by Tal Bauer
A muffled groan to his right had him trying to turn his head. Pain fractured his mind, his sight, but he fought against bindings holding his arms and legs down, and something lashed tight across his forehead, pinning his head in place.
As the haze in his vision cleared, the interior of a church came into view. Scattered pews, tossed aside, were tumbled against one wall. Stained-glass murals rose around the nave. Bronze chandeliers hung above, filled with candles half melted. He was in the apse, secured to the altar and surrounded by a ring of burgundy Demon Fire, the ice-cold flames licking at his sides.
Moaning echoed again, and he searched for the sound. He finally spotted Lotario outside the ring of flame, bound at his feet and his hands and tied to a stake, a broken beam of wood from a shattered pew embedded in the marble floor of the church.
On his face, a sigil of silence had been carved into his skin. It stretched from his forehead to his chin, crossing over both eyes and his lips. Blood wept from the ragged edges of the sigil.
“Lotario?” He coughed. Something wet and coppery trickled from the corner of his lip. He swiped his tongue around his mouth but couldn’t feel a cut. “Lotario?”
Slowly, Lotario’s eyes swiveled to him, bleary and dim. Lotario tried to open his mouth, tried to speak. The sigil shattered his voice, broke his words into nothing. His eyes slid shut again.
Alain struggled, scraping the back of his skull over the rough stone of the altar. Shadows, movements outside the Demon Fire, caught his gaze. A low chant was building, voices speaking out of sync but all saying the same thing. He wanted to shut his ears against the noise, against the sound of fire crackling and hyenas braying, a dark howling that grated over his bones. The words made him want to run, to flee, to leave his body behind and escape everything.
But beneath his soul, a whispering voice called out to that same crackling darkness. Soon, it breathed. So soon.
* * *
Cristoph’s breath came hard and fast, but he kept his eyes locked on Luca’s, watching his silent countdown as they bracketed the entrance to the church. Inside, burgundy flames circled the front altar, and they spotted a man tied to a stake, slumped and unconscious.
Two beings chanted, one of darkness and one of flame, as they moved in the shadows. It seemed like a hundred voices burst from their throats.
Luca’s fingers counted down to three.
Cristoph inhaled. Held his breath.
Two.
He exhaled.
One.
They moved together, sliding around the door frame and clearing the corners of the church quickly before sliding shoulder to shoulder and striding up the central aisle. Luca held his shotgun and his blade at eye level. Cristoph held his in a cross-wristed grip as he aimed his pistol at the demons behind the altar.
Linhart slid above in the rafters. Clemente walked well behind him and Luca, quietly praying.
“Demons!” Cristoph bellowed. “We’re here to stop your evil shit!”
He felt Luca’s groan through their pressed shoulders.
The man tied to the altar thrashed. He twisted, trying to look their way. Cristoph’s throat clenched. “Alain?”
“Cristoph!” Alain shouted. “Jesus Christ, why are you here? You shouldn’t be here! God, get away!” Alain’s eyes darted to Luca. He roared, “No!”
“I’m not leaving you, Alain.” Cristoph set his jaw and stalked forward, walking in step with Luca. They slowed in the center of the church, watching for the dark forms of the demons.
The demons had vanished.
“Get the fuck out of here!” Alain hissed. “Now!”
Flames burst through the stained glass above the altar, barreling for Cristoph and Luca. They ducked and rolled as the fireball consumed the front half of the church, skipping the altar, and roared down through the main aisle.
“Alain!” Cristoph howled.
The demon covered in writhing flames strode out of the fireball. It was featureless, no eyes, no mouth, just an embodied flame in the shape of a man. A bone-screeching wail tore from it.
Luca fired his shotgun at the center of the demon’s chest.
Staggering back, the demon’s hands rose, and it seemed to stare down at the blast, at the rock salt embedded in its chest. It surged forward, shrieking, a twirling ball of flame building in its palm.
