Bleeding Cross

by Aaron Dawbot

  Thomas's jaw strained, making a ripple just below his cheek, holding his silence. He checked back to Louise.

  When he returned his gaze to Marie, the being that was in front of him was no longer in human form.

  A six-feet, slender humanoid shape with coiling horns and bulging orange eyes and prominent cheek ridges with a mouth full of needle teeth was upon him. The creature had a long tail that moved in a sinuous pattern, lashing arches in the space behind her. Yellow scaled skin covered her in bristling small spikes. The image pushed Thomas back a few steps.

  The creature retained its human voice, "Too much woman for you to handle?" The demon that was once Marie flicked a hand. Louise flew mid-air and, within seconds, was in the grasp of the yellow creature.

  Thomas fast-dialed Lonnie in his pocket as the creature sniffed the unconscious Louise. The demon threw Louise against the bleeding cross, pinning her together with the dead flesh.

  Lonnie hit the brakes at the front gate of Still-Water. The two exorcists jumped the iron palisade, sprinted past the garden and barged open the metallic door. Lonnie checked his phone screen, and located Thomas's signal on his mobile GPS. Fitz switched back and forth for any commotion. He caught from the west side, two bodies running at them from the far shadows of the hallway. They were a man a woman dressed in cleaning staff uniforms, two ember dots lit from their eyes

  Lonnie didn't waste a second thinking for his immediate next step. His clenched fist launched at the bigger male demon, meeting it in the face. Lonnie felt his hand sink into brittle bone, and his hand had left a shattered nose and upper jaw, with ragged skin hanging loose. The demon tore the skin from his mouth, exposing rotten meat clinging on two cracked plates of black bone. Lonnie saw the back of its skull lit with flame erupting from the back of its mouth.

  The second figure took the form of a chubby human female. It hesitated to attack Fitz, only to mimic its companion's transformation. Her hand ripped the pink layer shrouding its hideous form. A monstrous rotten face with flickers of fire dancing between the gaping holes of its face.

  "Viles...and very ugly ones too," Lonnie said.

  "As if they looked any better before," Fitz hissed.

  The male vile jumped lurched at Lonnie. The grizzled hunter ducked the abomination in the last possible moment. The creature landed its face on the floor, crumbling what it had left of its face, oozing slime and mucus from its orifices.

  Fitz took out a small cross, luring the second female vile to charge him. The demon took the bait, falling for Fitz's trap as he wrapped his cross around her, curling himself onto her back with his arms and legs in a feeble attempt to wear her down. The creature squealed, with snakes of vapor erupting from the line of contact with the silver necklace.

  Thomas was hurled left and right, each time falling on the hard floor or breaking his landing with the plastic chairs and tables, "Just so that you know, I am enjoying this very much, handsome detective." The demon stomped a hoofed foot in his belly and Thomas coughed in agony.

  The demon snickered with wicked pleasure. Thomas looked up and sneered some bloody teeth, "Sorry, babe, it's not you, you caught me on a bad day."

  The demon grunted from her arched noise and lifted the man on its thin long arms. Thomas was struggling, his legs squiggled a few feet from the ground.

  "And I thought we could have fun," she rasped.

  Thomas pulled the creature's arm, but she tossed him again a few meters away.

  Thomas coughed a spoonful of blood. "Just not my type," he grinned.

  On the other floor, Lonnie exchanged punches with his vile adversary, while Fitz was wrestling his demon-bitch. Both tumbled on the flight of stairs. Fitz was now on top of the demon. He looked up the flight of stairs ensuring that no one was there to see him. The demon under him kicked him away with two thrusting legs. She made a backflip on one hand and then arched her back, releasing a long slime tongue from that orifice that occupied the place of a mouth.

  Fitz climbed back on his feet, his eyes rolled white and a swarm of flying insects materialized from around him. The demon was spitting flecks of mucus and slime with her serpentine tongue. Baby-Shark, Fitz lurched at the demon and pounded her face into the ground in one flash-second, reducing her head to a pile of ash on top of a wiggling body. Her whole mass decomposed to a small puddle of black goo within seconds.

