by Mark Albany
I realized that demons and skin-changers were more alike than I’d ever imagined.
18
“Fuck!” Ruby shouted. “Where the fuck did he go?”
That question plagued me as well. I recovered my pistol from where Wyllis had torn it from my grasp, pulled the remaining bullets from my pocket, and loaded them into the chamber, grimacing at how low on ammo I was.
“He can’t be far, right?” I said, shaking off the pains and aches that filled my body. Well, shaking wasn’t entirely accurate. It was more like putting it to the back of my mind as I jogged over to where Ruby was checking the girls. The fact that she chose to save them despite knowing that it wouldn’t do anything to stop the Collider still baffled me. Although, if she truly did want to live among humans as she’d claimed, saving the girls would get her bonus points. “I assume he picked this spot for a reason, so he wouldn’t simply abandon it.”
“Right,” Ruby said, looking around as Jen, Kelly, and Pearl joined us.
“Whatever happens,” Kelly said, looking at all of us, “you have to admit we make a pretty kickass team, right?”
I nodded. She wasn’t wrong about that. I was impressed by what they had done, more than once.
The sound of a bell ringing outside the lecture hall drew my attention. Again, I wasn’t a betting half-troll but the sudden ringing, off-the-hour, was enough to make me bet that it was where Wyllis had transported the Collider. Besides, it wasn’t like we had any other ideas, right?
Dozens of footsteps echoed from the building’s main entrance. The five of us faced the door to see who was coming. The people who entered looked like the guards I remembered, right down to the campus security uniforms they wore, but—like most of the students, including Pearl—they were all somewhat changed. A couple of them showed some troll characteristics. “Maybe they can help us?” Jen asked, looking around. I loved her optimism and wanted to share it, but my attempts were dashed when their eyes changed from their regular colors to pitch black as soon as they saw us.
“I very much doubt it,” I snapped, cocking the hammer of my revolver back. I needed to think up a good name for the weapon, I thought. All the best weapons had names, right?
“We don’t have time for this,” Kelly hissed while pulling the last of the mines from the pack. I noticed that she had made a couple of alterations to the designs, which seemed to explain how they were now a little more powerful than before. I narrowed my eyes, a plan hatching in the back of my head as I watched the demons masquerading as campus security.
I could believe that they had been possessed this whole time. I rolled my shoulders and grinned.
“Let’s do it,” I growled. “And then we hightail it to the campus bell tower.”
“Hey, I find that offensive,” Pearl snapped, whipping her tail about with a bit more agility and control than she’d shown before.
I grinned. “I’ll make it up to you, I promise.”
Kelly primed the mine by pressing the trigger to arm it and then tossed it into the group. They didn’t seem to notice it until it exploded right above them and cleared a path through the group. Those that weren’t killed were quickly knocked out of the way, black smoke rising from their bodies.
“You’re getting rather good at that, Kelly,” Jen commented as we took advantage of the opening. The demons that survived moved to attack us. I fired several rounds that threw them back. I reloaded as we left the building and made our way toward the bell tower. Its almost constant, painful gonging filled the air and was starting to drive me nuts.
The portal was a lot larger now. It was visible from our position between the lecture hall and the tower. Creatures—wraiths and banshees, for the most part—were still streaming from the opening, and there was a low, powerful roar coming from inside it that raised my hackles. My instincts said that something old and impossibly powerful was coming for the portal—and us.
We needed to shut it down. Now, more than ever.
I looked around as we reached the tower’s door, noticing that the banshees and wraiths had found bodies and were marching toward us.
Ruby looked at me. “I know you had an idea back there. What do you need us to do?”
I narrowed my eyes at her. Yes, I had, but I wasn’t sure how she knew. Not that it mattered right now, I thought while assessing the multitude of monsters we faced.
“They’re slow and almost powerless now.” I indicated the monsters. “That’ll change, but for now, they’re vulnerable. The three of you can hold this door and keep them back almost indefinitely, from what I’ve seen of your abilities.”
“My stamina is prodigious, yes,” Ruby grinned. “Wait, the three of us?”
“Yes,” I replied. “You, Pearl, and Jen. I need Kelly with me.”
“Wait, what?” Kelly asked, and turned to face me.
“I need your help to shut down the Collider and, hopefully, close the portal. I’ll explain on the way. We have a long climb ahead of us.”
“Good luck, Nate,” Ruby said.
“We’ve got this,” Pearl growled, then rolled her neck and cracked her knuckles. Jen nodded firmly. More brave faces. I hoped they lived long enough to realize how crazy my plan was.
“Let’s go.” I grabbed Kelly’s hand and dragged her into the building with me. I was never much good at goodbyes. When we reached the stairs, I quickly swept her up in my arms.
“Well,” she gasped, then giggled. “I don’t think we have time for that.”
“Maybe not,” I replied with a chuckle. “But we need to get to the top of the building as quickly as possible. We’ll be faster if I carry you.”
She nodded in agreement.
