Damoren

by Seth Skorkowsky

  “I’m thinking a scorpion or maybe a sphinx,” Allan said. “Anya is leaning toward a crescent moon or a face. So far we’ve found nothing that comes close.”

  “So what do you need me to do?”

  “At this point we’re checking the old records. The ones that aren’t fully scanned in.” Allan turned back around. “You said you came across a cult once. Louisiana.”

  “Shit. There was nothing like any of that stuff there. It was all pentagrams and upside-down crosses.”

  “But it worked, right? They did summon one?”

  Matt nodded. “It was some weird thing. Looked like a horned lizard on two legs. Didn’t do much before I got there and put it down. After that, I burned the barn.”

  “Well,” Allan said, the excitement draining from his voice. “Just look through them. See if anything jumps out at you.”

  “All right.” He nodded toward the cabinet near the wall. “Mind if I pour one?”

  “It’s nine in the morning.”

  “And I’ve already been banned from reading anything without supervision,” Matt said. “I’d like a drink.”

  Allan gave an understanding nod. “Make it two. Oi, Mikhail, you wanna drink?”

  The dark-haired boy looked up. He glanced at Matt, then to Allan. “Please.”

  Matt got up and removed the bottle and three glasses from the little cabinet, and filled them. He handed one to Allan, then walked over to where Mikhail sat. The boy looked no older than seventeen. It felt sort of weird giving whisky to someone so young. Then again, Clay had given Matt alcohol since he was fifteen. Besides, he had no idea if there even was a drinking age in Russia or Slovakia, or where ever the boy was from.

  Mikhail took the glass and raised it in thanks.

  “So,” Matt said returning to his chair. He sipped his drink. “What have you found on that big demon in the video? Any idea what it is?”

  Allan nodded. “Sonu thinks it’s an oni, and I believe he’s right.”

  Matt gave a little gesture with the whisky glass, telling Allan to explain.

  “They have a lot of other names. Ogres. Trolls.”

  “Trolls? Like, fairy tale trolls?”

  Allan knocked back his drink. He winced, exhaled, then set the glass aside. “The folklore is derived from real monsters. Now, we don’t know if Beowulf’s Grendel was an oni, or even if there was a Grendel, but the monsters responsible for most of the legends were real. Same with dragons.”

  Matt cocked a brow.

  “I’m serious,” Allan said. “You have legends of these monstrous, flying serpents from all across the world, spawning from cultures completely independent from one another. China, Greece, India, Europe.” He tapped them out on his fingers. “Even Mexico. They were real. Saint George killed a demon, the biggest kind of demon. They’re extinct, now. Hopefully, forever.”

  “Hopefully.” Matt finished his drink. “So what do we know about oni.”

  “Not much.” He turned and began clicking on his computer. “We had thought them extinct as well. Last one was reported in 1635, in Ireland.” He rolled aside, giving Matt a view of an old wood-engraved picture. A monstrous, single-horned creature with jutting teeth swung a gnarled club, like a tree-trunk, at a trio of swordsmen. Another swordsman lay crumpled at its feet.

  “What we do know is that they’re incredibly strong, cunning, and very powerful. What exactly they can do is unknown, but some reports say that powerful ones can fly.”

  “Jesus,” Matt said. “Anything work on them?”

  “Not much. No known metals or herbs seem to hurt it. Although, one was killed by a jade bullet in Fifteenth Century Korea.”

  Matt thought about that. “Don’t know how well a stone bullet would work in a modern gun. The pressure and rifling might blow it apart. Shotgun, maybe.”

  “That’s what Malcolm uses. He has his loaded with all kinds of different stuff, similar to your magic powder.”

  “Smart.”

  Allan picked up the empty glass. He rolled it in his hand, looking at it as if it might yield some hidden secret. “We’ve been affixing gems and stones to bullets for several years now. Jade shouldn’t be too hard.” He stood, took Matt’s empty glass and carried them back to the bottle still resting beside the cabinet. “That does bring up a point,” he said, refilling them.

  “What’s that?”

