Demon Mania (Demon Frenzy Series Book 2)

by Harvey Click

  He was hurrying toward the stairs that led to Godson’s room when a door opened just a few feet ahead of him and a jabber-sucker stepped out. The thing couldn’t see him but it must have smelled him because it turned around and sniffed in his direction, its long tentacles stretching toward him so close that he would have gotten stung if he hadn’t jumped back.

  He drew his sword. It was his favorite sword, the one he called Hawk’s Claw, beautifully made and fiercely sharp, but it was rather short, much shorter than those deadly tentacles stretching toward him. To him jabber-suckers were the most hideous of all demons, those writhing appendages revolting enough even if you didn’t know what they did, and Bill had seen them do their sickening work more than once.

  The corridor was narrow, and there was no way to get past the thing. Bill stepped quietly back as it stepped forward, more certain of his scent now and poised to strike even if it couldn’t see him.

  He reached in his pocket, quietly pulled out his car keys and tossed them over the creature’s head. As they hit the floor beyond the monster it spun around to look, and the next moment Hawk’s Claw was buried in its back and the moment after that it had cut off the jabber-sucker’s head.

  The thing lay dead on the floor, but its tentacles were still squirming, and he knew they could still sting like a dead bee. He leaned down and chopped off the stinger-end of each tentacle and then cautiously squeezed past it and picked up his keys.

  The narrow stairs had no railing, so he used his walking stick for support. Fortunately he was gripping Hawk’s Claw in his other hand, because a fat grinning listener suddenly appeared around the spiral stairwell, waddling quickly down the steps and straight into the tip of his sword.

  Bill stepped past it and with the toe of his shoe sent it tumbling down the steps, still grinning idiotically in death.

  The second-floor landing was mercifully clear, and Bill leaned against the wall and paused to catch his breath before ascending to the third. His heart was pumping with exertion, and he felt older than he ever had before. He’d taken his last treatment ninety-eight years ago, and it was no longer wearing off, it was now worn off and done. The demon venom had finished it off, and he suspected he could now be killed by an ordinary bullet or an ordinary heart attack as easily as any other old man. That wonderful warm feeling of Longevity no longer coursed through his veins, and in place of invincibility he felt rheumatism and exhaustion.

  His hands shook with a junkie’s deep need, and he silently named the ingredients to give him strength as he tackled the next winding flight of stairs. Dried leaves from the Egyptian Sekem tree, extinct for centuries, though there were rumors that some Sufi adepts still possessed living specimens. Powdered death’s head scarab, also extinct. Nefertiti toad skin dust and Ix Chel scorpion venom and half a dozen other substances just as rare, and the thought of them made him feel old and cold and ready for the grave.

  He was out of breath again when he reached the third floor, and he leaned heavily on his stick in the small anteroom outside Godson’s bedroom. But there was no time to waste—a disciple or demon could appear at any moment—and even before he was done panting he quietly opened the door and shut it silently behind him after he’d stepped in.

  Not silently enough. Godson looked at the door with heavy-lidded eyes and said, “O dear Infernal Father, has your wicked son indulged in just a smidge too much Heaven-juice today? I could swear I just saw my door open but nothing came in. O Nothingness, Nothingness, have you come to play with me here in my pretty Blue Heaven?”

  He tittered and tugged on his little pink nipples while staring at the mirror on the ceiling.

  There seemed to be no way to lock the door, but Bill leaned his weight against it and tried not to breathe so heavily. But he wasn’t quiet enough, and soon Godson looked at the door again and said, “O Nothingness, Nothingness, is my godly beauty making you pant with desire?”

  He tittered again, but maybe a bit more soberly this time. Then he sniffed the air and sat up with a frown.

  “Is somebody here?” he asked quietly.

  Bill darted to the bed and placed the tip of his sword against Godson’s throat. He let go of his invisibility, and Godson stared at him with intoxicated astonishment.

  “Not a sound,” Bill said.

  “Why, it looks like that old fraud Bill Sorrows,” Godson said. “But Bill Sorrows is long dead. Are you a ghost?”

