DarkWalker

by John Urbancik

  “So,” Nick said, letting Jack sit at the last pew, “there’s no knowledgeable priest to suddenly come to our aid?”

  Jack shook his head.

  Nick sighed, tucking the gun back under his belt. “What happened up there?”

  Jack laid back, closing his eyes. “You don’t want to know.”

  “Of course not,” Nick said. “Is she dead?”

  “Jia Li?”

  Nick paused. “The vampire has a name?”

  “I don’t know if she’s dead.”

  Nick didn’t think Jack was lying. He wanted to press for answers, get the whole story out of the watcher—mainly because he didn’t want to admit he’d lost Lisa. “I saw her go out the window.”

  “She wasn’t alone.”

  “And we won’t be for long, will we?” Nick asked. “The sun’s low enough, with the storm, that it may as well be night out there.”

  Their voices carried in the church, but there was no one to listen. A few candles burned in the front and rear corners, though most were unlit. The lighting was low, as only a few runners, alongside the pews and lining the walls, glowed dimly.

  “How’d you find me?” Jack asked.

  “Followed the wind.”

  “Ah.” A moment of silence. “What took so long?”

  Nick didn’t answer. He walked toward the rear doors of the church and the silver dishes of holy water besides them. “Quiet in here,” he said. “Are you sure we’re not safe?”

  “Have you ever seen a vampire in a church?” Jack asked.

  Nick thought about it. He’d seen them in graveyards outside of churches, but never inside. Of course, this was the first time he’d been inside one in over a decade. “No.”

  “Neither have I,” Jack said. “But does that mean the stories are true?”

  Nick didn’t ask about God. Didn’t dare, out of fear of being struck down. There was enough lightning already. The church housed a different shade of shadows. He felt uncomfortable. “Maybe we should keep moving.”

  “Does it matter?” Jack asked. “They’ll keep coming, won’t they? I mean, they’re following me, and not by any means we know.”

  “Not just you,” Nick said, and instantly regretted it.

  “No?”

  Nick looked at his watch. “Dawn is a long ways away.”

  “Dawn,” Jack said, “won’t protect me.”

  “And you think I can?”

  “I’m not asking you to try,” Jack said, sitting up. “In fact, I’m really not sure why you stuck around. You said you wanted the information on my computer, right?” Nick didn’t answer. “You could’ve taken that already, gotten five hundred miles away by now. But you’re still here, and you were looking for me.”

  “I wanted the vampire,” Nick said.

  “Then go get her,” Jack said. “I doubt that fall killed her.”

  “I’m involved now,” Nick said. “I can’t just leave the two of you to your fates.”

  “Where’s Lisa?” Jack asked.

  “Anyway,” Nick said, skipping the question, “if the vampire’s still alive, she’ll come looking for you.”

  “Where’s Lisa?” Jack asked again.

  Nick had no real answer.

  “She’s not at her apartment, is she?” Jack asked, standing and walking; Nick kept his gaze on the doors, away from Jack. The sudden anxiety was exhausting. “Is she dead?”

  “She’s not dead,” Nick said, bowing his head. “At least, not when I last saw her.”

  Jack grabbed his shoulder. “Tell me.”

  Reluctantly, Nick did.

  3.

  “Look at them run,” the demon said to Lisa Sparrow, referring to the scampering creatures all around them. Every turn of his head sent another slew of malformed beasts running frantically for cover, crawling over each other, pushing others back so they could get further away. “They’re pathetic,” the demon said. “So why do you not run?”

  Lisa waited for the demon to continue, but realized he actually expected an answer. “No point,” she said.

  “No?”

  “If you want me,” Lisa said, “it doesn’t really matter how far or fast I run, here, does it?”

  The demon laughed. “No. No, it doesn’t at all. Quite perceptive. Yet these fractured minds around me, they tremble with fear. Fight to hide behind their brothers. Does that seem, to you, an honorable thing to do?”

