Roaring Blood (Demon-Hearted Book 2)

by Ambrose Ibsen

  I gulped. “Germaine,” I began, canvassing our surroundings and studying the undead in our midst, “I think these people were guests at the hotel. And Agamemnon is controlling them. They're spreading throughout the entire hotel with these explosives. The necromancer isn't using this place as headquarters after all...”

  “He's going to destroy it. And he's going to make them do it.” Germaine pointed to the zombies. “Any way we can steal the explosives?”

  “There must be tons of them...” I walked over to the little girl. She was still as a statue, her little arms wrapped tightly around the concrete pillar. The device in her palm was counting down from thirty minutes. “This thing is going off in thirty minutes...” I didn't even have to think about it. Though we might be able to get rid of some of the explosives, there was simply no way we could hope to find every last one within the space of a half hour. It just wasn't going to happen.

  “What are we going to do?” Germaine sounded panicked, the hairs on his body bristling. “The Veiled Order is going to be busting in here from the underground. If they do, they're going to get crushed when the building comes down. And every first responder in the city is just outside. They'll all get smashed, too.”

  I hated that necromancer, but I had to hand it to him. If you want to start a war and cripple your enemy before it even starts, then killing the first responders and anyone foolish enough to stumble in early is the best way to do it. This takeover of the RenCen was a distraction. A good one. The eyes of the world were on this building and the city's emergency forces were focused on infiltrating it. Once it went boom, well, they'd all go with it. Agamemnon was about to seal the deal.

  I rushed out of the atrium, finding still more zombies with bombs in their hands. They lingered in the corners of every room, clung to whatever supports they could find. They'd been placed strategically, in spots where the explosions might be particularly devastating. This skyscraper was coming down, and it was coming down in a ball of fire. It was too late for the guests in this hotel; without even exploring the numerous floors of the building I felt confident of that. Agamemnon had slain them all and then raised them to do his bidding. But there was still time to save everyone else. I had to let the Veiled Order know what was really going on in here. They needed to evacuate, change their plans before it was too late and everyone ended up dying in the blast. I'd deal with the consequences later. Kubo would probably eviscerate me for busting out of HQ, but that wasn't important just then.

  “We need to go tell everyone about what's coming,” I said. Germaine scrambled up my back. “Before it's too late. We can still salvage this if we pull out of the area and get everyone to safety.”

  The two of us dashed back into the lobby.

  Except this time, it wasn't so empty.

  FORTY

  You know me. I'm almost always up for a fight.

  Well, you can file this particular instance in with those fleetingly rare moments when I'm not at all interested in throwing down.

  The lobby was crawling with zombies. They were still spilling into the room from the stairwell as Germaine and I ran in, and there was someone else there with them.

  Agamemnon.

  It'd been a little while since I'd last seen the bastard. He wasn't wearing his cloak now. No, he'd gotten rid of that and was aiming for the God-Emperor look. Shirtless, he'd drawn strange, curved symbols all over his muscled upper body in what appeared to be ash, and had covered his face completely as well. Holding the Scythe of Thanatos in his meaty fist, he reminded me vaguely of a demon.

  Once, I'd seen what Gadreel really looked like. After getting the transplant done, Dr. Sargasso had wheeled in this ancient mirror that allowed me to glimpse the demon's true visage and, suffice it to say, I wasn't a fan of what I saw. With his face smeared in a thick layer of black ash and his eyes still that burning yellow color, he looked pretty fearsome.

  I stopped in my tracks and tried to figure out the odds of us leaving this place alive. I count twenty... no, thirty zombies. And I'm sure there are more coming. So, a load of zombies and a necromancer demigod versus... me and a spider whose only talent is causing erectile dysfunction. We were sunk.

  The zombies were lurching towards me, the air filled with their gravelly, broken voices. I did the only thing I could think of under the circumstances. I wasn't going to make it out of here easily. But Germaine still stood a chance. Someone needed to let Kubo know about what was happening in here, and if I didn't survive, then he'd have to do it. I picked him up and threw him back into the hallway. “Get out of here and tell them, before it's too late!” I shouted.