  “Yes, I’m a ghost, and you’ll be one too if you make a fucking sound.”

  “Oh dear, I really have indulged a tiny bit too much today, haven’t I?” Godson said. “You must excuse me, whoever you are, but I’m seeing phantoms. Who’s there anyway, is it Terra? Your voice sounds so different.”

  “I already know where my books are,” Bill said. “Now tell me where my ingredients are hidden or I’ll cut off your head.”

  Godson giggled. “Oh, I get it now, this is some kind of game. Where are my books, where are my drugs, where are my slippers and where are my little ding-a-lings?”

  Bill pressed the tip of his sword against the soft flesh beneath Godson’s chin hard enough to draw blood. “Quickly,” he hissed. “It’s not a game and I don’t have all fucking day.”

  The door opened and a woman stepped in with a gun in her hand. It took Bill a moment to realize it was Terra. She had become a beautiful woman with long red hair and dazzling hazel eyes. She wore a long white silk robe with a sword scabbarded at her waist.

  “Terra, I’m so glad you’re here,” Godson said. “There’s a ghost in my room. Do you see it?”

  Terra looked around, smiled and said, “No, there’s nothing here. You must have had a nightmare.”

  “But I still see it!” Godson whined. “I think you gave me too much Heaven. I don’t feel good.”

  Bill had no idea whose side she was on, but her gun was aimed straight at him.

  “I’ll bet that ghost was asking you where you keep your magic ingredients, wasn’t he?” Terra said. “And maybe where you keep your gold.”

  “Yes, that’s exactly what he asked,” Godson said. “This really is some kind of weird game, isn’t it?”

  Terra stepped up to the bed and said, “Did you tell him?”

  “No, of course not. I don’t tell my secrets to ghosts.”

  “Good,” Terra said.

  She drew her sword and cut off his head. It rolled down the pillow and landed beside his shoulder, staring up at its reflection in the ceiling mirror.

  “Why the hell did you do that?” Bill hissed. “I was interrogating him.”

  “It’s nice to see you too, Daddy Dearest,” Terra said. “All these years and not even a Christmas card. The stickman told me you were coming, but somehow I plumb forgot to tell Godson. In fact I slipped him an extra dose and told him we’d be doing a bit of target practice today, so he’s been blissfully unaware of his visitors.”

  “Then who the hell organized that nice warm welcome we got?”

  “Oh, I think his first lieutenant must have done that.”

  “Well damn it, you shouldn’t have killed him before he told me where my ingredients are hidden. I’ll die without them.”

  “And I know exactly where they are,” Terra said. “I guess that makes me pretty important, doesn’t it?”

  She smiled at him. He’d seen the same smile plenty of times when she was a child, and it always meant trouble.

  “Okay, what do you want?” he asked.

  “A small favor.”

  She’d always been a difficult child, and he could see age hadn’t improved her disposition. But right now he had a more important matter to attend to. He grabbed the long hair of Godson’s head and held its face up close to his, but not so close that the blood dripping out of the neck would spatter his suit.

  A normal human head can remain conscious for up to a minute after being removed from its body, but this was no normal head. It was the head of a Longevital, and it would remain alive for many long minutes. Godson’s terrified eyes were
staring at Bill and his lips were moving, apparently trying to say something.

  Bill smiled. He’d looked forward to this moment for many years, but for some reason he’d never thought to prepare a speech. He would have to improvise.

  “Alas, poor Godson,” he said. “I knew thee far too well, you red-ass baboon. You bored me a thousand times with your goddamn idiocy, and my gorge rose at it. Here hang those drooling lips that spouted such utter horseshit. Where be your moronic jests now, your senseless tittering, your absurd girlish giggles? Your flashes of sheer stupidity, that were wont to set the table on a roar?”

  Bill couldn’t think of anything more to say except, “My only regret is that I didn’t kill you myself, but at least my loving daughter did a nice job.” He threw the head to the floor.

