Demorn: Soul Fighter (The Asanti Series Book 3)

by David Finn

  Suddenly she realised somebody was speaking to her. Demorn cut the implant singing sad Sinatra torch songs as a well dressed guy pressed a card into her palm. She caught his wrist and twisted it onto the table, hearing it snap and him cry in pain.

  ‘Nobody is supposed to be in here. This is private space.’

  The man gasped, ‘Please, they let me through!’

  She pushed him back and leaned back in her chair, glancing at his card.

  William Iverson Investigations, Bay City

  Demorn laughed. ‘Iverson’s famous, a legend. Plus, I thought he was dead. Either way, this isn’t you.’

  The hotel door was half open. She flicked the card to the desk and jerked the pistol from her leg holster. The man was maybe thirty, white, scrawny and pathetic. His grey suit was rumpled and wasn’t as expensive as she first thought.

  ‘So, let’s play repeat. Who are you?’

  She’d put a hurting bomb on his wrist and even exhausted and leaden after a brutal night on the Cage tables, she could beat him to a pulp. It might even feel good.

  He spoke fast, desperate.

  ‘Ok, look, I’m no-one, I got paid by a guy downstairs—’

  Nobody was no-one. But she let it go.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘I dunno, but he’s got a Tournament job for you, good money. He told me to tell you that. Deep pockets. He said it’s enough to clear the bill. Enough to get in front.’

  Demorn smiled despite herself. She raised the Athena pistol with deliberate care, letting the laser sights play across his face. Her voice was quiet and sensitive. ‘I’m not so far behind. I’d planned a quiet night in, maybe play some cards, maybe call for some beautiful company. What I didn’t want was random guys breaking into my hotel room with empty promises. It’s distracting.’

  He gave a low mewl.

  She pulled the shot at the last moment. The mirror behind him cracked with a single perfect laser burn. Demorn looked at him with glazed green eyes, something dead behind them.

  ‘Send him in.’

  The man’s face’s shifted and blurred, finally settling in the face of an older guy, dressed in a smart black suit. For a moment his face was covered in short fur with sharp alert ears.

  ‘Hello, Demorn. My apologies for the intrusion.’

  Demorn slowly wrapped the black kimono tighter around her. She was tired. She put the pistol down on the table, pinching her fingers down the ridge of her nose, trying to stop the nagging, pounding headache that had followed her onto the tables all night.

  ‘You know I prefer girls right, Wolf? Because I’m really not in the mood for anything dramatic. I’ve got Winter, she’s plenty woman enough for me.’

  ‘No, I’m all business, kid.’

  Wolf had some pity in his tone. His glance took in the penthouse bedroom he’d put her in. The wide bed, barely ruffled, a slender girl asleep in it. Whatever Demorn had been doing all week, she’d been sleeping light. A stack of comics and junk food was clustered around the TV, the laptop constantly connected to the tables.

  ‘It’s been over a week since you killed those guys for me, Demorn. You still haven’t gone to see Lady Josephine. I know you’re upset about Santos but we can’t afford a flake-out. That comet is still up there.’

  Demorn smiled her scary smile, rapping the window lightly, the glow of the night metropolis on her. There wasn’t a hint of warmth in her eyes. A mesh of dark tentacles shifted across Demorn’s face, long, jagged teeth gnashing at the Wolf.

  ‘If you know so much about me, I hope you know what I am. I killed five people for you the first night I was here. Five decrepit weirdos that Josephine wanted offed. Well, they’re off. You told me that bought me a few days grace.’

  She leaned back. There were dark circles under her eyes, the exhaustion was obvious.

  ‘And this is my few days grace,’ she said, her hand sweeping across the room. The girl stirred, an amazingly beautiful young Asian woman.

  So that’s Winter, he thought. Cute.

  The Wolf smiled. ‘You’re one very tough cookie and you’re for sale. Agreed?’

  Demorn’s nod was almost imperceptible. The Wolf walked to the window ledge, looking directly into the huge banners for the Soul Fight Tournament, the holograms of the lead players that broadcast out onto the main street, clamouring for attention, seducing consumers with hypno rhythms, justifying the cost and the danger of getting so close to these matches, where the magic pounded through the air and lives and minds were torn apart.

