by Devin Graham
The old man had his arm hooked around the duke's neck, tightly enough that Duke Hort's face had taken on a ruddy color and his eyes bulged from their sockets.
“Lord Charles?” a voice that was little more than a whisper came from behind Gabriel. Gabriel spun to see Renette, along with the guardsmen, climbing the last few steps onto the balcony. She looked too shocked to even scream—or do anything else, for that matter. She just stood there, wide-eyed and pale-faced.
Father Truth, this girl, Gabriel thought with an inward sigh.
“Sorry, child,” the old man said, a smile tearing across his face as the duke struggled vainly to break free of the man's iron grip, “but this was a long time coming.”
“Safe,” the duke gargled as the old man's, Charles's, grip around his neck constricted. “Safe...”
Oh dear, Demon-Eater, the others hissed. Are you going to let her watch this?
“You,” Gabriel spun on Lady Renette again, “run! The rest of you, stay out of my way.”
“No offense, my lord,” the same guard that had held his sword up at Gabriel said, striding past him, “but best let trained men take care of this.” In a lower voice, to himself, the guard muttered, “All right, Duke Hort, you know what to do.”
The guard charged toward the old man, sword at the ready. The duke threw his elbow up and slammed it into Charles's face. When the duke brought his elbow back down, blood streamed down the old man's face and his nose was smashed flat, but Charles was unfazed. Only because Charles was no longer Charles. Not anymore. And Skin Crawlers felt no pain when in their vessels of flesh.
The guard faltered in his charge. He had obviously expected the man he thought was just a man to loose the duke. Before the guard could think to break off his charge, the demon simply backhanded him. The force of the blow hurled him several feet back. The guard slumped to the ground and did not get back up. The rising and falling of his chest meant he was alive, at least.
Renette found her scream, finally. Inside, Gabriel groaned.
“I told you to run,” he snapped at her, before turning to the frozen guards. “Evacuate those who remain in the manor,” he ordered and they snapped into action.
Gabriel whirled back around to face Hort and the demon strangling the life from him—he seemed to be waiting for a fight—, and sprang into action.
Sprinting toward both of them, he leveled his sights on the demon as best he could while moving and pulled the trigger. An echoing bang exploded from the end of his barrel, and a few more cries of panic rose from the floor below.
The bullet ripped through the air too quickly to see, but the Skin Crawler leaped to the side, managing to evade the shot. Demon and duke crashed to the ground and thrashed about, as Duke Hort tried to wiggle his way out of the demon's hold. The struggle did not last long as Duke Hort seemed to fall out of consciousness.
“Safe!” the duke choked out again, suddenly, as he came to. “Find...” The rest became a gargle and his eyes slid shut.
Gabriel growled, trying to make his legs move faster. Hold on, Hort. I'm going to save you. Just hold on a little—
The demon jerked his arm tighter in a sudden motion, and the duke fell completely limp. His head dangled forward, held in place by flesh alone. Another wrenching scream came from behind Gabriel, and his heart lurched sickly in his chest. Renette. Why had she not run?
Demon-Eater failed! a sudden clamor of hissing, whispering, and laughing arose from his head. He's failed! Demon-Eater, the failure!
“No!” Gabriel screamed, sending a barrage of bullets toward the demon. The possessed body moved with an unnatural deftness, leaping away from the bullets and dragging the limp body of the duke with him like a rag doll.
The Skin Crawler looked to Gabriel, his dead eyes almost flickering with an emotion as its lips peeled back into a grin. A challenge. Gabriel aimed his gun as he feinted toward the demon, finger tightening around the trigger. I am not a failure! I will kill you all. I will—
Click. Gabriel cursed, throwing his gun aside and continuing toward the demon.
The Skin Crawler, eyes never leaving Gabriel, drove its fingers into the sockets of Duke Hort's eyes with a sickening squishing sound.
“No!” Gabriel screamed again, stumbling in his dash a bit at the sight.