Cristoph had just enough time to cringe and curl into a ball, and to wish he’d actually managed to save Alain instead of dying in a demonic fireball. Luca threw himself around him, shielding Cristoph’s face with his shoulders as they waited for the blast.
A lion’s roar bellowed from above. Linhart leaped from the rafters as twin halberds flew toward the flame demon. The vampire snarled as he landed in front of Cristoph and Luca and slashed at the flame demon with his talons. Where he slashed, black smoke tumbled free from the demon’s form, followed by purple light blazing through the cuts.
The demon backed away, one hand covering the tears in its abdomen. Linhart roared, stalking the demon across the church.
Cristoph spared a panicked glance to Luca before they scrambled to their feet.
* * *
Clemente knelt next to Lotario, cradling his face in his aged hands. “Father,” he called, gently shaking the priest. “Father, open your eyes.”
Lotario’s eyes fluttered open. His gaze was unfocused, wandering through the church before falling on Clemente. His eyes went wide, and he struggled against the bonds holding him to the stake.
“Shhh,” Clemente hushed him with a gentle smile. “I’m here to rescue you. I will not leave one of my flock behind, Father.” He pulled out a blade he’d hidden, taken from his private apartments in the Vatican, and started cutting Lotario free.
“Holy Father. You care so much for your flock.”
Behind Clemente, a lilting voice mocked his rescue. A familiar voice, one he knew from the Vatican. He turned and came face-to-face with Cardinal Santino Acossio.
“Santino, I was warned you were ambitious. But I underestimated your desires. I didn’t know they included murder and damnation.”
“Your crown and keys will be mine, Father,” Acossio purred. He lunged, teeth bared in a feral scream as he raised a heavy crucifix in his hand, swinging for Clemente’s head.
The blade slipped through the last of the bonds holding Lotario. Twisting, Clemente spun and brought the blade in front of him and shoved it straight up, straight through Acossio’s chest, through his lungs and up into his heart. The jeweled hilt of the blade pressed against Acossio’s cassock-covered chest.
Slowly, the green jewel faded, losing its color. A hollow tube embedded within the blade emptied the poison hidden in the hollowed-out gem.
“The misericorde was the favored weapon of popes through the middle ages,” Clemente whispered as Acossio coughed around the blood rising within him from the wound. “It was the Borgias who added a poison vial. A fitting legacy for them.”
The last of the poison emptied into Acossio’s heart. Clemente pushed him back, letting his body fall to the stone floor of the church. Boils erupted on his skin, across his face and over his arms and legs where his cassock had flown up. Blood sizzled from the boils, and he writhed, trying to scream through the gurgling in his throat.
Lotario had managed to untie the bindings around his ankles, and he toppled forward, weak. Clemente turned away from Acossio as the cardinal breathed his last rattling gasp and wrapped his arms around Lotario.
Lotario, again, tried to speak. A strangled moan was all that came out.
“Don’t speak, my son. You’ve been silenced. It will take time to undo this curse. You’ll only hurt yourself more if you try to talk.” Clemente wrapped one of Lotario’s long arms around his shoulders and headed down the center aisle.
Lotario fought him, trying to turn back to the altar, and to Alain.
“Those flames are too high. I need to get you to safety first, my son. But we will rescue him.”
Sagging, Lotario’s head fell agai
nst Clemente’s shoulder. Clemente all but carried him down the church’s aisle as he prayed for Lotario’s soul.
* * *
The burgundy flames roared, climbing higher around the altar. Alain had lost sight of Cristoph and Luca. He thrashed, struggling against the bonds, screaming with every pull.
Darkness appeared next to him, the angular shape of the midnight demon rising beside the altar. It grinned.
Blood dripped from the demon’s skin, soaking him from head to toe and splattering on Alain. A drop landed on his lips.
“It’s almost time,” the demon breathed. “Almost time for you to come home.”
“Fuck you.” Alain spat, blood and spittle flying from his mouth and striking the demon’s face.
The demon laughed. It disappeared, vanishing outside the circle of ice-cold flames. Alain’s frantic eyes tried to track the demon’s movements, as much as he could while restrained. It reappeared, dragging Cardinal Acossio’s body through into the circle and dumping him at the head of the altar.