  He jerked his eyes away.

  ‘My puppet wasn’t lying. I do have a job for you. There’s a Death Banker working in the open at the Souls Tournament. He’s close to full Emergent. I need you to tag him with Xalos.’

  Demorn snorted. ‘An Emergent exposing itself in a packed city? C’mon, man, don’t play me.’

  Wolf tut-tutted. ‘You haven’t been in Bay City so long that you know all her secrets, Demorn. There’s a lot more here than low-rent casinos and tight-assed massage girls.’

  The girl in Demorn’s bed laughed at that. She pulled a sheet around her body and ran into the shower, closing the bathroom door behind her. To Wolf’s eye, she looked like perfection.

  Demorn watched him with idle curiosity. Wolf’s expression was dry.

  He said, ‘Bay City is a town run by crime-lords for crime-lords. We have the Glass Desert between us and the regular world. We make our own rules. A consortium of Death Bankers run the Souls Tournament. High level, high interest. Typically they’re untouchable.’

  Demorn’s hand played unconsciously with her throat. She could feel the Wolf was getting close to the heart of the matter. ‘Typically, you say. What makes them touchable now?’

  The Wolf rapped a single finger against the window as he watched a superhero hologram play out like a fever dream.

  ‘Just one of them might be. El Khabar. He’s a courier, charged with carrying the Souls back to Deep-summer. It’s a whole royal family power gig these guys run from their holy dimensional palaces.’

  The Wolf grinned. ‘But El Khabar has been a bad boy, he’s been drinking from the private pool. Chewing on some raw power meant for his betters. I need you to draw him in at the Tournament. I want you to get close and mark him.’

  Mark him why, she thought. There would be no good reason, only bad justifications, she was sure of it.

  Demorn shook her head. The Dragon-cage connection was still down. She looked at the blank screen wishing it would light back up and she could lose herself in it. Hustling the tables was easier than what the Wolf wanted. He wanted cosmic death and tragedy. She wanted to beat the absolute crap out of some street villain and grab some personal time.

  Demorn got up from her chair, restless, the kimono flickering. A week’s leisure hadn’t taken away her toned, lithe figure.

  ‘That comet above us is still going to crash into the Bay. And you want me to attack an Emergent. How much of a death wish do you think I have?’

  She picked up a glossy Batman comic which showed the character destroying a collection of street punks. ‘Do you think I’m a fucking superhero? Is that what this is?’

  The Wolf glanced at her too fast. He didn’t need to say anything. Exhausted as she was, she could read his soul. Somehow, he knew all too well how much of a death wish she had. Xalos whispered in her ruby heart, the blade hungry for justice.

  She said, ‘I haven’t played a Soul Tournament in years.’

  The Wolf grinned, brushing his jaw. ‘I’ve seen the tapes. I remember some sneaky wins. And you’ve still got that vicious left.’

  Demorn smiled her scary smile. ‘I’ve got what it takes.’

  The Wolf pulled out a small canister and placed it on the desk.

  ‘Put this on Xalos. It will cut him deeper.’

  She caught his arm. ‘Two things. You haven’t mentioned money and you haven’t told me what this prick really is.’

  ‘He’s the Death Banker for Ceron. He’s already got Santos’s card
marked out. He’s got that whole city, Demorn. That plague you ran away from, the one that got Baron Santos, it’s going to kill them all and this demonic prick is responsible. He holds the card.’

  Her world felt ice cold. Anger almost paralysed her. The thought of Santos dying in his bed, rotting on his throne, Ceron City in ruins.

  The Wolf’s grin was merciless. ‘It’s all true. That’s what my best spies say. Are you interested now?’

  Demorn sprang at him, cutting the air as the blade Xalos exploded from the ruby gem around her heart, the kimono flowing from her body. His body flashed and was gone as she reached him, the purple fire that danced upon her blade cutting through empty suit fabric.

  No Wolf, no more meat puppet. Demorn rushed to the balcony, throwing the curtains back, pushing the door open and running straight into the ice cold wind blowing onto the penthouse balcony, forty-seven floors up.

