pure form.”
He tilted his head back and let go a deep mirthful laugh. “I assure you, my fool enemy, the purest evil lurks in the deepest shadows of the hearts of men. I should know,” his flaming eyes flared as he tilted his grinning face. “It’s how they let me in.”
“I will smite you where you stand,” Michael snarled, bolts of blue sparking.
“No. I have given much to be here. To exist on this plane. I will not be quashed by the likes of you, Michaelspawn.” His voice growled wolf-like. “I have prevailed against stronger than you.”
“Asha thought she was to raise her lover from the dead. That was the deal you struck. She would give you everything so that she could reunite with her love. But she raised you instead. You didn’t keep your end of the bargain.”
“Ashayet was a fool, as are all who trust in love.”
Fleeting thoughts of Judith and Emma bloomed in Michael’s mind and he couldn’t deny the drop of truth in the demon’s dark words. He’d been foolish in love, but what else was there? Michael stood, feet apart and spread his sparking arms before him. The lance glowed white heat. “What is your Domain, demon?”
The Dark One scoffed, his eyes flaming. “I am the very master of trickery and deception, you think to draw me in with such base contrivance?” He stepped closer, mimicking Michael’s stance, legs apart and drew his head high. “I am the son of sin and perdition. Spawn of Chaos and Hate. I bear the mark of the Beast and the tongue of the Serpent. I am antimatter and antichrist. I am Ahriman and Seth, Kali and Mara, Satan and Lucifer. Ruler of Demons. Father of Temptation. Lord of Darkness. King of this Age. Mortals have given infinite names, though few dare say them aloud. I hold the power of the Kingdom of Hades in my flesh.”
“I know your name,” Michael said, the lightning everywhere, even in his teeth. “You are Lumiel. The first of the fallen.”
Flames burst onto the enemy’s skin and hair and danced in his eyes. Michael could feel the rage as the demon roared, “Call me what you please, godspawn. It is time for me to inherit the Earth.”
“Not if I can help it.” Michael raised his electrified hand in the air, holding the lance. His vision in the spirit realm was wide open now, and his link to the cosmos, a raging river feeding his knowledge. “In the name of the Guardian known as Mikhael, I cast you, Son of Darkness, out from the realm of men and into the far reaches of Hell. Leave, Beast of sin, for if you refuse, I will smite you where you stand, and your flesh and your power will turn to ash.”
“Never,” the dark one yelled and thrust his hand before him in an arc. A wave of power surged, and hot wind filled the cavern.
Michael turned his head to witness the remaining vampires, along with Georgette and Amynta, all fly back and hit the rock. But he had remained standing. Michael turned back to Lumiel and gave a slow smile. “Your tricks don’t work on me.”
Lumiel turned up his lips in a viscous snarl, opened his mouth wide and let forth a deafening roar. In the next heartbeat he was flying toward Michael like a spear shot straight and true.
Michael reciprocated, his arms before him snapping with electric bolts, he flew to his enemy. They crashed together with an explosion of light and darkness. Lightning and thunder roiled.
Michael gripped the lance tight as he stood and faced his enemy. In the spirit realm the lance was nothing but a spear of pure light. Lumiel a mass of seething black tendrils, as though he wore a cloak of striking serpents. His face was a horror of red pointed teeth, fire for eyes, and jutting horns. He thrust a sinewy arm around Michael’s neck and his hand hovered over Michael’s heart. Those empty eyes and the fixed grin on his evil face were terrifying to behold, and Michael suddenly weakened. He looked down the length of his body and saw a melding of the two of them. The black tendrils that licked and twisted before him were attaching themselves to Michael’s light, draining it away.
“No,” Michael whispered. The tendrils were consuming him, but he drew his aura around him in a vortex, creating his own whirlwind of lightning and thunder that rolled through the entire space. Crackling static filled the air, along with the stench of sulphur. Michael gritted his teeth and drew power from the cosmic link.
The black tendrils came undone. His power returned to him like a guttering candle flame standing strong once more.
“No!” He boomed and more black tendrils snapped.
The Dark One’s eyes widened, but the flames within them died, and this time Michael saw the fear. It fortified his resolve and he yelled into the maelstrom, “In the name of the Guardian…”
Thunder boomed. The wind howled. Lightning flared.
