The Shadow Rises: A Morgan Rook Supernatural Thriller (The Order of Shadows Book 5)

by Kit Hallows

  “I saw the lady, the man too.”

  He nodded. “She was a wonder. Kind.” His smile faded as he glanced back to the wall. “My advice to you is to avoid touching anything in Heathersage. You don’t want to witness the echoes of what happened there, believe me. It would break any man.” He paused. “Now, go and fetch some wood and I’ll make a fire to warm us as we eat. We’ll need every scrap of strength we can get for what we’re going to face.”

  The snow fell soft and slow as I scoured the brush for twigs and branches then gathered stones and placed them in a circle before the house and chopped up the wood with a rusted ax. Nothing was dry enough to use for tinder, but Thomas summoned witch fire and set the twigs alight and soon a campfire was blazing.

  We ate and warmed ourselves as eerie blue shadows from the trees danced around us. The sky darkened and I glanced through a patch in the trees to where bright silvery white stars gleamed across the firmament. I watched the rising moon and hoped Astrid and Samuel saw her too, that they were alive and well, and that I’d be back with them soon.

  “Come,” Thomas stood, setting his pot in the snow bank where it sizzled and began to cool. “It’s time to go.” He doused the fire with a quick spell and kicked the embers over, leaving us in sombre, moonlit gloom.

  As we headed toward the gurgling, rush of the river, I saw a distant string of red lights burning. They made me think of hellfire, which was apt for what was about to follow.

  37

  I watched the red flames as we walked to the river. They were disconcerting, a bad omen. We took a rough icy towpath and I could just make out a bridge spanning the water, its structure illuminated by the orange and crimson light flickering from the bonfire in its center.

  “I see two demons keeping watch on the bridge,” Thomas whispered as he turned to face me. “Are you sure you’re ready for this, Morgan?”

  I nodded. Ready or not, I’d made a pact in blood, and I was a man of my word. On top of that, I couldn’t ignore the horror and indelible scar the aftermath of this invasion had left on Thomas. I had to help him; it was as simple as that. “I’m ready.”

  We stuck to the horse tracks on the snowy path to minimize any evidence of our approach and as we neared the bank I could see the demons clearly. One had long thin stork-like legs and a boxy head with bright, silvery eyes. He was perched on the side of the bridge like a grotesque, dangling his cloven hooves in the water. The other was round and blubbery, his bare flesh the color of blue ink. Five fiendish yellow eyes blinked in his bulbous face, and then they changed to green as he drank from a horn and belched with such ferocity it echoed across the river.

  Their weapons rested against the wall, the pommels and hilts casting crucifix-like shadows on the walls of the bridge. The tallest demon waved his fleshy arms and growled in a coarse, hellish language as the other chuckled, and then they started spitting into the river in some kind of foul, juvenile competition.

  “We’ll need to eliminate them fast so they don’t alert the others,” Thomas whispered. “Any ideas?”

  I thought for a moment. Of course, if I’d had it my way, both creatures would’ve already had bullets in their heads. Not that it was the stealthiest solution. As I glanced up at the moon, I thought of Astrid and Samuel. “Yeah, I’ve got an idea.” I dipped into my dwindling supply of crystals, and cast a quick illusion magic over Thomas and made him look exactly like the winged, spiny demon we’d fought earlier. “A friend taught me this trick,” I said as I cast myself as the imp, “and I kind of wish I’d practiced it more.”

  “Well, you look pretty convincing, especially in the dark. And now we just have to hope these two haven’t heard about the others’ demise yet.” Thomas said as he took a step back and turned toward the path.

  As we neared the bridge, the sentries snapped their scaly heads toward us, leaped to their feet and grabbed their swords.

  “Let us pass,” I said, with as much nonchalance as I could summon. The demons stank of sour wine, shit and evil.

  “Not without the answers,” the blubbery demon said, his five eyes blinked in quick succession and turned the color of rust. “You should know that, Zarachi.”

  “Answers to what?” Thomas demanded, his voice low and hoarse.

