by P. S. Power
Finally, off in the distance, he could make out a form. It moved toward him slowly. Like a man or woman simply walking along. Which, after a while he understood that it was. The person wasn't huge, being shorter than he was by about half a foot. The world didn't reveal who it was to him however.
Oh, it was The Storm, without a doubt, but who she looked like, what role she was going to play for the night, Tyler had no clue. A person he knew, he didn't doubt.
Will, perhaps, which was the form that he associated with her. That, or the old woman he'd met once from Zack's bookstore. Really, it could even have been one of his friends. Eve, for instance, or Marissa. She would have been a good person to copy, since she had a way into their lives, but no one had checked on her, to make certain she was really herself. Who would? That might just be insulting and no one would want to risk that.
Whoever was coming had a long coat on, which flapped a bit dramatically. That had to be on purpose, since the wind was almost gone now. They stood in the center of the vortex. The clouds whipped around them, like he was holding them on a string. That was pretty telling, because the thing stopped over him like that. Perfectly.
Making him the center of the world.
Finally, the woman made her way to him, her face smiling a bit. She was young seeming, and had bright red hair, that could have only come from a bottle. Tyler recognized her as the Feminist that he'd brought back, or had brought back, a few days before. The one that Zack had killed.
That had been a mistake then.
He also noticed that she was smaller than he'd thought at first. He'd been thinking of her as being about a hundred and seventy pounds, but she was probably closer to one-sixty. She was The Storm. If that was who she'd always been, he didn't know.
At this moment, vast amounts of magic strung from her, lines and tendrils of life that pulled and pushed at the clouds. Powering them, and making them do her bidding. Almost on a whim Tyler reached out, and cut them all, polluting the power with that of death. Without even a shudder, or last gasp, the whole thing died. It was just gone, leaving the world a bit the worse for wear, and silent.
"Hello. Fancy meeting you here. I suppose you decided to come and repay me for bringing you back to life the other day? You can pay in sexual favors if you want?" He was being flip, but The Storm was either there to destroy him, or not.
Tyler wasn't going to ever be her puppet, or property, so there weren't a lot of options left. The woman, looking annoyed, walked up to him, and shook her head.
"Stop oppressing me. What did you do to my nice clouds? I made them just for you. I find them so much more impactful than flowers."
"Yeah. It was nice. A bit noisy. So I took them away. Really, you won't be able to use any magic against me now, I don't think." To make sure of that he surrounded her with death. She might use that power too, but it wasn't what she just had been.
Not that he thought she couldn't still do some nifty tricks. She teamed with life, inside herself. The world tried to move toward her, giving that to her so strongly that it was a struggle to prevent it from happening. One that became more of one with each passing moment.
That was all internal however. On the outside she merely seemed like any woman might have, on a Moon lit night.
"Not bad. In the end it won't really matter though, Tyler. You belong to me. You should be with me. You were once mine, and that means you always shall be, until time runs out, and the universe collapses into a ball of cold fire."
He smiled at her and shook his head.
"See, I knew you were going to go for drama. That was kind of pretty. So, do you want to start out on your knees, or should I take you from the rear? I didn't bring any oil with me. I don't suppose you did?"
It was getting harder to hold the life of the world away from her, and she was still very strong. She didn't feel any different to him at all, as far as that went. So he redoubled his efforts. The darkness was more plentiful than the light, and always had been. Death was stronger, in the end, than life. It always won.
It also set its own rules, and didn't want to play by his. That made things a lot harder than they should have been for him.
Laughing, the slightly heavy woman in front of him shook her head, sadly.
"No, it won't be me that kneels this time, Tyler. I am your true Master. I am more than that."
Then she took a half step forward.
"I... am your father."
Chapter sixteen
Tyler cleared his throat, and looked at the red headed feminist.
"Riiight. Don't Greater Demons always have Demon kids? That isn't what I am, in case you missed that?" He waved down at his body, as if to illustrate that fact. He didn't stop surround them with a choking, if invisible, miasma of death.
Regardless of how this turned out, he couldn't let himself be distracted.
"That's right. You're not one of us. Now. You were, before you were murdered as a child. By The Rotted. She killed you all, and stole you from me before I could raise you. So, you aren't hers, you are now and always have been, my child. Not that bitch's." The pale face looked hard suddenly, and she lashed out, a fist coming directly for his head. It was a fast move, and done with intent, but Tyler blocked it easily.
After all, he was ready for almost anything. He even struck back. Without any great speed behind it, but it was closer to his best than he would have managed a few weeks before.
"Nice distraction, but I can tell the difference between Human flesh and not. If I was born a Greater Demon, I'd want to eat you. Not in a fun way either. Besides, you're a woman. That kind of gets past the dad part of things pretty nicely." Only Greater Demon men could have kids, after all.
Her ploy having failed, she stopped and shrugged.
"It was worth a shot. After the thing with The Line Walker's parents, I figured you might be primed for it. They really were my slaves, your parents, and you should have been, too. You are mine. Nothing can change that."
He sighed and shook his head.
