Jason Willow: Face Your Demons

by G Mottram

  The stairs and arch alcoves were in deep shadow however. Even the red emergency lights were out.

  ‘Shouldn’t there be security here?’ Anna whispered. ‘And other people escaping from the garages and cloister?’

  Marakoff almost imperceptibly nodded towards the base of the stairs, pretending to adjust his radio. Jason saw it at once - two small dark stains on the flagstones.

  Blood.

  ‘On my command – run for the training rooms.’ Marakoff whispered, tapping his earphone angrily as if it weren’t working.

  ‘Run!’ he shouted, and snapped up his Kalashnikov to send bullets ricocheting beneath the dark arches.

  Jason, Eddie and Anna leapt into a sprint along the corridor and Marakoff backed down after them, still peppering the shadowed stairway with burst after burst. If a glimmerman was hidden in there, Marakoff had no tell-tale carpet to help him find it this time.

  They skidded to a halt just before the white corridor and span around. ‘Cover him,’ Anna said, obviously not trusting her Kalashnikov to fire past Marakoff.

  Jason and Eddie took a side each and shot into the stairway with their pistols.

  Marakoff turned and sprinted towards them in a dead straight line, snapping in another magazine as their bullets flew past either side of his head.

  Marakoff skidded to a crouching halt next to them and shot his head out into the white corridor.

  ‘Clear,’ Marakoff said and all four of them scrambled around the corner.

  Eddie came last. The instant Jason was out of the sightline bullets thudded into the wall centimetres from Eddie’s head as he dived around the corner.

  They dashed for the training room door passed bodies that had been hidden in this corridor – security guards and a couple of students.

  Jason dropped to the back as they ran, Marakoff’s words playing in his head – “They won’t risk shooting when a stray bullet might hit Jason.”

  Marakoff slowed down with him but Jason shook his head. ‘It won’t shoot me – let me cover and you get the door open.’

  Marakoff took half a second then nodded. ‘Walk backwards – be ready to shoot. If it moves too quickly there will be a slight blurring of walls or floor.’

  As Marakoff and the others sprinted away, Jason walked backwards after them as quickly as he could, his pistol covering the corridor. A misty hint of a hand and pistol appeared around the corner but before Jason could shoot there was a muffled pop and a red light exploded into darkness at the corridor intersection. Whatever was in the shadow was using a silenced pistol.

  Jason shot into the darkness as he backed quickly away but another light shattered and then another. With each shot, the dark leapt towards him five feet at a time and with it would come the glimmerman.

  ‘Jason, run. It’s open,’ Anna yelled from close behind.

  Jason span around and sprinted for her just as the light exploded over his head. He leapt out of the darkness and Anna propelled him through the door as Marakoff backed in shooting down the corridor with his Kalashnikov.

  Eddie slammed the door and the lock clicked into place a split second before whatever was on the other side smashed into it.

  Anna pulled Jason down into a crouch behind one pillar and the four of them scanned the hall. The lights were all off but floodlights, explosive flashes and helicopter search beams dazzled in through the high window arches and threw jerking shadows across the walls. It sounded as if a war was going on outside.

  The door shuddered once, then again. Single shot pistol bullets.

  ‘It will not get through with just a pistol.’ Marakoff said, almost absently, as he continued to scan the room.

  ‘What if there are more glimmermen in here already – waiting like that one was?’ Jason whispered.

  ‘I think perhaps, we would be dead already…’ Marakoff whispered back, ‘… apart from you, of course.’

  The bullets stopped thudding into the door. The Glimmerman had given up – for now.

  ‘Why is there no security here?’ Eddie whispered.

  ‘A dead area,’ Anna answered, each hushed word quickly lost in the vast space. ‘The windows are too high to shoot out from and the small training rooms have no outside openings at all. It was an infirmary remember – stop the spread of disease – one way in, one way out.’

  ‘So what do we do now?’ Jason whispered

  ‘We find a good place to defend and wait to be rescued, I think,’ Marakoff said. ‘The control room will know where you all are from your pins. Unfortunately all the Brethren will also have the same information by now,’ he grinned. ‘It will be something of a race to reach us, yes?’

