The Corruption Within

by Ty Griffin

  The demon reached toward Kayla, extending a single menacing claw. I looked down at my hands and saw similarly shaped claws. I could feel Veikr’s power pulsing through my body in time with the throbbing red cracks in the volcanic rock-like shell of my skin. I shoved off the ground with all the power of a Clydesdale packed into the body of a linebacker. I didn’t hear myself scream as I hurled my body at the monster, but he must have, because he spun around like a whip an instant before my body plowed into him.

  This time, with the assistance of Veikr’s power and my reckless disregard for my own well-being, I knew that when my shoulder crashed into Gabe, he felt it. Both demon-Gabe and I went flying several feet past Kayla. We landed on the ground, with me on top. Gabe kicked up and sent me tumbling on farther past him.

  I sprung to my feet as quick as I could, trying to press my advantage, but the monster was faster than me and set his feet, ready for my attack. I hurled myself at him again, arm pulled back ready to punch with the full weight of my body behind it. But like before, Gabe leaned to his side and twisted his hip. As I swung my arm at him, he caught my wrist and pulled, using my momentum against me. Caught off balance, I tripped over his planted leg and went sprawling to the ground.

  Even through Veikr’s assisted power, I felt the force of the impact all the way through my teeth. I pushed myself up to my feet as quick as I could and faced Gabe, this time more wary.

  Demon-Gabe circled around me and I turned with him, not giving him my back. I couldn’t see any features on the monster’s face, but somehow I could sense it was smirking at me.

  I felt a tingling in my right palm and knew what Veikr was trying to signal. I held my arm out to the side, away from my body, and felt an instant of intense, searing heat. A flash of red light exploded from my hand. When the light faded, a three-foot-long sword was in my hand, pulsing a quiet, simmering ember-red.

  The demon cocked its head at me in a gesture of mock curiosity and then extended its arm just as I had. There was a flash of blue light, so dark it was almost purple—almost like the purple of a black light. The stark shock of deep blue when everything else in my vision was red was almost blinding.

  When the light subsided, the monster was holding a sword. The sword was almost twice as long as mine and had a curved blade. The sword faded into dark red, just like everything else in my periphery, except for its edge, which still glimmered blue.

  I realized that the blue flash from the monster was nothing like the blue-white I had seen come from Gabe before, but wasn’t able to make sense of it before the creature spoke.

  “Veikr?” the monster said with slithering contempt. “Veikr, is that you?”

  “Achimasiz,” I heard Veikr whisper inside me. The battle rage that had been beating inside me a moment before melted into horrified panic. “Vessel, we must go now!”

  “Veikr,” the demon said again. “Little, pathetic spirit. Have you finally convinced a human to let you go for a ride? Do you now consider yourself strong enough to take on one such as me?”

  “Run, Vessel. We must run!” Veikr whispered inside my head.

  “I can feel the terror inside you, tiny spirit. Veikr indeed. Weak and pathetic. What do you think you will do here? Do you think you can steal my prize from me?”

  “What is he talking about, Veikr?” I asked in horror.

  “Nothing, human. Run. You must run now!” Veikr was shouting now.

  “Poor, pathetic, conniving Veikr. You have at least shown me where my prize was hiding. Step aside now, and I will let you have a turn once I am done.” The monster’s voice was acidic. The more it spoke, the more my mind clouded and my thoughts spun. I absentmindedly noticed the creature moving toward me as it spoke.

  “Veikr?” I pleaded.

  “You should take his offer, Vessel,” Veikr said flatly.

  The monster took another step forward, now close enough to easily reach me with his massive sword. I chanced a glance behind me and saw Kayla curled in a ball on the floor, her body trembling in fear. Rage burst through my chest. No, rage is not a strong enough word. Loathing, violent fury exploded from the very core of me, permeating my every cell. The world became lost in a sea of blinding red, and everything faded into nothing beyond the form of the vile creature before me.

  I felt a vague word of caution from Veikr, but its meaning didn’t register in my brain. I screamed. I raised my sword above my head, clasped in both hands, and, leaping forward, brought it down with the strength of every cell in my body combined with every ounce of Veikr’s power.