“We were going to use that priest’s body,” the demon said, its voice layered with smoke and darkness. “Your fellow hunter. He was going to be the portal. But the cardinal works just as well.” The demon plunged his hands into the cardinal’s chest. It tugged, ripping Acossio in two, a vertical slit that rent the cardinal from neck to waist. He kneeled and whispered an invocation over the mangled body.
A shrill scream tore from the corpse, but not from its mouth. From the center of the destroyed chest, a wail built as a swirling wind kicked up, a sudden tornado rising from the corpse’s chest.
Acossio’s corpse sucked inward and then blasted out, bits of bone and blood flying. The chest gaped open, revealing a void, a portal carved of blood and sorrow that punched through the Veil.
The stench of sulfur and death hung heavy in the air.
A thrum rushed through Alain.
So soon. So soon.
* * *
Linhart had chased the flaming demon around the church, throwing pews aside when the demon sent flaming debris toward him and breaking apart the heavy blocks of stone the demon ripped from the walls and flung his way. Cristoph and Luca followed behind, using him as cover as they shot at the demon.
Leaping, Linhart captured the flame demon against the broken stained-glass windows. He dug his talons into its fiery flanks. The demon screeched and sent a pillar of flame into the side of his face. Linhart refused to let go. “Now! Strike him now!”
Cristoph and Luca charged, Luca firing his shotgun at the hand burning the side of Linhart’s face. The demon’s hand exploded into scattered purple light. Cristoph swung Alain’s blade into the demon’s chest where its heart would have been had it been a man. Purple light flashed, exploding from the demon’s body. It jerked, thrashing under Linhart’s hold, struggling for freedom. Cristoph backed away as Linhart released the demon. Linhart panted, moving with shaking steps.
The demon shuddered and fell to its knees, purple light flaring through each of the tears and cuts Linhart had inflicted and the gaping wound over its chest. It writhed on the stone floor of the church.
Bellowing, Luca swung his blade, slashing through the demon’s neck and severing its head from its body.
A blinding burst of light exploded from its body. They fell back, shielding their eyes as the demon’s body crumpled and collapsed, flames consuming its shrieking form. Purple light swallowed it whole, shrinking the demon down to a pinprick that winked out of existence.
All at once, the wailing stopped. Cristoph only heard Linhart’s exhausted, wet gasps and Luca’s trembling exhales.
Screaming from the front of the church made Cristoph whirl. Demon Fire roared around the altar, so high it licked the rafters. Alain shrieked within the flames.
“Alain!”
Cristoph raced to the front of the church, but the wall of fire kept him back, pinning him away from Alain. Alain’s screams grew. “Alain!” he bellowed. Luca hovered at his side, his gaze darting over the burgundy flames. Ice coated the stone floors. “I can’t get through!”
Luca paled as another shriek from Alain tore through the church. He looked like he was about to tear the church apart with his bare hands, rip stone from stone. His fingers tightened on the hilt of his blade. “We need—”
Linhart leaped over Cristoph and Luca, barreling through the flames.
* * *
Alain tried to wiggle away from the demon and its bloodied, taloned hands, but there was no escape. He was trapped, tied down.
“It’s time.” The demon smiled down at Alain. Its hand rose, blood from Acossio’s corpse still warm on its midnight skin.
The hand dropped, talons slicing into Alain’s chest. Alain screamed, his back arching as the demon tore its way through his skin and muscle and ripped apart his chest, slowly.
Until his heart lay exposed.
Frigid air shivered over his torn body. He felt his lungs shiver, heard the frantic liquid pull of his blood pumping within him.
One long, taloned finger stroked down the outside of his heart.
Alain threw back his head and shrieked.
His thoughts turned to Cristoph, somewhere on the other side of the flames. Stay safe, Cristoph. God, stay safe. I wish I could be there to keep you safe for the rest of your life.