  Lisa tried to avert her eyes. The demon was a solid mass of muscle, blister red, twice her height and almost as broad, but she couldn’t force herself to look at the souls in the molten river, or the deformed mega-insects clinging to the backs of the wretched beasts cowering behind every available rock. Again, the demon was waiting for an answer. “No,” she finally said.

  “No,” the demon agreed. “There is a distinct lack of honor around us, wouldn’t you say?”

  “Sure.”

  “And fear,” the demon said. “Everyone here, big or small, is frightened. Of me. Even you, isn’t that right?”

  Lisa nodded. Once.

  “Yet I have done nothing to you,” the demon said. “I have laid no hand on you, nor issued any threat. It is you, in fact, who have done wrong by me, and yet you tremble. Can you explain that logic?”

  After a moment’s thought, Lisa could. “You took me. Kidnapped me.”

  The demon laughed. “I’ve done nothing of the sort. Indeed, it’s you who are trespassing, without invitation, via a portal you opened by rather illicit methods.” He paused, raising a hand as if to stop her from speaking. “Yes, I know, I left something behind, a mistake in the heat of a very unusual moment, I agree.” He shook his head. “You do not even realize what you’ve done, do you? This is new to you.”

  Again, Lisa nodded. It was easier than talking.

  “Well, allow me to enlighten you regarding the full breadth of your actions and all their implications. You unlocked a door that should not have been opened, a door to my world. My prison. There are five hundred million creatures here. Great and small, human and beast, hybrids the likes of which you are simply incapable of comprehending. It’s a very big prison, but not the biggest.”

  “I saw you on the street,” Lisa said. “You were already out of your prison.”

  The demon laughed again. “My prison, yes,” the demon said. “Look around you. Every soul you see, every beast, they are tortured and disfigured, crying in agony and fear, screaming. Do I scream or cry? Am I . . . altered?”

  Hesitantly, Lisa said, “No.”

  “No,” the demon repeated. “Exactly. I am no prisoner here; I am warden. These things around you, they are my charges. And you, regardless of your intentions, have released one.”

  “I didn’t . . .”

  “Ah, but you did,” the demon said. “It’s not a question of what you meant or wished for, but what are we going to do about it?”

  “W-w-we?” Lisa stammered.

  “We,” the demon said.

  “But you attacked us.”

  “I was deceived,” the demon said. “I see it now, but there, in his presence—that no longer matters.”

  “It matters to me.”

  “My attack was unsuccessful,” the demon said.

  “Your vampire girl . . .”

  “My vamp . . .” The demon laughed again. “I think not. Yes, I fashioned the golem, and I influenced of a few nearby weak-willed and easily manipulated creatures. But the vampire was not under my direction.”

  “So why did you attack us?” Lisa asked. “What were you led to believe, that was so wrong?”

  The demon shook his head. “There are more important matters at hand. One of my charges has escaped. To your earth. He must be brought back.”

  “What about Jack?” Lisa asked.

  “Your friend,” the demon said, “is probably dead. Would you stand by as the rest of your world joined him?”

  Lisa barely heard the question. “Dead?” He couldn’t be dead; she’d only just discovered him.

/>   “Are you not listening?” the demon asked, closing the short gap between them and looking directly down at her.

  Lisa met its eyes, fighting the urge to run. As she’d said, where would she go?

  “You must take me back to your world,” the demon said, “and let me recapture my ward. You took my key.”

  Lisa blinked through her tears. “What key?”

  4.

  After Nick finished, Jack Harlow sat down again. It was a lot to bear: losing his immunity from the dark was one thing, but losing Lisa was unacceptable. “So,” Jack said, “why are you still alive?”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Why didn’t the demon kill you while you were there?” Jack asked. “It sent you back instead.”

  “I . . . I don’t know,” Nick said.

  “He wanted something,” Jack said. “Maybe it needs Lisa alive.” There were options, here, that drove ice picks into the marrow of his bones.