  Fitz hurried to Lonnie's aid, who was still struggling with his burly enemy. Fitz leaned on the stair's post and shouted, "Need any help, old man?"

  "Bullshit!" Lonnie grew weary from the aimless brawl. He took out his embroidered long revolver Colt and shot a silver drop into the demon's head, scattering its contents two meters ahead.

  "That took more than it should, let's find Tom." he said panting.

  Thomas was lying flat on the floor, laughing between his teeth, the demon didn't spare any force, and hissed her insults with a seething tongue, "I remember killing your kind didn't drag this long."

  "Sure, it's not your mileage?"

  The creature stopped a few meters from him. "I don't get it. Others like you should've been squirming in their piss right now."

  Thomas spat another thick trickle of blood. "Let's say the whole Nanny operation doesn't get me off that much."

  The demon grinned. Her bulging eyes wobbled in her tapered face. She stooped over him, forcing Thomas into a backward crawl.

  "So, you've sniffed out what I've been doing to these old ragged skin-sacks. However, Louise can't thank you for that,” Marie said. “ And I've made such a ravenous little boy, offering him the fetid stench of your world." Her eyes swiveled to Louise, "But tonight, after waiting for so long, I'll get to have my little girl."

  “She'll be carrying my next child so say congratulations!” She slammed her barbed hand between his legs. Thomas' face betrayed him. His heart raced at the new reveal.

  The demon headed for Louise. Thomas saw Marie's belly bubbling with a slow growing bulge ballooning from her loin. The bulge pulsated, releasing slivers of slime from its rim. And it dislodged, splashing on the floor.

  A demonic ovum, more like a squashy sac pulsating, shimmering with a red crawling light, throbbing in a small puddle of turbid fluid.

  The demon lifted the egg in her hand, cradling it with its long spine fingers.

  "My child; the next to pass from the dark womb and into this realm, cleansing the rotting earth from the festering seed of Adam."

  Her eyes shifted with abnormal speed to Thomas, who was brimming with disgust.

  "You are luckier than you think. Before I skewer your spleen, you'll get to witness the new becoming of this realm, when fang and claw can rule again."

  The demon held out the pulsating ovum and was pushing its long stalk arm into Louise's belly. The nun woke up at the sight of the ultimate nightmare unfolding before her. She gasped and started to scream.

  Thomas shouted at the bitch, "I thought you hell-bitches could handle any man."

  The yellow creature grimaced, "What did you say, filth?"

  "I say yapping traps like you are all talk and no package. Why don't you come here and show me what you're made of? Hell, I might throw in a kiss."

  "Pathetic," the demon bellowed.

  "Listen, piss-puddle, if you want someone to carry that thing to term, then choose someone as strong as me. That woman can't take it and your love child will die like the last guy your dumb ass tried. I'm here and willing, so let's get it over with."

  The demon held her silence. After a few seconds of quietness, she exposed her jagged crop of teeth, "You're right, I don't see why this can't be fun."

  She lowered her egg on the floor and crept on all fours, long limbs flexed like an arachnoid crawl, approaching her prey, death by unholy insemination was reflected on her sheen orange eyes. Thomas crawled back to a wall, while the demon was gaining on him foot by foot, taunting him with expressions of wicked pleasure.

  Her tall body hovered right on top of him, locking him in a cage of her long spiky m
embers. "Foreplay first," she whispered, saliva dripping from her nasty orifices, flowing in slithering trails over Tom's shirt. The demon opened its foul jaw and two dagger fangs appeared from between the crowded crop of spines jutting from her inner mouth. The demon snatched his neck with the piercing teeth, allowed his blood to spill into her elongated mouth.

  Thomas groaned in pain. He felt that his life was fleeing him, escaping from his torn neck and right into the beast's throat. The demon left him for a second, "Let's make this more interesting, shall we?" The demon raised a hand and the Bleeding Cross kindled at its base with a faint blue flame. Soon, bright snakes of fire rose towards Louise's feet. She struggled to believe what was happening around her as she felt the building heat from under her.