"Except the part where I can't get away from The Rotted even if I wanted to? If you try to pry me away, it won't work. I'm already dead, and short of killing her, that isn't going to change. I don't think she's going to volunteer for that. I don't even know if I can survive that way, to be honest. That's the reality of the situation. You can kill me, or really, destroy me, if you do a good enough job, but nothing else will really work. Besides, you owe me. I brought you back to life. So, come kneel down now?" It wasn't going to work, but Demons bargained for everything, and if she started doing that with him, he might just get her to hold to her word.
"That won't work on me. I know who, and what, you are, Tyler. Perhaps better than anyone in the world, other than Leslie. I won't deal with slaves. Now, come with me."
Leslie? Tyler got that she meant Lucy, but this Greater Demon name changing stuff was getting hard to keep up with. He'd heard Anne, Lucy and The Rotted, but that was all, before this.
Taking a breath he shook his head, and kept trying to make magic too hard to do.
"Nope. Why don't we fight, instead? I mean, I offered to let you off easy, with just a bit of sex in payment, but you didn't even make a counter offer. Cash, precious gems, or information. Oh, hey, before I kick your ass, have you noticed a big sense of impending doom lately? Like something vast and crushing is going to come down on you?" It couldn't hurt to ask.
There was a slightly nervous chuckle then.
"I have, actually. A sourceless thing. I suppose you're claiming that it's you? That this is my end, and it will come at the hands of my own slave? Or do you think that you've moved beyond that now, with your little tricks." There was a wave at the air, as tendrils of life energy, magic, tried to struggle through the death around the Greater Demon. It wasn't working.
"No. It isn't me. Just a thing that I've noticed. Eve, The Snowflake, was talking about that earlier. I didn't realize that it had been there until she did, so I asked about it. Good to know. Do you have any insight
into what it might be? I'd guess not, but..." He shrugged.
Then he moved on her as hard as he could. Hands raised high, body hunched, he stopped most of her attacks as they came in. She was better than a good fighter, being into the realm of great, easily. The thing there was that he, too, was near that level. That meant that they slammed into each other for a bit, then went to the ground when that didn't work for her. It was a fast and hard double leg take-down. A thing popular just then in the sports fighting world.
Ty ripped her left eye out as she did it, which didn't stop her. There wasn't even a groan of pain. That was tough, but a moment later he was totally blind, since The Storm repaid him in kind. That was fine. It didn't hurt, and blind or not, he felt the entirety of the world around him, including all the life within her. A thing that started to fade, as she struggled to heal.
He did the same, but forced the world into place, using the darkness that had to be coaxed to do the work. It should have been slower, but there was just so much of it, everywhere. What he lacked in finesse, and willingness on the energies part, Tyler made up for in brute force. As they fought, he was able to see rapidly, then was left blind again. He broke limbs as he fought, snapping the smaller form's arms, over and again, forcing her to use the energy within her. There was desperate biting, which was a good idea, so he started to do the same.
Almost as if she didn't understand his plan she tried to set him on fire, which he didn't douse instantly, even though he could have. Her magic, possibly all magic, was his to take away now. Even life itself was, if he could remove the source. It would be too much of a fight to do that with a Greater Demon, though if he had enough time, he could eventually wear away at any living thing that way. On purpose. It was the same reason that he couldn't just return to life, really.
A being like him could drink life, like a Vampire, but he was too dead for that not to harm others. Greater Demons were beings of life though, in the end. They drank it in, but also made it, at a level that put most other creatures to shame.
Struggling on the side of the road, taking turns being on top, they kept going. Tyler stayed the same, though he did lose an arm after a while. She pulled a blade from somewhere that wasn't where they were, and took of his left arm at the elbow. While she stabbed him in the middle with the red glowing thing, he took the power from it, and passed it away from himself. To Lucy.
Then, hitting her with his other hand, he held the stump out and tacked the now free hand back in place, forcing his flesh to repair itself. The thing floated back to meet him, without even seeming to move. A bit like teleportation, he guessed. He got a bit of rock and dust in the move, but that didn't matter. He was, in part, made up of things like that. Tyler was more than a body. He always had been.
He was an idea made real.
Finally The Storm threw him off, and did something that was truly unexpected.
She turned and sprinted away. He could have chased her, and started too, but after a moment he realized that she'd slipped into the lines, and that was a place that he couldn't go on his own. It would always take too much life energy to get there. Not a lot, if he could learn to do it as well as Zack, but still more than he had inside of him. Which, at the moment, was nothing.
He was well and truly powered by only darkness now. Not that it made any difference.
Ty started walking then, and got home about fifteen minutes later. The trip wasn't dismal, but he wasn't happy either. There had been a chance to take her out, and the Greater Demon had gone and done the sensible thing and just left. How was he supposed to fight that? The answer, of course, was that he couldn't.
Now the real question was, would she regroup, call a few friends and come back for him, or was this over for good? The answer really, had to be both things at once. She was insane and thought of him as hers, so wasn't going too easily give up. On the other hand, Tyler, in his own person, had proved that he could take her in a fight. Not a foot race, maybe. Unless he had a chance to prepare first. If he'd been in the correct mental space for that, she might not have made it far enough away to get into the lines.
