Chapter 12 – The Black Crypt
I came to from time to time. Styche dragged me along the ground behind him in our travels. As he recovered strength from time to time, we would go through another gateway, and I would lose consciousnesses to the pain of it. At times I would be lucid enough to see my skin was bubbled and burned but my talisman was trying to heal the damage the portals was doing to my human flesh. We had traveled the rest of the day and through the night. When I was recovering from yet another gateway transit, I noted it was dark outside again, the moon high in the sky. I believed that he was pulling me through the portals to keep me unconscious and disoriented, as much as to create distance between him and thew Avatars who were surely in pursuit. He had healed most of his damage by then. He had ragged scars on his back where his wing should have been. But the gaping hole in his chest seemed to be healing at an infinitesimal rate, seeping both black ichor and what smelled like blood. It appeared that my girl could do significant damage to him, which he didn't seem to contend with well. And it seemed to sap his strength. Why else would he be on foot, dragging me behind him so much of the time between gateways? He was a greater demon and should have head the strength to bring us to his ultimate destination with but one transit instead of these much smaller hops. I was disoriented, weak and in pain whenever I came to, my skin more damaged with each portal. I glanced at his ragged chest wound again and pondered if it had been a mortal strike. Was Scythe dying? I stayed conscious through the final gateway in our travels, I must have been getting used to the pain. We fell through the air and impacted a solid surface. A stone floor? I could barely make out shadows from the sparse, diffused light streaming in from a high, thin slotted window. I froze when I realized where we were, when I saw the outline of a woman's body on a stone alter. My blood ran cold, knowing that Styche had brought us to the Black Crypt, to the body of the prior Red Hood. Of Maireni Damaschin. And he was going to consume her for her power. Styche landed with a solid thud on the floor beside me, gasping and wheezing. He was at his limit it seemed. He scratched his claws across the floor, his pointed nails leaving deep furrows in the stones, then pushed himself slowly up to his feet. He swayed and put a hand on his chest and growled at the black ichor on it when he pulled it back to look at it in the dark. I heard him whisper to himself, “It isn't healing.” Then his head snapped over toward the fallen Red Hood, and I could make out a gruesome grin on his face. I moaned and absently reached for my back, but realized I no longer had my staff or any way in which to fight him. He may have been spent, but even at his weakest, I was no match for him physically, the furrows in the stone floor from his incidental contact showed me that. My eyes were getting accustomed to the darkness, and I looked around for anything I could use as a weapon. I had to stop him from consuming Maireni. I scrambled to my feet and stepped between him and the altar. I said to him, “Stay back. You will not touch her.” He made a hoarse, raspy wheezing sound, and I realized he was laughing, then he tipped his head back and then really laughed. Then all at once, he was silent as he snapped his eyes down at me. “You dare give me edicts? I'd kill you where you stand if I didn't need you to lure the Sacrifice to me. You seem important to her even though she is consumed by the thirst. She will come for you.” I growled, “Her name is Illiya, not the Sacrifice. And she will come for me, and she will finish you. Look at yourself, she has already struck you with a mortal blow. You barely had the strength to get us here. Your power is waning.” He screeched and hissed, and his voice boomed out, threatening to consume my very soul with just the sound of it, “Insolent girl!” Then he grabbed me by the throat and lifted me off the ground as I gasped for air I couldn't get into my lungs. He moved me up effortlessly until his face was in front of mine and he sneered. “I will have my strength back once I consume the fallen Red Hood. I was going to kill you once the Sacrifice showed. But for your insolence, I have a better fate for you.” His smile grew, and I saw his fetid and rotting fangs as he said smugly, “I only need you alive, your condition is no matter. So for your defiance, I will make you a simpering hybrid whose only wish is to do my bidding.” My blood ran cold as he uttered a few guttural sounds and he swayed for a moment as dark, and sickening power burned my flesh under his hand. No... I could feel the darkness wrapping around my soul. I felt as though my mind was being pulled apart, and I screamed as my will left me and he started to become the focus of my very existence. Bony spikes started extending from my flesh everywhere. But then in an explosive flare of light and force, I was blown out of his grasp and into the far wall by the doors as he staggered back from the force of it. My chest burned from the heat of a thousand suns as the white light from my talisman raced through me, burning away the contagion he had infected me with. But I held onto the pain and helplessness and torment the change had exacted, and I compressed it inside, compacting it into a coherent ball. I looked down at my hand as I slowly swayed to my feet, the bone spikes crumbled to dust and all the damage from the many gateway transits faded, leaving reddened but undamaged skin. I looked at the greater demon before me, the crypt lit up like the sun from the talisman, and I thrust my hand forward letting go of all of that emotion I had stored up. It struck him like a runaway horse, and he spun back into a column which cracked under the force of the impact, causing dust and debris to fall from the ceiling as the light of the talisman extinguished itself. I glanced back at the door when I felt something familiar, a wall of rage approaching quickly that made me smile for some reason. Illy was coming. I only hoped I would survive long enough to hold her in my arms again. I turned back at a wheezing voice as he stood again, holding his injured chest. “I see that nature bitch, Perchta, has made hybrids of her own. The hypocrite.” He was a blur in the darkness. One moment he was by the column, the next he was in front of me, and I was flying across the crypt. I slammed into the altar and slumped to the ground. He stepped over and lifted me. I saw bright motes in my vision as I was close to passing out from the pain as the shock of the strike wore off, and I could feel the ache and broken bones he left behind. He tossed me, and