There was no time to retrieve Excalibur. I threw myself forward like a defensive tackle lunging at the quarterback and knocked Dr Moratu to the ground.
He fell hard against the sharp corners of the altar. I landed on top of him, dragging him with me onto the tiles. He cursed. His hand closed around my neck, squeezing. I couldn’t breathe. Choking, I almost passed out as he tossed me aside, no more to him than a rag doll.
He was on his feet again in no time. Before I could regain my breath, the hefty fists of the zombie henchmen closed around my arms, dragging me to my feet and pulling me, kicking and struggling, toward the back of the temple, away from the altar, away from Grandma and the sacrificial knife.
“Didn’t we do this routine already?” I said.
This would be my last chance to save Grandma. Hell, to save the freaking world and do what I’d been born to do, initiated or not.
The two zombies stared ahead, expressionless, as I struggled to free myself from their rotten, stinking grasp. Then, suddenly, I’d just had enough.
I ducked down, hunching my head between my shoulders, and at the same time tugging my arms together with all the strength I could muster. The zombies’ heads cracked together. As soon as their hands released me I span round and delivered a high scissor kick to first one and then the other. Their heads detached from their bodies, shooting across the temple and splattering against the wall.
That was icky! I thought.
But before I could turn and head back to the altar, the headless zombies lurched toward me, their arms outstretched.
Classic style, boys.
I snapped out two more high kicks, this time to the chest. The monsters fell backwards, newly sawn timber finally succumbing to gravity, and crashed heavily against the tiles. I waited at the ready just a moment to be sure the thundering bodies weren’t about to resurrect again.
Moratu had completed the incantation. He stood poised with the dagger, waiting for the Dragon Moon to reach the zenith and shine directly through the dome and on to the victim’s heart.
Grandma had come back round; although I was sure he’d drugged her. Her eyes were bleary and unfocused.
“The hour of the Dragon Moon has come!” Moratu’s voice echoed through the temple. “I offer thee this sacrifice, O Azazel! Come! O Demon of Darkness! Feed on this Dragon’s blood and be thou empowered!”
Even as the dagger began is downward trajectory toward Grandma’s heart, I threw myself at him, closing my hands around his wrists and yanking the dagger away.
With a sharp tug, I snatched the knife from him and threw it aside. It clattered to the floor at the back of the room. Moratu swore and shoved me away. I landed with a painful crack on the cold marble surface of the altar. He was up and running across the temple to retrieve the dagger.
“Amelia!” It was Grandma. “Leave him. Look! It is the hour of the Dragon Moon! Take my hands, take my hands now!”
The fullness of the moon’s bright disc glowed in the darkness. A surge of power coursed through me, as if my blood itself, as the ocean tides, responded to the heavenly power.
“Take my hands before it’s too late!”
I pushed around the side of the altar and stood in front of Grandma. I clasped her hands in mine, our fingers entwining. Grandma smiled, despite her condition, and in a frail voice began to sing, the ancient Song of Initiation, the moonlight reflecting in her eyes.
A ray of the purest white light zapped across the vast distance of space. My eyes widened as the moonbeam shot toward me, through the skylight, and hit like cold fire.
My grandmother’s fingers squeezed mine tight. The magical power surged through me, awakening my ancestral blood, roaring within my body. I had never felt such strength and inner fire. With a gasp, Grandma let go, her fingers falling limp, and slumped in her chains once more.
The moonbeam vanished. Clouds drifted across the face of the celestial body. But the power remained.
“Now, you miserable bastard,” I thought grimly as I turned to confront the occultist. “Do your worst.”
But he’d gone. He was nowhere to be seen.
I stepped forward to get a better look through the gloom. Just like all bullies, I thought, high and confident in my new power, he’s a coward at heart.
I looked for the knife, thinking I might be able to use it to break open the manacles that bound Grandma. But then I saw the dagger had gone with him. A shock of anxiety stabbed at my heart. The whole world jolted to a standstill. The realization was pure horror.
