She was lost inside that place again, where the demons waited. They huddled around her, hanging on her silence, waiting for what was next to come.
They wanted something from her—something that she’d promised. Something that was very important to them.
“Well?” Billy Sharp asked impatiently. “Why are you still here? Go after the disciple. . . . We’ve healed you, given you our strength—go.”
She could feel them trying to force her out, but she clung to the darkness of her psyche, unsure if it was safe to go back.
“He’s growing stronger, you know,” Billy said, pacing in front of where she huddled, surrounded by the infernal.
“Who?” she asked.
Billy laughed with little humor before answering, “Damakus.”
She remained silent.
“Not far from where your body lies . . . within the wooden structure, the demon lord feeds on the most nourishing of fears.”
“The children,” she said, suddenly remembering the driving force behind coming to this strange pocket of reality floating amidst the nothing.
“The children were but a snack,” Billy warned. “An appetizer before the main course.”
She immediately knew whom the demon was referring to.
“So much fear from one who appears so strong,” Billy cooed.
John.
“And the woman . . . it’s a wonder she can leave the house.” Agent Isabel. Theo had been curled in a tight ball, shadows wrapped around her like a blanket, and had been seriously considering dying. But now.
She unfurled, climbing to stand amongst the demonic once more.
They stepped back away from her, the light from the sigils on her body growing stronger, brighter.
“Going someplace?” Billy asked.
“I’m going to need to heal more if I’m going to stop Damakus,” she said.
“We can help you with that,” Billy said.
“Do it.”
“Certainly,” the demon child agreed. “And when it is time, you will allow us our moment like we agreed?”
“I wish I was stronger,” Theo then said.
“Stronger how?” the demon asked with an odd tilt of his little boy head.
“Strong enough not to care about dying, and to take you miserable sons of bitches with me.”
The demon smiled at her, reaching out to take her hand in his tiny hand.
“Sometimes there is greater strength in knowing that one is not strong enough,” Billy said.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
The Teacher entered the room gripped by panic.
His eyes first went to where the tank, the artificial womb where his lord and master gestated, had been. The sight of it gone from the desks and shattered on the floor of the classroom nearly stole away his life.
But then he saw his master.
The Master. In all his glory.
The Teacher wanted to cry. The sight of Damakus was magnificent. He had grown nearly five times the size he’d been, his many limbs—in which he would embrace the world and take it into his maw—spread out, extending across the classroom floor.
Looking about the classroom, the Teacher came to understand the situation; the foes of the great Lord Damakus had entered the classroom attempting to steal away the loving angels who would give his lord of lords their fear, their love, and their lives to return him from the brink.
But they had been stopped. Frozen in their tracks by the holy omnipotence of his dark lord and master.
Relieved beyond words, he glared at the intruders and his students, held in the grip of his master’s power. They would all be punished for their insolence in thinking that they could ever escape the wonder that was Damakus.
And then he felt it, a painful tickling at the center of his brain as if . . .
Damakus was touching him, reaching out to feed upon his own fear.
But he feared nothing now that his master was here, healthy and growing, and he tried to show his master this. The Teacher allowed Damakus to probe, to stimulate, but he knew that there was nothing in existence that could ever make him afraid again.
“Where did you go?” someone called out, and the Teacher was startled by the sound of the question, turning around toward the front of the classroom, surprised to see a familiar form.
A familiar form that brought to him the sensation that he believed up until a few glorious seconds ago had been excised from this genetic makeup.
“I didn’t think we were quite finished yet,” she said, walking down the aisle to where he stood.
Fear, he recognized with absolute revulsion. The woman brought him fear.
Theo was in absolute agony.
The demons were helping her heal, but they weren’t doing her any favors in the pain department. In fact, they loved that she was hurting, taking an immense amount of pleasure from the pain that healing her many gashes and breaks, never mind growing her a new arm, was causing her.
She wanted to hit something—to kill something—and entering the creepy classroom where she’d found her husband, as well as Agent Isabel and the missing kids, Theo thought it looked as though her wish was about to be answered.
The demons inside her roared with the sight of the disciple, as well as the monstrosity spread out on the floor in front of him.
A part of her was revolted by the sight of the shapeless thing, her brain attempting to define it in some way, but coming away with only one designation.
Nightmare. The thing was what nightmares were made of, and that was saying a lot coming from a woman possessed by a thousand demonic entities.
“Where did you go?” she called out to the disciple.
She watched as he turned, enjoying the look of fear that appeared on his loathsome face.
“I didn’t think we were quite finished,” she said to him, preparing herself for what was likely to be another nasty bout.
But she was ready— As were the nightmares that lived inside her.
His children were eating him.
For that was what they were . . . spawns of his seed, vomited from the womb of his wife.
His children.