  “Hey, don’t damage the goods,” Terra said. “I need to carry that around for a while so his disciples and Nephilim will worship me.” She picked up the head and said, “Look, you’ve broken his nose.”

  “So what kind of favor do you want?” Bill asked.

  “You know how to dismiss demons. I don’t.”

  “You expect me to dismiss all these damn demons? There must be dozens of them running around here.”

  “No, I’m not worried about those minor little guttersnipes. They’re all afraid of me. After the ones your friends are killing come back to life I’ll open the door and shoo them out of here like sewer rats. They’ll go off and hide somewhere and occasionally kill a villager, but they’ll never come back here and bother me.”

  “Then what exactly do you want me to dismiss?”

  “The demon that Godson served—he kept it around here as a sort of life insurance policy. He knew if anyone killed him it would run amuck and kill everyone here, including me. Right now it’s probably emerging from its room and preparing to do just that. If you don’t dismiss it, it’ll come after me wherever I go. It’s always had a special hatred for me.”

  “And who is this demon?”

  “Gorgoseus.”

  “Gorgoseus, the father of gorgons,” Bill said. “I’d say that’s an awfully damn big favor.”

  “And in return you get your books and your Longevity ingredients. Deal?”

  “How can you do this to your own father? I’ll die without those ingredients.”

  “Deal or no deal?”

  “I want some gold too.”

  “Nope. You get your books and your drugs, and I get the gold. But you better make up your mind pretty fast because right now it’s probably heading straight for this room. The first thing it will want to do is devour Godson’s body so it will be completely free of his control.”

  “Yes, yes, I know all about demon behavior, I don’t need your damn Cliff Notes. Somehow we’ll have to restrain the thing while I perform the ceremony.”

  “Not to worry, I have the means to do that. All you have to do is say deal.”

  “Deal, damn you.”

  “Okay, let’s get out of here before it finds us.” She hurried out of the bedroom, still carrying Godson’s head.

  “Leave that damn thing here,” Bill said. “It will attract Gorgoseus.”

  “I told you, I need it,” she said. “The body’s bigger, so it will go to the bedroom first.”

  She touched some buttons on the keypad beside the elevator, and the door opened. Bill hobbled in after her, and as the doors were shutting he imagined they were shutting on his own life as well.

  “You’re utterly deranged,” he said. “The most deadly monster of hell is roaming these halls, and you’re carrying around bait to attract it.”

  Terra smiled and said, “Oh Father, you’ve always been such a worrywart.”

  Chapter 23

  “I have no idea where we are,” Amy said. “I think we’ve been going in circles.”

  “I think we’re in hell,” Nyx said.

  “How are we going to find Emily?” Amy asked. “And if we do, how will we find our way out of here?”

  “I’m going to look for her by spirit-traveling,” Azura said.

  “It’s too dangerous,” Amy said. “If you leave your body, something could rush in here and kill you. Then your spirit would be lost, and it would roam earth like a ghost forever.”

  Azura smiled and said, “My friends will protect me. You’re my best friends, and I trust you. But sit here beside me, Amy, because I’m frightened.”

  They were in a small misshapen rhomboid of a room, none of its four walls the same length. It had three doors and in the middle of the floor a dirty narrow cot. Azura lay back on the cot and shut her eyes. Amy sat beside her and almost immediately could see that her spirit had left.

  Joe, Nyx and Shane were guarding the three doors. One of them burst open, and a woman who looked like a werewolf raised a pistol but fell backwards with four bullets in her chest before she could fire it. Shane shoved her legs out the door and shut it.

  Azura hadn’t stirred. Minutes went by, and suddenly she sat up gasping like someone waking from a nightmare.

  “We’re all going to die,” she said.

  Her face was white with terror, and Amy had to hold her shoulders to keep her from shaking. “What did you see?” she asked.

  “A nightmare from a book,” she said. “When I was little I used to stare at a drawing of it in one of Daddy’s books. I thought it looked like the most horrible demon of them all.”

  “Where is it?” Joe asked.