It’s too late!
I turned back in time to see Dr Moratu, his face devilish in the candlelight, rush up from behind the altar and plunge the dagger into Grandma’s heart.
Her blood pulsed, splattering his face and robes. He yanked the dagger back and cried, “Come, O Powers of Darkness! The Gate is open!”
“Grandma!” I screamed. But I knew she was dead.
In the split second that I stood frozen in horror, the occultist had vanished from sight. In his place, as the light of the moon disappeared behind the darkest clouds, thick black smoke clouded the altar in front of Grandma’s body.
The cloud emerged from nowhere, swirling and thickening, sulfurous flames leaping and dancing from within. My heart pounded in my chest. I stepped back and snatched up the sword, Excalibur.
The smoke consolidated, and before my terrified eyes the demon materialized. Nothing could have prepared me for the sight of a real demon. I’d studied them in preparation for my role as demon-slayer, sure; I’d learned about them at my mother’s knee as a child. But the sight of the real thing, manifesting right in front of me, was an experience beyond terror. It was a hideous evil, well beyond the worst wickedness of humankind, incarnate and broiling with tangible hate.
I recognized it. I’d seen it before in the Book of Shadows: its huge, man-like form; the muscular, powerful goat-legs; the curling talons extending from long fingers; the thin, sharp face with its twisting, distorted mouth and spiraling horns curling up from its monstrous head; the flicking tail; and the terrifying appendage hanging between its gruesome thighs.
“Azazel!”
At the sound of its name, the demon seemed to come to life. It was more than a materializing vision in a cloud of smoke; it was something solid and real, its great hooves clattering on the marble tiles, cracking them in splintering lines with each thudding step. It hissed as sulfurous smoke billowed from its mouth, jetting from every pore in its preternatural body.
Azazel turned, its slit-like eyes focusing on me. For the space of a breath, we held that dread gaze. Then, without warning, it leaned its bulk forward and thundered toward me.
I sprang backwards, still in shock at the size and power of the monster.
The demon didn’t only have vast physical power. It exuded a deeply disturbing psychic energy. The temple distorted around me, swelling and contracting as if viewed through a curved glass, or one of those crazy mirrors you see at old-time fairgrounds.
Azazel’s huge wings stretched out, bat-like, and the sheer strength of them sent ornaments and candles crashing to the floor, ripping aside the curtains of the temple.
Enough backing away, Lia.
I ran toward the demon as it rose up in front of me and I slashed with Excalibur. The sharpened steel, sparking with magical energy, sliced through the monster’s thick, rubbery flesh.
The demon wailed in pain and lashed out with a foul claw, scratching at my skin. I blanked the pain and retaliated with a fresh blow. Blow after blow after blow - snick, snack, snick, snack - chopping at the demon’s flesh. Thick black blood oozed and throbbed, splattering over the pillars on either side of the altar.
Azazel slashed again, tearing at my flesh. But I was quick and powerful, now. My fear was gone. A kind of wild exhilaration had overtaken me. I avoided every stroke, returning each attack with three swipes of my own blade.
But no matter how many times I struck and how much blood I spilled, the demon seemed to lose no power.
As the words left my lips, and as the crackling lightning flash of pure white energy zipped down through my arm and into the blade like a shock of shimmering electrical current, I knew the words were those of my own deep, ancestral language: the language once spoken freely in Atlantis, which had now become words of power, the Dragon-tongue.
This time as I thrust the blade forward at the demon I struck it deep in the heart. The monster roared and wailed, grasping at the wound and staggering, flailing about in agony.
But before I could pull Excalibur back, the foul, demonic claws gripped the hilt and yanked it free of my grasp, tossing the sword aside like a matchstick.
Wounded, its wings folded now, but still powerful, and angered with hell’s own fury, the demon rushed at me, both claws outstretched.
