by Peter Oxley
“I have encountered him before, like that. But I thought—”
“According to legend, when the runes were separated and sent their different ways, Almadel left to try and recover them. Some said that his essence actually lived on in each of the runes. It would appear that over the years he became incorporeal and seems to have been attracted to Maxwell’s Compound as a medium for holding his essence. It appears that your impure state—neither human nor demon and, to make matters worse, created by the very runes that he revered—has attracted his attentions over the years.” He grinned at me. “You have been stalked by a demi-god; congratulations!”
I frowned at him. “Where has it gone?”
Andras gestured to the Fulcrum, to where the mist angrily circled the Satan worshippers and their allies. “I believe he is seeking a host. We should attack before he secures one.”
We advanced towards the waiting army, Pearce sending skirmishers ahead of us to engage the enemy and distract them from being able to mount too much of a coordinated defence. Surprisingly they did not seem too interested in attacking, instead redoubling their defences around the portal, backing away and forming a ring of sharpened steel and decrepit flesh around it.
I suddenly realised that Kate had fallen behind. Pearce and I turned to see her frozen in place and we both ran back to her.
“Kate,” said Pearce, “you need to keep moving.”
“I can’t,” she muttered, her eyes wide.
“We should take her back,” I said to Pearce.
He nodded and took her arm but she struggled against him, her face ashen.
I looked back to see the cannons being wheeled into position, the artillerymen already hard at work calculating the angles that would give them the best chance of hitting the portal. Pearce nodded, relaying to us an order from behind and we watched as the cannons boomed as one, sending their projectiles hissing towards the portal.
We held our breath as the black missiles streamed over and past us in a perfect shallow arc. One landed amidst the defending creatures, scattering them with a satisfyingly bloody smear. The other headed directly for the portal itself but at the last minute it seemed to explode into dust, harmlessly drifting away on the breeze.
Andras cursed beside me. “They have managed to set up some form of protective barrier,” he hissed.
“But you were expecting that, weren’t you?” I said.
He nodded. “Part of me had hoped that they were less organised or more poorly equipped than I gave them credit for,” he said.
I turned back to Pearce, who was still struggling with Kate. She was snarling as she pulled against him, refusing even to be taken to safety.
“The demons… they’re everywhere… I can feel them…” she muttered, eyes wide.
“Let’s pick her up,” I said to Pearce. “The two of us can carry her away before the fighting starts.”
He nodded his agreement, but before we could act on it I sensed a shift in the air. Andras clearly felt it too and held up his hand, signalling for everyone to stop and hold their positions. “Not good,” he whispered. “Not good at all.”
“What is it?” I asked.
Andras pointed at the portal. “It looks like we are about to have some unwanted visitors.”
Even from this distance I could see the difference in the portal, the swirling inside growing in intensity before my eyes. My sword started to vibrate as a sickly familiar wind rose up from the portal and the creatures gathered around it started to howl in triumph, leering and gesturing at us.
I turned back to Kate, feeling a hot panic start to rise and swell inside me. “You need to snap out of this!” I shouted at her.
She stared back at me.
“Look around you,” I screeched. “We are in the middle of a damn battle!”
Kate stared at me as though I were a part of some bizarre dream. “Things are not real,” she whispered.
Pearce grabbed her by the shoulders. “I understand how you are feeling,” he said with a calmness I envied. “I have felt it too; the feeling that the creature is still inside you.”
She blinked at him, then her eyes lurched to me.
I forced myself to try to forget about the dangerous madness surrounding us; if Kate remained in that state in the middle of the battlefield, then she was as good as dead.
“Kate,” I said, staring into her eyes. “Kate, we brought you back and we took that entity out of you, but these things always leave a hole. That will heal in time, trust me, but for now you need to fill it with something. Remember who you are and what you have done. You are Kate Thatcher, and you have been through so much worse than this. Just one last push and then we will be rid of these demons.”
Kate started to hyperventilate, straining once more against Pearce. “We’re going to die. We’re all going to die here today!”
I racked my brains; what would she do if the positions were reversed?
In a flash I realised what I needed to do, although I did not relish it.
“Captain Pearce,” I said, “I need you to hold her tight, and please resist the urge to hit me.”
“What?” he asked.
I slapped Kate across the cheek as hard as I dared, the sound seeming to ring out in spite of the chaos around us.
She scowled at me, blinking back tears, which quickly snapped back into an angry glare. “Ouch,” she snarled. “What did you do that for, you bastard?”
I looked to Pearce, willing him with my eyes to keep holding her back. “You were panicking,” I said. “I asked myself what you would do if the roles were reversed.”
She stared at me for a moment, then turned her head to speak to Pearce. “You can let go of me now. I’ve still got me senses: I’m not ready for Hanwell just yet. Or Hades.” When he hesitated, she added: “And don’t worry, I won’t go for Gus.”
He released her and she squared up to me, eye to eye. “You weren’t quite right,” she said. “I’d have really hit you.” She patted me on the cheek, grinning as I flinched.
“What do you mean?” I asked. “I didn’t want to hurt you.”