His breath hitched, caught in his chest as the demon’s talon sliced down the center of his heart. I know my sins, Cristoph. And I don’t regret them. I thought that I could hold my life together by my strength alone, but I didn’t know I needed my rock. You became my rock, Cristoph. My Peter, even for just these short moments. I’ll love you forever for that. For giving me these last days.
Agony lanced through him, tears building in his eyes, pouring down his face as his throat tore, his shrieks shredding his vocal chords. Goddammit, I wanted so much, Cristoph. I wanted a life with you. I wanted a future with you, a future away from this. I wanted the chance, at least, to be the one to make you happy.
Blood poured out of his sliced heart, pooling in the demon’s cupped palm. Alain watched the demon step back, cradling his heart’s blood, and breathe an invocation over his cupped palms. His vision began to fade, blacking out around the edges. His lungs seized, no longer dragging in breath. He struggled for air, trying to watch the demon walking away with his heart’s blood. With is life.
The last thing he saw was the demon igniting his blood, a burst of blue flame rising from its hands before it flung his heart’s blood down the gaping hole in Santino Acossio’s corpse.
* * *
It would all come down to this moment.
Asmodeus released the knight’s blood through the portal, sending it across the Veil. Lucifer’s noumenon burned inside spilt blood.
On the other side, their allies committed to resurrecting their leader and fallen prince rallied, cries of joy and salvation rising through the ether.
They would have the spell in place, the mix of bones and dust and water ready to swirl together when the noumenon returned.
Lucifer’s body, remade. His noumenon, rejoined.
Asmodeus stepped back. And waited.
* * *
Linhart leaped through the flames, shards of ice slamming through his body, slicing him from every angle. He collapsed, coughing black blood on the stone floor.
He struggled to stand. He wasn’t going to survive this.
Linhart’s gaze landed on the altar and the destroyed body lying there, unmoving.
Brother…
He recognized Alain. Sigils were drawn on his arms in blood, binding seals holding him down. Runes lined the altar, carved and burned into the marble floor.
They should have worked together. He should have reached out sooner to the knights.
Swirling wisps of Alain’s soul clung to his body, refusing to depart the world just yet.
At the head of the altar, the dark demon—Asmodeus—stood over a second corpse, staring into a dark hole.
The corpse at Asmodeus’s feet jer
ked. It twisted, writhing over the tear in the Veil it was joined with. Blood spread over the stone, and the crack of snapping bones echoed in the circle of flames. The corpse’s ribs flared, arching outward. A wail pierced the church, inhuman, primal.
The corpse bowed, jerked, and bowed again, trembling.
A hand appeared, blood-soaked, using the corpse as an anchor to crawl up out of the void in the corpse’s chest.
Linhart froze.
Another hand appeared, then arms. A bowed head. Shoulders.
It was a man, or at least, it appeared to be a man. Lithe and strong, pale skin gleaming. Long, bloody hair, dripping with bits of bone and gore.
The man looked up. Burning eyes stared through Linhart.
“Lucifer…” Beside the corpse, Asmodeus dropped to its knees, his arms outstretched, and helped Lucifer crawl out of the bloody portal. Lucifer stumbled, falling sideways into the demon. He wrapped his arms around the demon’s midnight shoulders.
One shaking hand rose, pointing to Linhart.
Asmodeus snarled and bared its fangs. Linhart roared and raised his talons. He didn’t have enough strength left in him for this, but he had enough, at least, to die fighting.
Hissing sounded from behind him. The ever-present crackle of the Demon Fire faded, replaced with the whistle of steam, of water dousing flame. A break ripped through the Demon Fire as Clemente appeared, dousing the flames with bottles of water stolen from a tourist shack and wrapped with a length of rosary.
Homemade holy water, blessed by the Holy Father himself.
Linhart roared and lunged for Asmodeus. It snarled, flung a bitten-off curse at Linhart and wrapped Lucifer tight in its arms. There was a flash, a burst of blinding white light, and the whole church shuddered, every stone quaking.
When the flash faded, Asmodeus and Lucifer were gone.