Michael drew the spear of light downward. “I smite thee!” He plunged the lance into the demon’s black, bitter core. Tendrils whipped and hissed…
The demon roared.
Michael was falling.
Blackness.
Silence.
Death.
And then there was light.
A spark first. Then the explosion. A big bang in the darkness. Michael was picked up by an almighty gale. Tumbled as he sped through the air. His head hit rock.
Then nothingness.
Michael awoke to pain in every muscle, tendon and bone. Aches, twinges and stings assaulted every square centimetre of his body. And he was hungry. He could eat a bloody horse, saddle and all.
With a grunt he sat up and looked around. A dim light penetrated the cavern through the passage. Daylight? Groans surrounded him. A number of bodies lay strewn on the cavern floor, all in pain by the sound of it. All dying.
A flame came to light and a familiar solid silhouette stood by the cavern wall and lit the sconce, casting a golden hue in the cavern once more. The figure turned and walked his way.
“Georgette,” he said with croaky voice.
“You did it, Michael. You prevented the Doom.”
At once the memory of him holding the lance and plunging it into the evil void flashed through his mind and adrenalin released in his blood making him shake with the shock.
The groans grew louder. The vampires were all moaning. A new panic bloomed in Michael’s mind. “Emma,” he croaked.
“She’s dying, mon ami,” Georgette said, a sympathetic tone evident in her voice.
“They all are,” Amynta said, a most unsympathetic tone in hers. The slayer’s hair was a strange singed mess, there was a dark bruise on her face, and her leathers had been torn, but she still wore her trademark smugness.
“Because Asha dies.” Georgette glanced at the woman who was once Ashayet.
Michael blinked, focusing. Asha leaned against the rock wall. Someone, Georgette by the look of it, had cushioned her back with a large cloth bag. Asha was a shell of her former self. An old crone with white hair, grey skin and wrinkles so deep they were veritable crags. Indeed she appeared as worn and weathered as an old dead mountain. But when Michael stepped closer he could see the rise and fall of her chest, slow and rasping.
“She’s breathing?” he asked.
“For a short time only,” Amynta replied, the harshness in her voice echoed off the rock.
“She has returned to her true self,” Georgette said as she crouched beside Asha and held the old woman’s hand. “The vial at her throat held the antidote to her affliction – an ancient magic. She has regained her essence of light. But the darkness that bound her to immortality has now gone.”
“In short,” Amynta cut in. “She is as human as you or I. Here before us lies a woman over four millennia in age. But now she takes her last breaths, she has returned to nature and will soon die a natural death.”
“As they all will.” Georgette added. “The link has been broken.”
Suddenly Asha’s aged head bobbed forward, and her shrivelled lips also moved. A soft whispering coming
forth.
“She wants to speak with you, Michael,” Georgette said with a sad smile.
Michael frowned, glancing back at Emma, wanting to rush to her to help her feed and heal once more. But something drove him to stagger forward and crouch in front of Asha.
Slowly the old crone lifted her head and her eyes, watery and filmy, cast around before focusing on him. “I am happy to die.” A tear streaked down her wrinkled cheek. “Life holds so much pain, knowing all I have done. I am happy to die and face what comes next. To see my love…”
With that she took a slow deep breath and in the next moment her stare became fixed. Her chest stopped moving. She was dead.
“And so they all die now,” Amynta said, glancing around to the others.
“No.” Michael was on his feet, forcing his exhausted legs forward. “Not Emma.”
“Michael,” he heard Georgette say. “She must die. It is the natural way.”
He stumbled forward and fell beside Emma. He picked up her head and held her in his lap and stroked her cheeks. She opened her eyes and a shock arrested his heart. Her eyes were blue, not black, not red, but blue like a summer sky! Her hair was different too. It was lighter and there was a rose glow to her cheek. She was human.
A sob escaped him as he caressed her hair. “Emma, I’m sorry.”
Emma blinked slowly, as though even that small act was too hard for her now. “Tell my sister,” she whispered, “I always looked up to her.”
Michael shook his head. “You can tell her. Georgette! Help me get her out of here.”
Emma shook her head, slowly. “Tell my father…” Her cheeks glistened with moisture. “Tell him, I’ve always known he loves me.”
“Georgette!”
“Michael,” Emma whispered. “Thank you for making me happy.”
“No. Emma. Emma! Open your eyes!”