I felt sort of detached as I tumbled to a stop on the stone floor. I felt and heard the impact, but it was all oddly muffled. I knew I was on the verge of losing consciousness. Then my head cleared as my panic rose when he reached over from where he stood and lifted the body of Maireni in one claw and looked her over like one would a broken doll. He smiled cruelly at me and then moved his other claw toward her chest. I froze as I saw eyes emerging from the shadows in the depths of the crypt behind the demon. They moved quickly and silently, and I could taste the cold vengeance radiating from the silently leaping wolf, as her jaws snapped shut around the back of his neck with all the power of an Alpha wolf. With the sound of bones being crushed with immense force, Styche's head lolled to the side, and he fell to the ground as Daria McQueen landed on her paws, and gave one more violent shake. I heard more bones snapping and tissue tearing. She made a gruffing sound and then yanked her head, tossing his body aside to slam into a wall. How... how was she here? Then I remembered Jacob whispering something to her. Had they known Styche was coming here? Was this all part of their sick and twisted game. I paused realizing the implications of that. If it were true, hadn't they broke the rules of not interfering by telling her? I crawled over to where Daria was nuzzling Mari's body on the floor with her muzzle as she whined. Tears were flowing down my cheek as I felt her overwhelming, heartbreaking sorrow. There was no satisfaction in her vengeance. I pulled myself beside them and turned Maireni's body over and pulled her head into my lap and I just cried with the great wolf, sharing her sorrow over a lost love. The feeling was so profound, and I would not take it from her. It was hers and for me to try to soothe it would make it... less. I turned to look over at Stythe, his body just lie there, unmoving. There was something wrong with that, and I couldn't place why. Then my eyes snapped wide at the realization. His body was still here, not dissolving and banishing him back to the underworld, waiting for another mortal foolish enough to call h
im forth one day. Was he truly dead? I thought of the words of the Grim brothers that the only exceptions were the certain types of demons who can bring true death to other demons, or the use a demon's own magics against it can destroy their soul. I looked at the great wolf and placed my forehead against hers as she whimpered and cried. She... was a product of Styche's magic. So in the end, his own magics had been his downfall. Maireni Damaschin's mate had ended the threat of Styche the Trickster for all time. Our heads snapped toward the doors when we heard a horrendous bellowing coming on fast. She pulled her lips back showing her bloodied fangs in a vicious snarl. I laid Maireni's head down gently and used the altar to pull myself to my feet. I could feel the telltale heat in my body, telling me the talisman was busy mending me. We heard the crackling and crunching of something charging through the briars which protected the crypt, then a horn slammed through the heavy iron doors, causing the entire crypt shook. She bellowed as she withdrew her horn, preparing for another strike. I smiled sheepishly at Daria. “That... would be my girl.” It was odd to see a grin on a wolf's face and an eye roll. That was unnatural seeing a werewolf acting so... human. I limped to the door after the crypt shook again, dust being knocked from the supports as a great black twisted horn slammed through the iron doors again. When it withdrew, I pushed a door open to see a beautiful and frantic beast. My beast. My love. As she stood in the briars which were sawing at her, writhing around her, trying to take her down since their poisons had no effect. I held a hand out as she raged. I pulled that frantic rage into me, I could feel the... love... Yth's love that fueled it and smiled. I wouldn't be a slave to the evil again after that helpless and hapless feeling I had when Styche tried to turn me. And the talisman had the same idea as it consumed the rage and hate without hesitation. I whispered to her when I laid my forehead on hers as she settled, “Be at peace.” We just stood there, communing, she didn't seem to notice the briars tearing at her, sawing at her beast form as she calmed and slowly came back to me. When her bulk had diminished enough, I led her into the crypt, away from the black briars. The clopping of her hooves echoed in the crypt, and she looked around. Her first instinct when she saw Daria was to attack and revel in the sensation of rending her entrails from her... but I was ready and just let a wave of serenity and love flow into her as I said when she started to rear up, “Be at peace, come back to me, love. She is our friend, remember? Shhh.” She sighed and laid on the stone floor, her skin rippling and drawing in upon itself as my girl came back to me. I smiled at her as she cried, and I laid my cloak over her naked form. That is when the briars started moving outside the door. They formed a tunnel, and the Avatars came running in. Perchta, Ella, and Goldilocks at the front. They assessed the situation quickly as the other women arrived. Parker was the last one into the crypt, she looked at Maireni's body on the floor, Styche, then she froze when she saw Daria. She ran to her without a word and wrapped her arms around the great silver wolf's neck. She whispered to her, “Don't ever run off on us like that again. I was so scared for you.” The wolf nodded and whimpered. I offered in her defense, “She was here, waiting in the shadows for Styche to show. She gave him true death.” I pointed at the body of the demon, his one eye fogged over and staring blindly in death. The women looked around, then Nicole, in her silvered armor from my time, knelt and lifted the fallen Red Hood. Evelyn helped her lay her back down on the altar. Then we all spun at the sound of a man's voice, “Well, that worked out nicely.” Magics were brought to bear, and weapons were drawn all around. Amanda reached out to hand me my missing staff, while her other hand held a gun weapon pointing toward the depths of the crypt. I was infusing my staff with power as two figures walked out of the shadows and we all relaxed. Ella growled out at the grinning men, “Fuckin' Grimm Brothers.” Katrina looked like she was about to strike out at them when a sweet voice spoke, “Scales, you have overstepped and will have to pay for your willful disregard for the rules.” We all turned and there, sitting on the altar beside Maireni, was a small girl, who seemed to have no substance. Parker asked in a small voice, “Isla?”
Beauty In The Beast Page 10