  Allan handed him a refreshed glass and sat. “We’ve had a lot of new or lost breeds come about recently, and we know virtually nothing about them. Their weaknesses. The more we find out about them, the better prepared knights will be in the future.”

  “I wasn’t really planning on letting them live that long.”

  “We can kill them, yes. But what if more emerge a hundred years from now? If we can tell our successors what can harm a tongue terror or a horned hound or any of the others, we might save lives. I mean, someone, at some point, loaded a silver-tipped quarrel onto a crossbow and shot a werewolf, just to see what would happen. And haven’t you benefitted from their risk?”

  “What are you suggesting, Allan? That before killing these things we shoot them with several different bullets and throw some herbs in their faces, just to see what works?”

  Allan gave a little shrug. “Essentially, yeah.”

  “And you called me daft.”

  “I’m just saying that next time we find one, before anyone slays it, you maybe plug it with a silver bullet, also a copper or gold while you’re at it. Nothing that’ll kill the body. Maybe a leg or arm. If it responds, we can note that. If it doesn’t, then we learned what not to use next time. Either way it’s valuable knowledge.”

  Matt thought about that. He remembered that old Colt he used to carry when he was with Clay. It saved his life more than once. Silver for werebeasts and vampires. Gold for rakshasas. Copper for sigbens. Sigbens, or chupacabras as they called them in Central America, lost the demon-metal lottery in Matt’s opinion. Most modern bullets were copper-plated, and worked on them just fine. A rancher with a varmint rifle could defend his livestock quite easily. Although the demon never really died, it just lost its body and jumped to the next one, maybe hundreds of miles away. It made hunting them real difficult since most Sigbens couldn’t stay in a region very long before some lucky shot made it someone else’s problem. He sipped his drink. “So why me?”

  “What?”

  “Why do I have to be the one that shoots it?”

  “Because you’re a good shot. Me, I can’t even shoot a handgun. Wouldn’t make much sense for me to be blasting at it.”

  “You’re kidding me?” Matt asked, taken back. “You can’t shoot a gun?”

  “Well,” Allan said, shifting in his seat a little. “I’ve shot before. Guns really aren’t that easy to come by back home so I never really got all that into it.”

  “So you just carry Ibenus when hunting? What if you drop her? What if they have a gun?”

  “You’ve seen me take out a shooter before,” Allan said, cocking his brow a little.

  “You were lucky, man. It was impressive, but lucky.” Matt gestured to the books around them. “How many stories have you read where a knight lost his weapon? You can’t just count that you won’t and that the partner you’re with has a shot. These bastards are using familiars to shoot us. One nearly shot me. I like you, Allan. I really do. But not carrying a gun is just flat fuck crazy.”

  Allan gave a hurt look, then sipped his drink.

  “I’ll tell you what,” Matt said, feeling a little guilty. “I’ll pop a test round or two into one of those demons for you, but only if you do, too.”

  The Englishman’s gaze flicked back, hopeful.

  “Luiza and I are going shooting tomorrow after breakfast. Then we’re doing some reloading. You should join us.”

  “I don’t know, Matt. I don’t want to get in the way.”

  “No. You want me to help these crazy-ass experiments, you need to help shoot them. That’s the deal. You come tomorrow or I don’t help yo
u.”

  Finally, “All right.”

  They stayed in the library for the next several hours scouring reports of demon glyphs and rites for any clues. Matt couldn’t understand the majority of the old writing, so he focused on pictures and scribbles. That afternoon they made their way down for lunch. Allan had plans with Jean and Ben to work out then spar. He’d asked if Matt wanted to join, but Matt said his run with Luiza had been enough for him that day. Allan didn’t press him, so after lunch he escorted Matt back to his room.

  “I’ll be back. Fetch you for dinner,” Allan said.

  “All right.”

  Allan looked around the hall, his eyes pausing on the camera in the far corner. “I have something for you.” He reached into his red gym duffel and pulled out a thick hardback. The glossy dust jacket had a little tear along the top. A white schooner sailed on the cover over choppy seas. Giant ghostly eyes stared out from the dark sky above the title, ‘Final Comet.’