  “You know what,” the tall demon said. His silvery eyes flitted over us sardonically.

  “Maybe I forgot.” Thomas said, his tone challenging and contemptuous.

  “Not maybe” I said, “he did forget. So did I. It’s been a long day.”

  “Where’s Malickree?” The fat one demanded. “We saw him leave with you.”

  I’d always found demons to be suspicious creatures, but these two were taking it to a new level. We’d seen three demons. Which one had been Malickree? I took a guess. “The last we saw he was transfixed with the corpses we left in the snow.”

  “I’m sure he was,” he said as he tapped his hoof on the stones and his smile filled with admiration. “But still, we need the answers.”

  “To what?” I held his silvery gaze.

  “How long did we keep the broken girl alive? And how many hours have passed since she died red and raw and squealing?” the blubbery demon asked.

  “Seven,” Thomas said quickly. A wild guess, but the odds were against him either way.

  “Wrong!” The tall stork-like demon piped in a sing-song voice as vivid green fire burst along the length of his blade.

  “We can smell you, you know,” the blubbery demon sniffed, “beneath that half-cocked illusion magic you conjured up. We know the scent of tasty, cowering cowardly humans well. Very well indeed!”

  I jumped back, dodging blows as the stork demon hacked at me. His sword clattered off the stone bridge, with a shower of bright blue sparks.

  The fat blubbery menace snarled and blew putrid fire from his mouth, catching Thomas’s sword arm alight. I rushed forward, skidded under the stork demon’s attack, and stabbed him in the stomach with the sword of intention. He buckled in disbelief, dropped his blade and clutched his hands to the wound.

  Thomas rolled across the ground to quench the flames as the blubbery demon bore down on him, his sword poised for the killing blow.

  I had to act fast, which meant accessing magic I didn’t own.

  Yes, my other whispered, take it!

  Before I could think, my hand planted itself on the demon’s chest, right where his rotten heart would be, and drew in his essence. His eyes opened wide with shock, and then he died as I stripped him of his black, rancid power. I shook as the magic thundered through me, filthy, and leaden, vibrant with evil. And then I summoned a fire ball and threw it the length of the bridge.

  The burning ball of hellish flames enveloped the blubbery demon's back before he could bring his sword down on Thomas. The distraction was enough. The creature faltered and whirred around, his hand flailing behind him as he sought to smother the fire.

  A noxious scent like burning plastic filled the air as the demon waddled toward me, drool spilling from his lips in silken strands. His eyes widened as they recognized the black magic coursing through me and he held out a hand as I closed the distance between us and thrust the sword through his trembling palm and then his eye.

  The demon wailed, his scream strangely effeminate. I pulled the sword free and plunged it through his heart. He gurgled, but before he could die, I reached out and drew his life force out through his blubbery flesh, before kicking him into the river. The power rushing through me was wild and malicious, almost too much to bear, and then it slithered into my depths and I let out a long, contented breath.

  “You…” Thomas’s words tailed off.

  I grinned at his fear and was half tempted to cut him down for sport. It wasn’t my thought, and yet it was. The magic was feeding my darkest emotions and impulses, tempting me to fell this weak man who had fled his village. Thankfully I beat them back. Just.

  I stooped down to recover my sword. “Are you ready to paint the village red?” I asked. It wasn’t my v
oice, and yet it wasn’t quite my other’s either.

  “I…” Thomas gazed at me transfixed. “You took their magic… how? Do you know-”

  “Enough. Follow me and destroy this vermin, or flee again. It’s up to you.”

  He held his tongue but I could see the conflict in his eyes. It grated on me and I wanted to grab him and shake him from his reverie, but I forced myself to step away. I gazed into the bonfire and shook my head. What the hell had happened to me?

  “Are you alright?” Thomas asked.

  I had to think about the question, but eventually I nodded. “Sure. Come on, let’s end this.” I sheathed my sword and set my gaze upon the dark village beyond the trees, and the hellish red lights that drew me like a moth to a flame.