  Germaine landed on the ground and cast a vaguely mournful look my way before running full-tilt away from the lobby. “D-don't get yourself killed, now,” he said as he disappeared into the hotel. “I'll handle it!”

  Zombies are weaker during the day than they are at night, it's true. That's probably why I was able to hack apart more than ten of them before they finally overwhelmed me. They came in waves of four or five, reaching for my limbs and attempting to pin me down. Agamemnon stayed back all the while, his white teeth bared in a wicked grin. I knocked heads across the room, splintered ribcages and yanked spines from rotten bodies, but it was all for nothing. Fresh zombies piled into the room faster than I could put them down, as if the necromancer wished to assure me that he had an ample supply.

  A few missteps and I was pinned.

  Agamemnon drew near, silencing his minions and looking down at me with delight in his yellow eyes. He passed the scythe from one hand to the other, and I have to admit that, with the makeup job, he looked more or less the way I'd always imagined a god of death might look. “To think that I should meet you here this day,” began the necromancer.

  I struggled against the horde. “Can't say I really like what you've done with the place.”

  Agamemnon smirked. “Demons are prideful creatures, but you... you are just a fool. You could have escaped all of this, but instead you came here. It's as if you wish for me to release you from this life. You wish to return to the hellfire, is that it?” He leveled the razor-sharp tip of the scythe at my throat. “I'm going to do what I should have done long ago. Your meddling is tiresome. Good riddance.”

  A flash of silver.

  A hiss of pain.

  My throat was hanging open and my blood soaked into the carpet.

  FORTY-ONE

  Not that the story ended right there or anything. Agamemnon leered down at me and admired his handiwork. It was a clean cut, straight through the windpipe. And it burned, terribly.

  “You will die,” he explained, standing upright and digging the butt of the scythe into my sternum. My heart thrashed in protest. “It will take time, of course, but you will die. And when you do...” he chuckled. “Well, I suppose we've already discussed that, haven't we?” Agamemnon paced around. “I wonder why it is that you ever thought you could stand in my way. The Veiled Order is a cancer, demon. It has sought to control our kind from the very start. They are small-minded, heavy-handed. You were a fool to serve them.”

  Gadreel didn't need no stinking windpipe to speak. The demon took over, and the zombies pinning me to the ground barely contained me as I attempted to lurch at the necromancer. “You're awfully confident in your plan,” growled Gadreel. “But what will your master do when he's found out about this, hm? Does the Lord of the Dead appreciate it when his followers wage wars on his behalf? Without his say-so? I imagine your punishment will be immense. You laugh at the thought of my being committed to hellfire for eternity, but what of your fate? You earned the trust of a god, were granted tremendous power and became a vessel for him. But then you betrayed him.” I smacked my blood-slick lips together. “I'd love to be a fly on that wall, I tell you. When he finds out what you've been up to with his little toy there...” I nodded to the scythe.

  “Silence!” Agamemnon gripped the scythe in both hands and brought it down in a wide arc. I felt the blade shear
my flesh. He cut a thick groove in my belly, passing straight through the black body armor. My entrails were on the verge of bursting through the cut; had he gone any deeper my guts would have come out to play. He hit me again, apparently losing his temper at being called out, and tore up my left leg. The limb was left nearly separated at the knee. Forget walking on it.

  I winced and loosed silent screams, but the demon quickly reined me back in. “You chose tonight to attack because of the new moon. Should I live till then, you'll be in for an awful surprise. You'd better hit me a few more times, necromancer. Make sure I'm good and dead before moonrise. Else you'll find yourself facing off against something you can't hope to--”

  The butt of the scythe found its way into my eye socket. He really dug it in there, growling. “You know nothing.” Stepping away, Agamemnon watched me with disgust as my fractured body tried to heal. The gash across my throat, the one on my stomach and the grievous wound to my leg began to heal slowly, but progress was halted as the scythe's curse took over. “For years... so many years, I have dreamt of a new world. Decades have passed since I first dedicated myself to the rites of death. And now, with the blessing of Thanatos, I have gained the power to make that world a reality. Death will reign, demon, and there is nothing you can do to stop me. I will rebuild the world in His image... Thanatos and I are one and the same; I have been granted his power and I act in his name. When you address me, you would do well to remember that.”