  “I can’t track a demon,” Nick told him. “Vampires have a certain scent.”

  “Some do,” Jack said.

  Nick narrowed his eyes, but went on. “I can follow their trail, because they leave one, here on earth. I can determine which direction is most probable, follow sounds and odors. We all leave trails when we go, unless we know well enough to erase them. But this demon . . . I don’t think he’s here.”

  “Demons can be summoned,” Jack said.

  “Do you know how to do that?”

  “No.”

  Through the stained glass, a particularly violent display of lightning cast uneasy—and unstable—red and blue lights around them. Thunder boomed outside, echoing under the high ceiling. Shadows, even in the church, bristled as if alive.

  “We should keep moving,” Jack said.

  5.

  Nick agreed. If they sat still, anything and everything could find them. Another coordinated attack was possible. The demon might return on its own if they waited—and survived—long enough.

  But Jack knew neither how to summon nor destroy it. They were half blind, and further handicapped by the storm.

  “I’m still weak,” Jack said as they left the main part of the church. “I can’t start off running.”

  Nick nodded. The narthex, between doorways, was darker than inside. Trays of unlit candles flanked the doors. Dark woods. High ceilings. Nick did not want to die in a church.

  Outside, the rain had lightened to a mere deluge. Lightning rippled, thunder roiled, and the street seemed empty.

  But every corner, every shadow, potentially hid enemies.

  They reached the sidewalk and turned right, away from the office building and downtown. Almost immediately, the high rises gave way to a few scattered apartment buildings amid a sea of houses, some of which had been converted into restaurants, law and dental offices, as well as convenience stores and a hotel. The streets were more densely packed with cars now; red brake lights shone brightly and reflected off the water-logged streets as Nick and Jack crossed Magnolia and reached the western side Lake Eola.

  Nick knew where Jack was going, but he wasn’t going to stop him.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  1.

  The demon took Lisa’s hand. Until that moment, she’d been unaware of a number of things: the heat had dried the rain completely but now soaked her in a thin layer of sweat; the demon was actually her height, neither taller nor shorter, and proportions in this place shifted; her heart had calmed to its normal beat; and she wasn’t afraid anymore.

  She let the demon take her hand.

  “When I come and go,” the demon said, “I move via a key . . . or something like a key. It’s insubstantial and unremarkable and intangible. It fades quickly, in the mind of something as powerful as me, but without it I cannot travel.”

  “You were on earth,” Lisa said.

  “I was summoned, yes. Granted a weak, shoddy key.” They walked, now, hand-in-hand alongside the lava river, as if they were friends on a path alongside a lake, skipping stones, watching the fountain rather than the agonized souls clamoring for escape. “Stupid humans play with books and spells they know nothing about. This realm is filled with people guilty of just such a crime.” He stopped, bent over the river, and reached in. Everything scattered, but he still plucked one soul by the nape of his neck and displayed him to Lisa. “This man summoned me most recently. He has been here, now, five hundred years.”

  “What about last night?” Lisa asked.

  “Time, in your world,” the demon said, “works differently.”

  The demon dropped the soul back into the river. Its scream sounded muted, as did all other sounds but the demon’s words. “He didn’t know what he was doing. He hadn’t fully brought me into your world. I had to return here. But, I was drawn elsewhere first, to your city, to an unnatural urgency. The watcher’s magnetism, you might say. I could not resist, despite my limited time. I responded by fashioning and enslaving my little army. I separated the three of you, kept you fighting your own battles, so I might answer this unusual need and destroy the watcher.”

  “Jack,” Lisa said.

  The demon went on without pause. “When the vampire bitch snatched him, I knew my task was done and came home. The key dissolved, or so I thought.” He nodded toward the molten river. “It’s one reason why they are punished so severely.”

  “He might not be dead,” Lisa said.

  “Vampires feed until sated,” the demon said, “and leave only corpses.”