  38

  We left the bridge and crept toward the village’s outskirts. Dead bodies hung from the trees and the wall surrounding Heathersage and even more dangled from the wooden guard post to the west. A black silhouette lurked within the tower and I caught a flash of glowing eyes.

  Thomas’s face was long, pained and haunted as he nodded toward the village. “Can you take the demon in the tower?” I asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Good.” We had to split up. I needed him gone because as repulsive as it was, I still had a white hot temptation to cut him down and still his beating heart. I hated the thought, hated the malignancy I’d allowed into my mind, body and soul. I’d been warned over and over again, yet I’d still done it; taken the one thing I shouldn’t have out of desperation for a magical edge, to have power that wasn’t vanilla. Real power…

  “What will you do?” Thomas asked, breaking my thoughts.

  “Slay Maladee De’ Nix. Now go.”

  I felt intense relief as he vanished into the shadows without another word. The savage infestation that had possessed my thoughts itched to chase him down, to cut him up and take him apart until he was nothing but a wet red mess. I grabbed a used crystal from my bag and considered trying to re-channel the black energy I'd stolen. I’d done it before, after drawing on the power from the asylum, but somehow I knew it wouldn’t be so simple this time. That the essence I’d drawn from the demons would be more indelible. Besides, without a gun, I’d need the magic to battle De’ Nix.

  I walked in the red glow of the old torches erected along the battlements. They flickered and spat with hellfire, highlighting the twisted and warped iron gates that once secured the entrance to the village. I slipped past, steering clear as they creaked from their hinges.

  Flailed bodies littered the street and dangled from the rooftops, red and naked, utterly stripped of flesh. The shiny pebbles thrust into their eye sockets lent them an eerie stare. It was like nothing I'd ever seen, or would expect to see outside of a horror movie, or etching from some Satanic book.

  As I crossed a patch of charred grass a peal of sadistic, devilish laughter rang out from the shattered windows of the village hall, and a flock of large black birds with horned heads soared into the air, cawing angrily as the sound echoed through the square. The laugh was hoarse, mocking, and female. De’ Nix.

  I slipped into the shadows, taking cover among a line of squat, thatched stone houses, as I made my way toward the hall. I crept through the broken glass that littered the steps and peered around the battered remains of the front door. The hall inside had been stripped of its furnishings, and what remained of the chairs and banquet tables were kindling for the fire smoldering to one side of the darkened interior.

  A mound of thirty or more dead bodies were piled around the remains of the conflagration. Some were decomposed, while others looked as if they’d only just met their bloody ends. Then I glanced up toward the high chair that overlooked the horror show in the midst of the hall and to the hunched demon sat within.

  Maladee De’ Nix, I assumed.

  She was older than I’d expected. A pair of great antlers crowned her long head over wisps of wiry grey hair and her eyes were narrow, and bone-white. At first I thought she was wearing a scarlet dress, but as she leaned over to the bucket between her feet and dunked a goblet into it, I realized the red was blood. She drank lustily, and rivulets slopped down over her sagging chest. “More!” she cried, as she dropped the goblet into the bucket with a slow thick splosh.

  Two demons appeared at the edge of the darkness. One was a huge beast with flesh so shiny, golden and hard that it looked like armor. A single, giant eye filled most of his face and his mouth was like a cruel scar filled with crooked teeth.

  The other demon was lean and devious looking. His black fur shimmered as he turned his long, jackal-like head in the light, and then I saw the man he was dragging by his hair. It seemed he was dead, until the jackal gave his face a quick sharp slap. He sat up, stricken with horror as he looked around, then let out a long, protracted scream.

  De’ Nix licked the blood from the corners of her mouth. “Good evening,” she said, her voice as cracked and rough as a chain smoker’s. “Jon Miller. Married to Mary Miller. She’s in one of those heaps over there.” She pointed a crooked finger to the pile of corpses. “Her end came tediously quick. Expired the moment we pulled her heart out, a stilted end to our little game, so we improvised. As soon as her heart stopped beating we cut it into succulent little chunks. You feasted upon them while you slept. You couldn’t get enough, remember?”