Talk about crazy plans, I thought as I rushed up the floors. Sure, this was a lot faster than if she trailed behind me, but the fact remained that I was already exhausted, and carrying her up multiple flights of stairs was a severe strain on my muscles that left them burning and aching from the exertion. The walls were narrow, the air was filled with dust, and the steps seemed endless, but I didn’t stop until we reached the top, where I relaxed my hold enough for her to slide down my body to the floor. The ringing bell was deafening up here.
I gasped for breath as I staggered around looking for a sink, and hopefully, a cup. I found both inside a small and minimal maintenance bathroom. I stumbled over to Kelly, water-filled cup in my hands.
“I thought the water was drugged,” she whispered, narrowing her eyes.
I nodded. “It is, but my mother taught me an old ritual for this kind of thing. That means we can use it to our advantage. The hazel mistletoe concoction—the stuff in the water—is designed to unlock anything hidden in your DNA. You probably have a lot of potential abilities, and chances are that electromancer powers like mine are among them. Trying this is a little like playing the lottery, but I think I can guide your transformation into something and someone who can stop this collider.”
She nodded hesitantly. “How…sure are you?”
I crouched next to her and set the cup down, then cradled her face in my hands and tilted her head up to look at me. “Do you trust me?” I asked earnestly.
She thought for a moment before nodding firmly. “With my life.”
“I appreciate that,” I whispered and leaned down to softly kiss her lips. “I’ll try to prove myself worthy of your trust. Now, drink the water.”
She picked it up and quickly gulped it down. I saw the changes start before the last drop was drained, and immediately placed my hands on her temples as my mother had taught me. I closed my eyes as I chanted the words that were indelibly etched in my memory. I sometimes heard them in my dreams.
I chanted the spell over and over again while arcing electricity from my fingers into her body, feeling the changes she was undergoing and, through the spell, altering them to a design that was utterly familiar to me.
I kept going until it was finished. She fell limp in my arms, and I gently lowered her to the floor. She would need a few seconds to
gather her senses again, but when she woke up—hopefully soon—she would be in a position to shut the Collider down. Part of the spell was transferring my knowledge of how to do that, based on my earlier encounter with the device, which vibrated strongly enough that I felt it through the building.
I pushed myself up from my seat on the floor and calmly walked to where the device sat next to the bells. They chimed loudly in reaction to its operation, giving me a headache, just from being so close to them.
As I approached, I reached out, grabbed the bell that was tolling incessantly, and after a couple of tries, stopped it with a firm grasp. Letting go meant that the bell would start ringing again, but it was worth it for the few seconds of blessed silence.
As the bells silenced, I heard a different noise coming from inside the portal. Something deep and rumbling, hungry and aching for attention and worship. I looked into the opening and saw motion in the black, caused by something so large that it defied imagination.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the amorphous black demon that Wyllis had turned into shift back to Wyllis’s human form, or the demon version of it, anyway.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” His voice sounded almost reverential. “A true god—a deity worthy of the worship of all beings—and what do we do to him? Cage him in a world to starve. How is that justice?”
“Not justice,” I whispered, trying to shake the feeling of dread that filled my body as I realized what the Unnatural was. “A matter of survival. Something like that could snack on a whole planet.”
“True, but it would be worth it to envision this,” Wyllis chuckled, stepping closer to me. “You know you can’t win, yes? I will kill you like an annoying fly that landed on my arm.”
“Yeah,” I admitted, making sure that my pistol was full before cocking the hammer back. “But between now and then, I’m going to fuck you up.”
Wyllis grinned. “I’ll miss playing these games with you, Nate.”
I should probably feel flattered that he’d used my name instead of calling me mongrel, but I was here on a mission. I raised my weapon, pulled the trigger, and watched the demon shift out of the way at an incredible speed. He dodged the salt fired his way the first time and missed most of the second shot as well, although some of it hit and started sizzling on his skin. The third shot caught him full in the gut and filled the air with the smell of burning flesh as he crashed into me hard enough to send me flying. I hit the bell with my body and it rang with the force of the blow. I grunted and shook my head as my durable bones and muscles absorbed most of the impact, grinning as I jumped to my feet, ducked under another strike, then pivoted and hammered my fist into the creature’s jaw. I had his style of fighting down pat by now. It wasn’t like he had much of one—he relied on the fact that he was mostly immune to the pain I caused, and was content to let me tire myself out before knocking me around until I died. It wouldn’t a pleasant ending, but then, I didn’t think he knew that I was playing for time.
I heard Kelly quietly slip over to the Collider and lay her hands on it, then the soft whisper of the spell that I’d implanted in her head when I helped her change. Wyllis backhanded me across the jaw hard enough to knock me to the ground, drawing blood as my lips split against my tusk. I inadvertently squeezed the gun’s trigger as I fell, wasting the last shot of Dead Sea salt on the floor. I had more bullets in my pocket but no time to reload before Wyllis reached me again.
“What?” Wyllis suddenly asked as he turned to see what was happening. I snuck a peek, too, watching as Kelly’s eyes closed. Her dark brown hair now showed a couple of streaks of gray and white. She still looked mostly human although there were spiderweb patterns tattooed across her skin, and when she opened her eyes, I knew that they would be purple with a few bright red flecks.