  ‘Great,’ Jason whispered.

  ‘Come.’ Marakoff said and led them towards the mock hotel.

  Suddenly Anna reached for her ear phone. ‘Did you hear that?’ she asked. ‘They’ve sighted a possessed – a demon.’

  Marakoff kept on walking. ‘Not really a surprise I am afraid.’

  Jason went cold. A demon – here and hunting for him. ‘Where is it?’ he asked. ‘I’ve lost my ear phone.’

  Anna glanced back at him but Eddie answered as the reports came through. ‘It’s in the woods… just north of us… but there’s one of our teams on it already.’

  Marakoff picked up the pace towards the hotel door. A few moments later Eddie swore under his breath. ‘It’s killed them – all of them, the Gifted as well. It’s coming this way.’

  Suddenly, bursts of machine gun bullets hammered into the door behind them.

  Marakoff stopped in front of the silent hotel. All its windows were dark, staring blankly down at the four hunted humans. A single beam of light swept across the façade from outside then disappeared.

  ‘Go to bedroom three,’ Marakoff said. ‘Pile furniture against the door and keep watch from the corners of the window. The Brethren will come in through the high windows on the outside walls – the shooting at the door is just to draw our attention.’

  ‘Aren’t you staying with us?’ Jason asked. It felt as if he’d ribbons of ice in his stomach, pulling themselves into painful knots.

  Marakoff smiled thinly. ‘I will be far more effective out here, Jason. Do not worry, I will not be far away.’

  ‘You said that last time,’ Jason grumbled but forced a smile back. Marakoff would do his best to keep him alive – they all would.

  ‘The demon’s coming straight at the east wall,’ Eddie said, holding his earphone and turning to stare at the wall with the small training rooms off it.

  Marakoff handed Eddie the Kalashnikov and his belt of ammunition pouches. ‘Short bursts – control.’

  ‘Come on.’ Anna ordered and stepped into the hotel.

  Jason and Eddie followed her and Marakoff disappeared into the shadows of the hall. In the near dark, they felt their way up the stairs to the landing. Four doors stretched away from them. They went into the third and closed it.

  ‘They’re laying another trap for them,’ Eddie said, a smile shining through his voice. ‘We’ve got about fifty men closing in to pin the demon against the wall outside.’

  Right on cue, an explosion of gunfire resonated through the thick stone walls and high windows but it was answered by a helicopter’s rotor-whine swooping in over the roof, massive machine guns churning out hundreds of bullets from on high.

  ‘That’s one of theirs’ Anna half whispered.

  Something exploded above them and a moment later the centre of the roof burst inwards as the blazing husk of half a chopper crashed through.

  It seemed to fall in slow motion then crashed onto the training mats in an explosion of burning metal. Roof tiles, shattered beams and glass rained down all around the flaming steel carcass and a dozens of small fires flickered up through the dust cloud ballooning through the entire hall.

  ‘Oops,’ Jason said, his voice cracking. He glanced at the other two. They were staring out, fire flickering in their eyes and their faces frozen.

  Anna turned to h
im, slowly pulling her fingers away from her headphone. ‘They got the chopper but the demon’s too powerful – it’s just shrugging off our bullets. It’s coming for us.’

  The three of them turned to the east wall.

  ‘D’you think we should run…’ Jason began but before he could finish the wall exploded inwards.

  ***

  Chunks of stone and black marble flew over the matting and floodlights flared in through the wall. Even before the debris settled, dark-robed Brethren were leaping silently through the gaping hole – black shadows, machine guns and swords in hand, hooded cloaks fluttering out behind them like bat wings.

  Jason took aim and squeezed the trigger of his MK23.

  That single shot rang through his head, even drowning out the hammering of Eddie’s Kalashnikov kicking into life to the side of him. On the matting below a faceless Brethren shadow spun around in slow motion as Jason’s bullet punched through his heart and he crashed to the floor.

  He’d just killed a man.