  Achimasiz must have been taken off guard, because he barely got his sword up in time to block my blow. His blade met mine just inches from his face. I didn’t stop. Still screaming, I raised my sword again and brought it back down. If I could not sneak my sword past his, I would just pummel his until it snapped and then I would bash this—thing. This monster. This demon. This threat to someone who mattered. I would rain down a barrage until its blood painted the walls.

  I landed four or five blows against the demon’s sword before it sidestepped halfway through my swing, caught my blow at an angle, and let my blade slide down to the hilt. I wasn’t prepared for the extra movement, and my center of gravity shifted forward enough to delay me a full second. Achimasiz, obviously more experienced in a fight, took advantage. He pushed out with his arms, causing my shoulders to twist away from him. Then he lifted a foot and planted it firmly into my ribs.

  In the unnatural, oppressive silence of the warehouse, I could hear my ribs crack from the kick. The force of it hurled my back into the shelf behind me. The majority of the impact was taken on Veikr’s wings, and I felt one of them snap. Pain exploded through my body and through Veikr’s presence inside me.

  The creature leapt toward me, planting one foot inches from my head. I saw out of the corner of my eye that his other leg was cocked back, ready to swing through and launch my head like he was kicking a field goal.

  I managed to pull my arms around my head and wrap Veikr’s one good wing around my arms an instant before Gabe’s kick landed. The kick still rattled my head with a painful explosion of lights, and I felt an inky blackness starting to creep over my consciousness. I vaguely recognized Gabe rearing back to kick me again. The following kicks hurt, but as close to unconscious as I was, the pain barely registered.

  “Vessel!” I heard Veikr shriek through the fog of dizzying confusion.

  I snapped back to focus enough to realize Achimasiz was reared back to kick me once more. He twisted his hips and paused, lining himself up to finish me off with one final kick.

  I don’t know exactly how I moved so fast, other than that Veikr’s power must have given me incredible speed. I twisted my body, planting my feet against the shelf behind me, and lunged at Gabe’s pivot leg. My shoulder hit his knee, which would have shattered the joint in a human, but ligaments must work differently for spiritual creatures. His leg just shot out from beneath him, and with his other leg still mid-swing he had no point of contact with the ground. That is, at least, until his face made contact with the ground with a satisfying smack while his body landed on top of mine.

  I rolled out from under the demon and scrambled to my feet. I desperately looked around for my sword that had gone flying with the first kick. I didn’t see the sword anywhere, but I caught a glimpse of Kayla still huddled on a shelf. I ran to her and grabbed her by the shoulders. I shook her hard, and her head flopped around like a bobble head.

  Her eyes opened and languidly came into focus. Her face was streaked with tears, and her entire body shook in terror. “Run!” I shouted. I still could not hear my own voice in the forced silence, but I shouted again and again. The message must have gotten through, even if the sound did not, because Kayla nodded, her focus snapping into clarity, and began scrambling through the shelf toward the next aisle.

  I stood and turned to face Gabe, prepared to fight long enough to give Kayla a chance to run, but he had already recovered. I turned right into him and felt his
hand clamp around my throat. His grip was a vice choking my air off. I saw the demon raise a fist and begin pounding it into my face. Pain exploded through my head with each brutal punch. After the first blow, I closed my eyes, but still lights exploded in my head in a dizzying fireworks display.

  After several strikes I felt the creature pull me close so my face was only inches from his. “Pathetic,” it snarled. And then it lifted me by my neck so my feet were dangling in the air and tossed me upward like I was nothing more than a sack of groceries.

  I flew twenty feet through the air, over the top of the shelf, hit the metal ceiling joist, and came tumbling down. On the way down, I hit the next rack over, bouncing off two shelves before landing in the aisle in a broken pile of pain.

  I felt Veikr’s power dissolve, and the pain he had been shielding me from came over me like a crashing wave. I let out an involuntary, soundless scream, but was cut short by stabbing pain in my chest. I took several short breaths, trying to regain my air.