  Matt took the book. The stiff cover bowed slightly around something inside it.

  Allan set his hand over it. “I like my name more than ‘strutter’”

  “Okay,” Matt said, unsure what was happening. “Thanks.”

  “Well then,” Allan said cheerfully, shouldering bag. “I’ll see you in a couple hours.”

  Matt stepped into his room and closed the door behind him. He opened the book to find a yellow 256 gigabyte jump drive nestled between the pages. Setting the book aside he loaded the drive into his laptop.

  A password prompt appeared, framed in red.

  Matt stared at the blinking cursor, then typed, ‘Valducan.’

  Incorrect.

  He tried, ‘Ibenus.’

  Incorrect.

  Matt’s sucked his lip, then looked at the novel still resting on the table beside the door. ‘TongueTerror.’

  The red box vanished, replaced by a long column of manila file icons. The entire Valducan Archive. Thanks Allan.

  He clicked, ‘Field Reports: Dämoren’ and scrolled down until he found what he wanted. The journals of Sir Clay Mercer. Something he should have started his first night in the house, but somehow intimidated him. He clicked it open and began to read.

  _______________

  To:

  From:

  Subject: Field Report

  _______________

  I’m sorry it’s been so long since my last report. A lot has happened.

  After the wendigo pack escaped in Ridgway, I followed their last direction north. They’d been posing as an Indian family driving a green VW bus and I hoped they hadn’t ditched it. I spent 2 days searching through little communities until I made it to Warren PA.

  I’d stopped for gas just outside of town when I noticed a group of college kids. They had a little sunfish sailboat lashed down on top of this blue Honda. This cute brunette with nice tits kept glancing at me. I figured I might have been staring like some creepy old man, so I didn’t think much of it.

  2 hours later a call came through the scanner about a bloody scene at a motel. Cops were all over it by the time I got there, but I managed to get myself close enough to find out that an Indian family had stayed there. Never checked out. When the maid came through to clean the room she found it covered in blood. There were claw marks all over the bed and inside. Cops thought the tenants might have snuck a bear in and it got loose, attacked one of them, and the family fled to the reservation before they could get in trouble.

  Little after that a new call came in that a burnt-out VW was found outside of town. Cops left to go check it out. I stuck around until they’d gone, then approached the manager. I slipped him $200 to let me look at the security tapes and not tell anyone about it. Cops had the tapes for the lobby and parking lot, but left the pool camera footage. On it I saw one of the Indian boys talking to some teenagers. Looked like he was selling them grass. One of the girls looked familiar. I asked the manager and he told me they’d left that morning. They had a sailboat on top of their Honda.

  I figured the wendigos lured the kids somewhere, pretending to sell them dope, transferred bodies, ate their old ones, then ditched their van. All I could do was hope they assumed they’d lost me. I headed east to Kinzua Lake. I worked my way around it, checking all the docks, marinas, and anywhere else they might go. On the third night I found their car parked by a little cabin just across the New York border. I went in, but the place was empty. There were a few other houses in the area, mostly weekend rental places, so I checked those.

  A mile up the road, I heard a girl screaming in one of the houses. I checked a window and saw a wendigo eating a woman. There was a boy in there, looked to be in shock, but not bitten. I did a quick dust of powder around the exits so they couldn’t get away again. I kicked open the door and plugged one about to eat the boy. I chased another upstairs and shot it and another one. The boy started screaming downstairs and I went down to find the fourth wendigo attacking him. There was a butcher knife sticking out of its back from when the boy had stabbed it. I shot the wendigo, killing it, but Dämoren’s slug passed through and hit the boy.

  This is when it gets weird.

  I checked that the house was clear, then started first aid on him. The wound was bad, but I couldn’t let him die. It was my fault the wendigos had gotten away, and I fuckin shot the kid. He started screaming and lashing about. I thought he was done for, but then his wounds healed. Closed right before my eyes.

