by Mark Albany
“I don’t know about the other two,” the demoness said, “but I can assure you that our dearest Pearl over here will be more than worth our while to bring along. I can’t explain it now, and honestly, it’s best if you see what I’m talking about, anyway.”
“Besides,” Kelly chimed in quickly, “not only can we help you with…whatever the fuck it is that you’re doing, but even if we can’t help, don’t you think that staying with the only people who seem to know what is actually happening out here is the safer of our available options?”
Damn, I thought. Beaten by my own instinct to protect. “Yeah, you’re probably right. But damned if I’ll let you three get in the line of fire. You stay behind us, and if you’re going to help, it will be in a support capacity. Understood?”
Pearl, Jennifer, and Kelly all nodded. I doubted that they wanted to be out here. Their lack of panicking felt like it was only posturing, putting on a brave face while they were terrified on the inside. If that was it, I could identify with what they were feeling. They wanted to help, but they didn’t know how they could.
But, they were right. We might need their help, and sticking close to us was probably the safest of the available options. Nobody knew what kind of crazy was going to cover the campus once people realized that they were monsters and started making the most of it.
We arrived at the building as I wrapped up my efforts at making a third device. All of the buildings were covered in kids turning into monsters—except this one. Sure, students would avoid the lecture halls like the damn plague when they didn’t need to be in them, but that wasn’t an excuse. Besides, even though I couldn’t see the sigils without my goggles, I felt a cloud descend on me as I approached. Something in there didn’t want me coming closer. I fought it off, and so did the other four, but I could see that they felt the same.
“This is the place,” Ruby said softly, shaking her head. “And something’s happening inside. Something terrible. I can feel it.”
“Time to go in and make things worse.” I grinned and put on a brave face as I drew the pistol out of my belt and pushed through the door. Once I was inside, the sigils’ effects seemed to dissipate, like they were supposed to keep the monsters and everyone else out but didn’t affect anyone inside. I gulped, my brave face faltering a bit as I moved deeper into the building. I heard and, like Ruby, felt something in the central lecture hall. I wasn’t sure what, but it was strangely hypnotic. I kept moving closer.
The noise inside was a low, demonic chanting that burned my ears just from hearing it as we moved through the upper seating levels, looking down at what was happening below.
There was a group of larger demons than I’d seen before. Proper, full demons this time, not ones wearing human suits. The chemical-laced water seemed to be affecting them, too. They had the same kind of horns as Ruby although their skin was a different tone and their eyes were pure black. Claws extended from their fingers. There were two or three dozen of them standing near the podium at the center of the room, watching something. My keen eyes spotted seven prone figures with wires and tubes running from their bodies into a massive machine that looked like a Tesla coil made of bronze and silver. I recognized five of the motionless bodies. Four of them were the girls that we’d saved from the basement, poor things. I didn’t know either of the other two, but the last was Crystal, Jen’s friend, whom I’d met my first day on campus.
I narrowed my eyes. There was an eighth figure. The build and the tweed jacket it wore indicated that it was Professor Wyllis, the annoying bastard, but that was where all physical resemblance to the man I’d met ended. Unlike the other demons, he seemed to be wearing the skin that I had always felt was under the surface. Like Ruby, his human appearance had been an illusion, a trick of the light.
He was different from her, too. His skin was a deep, angry red, and while black claws extended from his fingertips like the other demons, that was where the similarities ended. A crown of horns rose from his skull, giving him the appearance of royalty, and I saw actual fire coming from his eyes. He still hadn’t seen us, seemingly focused on keeping up the chanting.
“Come on,” Ruby murmured, tugging me back from the edge of the steps. “We don’t have much time.”
“Do you know what they’re doing?” I asked. For the first time since I’d met her, Ruby looked genuinely terrified.
“Of course, I do,” she snapped, still in a whisper. “Bronze and silver are known conduits for the darkest of magic spells. The device itself is used to open portals. Considering how close we are to the San Andreas Hellgate, I assume that’s what they want to do.”