  Azura pointed at one of the doors and whispered, “It’s down that hall and it’s coming closer. If it comes in here, don’t look at its eyes. If you do, you’re dead.”

  They heard it now, coming closer with a strange soft slithery sound in its step. It stopped outside their door, and they heard it muttering to itself and hissing like a hundred snakes in between the words. The knob turned, and no one breathed.

  Then it hissed and said, “I can smell you cowering in there in your little hidey-hole, my tender morsels.” Hiss! “I can smell your fear, and it smells good, like the lovely black death-orchids that grow in the sumptuous gardens of my pleasure palace.” Hiss! “In another world, my dears, in another world.” Hiss! “I regret I don’t have time to devour you now, my dears, but I must hence to devour the one who binds me.” Hiss! “But after that, after I’m unbound and fully free to roam, there will be ample time then for such simple pleasures, so I shall come for you anon, my dears, my tender morsels.” Hiss!

  They heard the thing move slowly away down the hall with its strange slithery steps. At last they breathed again, but not very loudly.

  “What the hell is it?” Shane asked.

  “Its name is Gorgoseus,” Azura said. “The gorgons you’ve read about, Medusa and her sisters, were Nephilim. Their mother was human, and that thing out there was their father. According to Daddy’s book he’s one of the most powerful demons in hell. He’s covered with countless snakes, and every one of them will kill you with its bite. But the worst things are his eyes—one look at them will turn you to stone.”

  “Well, that’s all we need,” Nyx said. “Did you find Emily?”

  “No,” Azura said. “They must have her really well hidden. Some parts of this place seem to be shielded so my spirit can’t enter.”

  “We can’t just keep going around in circles getting lost,” Joe said. “Not with that thing roaming around.”

  “I think we’re fucked,” Nyx said.

  A bullet pierced one of the doors, and they all blasted it until a panel fell out and they could see that whatever had been standing behind it was no longer standing. Joe opened what was left of the door, and they found a dead human bleeding on the floor of another small room, this one shaped like a kite. The room had two other doors, and Joe said, “Which one?”

  Beyond one of the doors a voice said, “Don’t shoot. It’s Bill.”

  They all aimed their guns at the door, not fully persuaded it was his voice. The knob turned and the door opened just far enough that his walking stick could poke in a few inches like
a calling card.

  “Don’t shoot,” he repeated. The walking stick eased the door open, and Bill’s white face peered around the edge of the doorframe.

  “Follow me,” he said quietly. “There’s no time to waste.”

  “Where are we going?” Joe asked.

  Bill didn’t answer. He was in a slightly larger room with three doors. He opened one of them, and they followed him into a narrow hallway where a woman in a white robe stood holding a severed human head by its hair.

  “Terra!” Azura exclaimed a bit too loudly.

  She ran in front of Bill to embrace her sister, but Terra pushed her away. “No time for kissy-face,” she said.

  The exclamation had drawn someone’s attention—a door opened and a man with a rifle stepped out.

  Terra held up the head for the man to see and said, “Lower that weapon, disciple. I’m the daughter of God, and here’s proof that I’m stronger than the son.”

  The man stared at the head, blinked several times, and finally lowered his rifle.

  “Get down on your knees and kiss my foot,” Terra said.

  The man bent to his knees and kissed the toes of the sandaled foot Terra was holding out to him.

  “Put your forehead on the floor,” she said, and when he did she placed her foot on the back of his head.

  She’d been speaking rather loudly, and the sound caused two more doors to open. One was opened by a human and the other by a tall burly Nephilim whose face looked like a puffy round mushroom with eyes, nose, and a mouth. Terra made them bow and kiss her foot, and when she placed her foot on the back of the mushroom head Amy saw that it was throbbing like a heart.

  “Okay, all of you up,” she said. “Lead the way down the hall, and if you see anything that’s covered with snakes, let me know.”

  The hallway twisted to the left and then to the right, and Amy was surprised to see an elevator door. Terra went to another door near it and told one of the humans to open it and look inside. She stepped aside and looked away as he did.

  “Anything in there?” she said.

  “No.”