by N. P. Martin
The Grand Duke, in his arrogance, is underestimating Lucas. Good, Lucas thinks, and makes a concerted effort to push into Leonard’s twisted mind again, which he manages to do after a moment of straining that almost causes his own head to explode. He sees the Grand Duke’s eyes widen, not really in fear, but more in shock that Lucas is even able to penetrate as much as he is doing.
Lucas feels the invisible grip on him loosen and he is able to raise a hand that helps him direct more destructive energy into the mind of the Grand Duke. Leonard may be one of the most powerful of all demons, but he is also arrogant enough to think that Lucas is still the same demon he met in Hell. “What’s wrong, Leonard?” Lucas asks as he begins to move towards the Grand Duke. “You seem to be struggling.”
Black blood is running out of Leonard’s nose, or rather the two holes in his twisted face that pass for a nose. His fangs are bared as his thin blue lips twist with the strain of trying to resist Lucas’ power.
Lucas has pushed his way in to the core of Leonard’s consciousness, although it feels like his own head is going to explode with the strain. Just a bit further and he can force Leonard’s consciousness to split apart and shatter like glass, scattering it in so many directions that it will take Leonard a long time to recover himself.
A long scream of effort erupts from Leonard’s mouth as he gives Lucas everything he’s got. Lucas’ own eyes widen in shock as he feels his heart explode inside his chest, quickly followed by the shutdown of his whole human body. Only his demon spirit is keeping his possessed body going, but he can already feel Leonard’s invisible icy fingers tearing away at his spirit, pulling bits off it as the Grand Duke tries to dismantle the core of Lucas’ existence. Lucas knows his spirit will only take so much abuse before it is forced to flee from the human body, and when that happens, Leonard would capture it like a butterfly in a net before transporting Lucas’ spirit back to Hell.
With a last scream of effort, Lucas tries to rip apart Leonard’s mind. The Grand Duke screams in response, the shock on his pig ugly face a sign that he regrets underestimating Lucas.
That’s when Lucas feels the searing pain in his back. Enough pain to cause him to loose his concentration, and his grip on Leonard’s mind slips. Lucas looks down to see a blood stained silver blade sticking out of his chest for a second before it is pulled out again. Then another blade is pushed through his right side, and another through his shoulder blades.
Lucas falls to his knees, his human body all but destroyed, his demon spirit hanging on by a thread at this point.
Leonard moves forward, keeping his invisible grip on Lucas’ spirit. “You are more powerful than I gave you credit for,” he says, the lower half of his face streaked with black blood, drops of it running off the ends of his twin fangs. “But regrettably, it takes more than that to defeat me. Never underestimate the importance of extending your reach through having back up.”
Lucas spits blood on to the road. “Fuck you, Leonard.”
Just then an almighty roar from above captures everyone’s attention. Lucas raises his head to see the monstrous black demon hovering above them, looking down at them with burning red eyes. Some sort of dark orange energy seems to forming in the demon’s chest, accompanied by a high pitched squealing sound that forces even the surrounding drones to flinch and cover their ears.
Leonard is the only one paying the hovering demon little attention as he keeps his piercing blue eyes on Lucas. “Tolloch did a grand job creating that thing,” he says to Lucas. “I hope it destroys this entire rotten world.”
It becomes difficult for Lucas to even hear what Leonard is saying over the ear piercing sound emitting from the demon, a sound that is growing higher in pitch with every passing second. Lucas glances up again to see the ball of energy forming in the demon’s chest get brighter and brighter. Oh shit, he thinks, suddenly realizing what’s coming.
Leonard is still talking, his smug arrogance at finally capturing Lucas blinding him to the impending danger from above. Lucas can’t even hear what the Grand Duke is saying. Nor does he care what the creepy cunt is saying. As the high pitched sound begins to explode the glass in the windows of the buildings surrounding them, Lucas gathers as much energy as he can muster in preparation for what he has to do next.
Still holding Lucas in his invisible grip, Leonard continues speaking, and a few seconds later, a portal to Hell opens up on the road beside him.