Without the magic sword, I was defenseless against the onslaught. Instinctively, I looked over toward where Grandma’s dead body still hung in chains. A fierce anger ignited within me: at the demonic powers, at the wickedness of Dr Moratu, at Joe Summers, at Dan, at the world, at my own fear which had cost such a heavy price. And that anger triggered the upsurge of an ancient power within me, awakened at last by the initiation of the Dragon Moon.
It was like in a movie when everything runs in slow motion.
Azazel rushed toward me, looming ever larger, blocking out the temple. My skin shifted. Deep in my DNA dormant genes were transcribed, translated, triggered into expression. A surge of power accelerated my metabolism as my body changed.
I grew, the Victorian dress falling away in burning tatters as new strength poured into renewed muscles, my body breaking out in scales, my nails pushing into claws, my wings erupting from the flesh of my back.
I am a Dragon!
The demon stopped in its tracks.
Now, shifted fully into my Dragon form, I rose up roaring and opened my jaws. A jet of all-consuming flame shot out, blasting the demon backwards, igniting it.
The creature writhed, burning, its skin blackened, its flesh returning once more to smoke and ashes.
And it was over.
The demon faded; the temple in flames.
Exhilarated but exhausted from my first transformation, I shifted back into my human form. Hardly aware of what had just happened to me, I slumped naked to my knees on the temple floor. The clanging bell of the fire engine sounded in the streets outside.
The conflagration roared around me. I looked up, blinking away tears, as Grandma’s body was consumed by the fire.
CHAPTER TWELVE
I DON’T REMEMBER HOW IT happened, honestly: whether by my own newfound magical power, or because somehow Joe had worked another spell, but I came round from my grief kneeling on the floor of Grandma’s study in a circle of bitter salt.
Flashes of memory sparked in my mind: running naked from the temple as the fire roared around me; a fury of shocked and angry actors backstage as I shot through them; locking the door of the attic storeroom behind me, ignoring their shouts and hammering as I pulled on a new dress from the rack; the sound of the lock breaking as I dropped the skylight behind me and slipped across the roof tiles.
I should have been exhausted, all my energy spent. I hadn’t slept or eaten for ages. But I didn’t feel that way. I felt physically full of power and strength. Although my heart ached as the image of Grandma’s body engulfed in flames burned in my memory.
I sat for a while, slumped in silence, listening to the stillness, punctuated now and then by the sounds associated with old Victorian houses: the creaking of the window casements, the scuttle of a mouse somewhere in the walls. Then, with a thudding heart, I remembered what I was doing. I had to close the portal!
I pulled myself to my feet. I was still dressed in the Victorian clothing I’d donned in the theater attic. My hair had come loose, the pins lost. Catching sight of my reflection in a gilt mirror which Grandma kept in here not so much for vanity as for other, more magical purposes, I was amazed at how well I’d come through. The dress was in good order, unlike the one I’d left in tattered rags after my Dragon-shift. My face was passable. A few smudges of blood. Nothing too bad. I still held the sword, Excalibur, in my right hand.
I stood in the circle of salt and visualized the place where the portal vortex had first opened on Old Compton Street. The inner vision connected with the outer reality and I saw, psychically, the doorway materialize in front of me. The vortex was still swirling darkness, but there were police emergency tape and a plastic barricade now, illuminated by the flashing blue lights of squad cars.
Holding the sword to my breast with the point facing down toward the Earth, my hands clasped around the hilt, I closed my eyes. I sought to contact the shape of the gateway, to see in the astral vision the outlines of its magical as well as physical boundaries.
As the room faded around me and I sensed the magic working, I lifted the sword, stretched out in front of me, and traced the outline of the portal with the point of the blade. As I did so, I found the words - the ancient words of my people, the Dragon-horde of magical letters from before the sinking of Atlantis; the words Merlin had used to enchant Ygraine and call forth the Pendragon - and I chanted the Spell of Sealing.
Magical energy crackled along the length of the blade, spilling out at the point and sealing the stone of the archway into the wood of the door, melding the two materials until there was no longer any distinction between them, no longer any gap.