“You slap like a little girl, Augustus Potts.” She turned back to the action, but I could tell there was a wry grin on her face.
I looked out at the massing demons before us and the swirling vortex of the portal. The cannons were beating a steady rhythm, but the munitions failed to have any impact on the portal. “What now?” I shouted. “Should we attack?”
Andras shook his head. “It is too late,” he replied, pointing at the portal. “They are already here. We are outnumbered.”
The ring of defences around the portal had opened to admit a stream of new creatures, a river of effluence from the very bowels of Hell. Creatures from our worst nightmares roared at us: Warriors and Warlocks, Mages and Furies. They poured through with a furious intensity, bellowing as they advanced on us.
After a few moments the demon forces stopped, arranging themselves in a long line around 200 yards in front of our own. The line split in the centre to reveal a tall, terrifyingly beautiful figure riding towards us on a huge beast.
Andras growled next to me. “So, here…” he said, as much to himself as the rest of us, “…is Belial in person.”
I turned to see Pearce and Byron next to me. “What now?” I asked again.
Before anyone could answer, Andras started to walk forwards. “Wait!” shouted Pearce, but Andras carried on marching regardless. With a deep breath, I started after him.
Belial was immense, even by demon standards. His height was massively boosted by the beast on which he sat, something that bore as much relation to our horses as a lion to a cat. The creature’s body was at least eight feet high and it stared at us with piercing red eyes above a maw lined with hideously sharp teeth.
Belial himself was a sight beyond my wildest imaginings, even after all of the time I had spent fighting demons. When we had been in Almadel I had not had the opportunity to register too much of him or his fellow Kings
, given how intent we had all been on escaping from that place as quickly as possible. In the sudden stillness in which we found ourselves, I was able to fully soak in his majestic yet evil countenance.
For that was what he was: in spite of everything I knew about him, all that I knew he represented, I could not help but wonder at the sheer beauty of the creature before us. It was almost as though he was surrounded by a terrible and yet alluring fire, a wondrous glow that bathed him and picked out his features in stark relief. As with so many of the demons, the particulars of his face shifted as my mind tried to make sense of what my eyes were taking in, finally settling on a classically handsome man, almost the spitting image of a Roman emperor or the statues of Alexander the Great from ancient times.
Andras had stopped in front of him and seemed to swell in size to match his adversary. “Belial,” he called. “You will desist and leave this realm.”
“Or what?” laughed Belial. “You managed to repel us with a rather elegant bluff last time, but I see even that has betrayed you now.” He held up his hand and the mist of the Compound swirled in and around his fingertips, thankfully for the moment contained around Belial rather than reaching its foul tendrils out towards the rest of us.
Andras peered past the demon King. “Where are the other three?”
Belial smiled and narrowed his eyes. “I have no more need of them now,” he said. “After all, I have the runes.”
Belial held aloft a sceptre attached to which was a circular disc, not unlike the one that we had taken from the afterlife.
“So you have found the one held in the Aether,” said Andras. “I believe that is two to you, but three to me.”
Belial gestured around him. “I have the superiority in numbers on the field,” he said. “Once we have defeated you, I will take the remaining runes from your cold dead fingers.”
Now it was Andras’ turn to laugh.
Belial frowned at him. “Could it be that you have finally been driven insane?” he asked. “Look around—you and your pathetic army are vastly outnumbered and outgunned, so to speak.”
“You should not believe everything you see,” said Andras, turning and gesturing to Joshua, who had set up his various pieces of equipment just behind our lines, Lexie standing nearby holding the rune from the afterlife and Gaap’s leash. Joshua started chanting and, one by one, portals started to wink into existence around the battlefield.
Belial and his army cast around as they watched dark shapes start to emerge from these fresh doorways. Slowly the shapes took human form as entire battalions started to pour through.
“Vive la liberté,” came a cry from a nearby portal. The uplifting sound of soldiers shouting was echoed in several other languages: Prussian, Russian and even the twang of an American accent, as they all screamed their own war cries at these invaders. Andras turned and grinned at Belial.
“You see?” he shouted over the rising noise of these new armies. “It is not just us that you have to contend with, it is the whole of humanity itself!”
Belial looked around and then turned back to us, a grin spreading across his face. “Very good, he said. “I would thank you for making this so much easier for me.” He held out a hand and the Compound containing the essence of Almadel seeped into his body. He leaned his head back, seeming to grow a few more feet in height and girth. “And now I am Almadel as well. I have his spirit and his strength, and you shall be ruined!”
I frowned and glanced at Andras, hoping to see some reassurance in his face or bearing. Instead I saw confusion and the beginnings of panic.
Belial laughed. “I see that the penny has finally dropped Andras. I will accept your surrender now.”
“What…?” I asked.
“Stupid,” muttered Andras.
We spun round at a cry from behind us. Lexie sprinted through our line of soldiers, holding the rune in one hand and pulling a newly released Gaap with her other. Before I could react, Gaap snatched the sword from my hand and ran over to his master followed by Lexie. Fear washed over me.