  My head rang like I was stuck inside a giant bell, and I could taste blood in my mouth. But neither my ribs nor my head held a candle to the pain in my shoulder shooting down my left arm. I tried to raise my hand in front of my face, but had trouble controlling my arm. I gingerly shifted my weight to feel my arm with my right hand and carefully work my way up to my left shoulder.

  There was a gruesome separation between my shoulder and arm. The impact with the ceiling, or the fall after, must have dislocated my shoulder. I don’t know if it was the pain or just the realization that not all of my body parts were connected the way they should be, but my stomach lurched and I curled into a ball on the floor, dry heaving.

  Suddenly I felt a cool, gentle hand on my face. I looked up to see Kayla, her eyes still wide with fear but also filled with concern. She had stopped running and come back for me. Her mouth was moving, and while I could not hear her voice, somehow my soul resonated with what she was communicating. Compassion. Gratitude. Love.

  It wasn’t a romantic declaration you’d see in a movie. It was just the simple and pure communication that I mattered. That my well-being was just as, if not more so, important to her as her own. She was still scared, terrified even, but in that moment her thoughts were for me. She was worried for me.

  I didn’t hear it when the creature came around the corner, still enveloped in silence as I was, but I felt it. Kayla must have felt it too, because her head snapped up and her entire body tensed. I tried to push Kayla away, to make her run, to push myself off the ground to run with her, but without Veikr’s help my body was spent. Kayla stood, her body nearly convulsing she was shaking so bad, but she faced demon-Gabe, clenched her fist and screamed a defiant, silent scream.

  The monster stalked toward us slowly, enjoying the fear he was causing. He stopped a couple feet short of Kayla and loomed over her. Kayla reared back with all her strength and punched him in the chest. But she had never been a violent person and didn’t know how to throw a punch. When her fist landed, her arm was turned with her thumb up. Her wrist buckled on impact. I was sure that if I had been able to hear, I would have heard the unmistakable sound of a bone snapping. Kayla immediately pulled back, clutching her hand to her stomach and doubling over in pain.

  The demon reached one hand forward and placed it on Kayla’s head. Her knees buckled and she fell to the ground, completely still. I screamed and crawled to her. I saw her chest moving in tiny, jerky movements, and relief washed over me. She was alive.

  I looked up at the creature above me, my terrified brain unable, or unwilling, to come up with any rational thoughts. I was going to die. Kayla was going to die. And Gabe was probably going to get away with it.

  Again, Achimasiz reached forward with one menacing, horrifying hand, this time for me. I tried to grab its wrist with my good hand and push it away, but I was like a toddler trying to hold back a powerlifter. I doubt the demon even realized I had tried.

  The instant before the demon touched my head, there was a flash of blue-white light. The monster jerked its head up, looking at something over my shoulder. Then there was a blur of intense, brilliant light over my head, and the demon went flying. I blinked, trying to process what I was seeing.

  Where the creature had just been standing was a completely different, equally terrifying, creature. This one was at least eight feet tall and shimmered white like a star in the night sky. This creature was power and strength made into human form. It looked like something patterned after a statue of a Greek god. Or maybe something the statues had been patterned after.

  Muscles, clearly defined and tensed in anticipation, rippled in its legs and shoulders. It wore a simple white cloth wrapped around its waist, and on its back were two white, massive, feathered wings pulled in tight. When the creature turned to me, I saw its face—hard and savage and violent.

  The new terror stepped toward me, and I flung my body over Kayla and closed my eyes. I felt like a coward, but I didn’t have the strength to watch my death coming.

  And then I felt a hand on my arm, its grip strong but gentle at the same time. I opened my eyes and saw a man with short graying hair, a tough worn face, and kind, light blue eyes. “You all right, kid?” he asked.

  “Gabe?” I asked in disbelief.

  He nodded. “Are you all right?” he asked again.

  My head swam as scenes from the last several days flashed through my mind like puzzle pieces trying to find their place. “Holy shit! You’re an angel!”

  Chapter 21

  ◆◆◆

  “Can you walk?” he asked, extending me his hand. His voice was different, deeper and full of reverb as if coming from a massive bell. And I realized in an odd moment of clarity that whatever spirit had possession of his body was piercing the veil of silence to allow Gabe to speak to me.