An electromancer shamaness, I thought with a grin, hidden underneath her human DNA. It was why she was so interested in electrical engineering, like me. It also explained why she was so adept at handling my custom-built equipment, and probably why we were so swiftly drawn to each other. It had taken a little while for the clues to connect in my brain but once they did, I’d been positive that this would be the outcome when I gambled on changing her.
The Collider sparked, shuddering and vibrating loudly. The portal started to shrink before my eyes. The low, hungry rumble slowly turned into a roar of anger as the opening closed faster than the being could reach us. Kelly’s eyes opened and she turned to face Wyllis as he tried to attack her, screaming in fury. I watched as lightning arced from her fingertips and blasted him backward.
That effort, combined with closing the portal, drained the last of her energy. She collapsed unconscious. I’d asked a lot from someone who was using their powers for the first time, but she was a natural. I was proud of her.
I slowly pushed myself up, rolled my shoulders, and drew a deep breath as I pulled more bullets from my pocket and reloaded my pistol. Wyllis quickly recovered from Kelly’s blast, looking murderous, but paused as I pointed my weapon at him.
“Let’s be honest, Nate,” he hissed through elongated fangs. “Your little salt rounds may sting like hell but they won’t stop me from tearing you apart limb from limb, and leaving you alive long enough to experience the chewy taste of your liver.”
“Well, I thought of that, big guy,” I countered. “I got my hands on some depleted uranium rounds. They’re specially made, just for you. And I’ve been dying to try them out.”
“Say what, now?” Wyllis asked, tilting his head as I cocked the hammer and pulled the trigger. The blast of the extra-heavy round knocked the demon back a step and tore a literal hole in his chest. One that you won’t heal from, I thought with a small smile. I flipped the safety to the off-position and squeezed the trigger over and over again. Blast after blast tore holes in Wyllis’s body, and the last round left a crater where half of his face had been.
He was still on his feet, but the black smoke rose from his body like blood pouring from open wounds. He wanted to turn back into the more durable amorphous being, but there wasn’t enough of him left to do that. I smirked as the gun clicked empty, then stepped in and powered a kick into the swiss-cheese remains of his chest with enough force to launch him out of the bell tower. A few seconds later, I heard the splat of his body as it landed on the ground.
“That was satisfying,” I whispered while limping over to where Kelly still lay on the floor. It took me a few seconds to realize that the Collider was gone. Kelly had broken it, but I didn’t doubt that they could rebuild it and restart this whole process.
“Fuck,” I muttered and picked her up after making sure that she was still alive, then carried her down the many flights of stairs to the ground floor of the bell tower. I needed to submit a full report to the FBI and ask Ryko to put out an APB on the Collider, of which I would draw some pretty detailed sketches, as well as the individual pieces.
The demons wouldn’t get far with the full force of the FBI trying to find them. But all that would have to wait until I had more energy.
As I reached the ground floor, I saw red, white, and blue lights flashing as the cops—the real police—showed up to investigate the ruckus. They were already pulling people in for questioning, getting statements, and making a few arrests of student monsters who had decided to make illegal use of their newfound abilities.
“Come on,” Pearl said, pulling me closer to her and away from where the police were starting to scour the place for the source of what was happening. “I have a feeling that you’re in no mood to give a full statement to the cops, right?”
“You’re right about that,” I grumbled, still holding an unconscious Kelly in my arms. The seven sacrifices, including Crystal, were being brought out to waiting ambulances, which were more numerous than cop cars.
“Come on,” Jen said, tugging Ruby’s arm to get her to join us. “You’re part of the team, now.”
Ruby smiled, looking rather exhausted. I saw the effects of the battle they’d fought down her
e. While it had been tough at the top, the three of them had more than proven themselves by keeping any other demons from reaching us. Even Jen, who was still pure human.
“I need a shower,” I growled. “And then a nap. You’re all welcome to join if you want.”
Jen grinned, and even Ruby looked like she was of a mind to as we headed back to the dorms.
19
“I told you that I would rock your world when all this was over,” Ruby whispered in my ear and flicked her long, agile tongue over it.
“It’s not technically over,” I quietly replied while running my hands down her bare body. One of my hands stopped for a handful of breast as the other squeezed her ass. Both were more generous than my large hands could hold although I was giving it my best effort anyway. “The machine disappeared. Even if it’s broken, it’s still dangerous.”
“It’s a break in all the excitement,” Ruby murmured, tilting her head, and I saw her in her full glory as a succubus. “I’ll take the opportunity to rock your world.”
I honestly didn’t mind. Jen was tangled up with Pearl on Kelly’s bed, with Pearl wrapping Jen up with her new tail. Both had enjoyed each other and me as they liked, while Ruby watched, and I’d outlasted them. They were both drifting off to sleep. Kelly was on my bed, equally satisfied and exhausted. There was something to be said about half-troll stamina, although I had the feeling that a demoness would be more than a match.
I watched Ruby shift down my body and onto her knees. She wrapped her breasts around my cock and let me slowly fuck them as her tongue flicked out to tease my tip each time it emerged from between them. I ran my fingers through her short hair and played with her horns as her tail wrapped around my thighs and gently but firmly guided my thrusts.