The gateway, the portal, was sealed.
I opened my eyes and allowed the modern world to build around me again. Someone was laughing, talking, somewhere else in the house.
I tensed, every nerve twanging. Who could be here?
Only Joe Summers.
Then who is he talking to? Had Dan come back? Or had he called some of his colleagues from the police department? And even if he had why the hell were they laughing? I could think of no freaking good reason anyone could have for laughing right now. All the sorrow and pain of my grief, and my sense of failure, welled up inside me. But even as it did, by some inner alchemy of the emotions, it turned to anger.
I replaced Excalibur in its cabinet, and closed the psychic seal, before marching toward the study door. Grasping the handle, I flung it open and stormed out into the hall, furious.
The voices came again, but they weren’t laughing this time. I recognized Joe Summers’ deep tones. The sounds were coming from the kitchen.
More cautious now - there was no telling when the dangers would end, after all - I walked along the hallway and stood outside the kitchen. The door was already slightly ajar.
Peeping through the crack, I could see Joe, looking just as he had when I’d left him casting the spell. Although now he was more relaxed, his hands thrust into the pockets of his slacks, pushing his jacket back, slumped lazily against the surface of the old dresser. He was speaking to someone out of sight, on the other side of the kitchen.
I drew a deep breath, not knowing whether I was about to fight or argue or what. The flat of my palm rested on the door’s surface. I pushed it open. As the door swung wide, Joe jumped up from the dresser and took a step toward me, taking his hands from his pockets. One hand ran through his hair. He smiled at me.
“Well, I’m glad to see you back safe and sound,” he said as cheerfully as if I’d just gotten back from a vacation.
At the sight of him, something shifted inside me and the anger caved in again, collapsing back into grief.
“I failed,” I said blankly, the emotions inside me too tumultuous to express. “She’s dead. The portal is closed, but Grandma is dead.”
Joe raised an eyebrow. He stretched out a hand to me. It wasn’t an invitation to a comforting embrace. It was more as if he was inviting me in. I felt the crystal at my neck begin to glow with gentle warmth. I looked down. It emitted a soft, milky
light. I stepped through the doorway and into the kitchen.
“Grandma!”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
I SANK INTO GRANDMA’S EMBRACE.
She was well, fully dressed, warm, and very much alive.
Once I’d sobbed myself dry, I pulled gently away, still clasping Grandma’s elbows between my hands and squeezing as if I needed to check she was real.
Sniffing away tears, and beginning to laugh despite myself, I said, “But I don’t understand. I saw you! He killed you. He sacrificed you and you burned in the fire!”
Grandma smiled. “I would have told you, dear,” she said. “But in the circumstances there was hardly time for lengthy explanations. And in any case, it was important that Moratu didn’t know what would happen.”
“So what did happen?”
“He killed me as you saw, but only in that time dimension. I should never have been there, do you recall? I was taken there against my will, and had no real part there, in that time. In a sense, and a very true one, that wasn’t really me, you see. Oh yes, it was a vessel which carried my consciousness, but more like a shade, a shadow, or a ghost, if you will. The form was one in which my soul was temporarily imprisoned out of its own time.
“As soon as that form was destroyed, I was released. I was back here in an instant, safe and sound. I knew you had come into your power, that we had achieved the initiation. I trusted you would be able to handle the rest. And it seems that trust was not misplaced.”
“But what if it had been? What would have happened to me if he’d killed me, too?”
Grandma’s face was serious, abruptly lined with worry. “You would have died,” she said. “Because you went there of your own free will. That was really you.”
Grandma’s arms closed around me again and then, a moment later, I was released.
“We have to thank this nice young man, too,” said Grandma, brightening, and gesturing to Joe. I’d completely forgotten he was there. “Without his aid, I think you may not have made it back to unhinge the wicked schemes of our would-be demon-master.”
Dragon Moon: Lia Stone: Demon Hunter - Episode One (Dragon-born Guardians Series Book 1) Page 6