  Sound and speed rushed back to Jason as more Brethren swarmed through the wall. Mind numb, Jason’s finger squeezed the trigger again and again, faster and faster, flicking the muzzle to target after target.

  The black mass of Brethren flowed apart and rushed for the darkened walls and doorways.

  The three students kept on shooting and the Brethren left a trail of twisted silhouettes on the floor behind them as they flitted towards the hotel façade. Jason’s feelings had frozen - he was numb now to the killing but his every sense was sharp and aware of every movement before him. His aim was unfalteringly good and he sent a second and third round into each body to make sure it was dead.

  Two thoughts hammered at his ice-cold focus – where was the demon and what would it do to him?

  The Brethren agents kept on coming through the wall - black shapes darting between fire and shadow. Some found cover and set up a counter fire to the students’ defence. Their bullets decimated the breezeblock some metres above the student’s window sending chippings of concrete and dust into their faces. It was quickly apparent they weren’t aiming to kill, but distract and confuse.

  ‘They’re inside the hotel.’ Eddie coughed, pulling back to reload.

  ‘Block the door some more,’ Anna ordered.

  Jason and Eddie toppled another wardrobe and shoved it against the door, then piled a set of drawers on top of that.

  Anna scanned the room, planning their defence. ‘Jason - watch the window in case they try climbing in – shut what’s left of it so a glimmermen will have to knock out the glass if they come for us. Eddie we’ll cover the door and walls.’

  Anna’s voice wavered, a touch higher than normal but her face was set, her eyes determined. ‘Keep calm, alright - we only need to hold on for a few minutes until D… Mr Brash breaks through to us.’

  Jason nodded. His mind flicked to the transmitter in his shoe – was his father coming to save the day as well? With no identity pin, Dad would be targeted by both security - he might already be dead.

  ‘Focus, Jason,’ Anna hissed, ‘shut the window!’

  Jason reached to pull the glass frame back down into place. Bullets tore into the block above and half the frame split as he tugged it down in a crash of glass shards. Anna hauled over the bed to cover them both and crouched down next to him. Eddie took a position in one corner to provide crossfire.

  Jason peered out of one corner of the window. The Brethren had stopped shooting at them now. Dark shapes flitted unhindered from cover to cover towards the hotel. Every one of them seemed to be looking straight up at him.

  Outside the training hall, the battle raged. Through the blast-hole it appeared the Brethren were defending the training halls – their territory now, with their prize neatly trapped inside.

  A twitch of movement at the back of the hall caught Jason’s eye. One of the Brethren sank silently to the floor and a darker shadow slipped away from the body: Marakoff.

  The ghost worked quickly. All down the west wall, Brethren intent on covering Jason’s window silently died one by one. Three, four, five bodies. Was Marakoff clearing an escape route for them – back into the infirmary corridor – the way they’d come in?

  A radio crackled just outside the bedroom door and was quickly silenced. Jason flicked his pistol towards the sound.

  ‘Watch the window.’ Anna hissed. ‘That sort of mistake might be a diversion.’

  ‘Sorry,’ Jason mumbled and turned back to watch outside. Shadow after shadow was slipping along the hotel façade and into the building now. He shot twice but the angle was too tight and sniper bullets hammered into the brickwork outside to shower him with stone chippings.

  ‘Here they come,’ Anna whispered. Despite his orders, Jason turned to follow her gaze.

  The door handle, with the furniture wedged beneath it was turning.

  ‘So many of you are going to die trying to get in here,’ Anna said to no one but herself.

  Jason frowned. The Brethren must be suicidal – especially if they were going to burst in through the door without shooting for fear of harming him.

  What did Anna say about distractions? This might be one, carefully timed to stop them seeing the real danger which could only come in… through the window.

  A single shard of glass clinked to the floor behind him and without thinking, Jason lashed out a spread hand. The whole window frame exploded out from the wall and a skeletal man all in black shimmered into existence as he arced down to the matting below. The glimmerman landed in a tight roll and immediately started to disappear again.