He pulls Lucas to his feet and begins to reel him in towards him like a fish on the end of a hook, smiling as he does so, clearly pleased with himself that he has finally captured his allusive prey.
The high-pitched squeal from the demon reaches a crescendo now and Lucas hears the demon roar above them, its huge bulk still casting a deep shadow over everything.
Lucas gathers every last drop of power and energy he has and uses it to break Leonard’s grip, who stupidly relaxed when he thought Lucas was beaten. The invisible grip only breaks for a second, but it is time enough for Lucas to break sideways towards an alley just as a massive ball of dark orange energy comes rocketing out of the sky and impacts Main Street and everything in it like a crashing comet, including Leonard and his army of drones. If the Grand Duke hadn’t of been so wrapped up in his victory over Lucas, he would have seen what was coming and had time to avoid the huge ball of destructive energy. Thankfully for Lucas, Leonard didn’t see what was coming until it was too late.
Lucas runs down the side street as fast as his damaged body and spirit will allow, but he still gets caught on the edge of the blast radius and he is sent hurtling forward through the air like he has been blasted out of a cannon. A dumpster at the end of the side street cuts his Superman act short and he falls in a heap on the ground. The impact from hitting the dented dumpster breaks bones in his arm and torso, but he still manages to get back to his feet and keep running into the next street and then the next one after that, all the while trying to teleport.
As the shadow of the giant flying demon begins to loom over him again, Lucas finally vanishes himself to safety.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
He doesn’t know why, but Lucas ends up teleporting into his father’s grave. Not literally of course, but inside the pyramid where the sarcophagus of King Rameses II still lies undisturbed by anyone, right at the heart of the pyramid in the desert sands of Egypt. It is the first time Lucas has ever done this. He wasn’t exactly close with his father when they both walked the earth together. His father banished him after all, and all because he feared what his son was becoming, or rather because he was afraid of how powerful his son would one day become. That much was obvious from the last time they spoke. Lucas wonders if his father felt much fear at the prospect of facing his son in battle, even though that event never happened. He imagines his father was relieved in the end. What father wants to fight his own son to the death? Lucas feels almost ashamed as he thinks back to that ancient time. What was he thinking, trying to take over Egypt? Regardless, he paid a heavy price for his stupid insolence.
His father’s sarcophagus lies in the center of a large room in the very heart of the pyramid. The room is as dark as it’s possible to get, but Lucas can still see through his demon vision, like looking through purple tinged infrared goggles. The sarcophagus is large and made from pure gold, intricately cast and surprisingly free from dust considering its underground location. The metal is warm as Lucas runs his hand over it and he tries to picture his father lying inside, mummified and wrapped in oil soaked strips of muslin, his dusty carcass shriveled but still holding its features.
“Surprised to see me, father?” Lucas asks the sarcophagus. When he gets no reply he sits down with his back against the warm metal and closes his eyes for a while. The body he inhabits is greatly damaged. He can still feel the blood running from the stab wounds in his back, chest and abdomen. It also feels weird not to have a heart anymore. He was used to it beating inside his chest. It made him feel…alive. In Hell, his heart did not beat. No heart beats in He
ll. Hell is not a place of beating hearts. When he first came to Earth and possessed his first body, he almost felt like crying when he felt that steady dum-dum, dum-dum rhythm inside his chest. It was something he thought he would never experience again and it made him feel almost human once more. Now that his heart no longer beat with its quiet, steady rhythm, he feels strangely stripped of his humanity again. Now he is just a demon spirit inhabiting a body that should not be walking around. He is the walking dead again, just like he was in Hell.
“I was probably a great disappointment to you, father,” he says quietly in the darkness of the dry and dusty room. “It was never my intention to disappoint you. I’m not even sure if you ever had any love for me. Did you, father? Did you love your youngest son the way you seemed to love your other sons? It never seemed like it. I felt like I had to get what I needed from somewhere else. Maybe, if you had loved me the way you were supposed to, I could have been a real help to you. I have gifts, you know, gifts that you could have used when you were King. But you knew that anyway, didn’t you? That’s why you banished me. Not because I was messing with the dark arts. Not because I got two of my brothers killed. But because you were afraid of my potential, isn’t that right, father? You thought if you let me stick around, I would eventually eclipse you like the moon eclipsing the sun.”