“What’s on the other side of a Hellgate?” I asked, moving back to where the other girls were already setting up the vibration devices in the corners of the room with Ruby instructing them.
“What’s a Hellgate?” Jennifer asked, tilting her head and raising her hand.
“Are you familiar with how a Breach works?” I asked, waiting for them to nod before continuing. “It’s something like that, except that the Hellgates were designed to keep something trapped in an abandoned dimension. It was where people used to think that demons were banished when they were caught, but there were other creatures in there. I guess there is a reason why those dimensions were abandoned, right?”
“It’s an overly simplistic view of it, but we don’t have time for the full history, so we’ll go with that,” Ruby grumbled, helping to place the devices. “The fact remains that the devices are supposed to call for the blood of virgins to power them. At least, that’s the literal translation, but the actual wording says something more on par with the pure, which means humans or other creatures that are purely and singularly of their species. Trolls and half-trolls don’t usually qualify. Humans are the best shot anyone has at something like that since they’ve been isolated from the other races of the universe for millennia untold. Until the Breach, of course.”
“What can we expect on the other side of this…Hellgate, if it’s open?” Pearl queried.
“Nothing good,” Ruby whispered. “Anything deemed too dangerous to live anywhere else, from wraiths to the Unnatural.”
“What’s the Unnatural?” Kelly asked.
“You don’t want to know,” I murmured, putting the last of the devices together and handing it over to Kelly to set up. “But it would explain why they needed the hazel mistletoe. They wanted to find out which humans were pure enough to use for this bullshit.”
My eyes trailed over to Jen as she suddenly realized the implications of that statement. She had been attacked by a demon which had tried to kidnap her before I stepped in. She wasn’t affected by the drug in the water supply, despite indulging it in it frequently during the day. She was a pure human, whatever the fuck that meant, and had narrowly escaped being part of this sacrifice.
I saw the sun setting outside. Somehow, I’d lost all concept of time while fighting each successive problem and trying to save everyone possible. All of it led me here.
I felt the floor shake gently underneath us. My eyes were drawn to the device, watching as Wyllis’s chanting increased its cadence as the center of the coils showed a black spot. Impossibly black, like it was sucking in all the light in the room. The air was suddenly filled with sulfur-scented smoke, like the kind that I’d seen seeping out from the possessed students.
Wyllis stopped chanting all of a sudden and gazed at what he had done, apparently satisfied. Altered complexion and appearance aside, he was still the kind of annoying, hateful asshole that I had hoped not to deal with for much longer. That was going to be the case, I realized with a small smile. One way, or the other.
“Are you going to keep lurking back there, Ruby?” Wyllis’s voice boomed through the lecture hall, loud enough to make my ears ache as he looked up to where we watched him, a small smile touching his lips. “Or, are you going to come down and play with us?”
I looked over at Ruby, trying to gauge her reaction. I saw frustration, fear, and that same terror I
’d seen before, along with something new: acceptance. She nodded, turned to me, and gestured for the girls to continue with their preparations as she turned her attention fully to Wyllis. I joined her, thinking that she could use some backup.
17
Seeing the terror in Ruby’s eyes, disguised though it was, showed me all I needed to know about what was coming next. This many demons would be challenging to deal with on my own, but I’d handle as many as possible. And if I needed to play target for Ruby to get to Wyllis and stop him, so be it.
I dropped from the balcony, smoothly absorbing the story-and-a-half fall with a drop and roll. I regained my feet easily, weapon in hand, and quickly trained it on the nearest demons. Wyllis looked surprised and annoyed to see me. I assumed that he’d noticed I was there with Ruby, so his surprise baffled me. Either he had been so absorbed in Ruby that he forgot to check for others, or he’d ignored me until I took center stage.
Either way, I was going to use the sudden annoyance rushing through my veins. Demons were no match for a half-troll hopped up on anger juice.