  Miller leaned over and vomited. Then he whimpered a single, plaintive question. “Why?”

  “We’ve been stationed here for weeks now. After the initial bloodletting, things have been as dull as ditchwater,” De’ Nix said. “And we’re tired. We long to stretch our legs and wings, to explore Penrythe proper but our orders were clear, stay put. And follow them we must, because if we don’t, we might end up like poor old Harshwyre. Do you know what happened to him? Went mad he did. Got lost in the woods somewhere. We heard his calls for help but I’ll be buggered if we're going to risk our neck for his sorry hide. So to answer your question, we’re stuck and I’m bored, and they’re bored too,” she nodded to the demons, “so we decided to have some sport. Do you know what the restless disease is?”

  Miller nodded.

  “Well there’s a plant that grows in the north of my lands and its extract produces almost the opposite effect, in that it turns the living into the dead. You take it, you die for a short time and when you wake, it’s to the same terrible, inconsolable sense of loss that you’re currently experiencing. We fed you it, along with the slivers of your wife’s heart. You seemed to enjoy both.”

  Miller doubled over again as De’ Nix took another sip of blood and watched him with a smirk. “We did all sorts of things while you slept,” she laughed, “but enough is enough. I’ve decided to give you a chance to right these wrongs, and exact your revenge. If you beat my demons, you can fight me. You see, I may be harsh, but I’m fair.”

  “But…” Miller shook his head, his mad eyes wild with horror, “why?”

  “Like I said, we’re bored and we can,” De’ Nix answered, “that’s why.”

  The golden demon approached Miller with a jug, prized his hand open, poured a clear viscous liquid into it, and nodded. The jackal demon slapped a sword into Miller’s hand, pressed his fingers closed around the pommel and gave them a squeeze.

  Miller shook his head. “I don’t want to fight… I’m not-” He tried to toss the sword away, but it stuck fast.

  “You will fight. It’s my wish, and I always get my wishes,” De’ Nix said as the two demons vanished into the gloom and returned with their weapons. The jackal whipped his thin serrated blade through the air and the golden demon twisted a huge barbed sword as they began to encircle Miller.

  I watched in dread as they drew in and lashed his back. Not deep, just enough to draw blood and agony. They went round and round, cut after cut in a macabre dance, and then the demons swooped in and dug their long claws into his wounds.

  It was too much to bear. My plan had been to approach De’ Nix from the shadows, to strike her revolting head o
ff before she could so much as blink, but now it seemed the game had changed.

  I stepped into the light and everyone froze. “Let him go.” I nodded to Miller, who was now weeping inconsolably with a high, keening wail.

  “And why would we do that?” the golden demon asked, his voice as slow as honey as he licked his fingers.

  “Maybe he wants to play with us,” the jackal panted, his long, furry tongue hanging from his drawn lips.

  “It seems like you do.” De’ Nix called. “Who are you, anyway?”

  I met her imperious gaze and spat on the ground between us. “Morgan Rook. I came for your head.”

  She stood much taller than I’d expected. “And why would you wish to bestow me with such an honor?”

  “You murdered the family of the demon Sindaub.”

  “Can’t say that name rings any bells,” she replied with a playful shrug. “But then, as you can probably see, I've been very busy, and I’m not one for keeping accounts.” She fished her goblet from the bucket and poured it over her head, drenching herself in blood, and then she licked her lips in an obscene, lusty manner. “But tell me, why would a demon send a human to do his dirty work? How did this Sindaub press you into his service?”

  “The whys don’t matter,” I said, “the point is, you’re going to lose your head.” My heart pounded fit to burst but I kept my gaze steady as I strode toward her, the air fecund with the stench of blood and death.

  39

  I strode past De’ Nix’s minions as if they were of no consequence, even though both towered over me. Their eyes brimmed with wild malevolence and I could see they were itching to attack.

  The black magic I’d drawn from their brethren on the bridge still writhed within me, but its vitality was waning. Soon I’d be left with nothing but the crystals, which were like kids’ toys compared to the power I’d gleaned in this place.