“And now I have all five runes!” shouted Belial. “Thank you so much for delivering them to me.”
“Lexie!” shouted Joshua. “What are you doing?”
“I should have realised,” snarled Andras. “I knew that something was not right, that there was a risk, but I was so distracted by everything else…”
“What do you mean?” asked Pearce.
Kate was staring at Lexie, her face ashen. “I know that creature now,” she said. “I’d know it anywhere.”
I stared at her. “What do you mean?”
“That’s the thing that lived in my head,” said Kate. “That monster…” She started to shake and Pearce put a reassuring hand on her arm.
“You see,” said Andras, “the one question we never answered, was: what happened to the Wraith that we released from Kate’s head?”
I stared at Lexie, unsure whether it was my eyes or simply this new evidence that suddenly made her take on a ghostly, demonic appearance. “But how could she do that? They never normally look human…”
“We were in the afterlife,” said Andras gravely. “The normal rules don’t apply there. It latched onto something that we wanted the most and made it flesh. Well, what one of us wanted the most, anyway—the most powerful one of all of us.”
“This changes nothing,” said Pearce. “We have the numbers now, we should attack.” He waved his hand at the various commanders around the field.
The other armies remained motionless.
“What is this?” snarled Andras as he looked about.
Belial laughed. “You thought you had been so clever, didn’t you? Sending your pet Prime Minister off around the world, gathering all of your armies together—the very best that humanity has to offer. But at no point did you stop to consider whether they were yours to command. You see, I have been here for millennia, since before these pathetic creatures were even sentient. At every step of their development I have been there, shaping and manipulating them, making them in my own image.”
“Liar!” hissed Pearce.
Belial laughed, a sinister cackle that ran up and down my spine and made me want to run away and hide. He spoke to a base, almost primeval part of me and in that moment I knew that what the demon said was true.
“I admire your stubbornness,” he said to Pearce, the focus of his gaze forcing the Captain to take a step backwards. “That is one element of your personalities that I have always tried to remove. But no matter, after today you will all be mine.”
Andras shook his head. “Not today,” he roared. “Not these creatures!” With a bellow, he threw himself through the air at the other demon. Belial met the swing of Andras’ sword with his own, the two weapons colliding in a cacophonous clang that made my ears feel as though they would burst.
Andras’ momentum unseated Belial, sending both demons tumbling to the ground. Belial twisted gracefully in the air and landed in a crouch, his immense sword held out to one side.
“This is a pointless exercise,” he growled, straightening up to his full height. “If you are trying to stop me from using my birthright—my five runes—then you are sadly mistaken. You can only temporarily distract me, that is all.”
“That’ll do for me,” growled Andras, charging forward once more.
The two demons seemed to grow in size as they fought, a vision straight from my childhood imaginings of the Titans from Greek mythology. It was hard not to be awed by the vicious elegance with which they attacked, parried and counter-attacked, a hideously mesmerising dance of death. I could not tear my eyes away from this breath-taking sight, almost as though we were watching two gods battling for our entertainment.
Andras at first appeared to have the upper hand, attacking with a power, passion and intensity that Belial could do little other than defend against. Andras roared as each blow landed, only to be met by Belial’s sword and then, increasingly, by little more than thin air.
For while Andras wa
s fast—preternaturally so—Belial was even faster; it was this speed, combined with the demon’s beautiful ease, which soon began to tip the balance. I clenched my fists and breathed a warning as Andras miscalculated a blow and found himself exposed. Belial laughed and caught him in the side with a sharp elbow, veering away before gesturing for Andras to come at him.
“He is toying with him,” I hissed.
My words seemed to shock Pearce back to wakefulness, having stood next to me as entranced by the battle as I was. “They both are,” he said before pointing towards Lexie and Gaap. “Andras is buying us time; we need to get the runes.”
We edged around the battle, noting that everyone else on that field—demon, human and Soul-less alike—were similarly frozen by the spectacle. Emboldened, we edged towards the creature wearing Lexie’s face. After we had only taken a few paces it turned and glared at us, lifeless eyes boring into us and reaching for our very souls.
In spite of the adrenaline and courage that such a situation always provided, I faltered, turning to glance at my comrades to see that they were also thus affected.
“We need Joshua,” said Kate, gesturing to the lines of soldiers behind us.
Pearce nodded and led the way. I backed away with them slowly, keeping a wary eye on the Wraith-that-was-once-Lexie, as well as the demonic gladiatorial contest before us.
Andras was wilting under Belial’s attacks, forced back onto the defensive, twisting and turning so as to avoid being carved into pieces by the creature’s greatsword. It seemed to be only a matter of time before Andras would be mortally wounded and then, with Belial in command of the five runes, surely all would be lost.
Joshua was staring at Lexie, tears running down his cheeks, his face a mask of pained disbelief. Around the battlefield, the portals that he had created spluttered their last and died, a sign of his waning interest in anything other than his sister.
As we approached he turned to look at us with pleading eyes. “Why is she doing this? What have the demons done to her?”
We all looked at each other, hoping that someone else would find the right words to say.