John lay there on the floor of his office, totally immobilized, as his children fed upon his flesh. He guessed that there was some sort of natural narcotic in their saliva, something that killed the pain of their consumption of him, something that made it strangely— Pleasurable. His wife had retreated to a far corner of the room, curling up into a tight little ball to heal, he believed. It took quite a bit out of a person to give birth by ripping open one’s stomach. She needed her rest, and he’d be damned if he begrudged her that.
John lay there, eyes closed, listening to the sounds of his children chewing.
Resigned to his fate.
He was going to die, everything that he was going into the bellies of his demonic spawn. The idea was terrifying to him, and he felt the intensity of his emotion race through his numbed body, almost returning some semblance of his pain response.
But he did not feel the pain, only the terror of what was to come after he had passed. What he was responsible for, and how it would affect the world.
The chewing was louder, accompanied by a low droning sound that signified to him that his children were content.
He imagined that he should have taken some pleasure from the fact that his children—his spawn—were happy.
The voice inside his head was sudden, sharp, and cutting. Look at you. He knew the voice, and opened his eyes to see his Nana standing above him, looking down with disapproval.
“And you wonder why I haven’t gone on into the light,” she said in disgust. “Where would you be—where would the world be really—if I wasn’t around to pull your ass from the fire? You’re going to need to be better at this if you and yours are to succeed,” she said with a disappointed shake of her gray head.
He couldn’t help smiling up at her.
Nana put her hands on her hips, looking him over.
“That’s d
isgusting,” she said. “And I’ve seen just about enough of it.” Nana pulled her pack of Camels—unfiltered—from inside the pocket of the apron she always wore, and placed one in the corner of her mouth. She then returned the pack of smokes to the same pocket and produced her lighter. John loved that lighter, and always wanted to play with it as a child, but she always told him that he’d burn the house down. “Are you ready?” she asked him, the cigarette in the corner of her mouth bobbing up and down. “Or do you want to wait until they get to your liver?”
He really wasn’t sure what he should be getting ready for, but he told her that he was just so she wouldn’t be angry with him. “That’s good,” she said, bringing the flame from the lighter to the tip of her Camel. “’Cause I was going to do this whether you were ready or not.”
And before he could question, she pulled upon the end of her cigarette, the red tip burning angrily as she sucked fumes deeply into her lungs and then exhaling a cloud of noxious chemicals down onto him. He felt it at once, the tingling, burning sensation as the fog drifted over his body, as well as the reaction of his children. They had started to panic, to cry out, their mouths still filled with the vestiges of their fleshy meal as they screamed.
The smoke was hurting them—killing them—and he found himself nauseated by the idea that he was feeling pangs of emotion as the voracious larva dropped from his body, writhing and dying upon the floor. The smoke had grown thicker as the demon children had died, his office around him practically disappearing as he lay, now seeming to be floating in nothingness.
Still puffing upon her cigarette, Nana looked around her and seemed satisfied by her act. She then returned her attention to him. “Now get up,” she commanded.
And John did as he was told, realizing that he was whole again, his body and flesh restored.
“We’ve still got work to do,” Nana finished, dropping the remains of her unfiltered cigarette into the hungry void she had created.
Theo lifted her head back and sniffed the air.
“Is that fear I smell?” she asked, a nasty smile that wasn’t her own teasing the corner of her mouth.
The disciple glared.
“I left you for dead,” he said. “I’m guessing there’s more to you than meets the eye.”
“You have no idea,” she said, releasing the psychic leashes that she held on the entities that possessed her. She felt the changes at once, dramatic and quite painful, and began to scream as she charged toward her foe. The disciple of Damakus reacted in kind.
The two collided, arms swinging like clubs as they each attempted to take the other down. One of his stonelike fists connected with her chin, and she felt something snap as she was knocked aside, crashing into the last row of desks. The disciple did not hesitate, plowing across the room to inflict even more savagery upon her.
Theo was shocked by the sensation in her jaw, and was horrified as it came away in her hand, replaced by something far more nasty. The disciple tossed the classroom furniture aside that was blocking his access, bearing down as she turned her transformed gaze to him.
The disciple hesitated, startled by her new appearance, but that was all that she needed. Theo sprang, the newly formed muscles in her legs like coiled metal springs. Stumbling back from her attack, the disciple put his hand out, attempting to halt her advance. Theo saw this as an opportunity, unhinging her newly formed jaws and opening her mouth incredibly wide.
It was quite impressive, she had to admit.
Her jaws snapped closed just above his wrist with a muffled snap and crunch as she dropped down to the floor.
She didn’t think he understood what had just happened, slowly raising his arm to look in awe at where his hand had once been. The disciple then turned his stunned gaze to her.
Just as she began to chew.
“I’m coming, baby,” Brenna Isabel cried, her mouth filled with dirt.
She had dug down far deeper than she would have imagined possible, the walls of the hole all around her crumbling and rolling back down to where she continued to dig.
And still her son cried.
And still she dug, handful after handful, searching for that hint of a white coffin lid.