The flesh and the tendons beneath the duke's neck stretched taught, as the demon pulled back from the sockets. The skin around the neck started to rip, blood trickling—then pouring—to the balcony floor. Gabriel steeled himself against the sight.
Tendons connecting the neck to the chest and shoulders snapped like rubber bands. Then, the body dropped to the floor. The Skin Crawler leaped onto the balcony railing, still holding the severed head by the eye sockets, an eerie look of blissful disdain contorting the demon's face. This time, however, there was little audience remaining for it to flaunt its deed to.
Gabriel growled his fury. I was supposed to save him!
You failed, the voices of the others said. Another house left fatherless, because you lost.
Something inside of Gabriel felt horribly wrong. Perhaps, it was the fact that he cared little that another man had died—that another family was left without a father—, and more that he had, again, lost to the demons. With each nobleman they killed, it was as though they were planting yet another flag of victory, despite his efforts. It was to say they were better than him. And he needed to be better than the demons, if he was going to kill them. He had to stop losing.
And that mindset, too him, felt horribly off. Yet completely right.
You lost.
“Shut up!” Gabriel roared savagely, reaching the railing upon which the Skin Crawler crouched.
The demon turned toward him, his smile twisting up further. “Well, Demon-Eater, it seems you've los—”
Gabriel grabbed hold of the demon with one hand, lifting it up off the railing and slamming the wide-eyed monster onto the floor. Vaguely, he realized he should not have been able to do that to a demon-enhanced body.
“Stop saying that.”
Before the demon could escape its vessel, Gabriel pulled free the dagger he kept hidden in his boot and slammed it through its gut and into the floor, where the the weapon stuck.
He should not have been able to do that either.
The demon's face contorted with rage and fear and confusion all at once. Wailing, it reached to pull the dagger free. Only, Gabriel pinned its arms down, putting his weighed on the legs so the thing could not use the body to buck free.
A chorus of voices rose from inside him. Demon-Eater, they chanted, declaring the name they had given him. The name of a monster. Demon-Eater, Demon-Eater!
I am Gabriel Hall, he told himself, leaning in close to the demon's face. My name. I will remember it always.
No, you are Demon-Eater! Our Demon-Eater!
“How can you... You're still only human,” the Skin Crawler sputtered. From his periphery, Gabriel saw Renette rushing to kneel beside the headless corpse of her father. The demon flicked its eyes that direction, also, and struggled against Gabriel with renewed fervor. “The girl. I need her!”
Gabriel managed to hold the demon fast.
“You're still only human!”
“Shut up and die,” Gabriel hissed, then opened his mouth.
Demon-Eater, Demon-Eater, Demon-Eater...
Demon-Eater breathed.
* * *
Duke Hort's body lay in a crimson pool, his blood staining the polished marble red and streaming over the sides of the balcony onto the floor below. Renette knelt over her father's body, weeping. Another body lay on the balcony as well, over which the mysterious lord knelt. A dagger pierced through this body's gut. At first the old man had tried to fight back, with the blade still through his gut. Now, he lay still.
Anna Thornrose watched from her crouched position near the top of the stairs. The guards had tried to make her leave, but she had had business here. The guards' corpses now lay hidden in some random closet she had foun
d. She hated killing.
Anna had taken cover when she heard the gunshot, then had followed this mysterious lord to the balcony. By the time she had reached the top, the duke was already dead and the lord was slamming the dagger down into the old man.
She had not attacked the lord. She thought the old man could handle himself; after all, he had a god inside of him.
Currently, as Anna watched a mass of blackness, glimmering with flashes silver and white just beneath it like the constellations of the night sky, moving from the old man and into the lord, Anna's stomach lurched nauseatingly.
What is this man? she wondered, watching in horror. She had seen many things no other human being could have ever possibly seen, yet never had she witnessed a man—no, monster— able to consume a god.