Ruby followed me down a few seconds later, landing lightly with no sign that the drop had affected her at all. I was a little jealous for a second, but it dissipated as soon as I saw that Wyllis’s attention was on her with that creepy fucking smile plastered across his face again. After a few seconds, Pearl, Kelly, and Jennifer stepped out into clear view, not having it in them to drop from the balcony above. It was better that way, I thought.
“How nice of you to bring us something to eat after the ritual is complete, Ruby,” he said, stepping down from the podium as the black spot generated the device slowly grew. “All this spellwork always leaves me feeling impossibly peckish. Although I think I’ll have to let you have the mongrel over there. Something about troll-flesh just unsettles my stomach, I don’t know why.”
“I’m not here to help you, Wyllis,” Ruby said, her voice booming almost like his as she took a step forward, closer to the demons that were closing ranks around their leader. “I’m here to stop you. You know I can’t let you do this.”
“I’m disappointed, Ruby,” he chuckled, sounding anything but. “I was sad to see you starting to enjoy your life here. I would have thought that you knew better than to get too closely engaged with the humans we’re supposed to be harvesting. Or have you forgotten the reason why we’re here?”
Ruby shook her head. “Fuck that. I hated our hell. I love my life of debauchery up here. Why the fuck would I want to bring the hell that I hated so much into this world?”
Wyllis looked truly, terrifyingly angry at what she’d just said like it was some sort of blasphemy. I didn’t like that look, and whatever came next wasn’t going to be good for any of us. Besides, we had a device to dismantle and a potentially world-ending event to stop. I raised my pistol, tilting my head for enough perspective to aim properly, and pulled the trigger.
The rest of the demons had apparently seen Ruby as the only true threat here, and they turned to stop her instead of me. I’d managed to work my way close enough to Wyllis that the scattershot of rock salt caught him clean in the face and knocked him back and away from the device, his skin audibly and visibly sizzling.
I assumed that would be the last time that they thought I wasn’t much of a danger. I wasn’t sure what kind of threat I posed to an actual demon, but the way they all turned on me, all—I scanned for a quick headcount—roughly thirty of them, told me that I wouldn’t get much more in the way of free shots.
I drew the hammer back again and fired, knocking the closest demon back a few paces. It screamed in pain as the others rushed at me. Ruby took advantage of their distraction and sprinted toward the podium. I cocked, aimed, and fired again, and then quickly backpedaled.
Motion caught my attention. Kelly tossed one of the few mines that remained in my pack. She proved that she had quite the pitching arm as she aimed it over the group that was advancing on me. It exploded just as it landed in the middle of them. The blast was a little more powerful than expected—more than I’d designed them to be. It was strong enough to knock me flat on my ass and cause a loud ringing in my ears.
“Fuck!” I shouted, shaking my head and rolling backward as I watched the creatures recover. The salt was doing its damage since a handful had been split fully in half. Others were still on the ground, bleeding and broken enough that I didn’t need to bother with them.
There was still plenty to go around. Those that made it to their feet split their forces. A handful charged toward the steps leading up to where the girls were.
I quickly assessed the situation, trying to see where all the creatures were. Enough of them were coming at me to be a distraction. Ruby would handle the sacrifices, disengaging them from the device without killing them. Wyllis was still recovering from my shot to his face.
I needed to protect the girls. Ruby seemed like she could handle herself in a pinch.
I pulled away from the creatures that were headed for me, knocking them back with a couple of shots into the center of their lines, then sprinted up the stairs. I had one bullet left in the pistol and used it almost immediately, breaking the line of creatures on the steps.
Some turned and immediately charged at me, trying to stop me while the rest continued heading up the stairs.
Protecting myself and the girls was going to be difficult, especially since I’d made a tactical error. My weapon was depleted, and there were more of the demons coming at me than I cared to handle all at once.
I let out a low roar, lowered my shoulders, and bullied forward. The unexpected didn’t always work. Even if it did, I couldn’t use the same trick twice because they’d expect it the second time. But, my best option right now was to try and shock them by charging right into them.