The silence in the room is oppressive, but Lucas still feels like his father is somehow listening from somewhere, so he continues with his centuries late admissions.
“I saw the look of fear in your eyes the last time we spoke. Your callous disregard for me came back to bite you in the ass, as they say these days. I would have beaten you in battle, you know that? Of course you do. I’ll bet you were glad when you heard the battle was off. Relieved, no doubt.”
Lucas shifts on the dusty floor and winces at the pain in his back. Despite just being a spirit, he is still connected to his human host, physically anyway. He still feels the pain, but he doesn’t mind it. It is a reminder that he is still alive, still a part of this world.
“I ended up in the Underworld, you know. That probably does not surprise you to hear that. I’m sure you thought that’s where I belonged anyway, dark soul that you thought I was. My soul was not that dark. I have met many dark souls in my time, so I know what they look like. My soul wasn’t—-isn’t—-that dark. Maybe a little.” He pauses, partially out of breath. One of his lungs was pierced with a sword. Coupled with the lack of air in the tomb, it makes it hard to breathe. “My own stupidity got me sent to Hell, nothing more. I overreached, father, but I think you knew that about me anyway. I saw it in your eyes when I went to see you that day. I trusted someone I shouldn’t have. Don’t ever let anyone tell you that the gods are trustworthy. They are as selfish and narcissistic as any mortal, but maybe you know that already. Maybe you sit with them right now. If you do, inform Isis that she is a total bitch and tell her brother slash husband Osiris that he is…a cunt. You probably don’t know that word. It speaks for itself, I think.”
Lucas looks around the empty room, at the huge blocks of stone that form the walls. He is reminded of Hell, of the suffocating stone prison cells in the Depths.
“It won’t surprise you to hear that I am being hunted, father. By one of those dark souls you considered me to be. Perhaps you think I deserve it?” He waited as if for answer and got only silence. “Well, perhaps I do. But I have learned from my mistakes. Soon, I hope to have something in my possession that will make me immune to the vicious whims of such dark souls. And who knows father? Maybe I will even use that object to summon your soul, so we can talk properly. Would you like that father?” More silence. “I didn’t think so.”
Lucas hoists himself up from the dry stone floor and places a hand on the dust covered sarcophagus one last time. “It is time for me to go and see what fate has in store for me, father. I will leave you in peace now.” He stares down at the frozen features on the face of the sarcophagus for a moment, thinking of planting a small kiss on the hard metal, but doesn’t. “Goodbye father. Rest in peace, wherever you are.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Feeling like he doesn’t have a choice, Lucas teleports back to Mercy City to see what fate has in store for him. When he gets there he finds a city that resembles some post-apocalyptic landscape, full of smoking, burning buildings, people walking around in a blood and dust-covered daze, wondering what the hell happened to their once comfortable and monster- free normality. Broken bodies strewn everywhere like so much rubbish. He doesn’t see any sign of the great black demon that haunted the skyline and caused so much destruction before. Either someone has stopped it, which he finds hard to believe, or it has moved on elsewhere to continue spreading its mayhem and destruction. Either way, he should be thanking it. The demon unwittingly saved him from the clutches of Leonard. Where is the old bastard now? Lucas wonders. He would have to be careful, as Leonard and his drones could show up anytime, anywhere. He also wonders where Frank is. Did he get himself killed by Tolloch? If so, where is the archangel feather? Still on Frank’s dead body somewhere inside the impenetrable Watcher Facility? Lucas hopes not.