  The demon resumed her suckling. Thomas grunted from the force that bore on his fleeting life. He closed his eyes and saw his Sister again - Jane. She was trapped in an endless black void, her wounds flickering in and out of existence, her body changing from the soft and gentle angel he remembered to the desecrated vessel she died in. Thomas struggled to maintain his grasp on reality. His soul was being lured into crossing. Just before the awaited happened.

  The demon shuddered and suddenly released him. It started to cough, then suffocated into a powerful heaving bout, spewing out the contents of her meal. Then it dropped into a convulsing fit. She gave a look of hatred mixed with bafflement to Tom. Her wheeze and vomit of black thick goo didn't grant her the chance to speak. She writhed on the ground as if her body was fighting off a fire that raged inside her unholy vessel.

  "Whhhhattt....haaavee....dooooonnn...." She was spitting out more curdled blood in a bubbling puddle.

  Thomas rubbed the puncture wounds in his neck. Within moments, they sealed with bridges of new skin. The demon looked back at him, erecting its extended torso on four members, its tail slumped on the ground, and she was panting for dear life. "What are you...you are not human. Your blood is poison to me."

  Thomas walked to her head and stared at her wiggling eyes. "Forgive me."

  In a flash and with magnificent strength, he gave her a kick, throwing her three meters away, tossing her on her back.

  Louise, for a second, forgot the bonfire rising beneath her feet as she saw a new being had just stepped into the arena.

  Thomas dragged the demon by the horn. The fire below Louise disappeared and Louise dropped from the carnal crucifix. Lonnie and Fitz barged through the door.

  "Oh, Holy Mother, have mercy," Lonnie said.

  "What should we do?" Fitz asked.

  "Get out of the way!" Lonnie ran around and grabbed Louise by her arm.

  Fitz joined them and all three huddled together behind some upturned table.

  Thomas held the Demon's body at bay with one hand. His other hand tracked her neck with a caressing touch. The demon squealed and struggled under his newly found vigor.

  Thomas hushed the devil with a gentle blow, "Shhh...others could only wish for such a fate. Tonight, I'm thinking...Mercy."

  The demon opened her orange eyes wide. With a slight shove, Thomas snapped her neck open, releasing a gush of black blood spilling around him into a black pond of bubbling liquid. Thomas lowered his mouth and took the black essence into his mouth, drinking from it.

  Lonnie covered Louise's eyes and he and Fitz closed theirs, "Here we go." A massive bang followed a blinding eruption of light burst out of Thomas's body. All reduced to nothing in a fraction of a second. The demonic egg liquefied into a green puddle.

  "I needed that." Thomas said as he licked his black streaked lips.

  The demon's wound sealed up. Thomas allowed her to crawl away as she struggled the few meters left between her and some door. Defeated and wounded, almost depleted from all her power, she fled like a coward.

  Lonnie and Fitz rushed to his aid. Thomas could not withhold his balance when the two boys took him in their arms.

  Louise was on her knees, her mind rebelling against all its baffled senses. Then she collected herself and walked towards the three men. Thomas saw his friends all around him. He smiled then closed his eyes.

  CHAPTER TEN

  * * *

  Thomas opened his eyes after a few minutes. He remembered the faces that surrounded him, each one bearing a different weight of concern.

  Lonnie was the only one animate enough to shove him awake. His voice echoed from afar, "Tom, wake up for Christ's sake."

  "Okay, Okay...I'm up," Thomas winced, and grabbed his throbbing temple. "Did a building just fall on my head?"

  "I'd wish...We still have to send the hellion tramp back to her pimp. Fitz got her cornered in some room."

  "Don't worry, she won't go away. I know where she is, and she's not leaving her kid behind."

  The two men turned to see Louise in the distance, clasping her hands before the edifice of terror. She was giving last rites under soft breath. They could hear her sobs as she pressed her palms against on her lips, deeply enveloped in her ritual. The two men chose not to disturb her, so they left the woman be, and set off to finish the still living threat.

  They landed down to the basement, right underneath the festivity hall, Fitz was guarding an old cracked door. He straightened at the sight of Thomas. Lonnie gripped Tom from the shoulder. His complexion gave off a dim white color, contrasting the yellow light that ruled over the grimy place. "You'd better be careful," Lonnie said.