  I nodded and took his hand with my one good one, pulling myself to my feet. Gabe gestured to Kayla’s unconscious body lying at my feet. “You’ve got to get her out of here, kid. I’ll hold him off.”

  “Gabe, you’re a freakin’ angel?” I asked incredulously.

  He gave me a devious half smile and said, “Only part time.” His face turned serious, and he said with command in his voice, “Now go!” Then he turned and stalked in the direction the monster had been flung.

  I looked down at Kayla and tried to figure out how to lift her with only one arm. I knew she had to be pretty light, so once I got her up and over my good shoulder I should be able to carry her for at least a little bit, but I had no idea how to get her up.

  “Veikr?” I whispered. I didn’t feel any response from him, so I asked again, “Veikr, can you help me lift her?” Still nothing.

  I noticed movement out of the corner of my eye in the direction Gabe had walked off. I looked over my shoulder and saw the monster standing at the end of the aisle. He looked huge compared to Gabe’s natural human body. He held his blue-edged sword, now as wide as my leg and nearly as tall as me, in one hand.

  Gabe continued walking toward the monster with slow, intentional steps. I realized Gabe was trying to draw it out to give me time to escape. I grabbed Kayla’s hand and started walking backward, dragging her away from the ensuing conflict. I looked up to see Gabe’s body erupt in an explosion of blindingly bright, blue-white light. When the light receded, Gabe’s body was again encased by the massive spirit and was holding a long great sword. His spirit form was not as tall as the demon before him, but he was broader and more heavily built.

  Gabe, without adjusting his pace at all, took his sword in two hands, held it down to the side, brought it around and over his shoulder, and swung it like he was chopping wood. The demon raised its sword with both hands and blocked Gabe’s attack, but the sheer force of the blow knocked Achimasiz to its knees.

  I kept dragging Kayla, and looked behind me to see how much further we had to go. We had been close to the far side of the aisle that was now the scene of the spiritual battle, so I had to drag her almost the entire length of the aisle. Looking bac
k, I saw we were about halfway. I tried to increase my speed, but my legs were already burning.

  I looked back and saw the monster had sprung back to its feet while Gabe was in the middle of his next furious swing. The monster moved to its right as Gabe brought his sword down, causing his blow to careen futilely off the concrete.

  Demon-Gabe—who, I was realizing, wasn’t demon-not-Gabe—swung its sword in a great arc, trying to take Gabe’s head off with a single swing, but Gabe followed the momentum of his sword and dropped to a knee underneath the demon’s swing. Angel-Gabe reached out with one giant hand, shoved the monster back into a shelf, and jumped back to his feet.

  Achimasiz regained his balance and tried to circle around Gabe, but Gabe, obviously wanting to stay between it and us, took a step to cut it off and swung another overhead chop. Achimasiz raised its sword and knocked Gabe’s to the side. The motion carried the demon’s sword back past its left shoulder, and it shifted its weight to swing its sword like a baseball bat into Gabe’s stomach.

  Gabe leapt back, barely avoiding the tip of the demon’s blade, then immediately leapt forward, thrusting his sword with one hand to impale the monster. The demon twisted to avoid the blade and grabbed Gabe’s wrist. It happened so quickly I didn’t see it, but the demon’s great sword changed into a dagger maybe ten inches long. It raised the dagger above its head and brought it down, aiming for Gabe’s neck.

  Gabe threw up his hand and caught the demon’s wrist. From where I was, it looked like the tip of the blade grazed Gabe’s neck. The two spirits pushed and pulled at each other, trying to break free of the other’s grip, force their opponent off balance, or work their blade into the other’s flesh. After a moment, I saw Gabe lean back, creating space between his body and the demon’s dagger. At the same time, he kicked his foot into Achimasiz’s shin. The demon’s leg flew back, disrupting its balance, and Gabe pulled and twisted, throwing the monster several feet into the shelving behind. The giant shelves tipped from the force of the blow before settling back into place, spilling several boxes to the floor.