  Jason smashed the shimmering silhouette flat with an air-punch and peppered it with pistol shots. Blood spattered over the mat and the body wavered back into sight – dead.

  An axe head splintered through the top of the bedroom door and Anna and Eddie opened fire. Jason glanced turned back to see.

  ‘Watch outside,’ Anna shouted over her own gunfire.

  Jason turned back and there, the demon waited.

  Chapter 24

  It was just a man but Jason knew it for demon-kind instantly. The body it possessed was a massive, shaggy haired male with impossible muscles rippling beneath a ragged lumberjack shirt. For a moment it stood within the blasted wall, silhouetted against searchlights and explosions outside. It seemed to suck in the light around it and take everything back to the dark.

  Then it looked directly up at Jason. The long, matted hair fell away and out of the depths of its shadowed face, two eyes flamed crimson around pit-black pupils.

  It had come for him - the demon inside that man ached to possess him and claim his Gift for its own. Jason knew it, he knew it for certain. He also knew he’d die before he ever let it happen.

  With Eddie’s Kalashnikov filling the hotel room with flying lead, Jason took slow, careful aim at the demon outside. Its lips split across white fangs in some parody of a smile and the demon opened its arms in invitation. Casually it took a single step into the training hall.

  Jason fired.

  The bullet thudded into its shoulder – just high and right of the heart. Blood and flesh splattered through the light but the demon didn’t even flinch. It just came on through the fire and smoke – a dark nimbus deepening all around it now to cloak its body in night and its eyes burning hungrily up at its prey.

  Jason shot again and again but now the bullets didn’t even reach the demon’s flesh. They sank into the ink-black nimbus and were gone. The magazine emptied and Jason didn’t bother to reload.

  It was coming for him and nothing could stop it. Where was Brash’s army of security, his highly trained teams of Gifted? Where was Brash? Where, for pity’s sake, was his father?

  Jason stared at the demon, forcing himself to fight down his rising panic. The fiery eyes pulled at him, lulling his mind with warmth. His shoulders relaxed, his gun arm lowered and he let the weapon clunk forgotten to the floor. There was such power in the man below, such commanding grace to every measured step. Here was a m
an born to rule. He’d a right to absolute dominion over life and death, pleasure and pain…

  ‘Jason – snap out of it.’ Jason’s whole head was twisted to one side and Anna’s face swam into view.

  ‘The demon’s here,’ Jason managed.

  ‘No shit, Sherlock?’ Anna swore. ‘Now don’t look into its bloody eyes and keep shooting at it.’

  ‘Re-load. Anna, cover the door,’ Eddie hissed, flipping out his Kalashnikov’s magazine.

  With the machine gun momentarily silenced, the axe returned. It hacked through twice more until Anna shot at shadows through the decimated wood.

  Jason snatched up his pistol and banged in another magazine.

  Outside the demon strode around the cooling helicopter husk. Two Brethren walked a step behind it – each armed with a machine-pistol in one hand and a wide-bladed scimitar in the other. Through the hole in the wall, ragged lines of Brethren were still keeping out all attempts at rescue.

  Without warning, one of the Brethren walking behind the demon had his head jerked back and a Katana blade slid across his throat. He dropped silently to the floor.

  An instant later, Marakoff sliced the sword arm from the second Brethren and slipped back behind the helicopter as the man dropped to his knees screaming.

  The demon, its eyes fixed on Jason’s window stopped and slowly looked down on its writhing Brethren escort. Marakoff leapt silently out of the dark on the other side, his blade a streak of silver arcing towards the demon’s neck. At the last instant something jerked him backwards and the blade whipped through the dark nimbus to slice through the demon’s shoulder.

  The demon roared and one shadowed hand clutched high up its arm. Marakoff slammed down at its feet, kicking hard at apparently thin air.

  The demon pulled its bloodied hand away from its wound and pointed a single finger at the struggling Marakoff.

  ‘No!’ Jason screamed and leapt out of the window.

  In a hail of glass and wood shards, he dropped six feet on to the air step he’d formed and slammed both hands forward.