I used my greater height and strength to advantage and managed to bowl most of the group over before they dragged me to the floor. I quickly broke free and indiscriminately used my tusks to repeatedly drive the demons back, bellowing savage roars as I did. In spite of my efforts, five of them evaded me and closed on the girls. I watched helplessly, unable to reach them in time. Suddenly, something pleasantly unexpected happened. One of the demons dropped back, looking surprised. Through the opening, I saw the trio put up a fight. Well, Kelly was busy at work with the devices, weakening the demons around them as Jen stepped in, clocked one of the demons across the jaw and viciously snapped her knee up into its groin. The creature fell back, clutching itself, so it apparently had genitalia.
“Zumba five times a week, bitch!” Jen screamed.
A couple more demons dropped back. Pearl was also mixing it up. To my surprise, she picked up one of the demons and tossed it over the edge of the balcony. It crashed into a couple of those on the ground floor.
Whether both ladies were Zumba enthusiasts or not didn’t matter. The pair of demons that were left suddenly realized that the pickings weren’t as easy as they had assumed, and ran back to where they had a numerical advantage. I was starting to realize that demons were mostly cowards, although Ruby was a glaring exception as she kept working on getting the girls free.
I heard Wyllis cackling in the background. His once handsome face was halfway gone, melted by the rock salt that I’d shot him with, and made him look more menacing.
“What do you think you’re doing, Ruby?” he laughed, his voice growling through the room. “The Berith Collider is already engaged. Saving the girls will serve nothing. If you’re against us, your only hope to survive a little longer is to be far away from our master’s grasp.”
Ruby didn’t look up from her work as Wyllis staggered toward her. He was still visibly in pain, but that seemed to egg him on. I pulled away from the rest of the monsters and pushed my remaining energy into my fatigued and burning muscles as I covered the marble floor of the lecture hall in seconds, evading the creatures whispering through the growing crack in reality.
I cleared the last few feet to the podium in a single bound, roaring as I inserted myself
between Wyllis and Ruby.
“How about testing yourself on a filthy mongrel first, asshole?” I growled, a primal need to tear into the man filling my body. Wyllis wasn’t intimidated by me. He looked like he was actually enjoying himself, loving the pain he was in. I rushed at him and hammered a backhand into his jaw that was powerful enough to knock him off his feet and send him spinning in the air.
Impossibly, he landed smoothly on his feet like he’d expected that, still laughing as I charged at him again. This time, when I threw a punch at his jaw, he caught my hand and twisted it around. I managed to flip over before he snapped my forearm in half, but not in time to stop him from tossing me aside. I crashed hard into the machine. What had he called it again? The Berith Collider? What the fuck was that supposed to mean?
I turned, trying to figure out some way to break its connection with the portal that was growing larger with each passing second. I heard the shrieks of banshees and wraiths as they made their way through in search of bodies to inhabit, whether living or dead. Those I knew about better than demons, as they had been a genuine danger in the early days of the Breach.
I narrowed my eyes as I inspected the device, recognizing some of the designs and trying to remember where I’d seen them before.
Just as I found what I needed from it, a clawed hand grabbed my shoulder, effortlessly picked me up, and tossed me aside. I sailed through the air and barely slowed my momentum in time to avoid crashing into a nearby wall. Instead, I landed painfully on the floor and slid across it.
Looking up, I saw that Ruby had freed the girls from the Collider, but Wyllis was right. The damage was done. As Ruby prepared for a fight, I watched Wyllis transform into that amorphous creature from the night Jen was attacked.
“Admirable effort, my dear,” Wyllis said. I recognized his voice, but it seemed to come from all around us as his new form wrapped around the Collider. “But futile, I’m afraid. Take my last piece of advice to heart. Run, and you might live.” As he finished speaking, the device suddenly blinked out of sight, along with the portal it was forming.