His eyes go to the sky to a television news helicopter hovering above a burning building and he wonders how the media are going to explain all this to the world. No doubt there is plenty of footage of the giant rampaging demon that destroyed half the city, but Lucas doubts any of it will make it on to the news. The human government drones are not completely in the dark about the supernatural beings that exist in this world, but they go to great lengths to insure that the sheeple they rule over are kept ignorant about it all. Lucas knows the President and his cronies will concoct some ridiculous cover story to explain away everything that has happened, and the sheeple will swallow it all whole without a word of protest. It is easier to think that terrorists caused everything rather than a giant demon from Hell. Most human brains just couldn’t fathom that. They are not built to fathom such things.
When Lucas’ phone rings in his jacket pocket he is surprised. Firstly surprised at the fact that the phone is even still intact after all the battering he has taken. Secondly surprised because it is Frank phoning. “Frank,” Lucas says upon answering. “I didn’t expect to hear from you. I thought you were dead.”
“I don’t die easily,” Frank says, as droll as ever. “Besides, someone had to stop that thing rampaging through the city.”
“You killed the demon?”
“Fucking right I did. And Tolloch.”
Lucas is astounded. “Tolloch? How?”
“Another Watcher killed him, with help from me and Eva.”
Lucas shakes his head. “I should really call you Wonder Watcher from now on.”
“How about not.”
“Sorry, Frank, I’m just…do you have the feather?”
“Yeah. You have what I need?”
“Yes,” Lucas says, but he isn’t looking forward to telling him. “Where do you want to meet?”
They meet in the mountains, not far from Frank’s cabin. The Watcher’s car is parked on the grass verge of the dirt road that leads down the mountainside. Obviously Frank had abandoned it in a hurry at some point. Frank himself looks in a worse state than Lucas does. The two of them look at each other and shake their heads. “An eventful few days for both of us, I see,” Lucas says.
“You could say that,” Frank says, leaning against the driver’s side door of his black Chevrolet. He reaches inside his torn jacket and pulls out a long white feather, still gleaming and pristine despite the abuse it must have taken as Frank carried it around with him. “This what you’re looking for?”
Lucas tries not to look too eager, but he can’t help himself and walks over to Frank to take the feather, who says, “Not so fast. You first.”
Shit, Lucas thinks. He was hoping to have the feather in his possession before he delivered the bad news to Frank. “I found what you were looking for, but I don’t think you are going to like it.”
Frank sighs and shakes his head
, obviously hoping to be free of anymore bad news. “Tell me,” he says.
“I found out the name of the demon who took your friend’s soul, as you asked.” Lucas pauses, his eye on the feather. Maybe he should just snatch it from Frank right now before he delivers the rest of the information. But then he thinks, No. He has too much respect for Frank to do that, which he realizes has to be a first. Maybe his humanity hasn’t been completely eradicated after all.
“Go on,” Frank says, a dark look in his eyes like he knows what is coming.
“The problem is Frank, that the demon who had her soul no longer has it.”
A deep frown crosses Frank’s face. “What the hell do you mean he no longer has it? Who does then?”
“Mordred. The King of Hell.”
Frank remains perfectly still for a moment as that particular knowledge bomb shatters whatever hopes he had of rescuing his one time sweetheart from the clutches of Hell. Then he does something Lucas doesn’t expect. He rushes forward and punches Lucas hard in the face, sending Lucas reeling back a few steps. “How long?” he demands.
Lucas rubs his jaw, too weary and weak at this point to even be mad at Frank for hitting him. “How long what, Frank?”
“How long have you known?”
“A couple of days. What does it matter?”
“You could have told me sooner.”
“A lot was at stake, Frank. I didn’t want to put you off your game.”
Frank gives a bitter laugh and shakes his head, then he throws the archangel feather on to the gravelly road and turns and walks to his car.
Lucas bends down and picks up the feather, all of his previous worry and anxiety vanishing in an instant the second his fingers touch it. “I hope this doesn’t effect our friendship,” he calls to Frank, though Frank isn’t looking at him. The Watcher guns the engine of his car and does a tight turn on the road, almost hitting Lucas in the process. Lucas watches the black car speed off up the mountain road leaving a cloud of dust in its wake. “He’ll come around,” Lucas says to no one before teleporting to the Demon Ecstasy club with his new prized possession.