  “It's good to know that this operation of yours has his blessing. I was worried for you,” Gadreel replied, cracking a bloody smile. “When he made you his vessel he gave you carte blanche to use that power for whatever you liked, did he? The god of death is a generous one...”

  The way Agamemnon scowled told me everything I needed to know. Our hunch had been correct; after worshipping for ages at the altar of death, Agamemnon had been granted immense power by the god of the dead. He'd gained access to the god's weapon and was now abusing that power to fulfill the plot that had filled his imagination since the day he'd first appeared on the Veiled Order's radar. Trouble was, he still had to answer to Thanatos himself. And even though the god of death probably delighted in mass murder, I couldn't see him being too happy about Agamemnon's actions. This war of his threatened to turn the natural order on its head.

  “You had to go and bite the hand that feeds,” I said, staring up at him.

  Agamemnon cleared his throat. “It matters not. You stay put, demon. Before this day is over I'll have killed and raised everyone dear to you. I know that your friends from the Veiled Order are drawing near. Even now my minions are tracking their movements.” He closed his eyes. “They think to enter through the basement, do they?” He laughed inwardly, shaking his head. “I hope they hurry. If they aren't careful, they'll end up buried in rubble. Why, by my estimations, we've only about twenty minutes or so until the charges go off and the city is plunged into chaos. They'll struggle for hours, trying to put the pieces together. And then, when the sun sets, I will lead my army through the city. We will burn it to the ground, turn it into a cemetery.” He smiled. “I rather like cemeteries.”

  I was stunned. The necromancer had eyes and ears everywhere, by the sounds of it. From all over the city his underlings were feeding him intel. I struggled against the horde but was held in place, my fractured body aching afresh.

  “Don't worry,” he said. “They won't encounter any resistance. Not until it's too late. Like you, they'll wander too deep into the trap to make it out. They think they can save the city, the world. They're mistaken.”

  Agamemnon balanced the scythe on one shoulder and left the room. Leaving through the hallway where Germaine had skittered off just moments prior, I heard him laughing.

  I didn't feel good about what was happening here.

  The fate of the city, possibly the entire planet, was in the hands of that trash-talking spider.

  The zombies weren't letting up, either. I tried to break free multiple times, but their bodies were rigid, unmoving. They gripped my limbs tightly and seemed to turn to stone. Some of them had linked their legs together, forming a bizarre, humanoid trap I couldn't escape. The cloud of zombies upon me fell completely silent, dedicating the whole of their power to keeping me pinned.

  If I could have healed up enough to gather my strength, maybe I could have forced them off of me. But it was no use. The wounds would start to heal a bit, only to open anew. My body was overrun with fever.

  The building was going to explode, and everyone in or around it, including my teammates, was going to end up crushed. I was going to die; slowly, painfully. And when I was dead, my soul was going to get shipped straight to Hell.

  Germaine, I thought, you've got to warn the others. Save them, at least. It's too late for me. But if they can pull out of this spot and take on Agamemnon elsewhere, then they still stand a chance at bringing him down. Fuck the bureaucracy. We've got the Archangel Saber. If Kanta can just get close to him with it then maybe we'll win...

  I closed my eyes and focused on healing. I needed my strength. Dying terrified me, especially when there was so much on the line. The beating of my heart filled my ears. It was a somewhat troubled sound; the labored lub-dub sounded like an engine on its last legs. Gadreel was struggling to stay afloat, and I heard that distressed heartbeat loud and clear. An SOS. The demon's message was loud and clear. It didn't come through in words. The lobby was still and quiet as a morgue. But I felt the force of Gadreel's will echoing through my breast all the same.