As the last trail of blackness disappeared into the man's open mouth, he climbed to his feet and turned to Lady Renette, looking to the girl with solemn eyes. Anna's heart nearly tore from her chest once she saw the man's face for the first time. She recognized him.
This lord lacked the charming grin and bright eyes of the man she had encountered on the train, but she was sure it was the same man. William Baryon. The lord. The monster.
She found herself truly shaken by the revelation. And disappointed in herself for not being able to realize the man was a fraud in the beginning. He had seemed like a sincere man and, now—the way he looked down to Renette, visibly torn as to what he should do—, he seemed a caring one.
And she would have to kill him.
Sincere or not—caring or not—, this William man...this monster...was consuming, and possibly killing, gods. Although, how did one go about killing something that could devour the divine? Would a mundane weapon work, or would it require something else?
Anna looked down at the bloody throwing knives in her hands. It was not worth the risk, she decided. Still crouching low, she crept to the bottom of the steps and dashed soundlessly out of the abandoned ballroom, through the antechamber, and into the night. The grounds were already as empty as the ballroom.
She stood rooted in place, still reluctant to leave. Her eyes swept about the shadowy, silent grounds, then drifted up to the glittering blanket of the darkling sky.
The sky did not change as the life below it did. If another, somewhere else in the world where it was yet night were to look up at the sky, that person would see nearly the exact same image as Anna. The sky was a realm of constants. Each day, she could awake with the confidence that there would be the sun in the sky. And every night, she could count on the moon and stars to be hovering above, glowing silver—even if they were obscured by clouds or the moon was darkened my its new moon phase, she could know they were still there.
Below, however, on the ground, the world was a place riddled with variables. People changed, rules changed, the landscape changed. It was a world where every person aspired to newness, difference, and eccentricity. Change. Every change was a supposed advance; every change brought humanity closer to the possibility of being their own gods. Yet, in every change, chaos abounded. The human idea of change—or advancement—inspired envy, and envy eventually caused hate, and hate bred war, and war brought famine and death and everything destructive to the planet.
Mankind and their change was killing the planet. And they were all so blissfully unaware of the fact.
What if the ground was like the sky? Anna wondered. Surely the world would be a better place if everything was constant. We would not be able to feed the chaos, then.
But the ground, unfortunately, was not the sky. And soon, mankind would push the planet to the brink. Dalin Thornrose, Anna's father had spent his life combating the chaos, and the gods had given him a chance to see it end.
Bringing only a small number of the gods over, however, had required a heavy cost. Her father's legs...and arms...and head. Paralysis, throughout his entire body. And so his task had fallen to his only daughter.
Anna would help the gods bring the rest of their kind over. She would help bring order to chaos. Save the world. And the gods would heal her father.
Her eyes moved from the sky and looked about until she found her awaiting coach in the darkened drive. The horses blew snorts out through their nostrils and clomped their hooves impatiently upon the cobblestones below.
A man stood rigid at the door—or a god in the body of a man. The vessel would not survive long with the full glory of a god dwelling inside of him and his flesh would eventually begin to break down in rot, but in the short time the man was blessed by the presence of a god, the vessel would experience enhanced strength and boundless knowledge. And, though it may not have been his choice, this man, inside of which a god dwelt, would be contributing to the salvation of the world.
Anna made her way to the coach.
“You do not bear the girl with you,” the god spoke through the vessel.
“There was a...disturbance,” she said, looking the god in the eyes. “A man. He could...consume your kind...” She searched the god's human face for any indication that her words meant something to the god. His eyes, however, did not flicker with any emotion that she could see.
Why did the gods have to be so unreadable? No amount of profiling classes had prepared her for guessing the emotions of a being which seemed incapable of emotion.
Eventually, she shook her head in frustration and opened her coach door.
“Anyway, she is safe,” Anna said, climbing into the coach and seating herself. She went to shut her door, then hesitated, looking toward the mansion. Light streamed out from the open door. I hope.