  Tom reassured his older friend, and swiped off his hand “Don't worry, brother, this time she won't fight.”

  "She's here. I can smell her, but she's not alone," Fitz said.

  Thomas nodded, "Open the door and leave me alone with her."

  "We'll be right here, Boss." Lonnie said, shoulder to shoulder by his younger dark friend.

  Thomas budged open the dilapidated door, and was inside a foul-smelling chamber. The odor more powerful than the slaughter room he'd discovered earlier. But this time, there was an abhorring view that complemented the stench; moreover, an overwhelming sight no mortal could understand.

  Marie was naked, her horns were but two miniature spurs on a perfect round head, covered with sparse tufts of blond hair. She had human skin, yet still tainted with narrow lines of fine fish scales and scattered spines.

  He could not see her face, but he knew that she was sobbing over the creature she was hugging. It was a bull-sized lizard with its upper jaw replaced with a dozen or more entwined tentacles. It had three rows of numerous eyes, more like a collection of fluid-filled vesicles glistening on the dome of its head. The creature whimpered, giving away slurping sounds under those reverberating tentacles. Its hastened breathing indicated that it was in agony.

  Thomas noticed the collection of green and black slime coming from under the massive Hell spawn. It was dying in the arms of its mother.

  Marie cried in long heaves that looked as If the sadness was ripping parts from her soul-if she still had one - ignoring Tom's presence. She gripped harder on the thick hide of her decaying son.

  As Tom reached hearing distance, just before he could open his mouth, Marie cut him off while still giving him her back.

  "Kill me first," she said. "I can't bear to see him suffer anymore."

  Thomas cleared his throat, "Just look at this."

  Thomas showed her a small monitor, displaying a picture in black and white. It was a picture from several decades before of a girl that had the exact face as Marie.

  "Your blood told me enough." Thomas said.

  Marie gasped, her jaw fell open under its feeble weight. Thomas understood her bafflement, so he aided her.

  "Madre de Guarda...do you remember?"

  "I don't understand. How could this be?"

  Thomas interceded, "There was a time when you meant much more to so many people. Your heart bore no hatred; only pure kindness."

  Marie was stammering words, "I am...I..."

  Thomas then aided her further, "Let the pain help...it should be familiar right now."

  Marie turned to her dying
monster-child. She saw him panting, bellowing soft rumbling noises. Then the voices came to her, shouts in the forest, children who used to laugh...crying in pain...screams and blood everywhere. Wet torn tents in the middle of a thick jungle."

  Marie completed her transformation back to her human image. Her hair grew back, and all her demonic appendages receded back to her pink flesh. She turned to him, her eyes pouring down thick trails of blood.

  "Oh God...will I ever be forgiven?"

  She lurched at Tom's feet and started to shudder, she begged the man with words broken between sobbing gasps. "Kill me, please. End me...I don't want this anymore."

  Thomas knelt down and held her in his green eyes. His gaze soothed her back to a serene silence.

  She gave her child one last look and said, "This world is made of poison. Only the innocent pay the price."

  She sniffed and looked at Tom. He held her soft small head between his hands and whispered in the ancient tongue "Relinquish this world and head back to your Father's kingdom."

  Her face turned to glittering ash and she evaporated into scattered dust, disappearing into thin air. Thomas stood up and approached the dying beast. It became more restless as its flesh quickened before his hand could touch it. Then it stopped. After one last groan, the creature melted into thick chunks of steaming slime.

  Lonnie and Fitz entered and froze by the door. It was Thomas by himself, watching the hulking mass decaying before his eyes.

  "Did she get away?" Lonnie asked.

  Thomas's eyes glistened up and said, "She did," with a broken smile.

  Thomas went out while the boys sought to prep the car. Louise curled in her folded arm. Her head propped against the door rim. The woman looked far out, it looked as if she was under the spell of some reverie. Thomas understood how her mind was pulled under the new of reality. He asked in a calm voice, "Room for one more?" She looked up and cleared a few inches for him. Thomas took his seat with a groan; reminded of the malaise and heat still trapped in his muscles.