  He was telling me one thing and one thing only.

  I need your help.

  ***

  I don't have anything to give you, I thought. If not for Gadreel, I'd have been dead by now. Worse, I'd have been resurrected by Agamemnon. I didn't know what the demon thought me capable of giving. How could I possibly help him? He was the one with the superpowers. Though the two of us had a symbiotic relationship, my fleshy human body was simply a vehicle for him. A shell. My strength had measly, common limits. My endurance was strictly human. A mere man couldn't reach deep enough to shoulder this pain, much less to break free from a stranglehold like this one. I was at a loss.

  Still, the demon seemed to plead. I need your help. I need your help. I. NEED. YOUR. HELP.

  Pain. White hot pain shot through me. When something hurts a lot, people like to use that cliché, “I can feel it in every fiber of my being.” That's what it felt like. As I laid there, hot and twitching, I could envision my insides being turned inside-out by this pain. Each muscle fiber struggled to gain a foothold and subsequently stumbled. There just wasn't enough gas in the tank. I did the only thing I could think of.

  I cried.

  Real heroic, eh?

  The pain was too much for me, and as the fever coursed through me I found myself teetering on the edge of unconsciousness. “What do you want from me?” I spat out the words silently, unable to speak without my windpipe intact. Tears poured without surcease. “What do you want from me?”

  The demon's refrain was the same.

  I need your help.

  I need YOUR help.

  For an instant there, that heartbeat of mine was the only thing that existed. And in that same instant, I finally understood what Gadreel was asking for. The demon's will flashed through my mind, clear as day.

  We're in this together. I'm giving it everything I've got. Reach down there, deep down, and give it everything you've got, too. I can't do it alone. I need your help.

  Before you die, they say your entire life flashes before your eyes. I don't know if that's true. I mean, I'd technically, kinda sorta died once already, and that hadn't really happened. But laying in that hotel lobby, I did get a flash of something. A memory.

  I was a young kid again.

  And I was sitting in a puddle of cold water, my red sweatshirt completely ruined.

  And there was that big, grinning bully, Juan, standing over me with his stupid buckteeth.

 
“Are you going to cry, you little bitch?” he asked, over and over again.

  That was when the change happened.

  Gadreel was giving this his all. His everything. Though I was the weakest link in our chain, I still had something to give.

  Eyes brimming with hot tears, I grit my teeth till my molars creaked. You want it all? I thought. You've got it. You can have all of my hate. All of my anger. All of my sadness. You can have it all, demon. Because we're standing the fuck up right now. This isn't the end. Not yet. My body trembled as I surrendered completely to the anger.

  My heartbeat quickened, stabilized, fell into a fiercer rhythm just then.

  It's entirely possible I was just hallucinating, but my pulse sounded not a little like the opening chords of “Search and Destroy”.

  And then, from the hallway, I heard a familiar voice. Germaine. “It was in here. Get ready, because Lucy's in the thick of it. The necromancer is inside. We ain't got long before the whole place comes down!”

  No, no, this wasn't how I'd wanted things to go. Germaine had led everyone into the building. Right where Agamemnon wanted them. “Turn around!” I tried to scream.

  The words died in my severed throat.

  FORTY-TWO

  Kubo threw open the door, and Kanta, Percy, Joe and Germaine followed close behind. They'd come alone, without any of the commandos. That was just about the only intelligent thing about their visit to the hotel.

  The Chief was red in the face, but not because he'd been running. From the minute he walked in and set eyes on me, I could sense his anger. There are scarier things in the world than Chief Kubo, though, and one of them walked in not two seconds later.

  Agamemnon and a score of zombies burst into the lobby, throwing the team's arrival into chaos. The ambush was working just as the necromancer had intended. I wondered how it was Kubo and the others had made it here so quickly. They'd likely gone in by themselves, hoping to infiltrate the building early, only to meet Germaine half-way.