  The wendigo that had bit him was burning, so I knew it couldn’t have possessed him. There were only 4 demons and I had killed all of them. Also, Dämoren’s slug was still inside him. I’ve shot enough demons to know that he’d need to dig it out before it could heal. After a short chat (Dämoren trained on him) I learned he could speak French, having never been taught it or even realizing that he could. I threw powder on him, which contains burnt cornmeal, but it didn’t do anything. Finally, I asked Dämoren by removing one round from her cylinder, spinning it, and pulling the trigger. Dämoren said he should live. I know that it wasn’t chance. I checked her, and the cylinder she landed on had a bullet. Dämoren chose not to fire.

  I don’t know what this boy is, but Dämoren wants him alive. His name is Spenser Mallory. He’s 12 years old. I’m not sure what we need to do here. I’ve never heard of anything like this. There’s a guy down in Florida that can give him a new name, so we’re headed there now.

  What do I do?

  -Clay

  _______________

  To:

  CC: ; ;

  From:

  Subject: Re: Field Report

  _______________

  Sir Clay,

  I just finished your report and found it terribly disturbing. If this boy is possessed then he must be dealt with. We understand your guilt for letting the wendigos escape and kill more, but allowing this boy to live is madness.

  Your life is in danger. I order you to take care of the situation immediately.

  Sincerely,

  Alex

  Chapter Nine

  Matt awoke in darkness. He rolled and looked at the little green clock beside the bed.

  1:42.

  With a groan, he adjusted his pillow, crushing it from different sides, punishing it for his sudden and complete consciousness, and tried to go back to sleep.

  His bladder ached.

  He tried to ignore it.

  The pressure grew. Matt shifted and rolled onto his back, hoping that his new position might somehow allow him reprieve until morning. For a short while it worked, but then the pressure came back. Small at first, but growing, until finally he couldn’t ignore it any longer.

  He looked back at the clock.

  1:49.

  “To hell with this,” he mumbled. Matt rolled out of bed. The bathroom was down the hall, and if Schmidt or anyone tried to make any issue with him leaving his room, Matt planned to just pull it out and piss on the f
loor. If they were going to treat him like a criminal he might as well do something to deserve it. He fumbled for the sweatpants folded beside the bed, waiting for his morning run with Luiza in five hours, and pulled them on.

  He listened at the door. Nothing. He opened it. The hall was empty.

  Matt stepped out, noticing the little red light on the camera in the upper corner flip on once it detected his movement. That’s right, asshole, he thought to whomever, if anyone, was actually watching the camera. The demon has left his room. What are you going to do about it? Matt figured if someone was watching the feed, and if they did care, he’d find out soon enough what they planned to do about it.

  He turned and started down the dim hall, lit by the moonlight through the windows, and by the glow spilling out from one of the bedroom doors; Kazuo’s, he thought. Matt had made it probably thirty steps before realizing that his sleepy brain had gotten him turned around and what would have been the closest bathroom had been the other way, but he was committed now. From his current location it would be shorter to just continue on to the one ahead.

  He turned down a darkened hallway and had made it only a few steps before freezing in surprise. A dark figure stood in the passage before him, silhouetted by the moonlight.

  The dark shape just stood there, staring at one of the doors.

  Matt let out a breath, his startled heart still pounding. Slowly he crept forward. In the darkness he could make out a slender form, broad shoulders and scruffy hair. “Mikhail?”

  The boy gave no response.

  Matt was close enough to touch him now. He put his hand on Mikhail’s shoulder. His skin was slick with sweat.

  Mikhail jumped and whirled around. Something thudded softly to floor. The boy looked at Matt, then to the door. “I’m…I’m sorry,” he stammered in some language Matt couldn’t identify, and then he ran, his bare feet padding softly on the hall carpet.

  Matt stood there for several seconds, unsure of what just happened. He looked at the door. Anya’s room. A little book lay open at his feet and he picked it up. While it was too dark to see it clearly, Matt recognized the cardboard covers and round cloth spine as a notebook. Matt looked around again. He was alone, save for the little red light beneath the security camera’s cold eye. He shrugged, and continued on.