It was getting more difficult to clear the opening as she threw the handfuls of dirt and rock as high as she was capable, much of it falling back down for her to pick up, and attempt to remove from the hole again.
Brenna could feel herself getting tired, the muscles in her arms burning and trembling as she scooped and hurled.
Scooped and hurled.
She would stop from moment to moment, and listen—desperate to hear the sounds of her son’s cry. Terrified that she wouldn’t . . . Terrified that she would be too late again.
Yes, yes, he was still there . . . still alive. All she had to do was get to him and get him out of the little white coffin.
It’ll be a miracle, she told herself, scooping up another handful of the rich black earth and trying to throw it up and out of the hole she had dug.
A miracle.
“Agent Isabel,” called a voice down into the hole. “Brenna?”
She didn’t want to stop digging but figured that maybe whoever it was could help her.
“Yes?” she called up, her hands full of dirt.
A face appeared in the circle above, peering down at her. “Brenna, it’s me, John Fogg.”
She knew the name, but she didn’t have the time to dwell upon it. She needed to get to her son before . . .
“Get out of the way,” she called up, throwing the handful of dirt. The head momentarily disappeared, only to return again.
“Brenna, you have to stop,” he told her.
Is he insane? she thought. Didn’t he know how important this was?
“Go away!” she screamed at the dirt, continuing to dig at the soil. “I don’t have time for this!”
“You have to come out of there,” John Fogg called down to her. “The children . . . they need us.”
She had no idea what he was talking about. There was only one child who needed her, and . . .
And suddenly she realized that his cries had stopped.
“No,” she screamed, listening with all her might for the muffled, screechy sound. “No, please . . .”
“Brenna, please,” the man’s voice said. And with terror-filled eyes she looked up to see that he was somehow much closer to her, his hand reaching down for her to take.
“I . . . I can’t,” she said through the tears, starting to dig again. “I can’t leave him like this. What if . . . what if he needs me . . . what if . . .”
“The children need you,” John Fogg stressed to her. “Christopher, Rebecca, Cindy . . .”
“The children?” she questioned. Why didn’t she know what he was talking about? Why didn’t . . .
And she suddenly remembered the missing children, and how they had found them in the strangest of places.
“The children,” she said, momentarily forgetting why she was inside the hole.
“Take my hand,” John said.
For a moment, just as their hands were about to touch, she heard the faintest of sounds.
Like a baby’s cry from somewhere deep down beneath the dirt.
But that can’t be, she thought as she took his hand and was pulled from the confines of the grave.
Clutching his oozing wrist, the Teacher turned toward his dark lord, praying for his assistance.
“Lord Damakus!” he proclaimed. “Your most humble servant, the purveyor of your magnificent glory, begs your assistance!”
Damakus pulsated and writhed upon the floor, growing even larger before his eyes.
And from inside his skull, he heard his god’s answer to his pleas.
And the answer was No.
The Teacher could not believe what had been said. Had he not been the most faithful and dedicated of servants? Had he not been the one responsible for bringing the dark lord back from the brink of nothing?
He stumbled toward his
master, begging to be heard . . . begging for his petition to be reconsidered.
And the high, dark lord, Damakus, defied him yet again.
No. The answer was like a blade, plunged deeply into his putrefying heart. And he understood then that the gods, even the ones that had promised him a world to teach, were selfish, desperate to keep all the power for themselves.
With a sadness so strong that it was like a thing alive, the Teacher turned back to face his foe. She crouched there, picking the flesh of his hand from between elongated teeth that would have made a Tyrannosaurus tremble with envy.
“This is where it ends,” he said to her, no longer having the urge to fight in the name of his master.
She slowly stood, her body making the strangest of noises as bones elongated and thickened and limbs sprouted spines that glistened sharply before his eyes.
“You’re right,” she said, darting toward him in a flash.
Moving so quick that he didn’t even feel the razor-sharp claws of her hand as they passed through the flesh and bone of his neck.
Severing his head from his body.. . .
John Fogg opened his eyes to a reality as fucked up as the one he’d left behind.
The demon lord, Damakus, had continued to grow, its disgusting mass having expanded across the schoolroom floor. Its flesh split, and was sloughed off to reveal its next, newer, and larger form, only to begin all over again.
He turned to Brenna Isabel, who still appeared to be in a kind of trance, and gripped her arm, giving it a violent shake. Her eyes snapped open, and she raised her gun, pointing it at him.
“Whoa!” John said, throwing up his hands. He saw the realization come into her eyes, followed by absolute terror at the sight of the continuously evolving demon god before them.
Agent Isabel turned to see the children cowering behind her, and stepped forward with her weapon. “Get them out of here while I—”
“You’ll do no such thing,” Theo called out from across the room.
John looked over to see something that he knew was once his wife. Her body was misshapen, covered in spikes and spines, her limbs twisted and malformed.
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