“Did the man know?” the god asked.
“I can't be sure,” Anna said honestly. “I believe his only concern was the duke, however.”
Outside, the god grunted. Anna felt the coach shift as he climbed up to the coachman's seat. He was a god, but he played the part of coachman tonight. Regardless, it felt unbelievable that a god was acting as her coachman.
I left Renette with a monster, she thought to herself. She would kill the man and get her back. Soon. But not tonight.
She looked to the mansion one last time, before closing the door.
Before she did anything else, she needed to consult her father. There were things the gods were not telling her.
Chapter Three
She liked to dance... Gabriel stared down at the newly written words within the blank space of her face on the crinkled paper. He folded up the sketch and replaced it in his jacket pocket.
“You are certain this was all that was in your father's safe?” Gabriel asked, skimming through the strewn mess of miscellaneous papers, ledgers, legal documents, and banknotes—but strangely no money—on the table, which was in the manor's extensive library, for perhaps the half-dozenth time. It appeared Duke Hort had had quite the interest in books. Gabriel might have gotten along with the man quite well...had he not been dead.
He glanced at Renette, sitting frail and hunched over in a plush chair set several feet from where Gabriel sat, as though he were plagued by some contagious disease. I did consume a demon right in front of her, he told himself. She was frightened of him and he did not like that, but he could not resent her for it.
His eyes wavered on the young woman a moment.
With her tear-streaked face drained of color, and her reddened eyes fixed on some distant point in front of her, she looked almost like a plaintive ghost in a trance.
Or just a mourning daughter, Gabriel told himself, eyeing her blood-stained hands and ballgown. She did not even seem to notice the blood.
“Everything,” she whispered, finally, in a voice which was barely audible. Gabriel frowned as he looked at her—this person who had seemed so strong for one so young when they had first spoken, but who now looked so very small. The frown was directed toward himself, however.
I expected to care more, he realized, turning back to the contents from the safe.
In truth, he was troubled by the duke's death. Troubled that the demons had, again, outdone him
. If he could not save even one nobleman, how was he ever going to succeed in killing hundreds of immortal monsters? Tonight he had only succeeded in adding another voice to the rumble in his head, and he still did not even know where to start to look for a way to kill them.
Perhaps, there is no way to kill them, he thought. Even through his doubts, he knew the thought was a lie. There was a way to kill the demons. He did not know how he knew it to be true, he only knew it was. The answer, whatever it was, felt like it was just out of reach, like an object laying right in front of him, over which his eyes had passed multiple times already. And he was getting no closer to seeing it.
Gabriel glanced over at Renette once more, realizing his mind had strayed from the dead duke and back to killing the demons almost just as soon as the duke had entered his mind. It felt...wrong...that he should care so little about a man's death.
She is fatherless now, he told himself. He felt nothing.
Gabriel forced the shame away, delving deeper into the stack of papers, pulling from it a large envelope. It was addressed to no one. How had he missed that in all his searches?
Is this what he wanted me to find?
Gabriel ripped open the envelope. Perhaps, he would uncover something useful inside. Something that could help him find a way to kill the demons, hopefully. After all, there had to be a reason the demons were after the nobles. Maybe they knew something everyone else did not.
Gabriel reached inside, pulling out a passport and a folded piece of paper. He tossed the passport aside onto the table, turning his attention to the folded paper. It felt heavier than it should have been and when he unfolded it a smaller, wax-sealed envelope fell from within. He picked up the wax-sealed envelope in one hand, then skimmed over the cramped writing on the paper in the other.
To my dear little Ren,
If this letter should still be intact, then it will have meant I have been killed. You must be confused as to why I have been killed, or why I had expected it. Suffice it to say, things are in motion and other noblemen will continue to be assassinated by...things. So far Petars and Placent have been killed, and I believe these “things” are targeting specific members of the aristocracy. I cannot explain why I think this, because I do not want you involved in the things we have gotten ourselves involved in.