  Lisa clenched her eyes closed. The demon squeezed her hand, reassuringly. “However,” the demon added, “he may have slipped away if something else, equally as compelled, fought for him.”

  Lisa chuckled. Lightly. “What a strange thing to hope for.”

  “During all the millennia in which I have held my post, there have been precisely four escapes.” The demon smiled. “Less than my predecessor, I should point out. The most recent, however, when you caught the remnants of that key, was facilitated by you.”

  “Me?”

  “I need him back,” the demon said.

  “I didn’t do anything,” Lisa said.

  “His name is Kaz’azeal,” the demon said. “He was never human, not from any realm you’d know.” The demon stopped walking, turned to look directly at Lisa. “I am not happy.”

  Lisa met the demon’s gaze. “Neither am I.”

  “Then you will help me,” the demon said.

  “I don’t know how.”

  “I will tell you,” the demon said. “But first, I want to illustrate just how important it is for you to do this. You are familiar with the Black Plague?”

  Lisa nodded.

  “The Red Death acts similarly, but worse,” the demon said. “Its initial symptoms are like your flu. I contracted it once myself, and for that I made Kaz’azeal suffer greatly. He is a carrier. He will spread this to your world, and will slaughter thousands regardless. He consumes flesh, human and other. His saliva carries the disease, and his breath. He will grow quickly to his original size.”

  “How big is that?” Lisa asked.

  The demon released Lisa’s hands and stepped back. A moment later, his upper body expanded, his legs bulged. His head smashed the ceiling as he grew. Brown dust fell, as did a hundred tiny creatures. Lisa stumbled backwards, falling; the demon looked down at her. “Thrice this.”

  After a moment, during which the demon became Lisa’s size once again, she asked, “What do you need me to do?”

  2.

  The watcher and hunter walked alongside the lake, away from the streets and most human eyes. Jack felt uncomfortable with the attention; he still wasn’t sure of how to undo it. His primary concern was Lisa. With his mind fully his own again (Jia Li had screwed it up pretty badly, albeit by nature rather than malevolence), he realized how much Lisa had protected him. The hope of a regular life. Without that, without love, he would have lost his heart and soul to Jia Li. That must be what it was—love—and it gave Jack strength. Inexplicable and sudden as i
t had been, it gave Jack strength enough to continue walking, despite exhaustion and pain, despite the swirling storm. Into the very depths of Hell, if he must; Jack would go anywhere and do anything to keep Lisa safe.

  Nick said little as they walked. He watched the trees, and looked back frequently in case something followed them. Only the wind, thus far.

  Jack glanced across the lake, past the fountain (spewing water despite the onslaught coming down), at a gazebo on its edge. There, during the day, weddings performed, and groups of schoolchildren gathered to be loaded back into their bus after field trips. It was too dark to tell if the figure there now was male or female, or even human, but it watched them.

  3.

  Nick saw it immediately, caught it in his periphery: a greenish shape surging like a ship on the water. Straight and tall at first, it was a mass of tentacles, whipping and flailing, twenty yards from shore and coming closer.

  Nick drew his gun and fired. He let loose three, four shots, hitting the mark every time. The squid-like thing dropped forward with a splash. After a moment’s silence, it erupted from the water right at the edge of the lake. It had come from forgotten times and depths. Nick fired again, aiming for the stalks on its apparent head, thinking those blinking and swiveling things might be eyes. It lashed out, its tentacles plenty long enough to reach them on the paved path. Nick ducked, barely avoiding one; another struck Jack below the shoulder.

  A tentacle wrapped around Nick’s ankle. It yanked, pulling Nick’s leg out from under him. He went down and lost his gun. He scrambled to grab something, but the path was too smooth. The thing dragged him toward it.

  Nick bent his knees and pulled himself into a sitting position. He was on the grass now, a patch five yards wide at this point, and being dragged too quickly. He took a stake from his jacket and slammed it into the tentacle just under his ankle.