Then, if there had been a bag of kittens there, she might have been distracted playing with them, and not noticed what he was doing, too. Not that he would have done that. There were things too dark, even for him. They had Greater Demons for that kind of thing.
At the front door of the mansion, or more truly about fifty feet back, he noticed that several beings were standing on the front stoop. Four of them. One was Keeley, looking like she always did, but behind her, spread out a bit, were three others. A man that looked about thirty, and rather normal, a giant with the head of a bull, and a tiny doll like girl that had fairy wings and who sparkled in the dark.
He waved, not knowing what this was.
"Hello! I kicked The Storm's ass, but not well enough, and she managed to escape into the lines. Did you all come to help me get her? That was nice of you, but a bit too late. Like I said, she skittered away already." It was that, or kill him for being too tough. Since he was nearly certain that these were all Greater Demons, ones with slave links to Keeley, he really doubted he could survive a battle with them.
Rather than act like that was even an option, Keeley moved forward and hugged him.
"Seriously? That's impressive." He felt a tendril of life energy move over him, drinking the pattern of his life inside of her. Powered differently or not, that trick still seemed to work. He could feel the pattern flowing from himself to her even. It was a very complex thing, really, that transfer of data.
When she stood back, she waved behind her.
"You three may go, for now. Stay ready to come back and fight, in case it was a trick. I doubt that, but better safe."
The other three all acted in different ways then. The plain looking man, who was dressed like he was ready for a day at the office, stepped to the right. The bull turned and ran off, charging into the void somehow. The Fairy... She waved a wand with a tiny glowing star on the end, and giggled as sparkles surrounded her. It was all in purple and green. Frankly, it was adorable. Like a cartoon made life without being creepy at the same time.
That left him there with Keeley. For her part she smiled and gave him another hug. This one real, not just an excuse to take in his information.
"Well, that didn't fix it, did it? Too bad you couldn't get her killed a bit faster. Not that it would have worked. She would have just realized she wasn't going to get the job done and left sooner. If you were fighting one of the others..." She stopped, and then shook her head. "Honestly, most of us wouldn't have bothered. No one would have even had to trade with you for a truce over this, because they wouldn't have bothered in the first place. Even she will know that she can't beat you one on one, now. That would just get the same result. That trick of yours is too good for her to beat directly. A massive energy spike would work. A nuke or something big like that? I doubt she'll do that. Really, if it were me, at this point, I'd come and suck you off. You're still a teenage boy after all, in your head. The best she can do is be your friend. She's kind of burned the muffin basket route to that though, hasn't she?" She gave him a look, that was a bit lingering, but that he understood well enough. Bedroom eyes.
Meant to get him to be her friend. Probably with that blowjob too, if he wanted. He shook his head, not falling for it. He was worth more than just that.
"Nope. If you want to be my friend, you're going to have to earn it, by actually being my friend. No tricks or shortcuts."
Caught, she smiled at him, and nodded.
"Fine, fine, be that way. We already have that truce, so I'm safe enough. Still, you can't ever have too many friends. So, brunch this Sunday? You can bring the girls, and get Eve to come? Bey too. He's my favorite Vampire. Don't tell Eve or Lenore I said that. My house, at ten in the morning?"
"Um, sure? I'll ask, and get back to you about how many can make it. So, do you think I'll have to fight again tonight?"
The lawn was a mess, from the storm earli
er, but the place was more or less holding together. Glancing around, he figured that if there were broken windows they'd all be on the far side. Not the back, but the north side.
Keeley understood where he was looking and why, but didn't walk that way.
"Most likely not. You cost her a lot, and while she won't be scared, she will be cautious. If she comes back too soon, you'll win. My best guess is that she'll take a few days to rebuild her energy, then start making the rounds of her friends, to see if anyone can be gotten in to go after you with her. Really, she might just send in a team for you. Or, honestly, show up on your doorstep at first light in lingerie. I don't think that one is likely, but you offered her that option, so taking you up on it would be a good move. Or just leaving you alone. She has to get that you won't go for her. Really, you can't. Not being able to walk the lines yet."
"Yet? I doubt I can. I'm powered by a different sort of magic. I can do that kind too, but the amount needed is too much for me."
That got a girlish chuckle, and a hand on his arm.
"You aren't done learning yet, Tyler. You have power and time, and those two things can lead to a lot of wonderful, and horrible things."
Which was probably true.
"Oh, hey, while I have you here..."
She looked at him brightly, like he was about to ask her to the prom. From her expression she was planning to say yes, too. Which was nice of her. He hadn't even tried to go to his own at school. Tyler had been far too shy for things like that back then.
"Do you feel like something vast is coming? A dark ending to reality?" He didn't get to explain before she made a face.
"Not really. I was told that something would be. It's in the notes in my head. I guess I've been told about it at least five times, by Mike? I wonder if we're doing it? For that matter, is he cute? That isn't in my notes."
Tyler let his head move from side to side.