  The blade burnt brightly in her hand. The hotel ran straight down to the ocean. He must be wearing a teleporter, she realised. The jump hadn’t smelt like magic to her. Her watch started ringing. Her head stopped spinning, the sudden rage leaving her as quickly as it came. Xalos dimmed as she answered and left the freezing balcony.

  ‘Yeah?’

  Wolf was calm. ‘No hard feelings, Demorn, I know how sensitive love can make us. Sorry for bringing the plague up. That was cruel.’

  Demorn had to laugh. People always talked about love. ‘Don’t worry, you caught me in the middle of a losing streak. I can be a delicate petal, but I’ll get over it.’

  She closed her eyes. Her friend was singing in the shower, it sounded like an old Bob Dylan song. ‘Seduce me with the figures, Wolf. That always keeps me in a good mood.’

  ‘Another fortnight in the Jade Hotel, another two million in the Babelzon account, and your table marker cleared.’

  She didn’t have Smile on the line but she could do the sums. She did this, they’d stay ahead. She didn’t want to slip. Didn’t want to be left with nothing if Santos and Ceron City really did play out the way she feared it might, and she had to hightail it back to Babelzon.

  She hadn’t seen more than five minutes of news since she hit Bay City. After killing whoever Wolf had paid her to kill, she’d been huddled in with Winter and eating takeout and playing games in the room.

  She asked, ‘Who would I fight in the bait match?’

  ‘A tour fighter from the Vangarian playoffs ballot. He’ll be solid.’

  Demorn nodded. ‘I’m solid. Ok, deal on three mill with all the trimmings.’

  ‘Hey, Demorn. Remember. It’s the Death Banker I need tagged.’

  ‘I know what you need. We done on three?’

  ‘Done.’

  The shower was over. Winter was watching from the bathroom door. She hid a slight smirk as the credits flashed from red back to green.

  ‘Wolf, don’t talk about me running from the Plague ever again.’

  He cleared his throat. ‘Understood. I’ve sent you the details. You fight tomorrow night.’

  ‘Thanks. Goodbye.’

  He logged off. She reset the room shields. No more visitors tonight.

  A mesh of dark tentacles shifted again across Demorn’s face, jagged teeth appearing and disappearing, a grim mirage of shadow death. The soul mask clawed at her emotions and made everything cold. She rarely took the mask off anymore. Demorn knew why. It matched how she felt inside. It was all that was left.

  Winter called to her softly, her lithe form alluring, leaving nothing to the imagination. Maybe there was something left. Demorn flung the mask off, surprised at how cool and fresh her face was. Demorn went to her bag, tucked under a pillow on the bed, pulling out a long thin golden necklace complete with a string of miniature silver skulls. As Demorn laid it across her neck the eyes inside the tiny skulls lit up, glowing baleful shades of green and blue that illuminated the room and both their features.

  Embarrassed, Demorn hid the necklace underneath her kimono. Winter’s graceful hands guided the kimono off her, sighing the soft words to a love song in a language that Demorn did not know.

  Demorn wanted so many things. She wanted to stay with someone this beautiful. She wanted to stop looking out at the desolate night ocean as the room softly spun; she wanted to stop wondering how empty you could feel, and how much of yourself you could sell, before there wasn’t anything left, before you were a ghost in your own life.

  4

  * * *

  Demorn dodged the axe and smashed her metal fist across the Vangarian’s face with a brutal left, smashing his jaw. The Vangarian stumbled back, blue eyes wild, teeth broken, blood dripping from his mouth. He pressed his huge hand to his jaw. She saw him barely heal.

  Demorn smiled her cruel smile. It had taken thirteen rounds to reach the Vangarian’s limit. These soldiers were beasts. Everything hurt. Her side ached from an axe wound. She wiped the blood from her face. Her vision blurred, then cleared. Candles flickered around the oppressive small ring. She could vaguely hear a screaming crowd beyond the blood pounding in her ears.

  The Vangarian looked far worse than she. His face wore the pallor of death, lit up by the purple fire of her burning katana. Both their corpses were piled around the stone circle. Her headless body, dismembered by his great axe. His huge armoured form, sliced to ribbons by her katana. Beheaded, strangled, neck snapped.

  The Vangarian lurched forward, slow, exhausted, barely able to lift his axe. She dodged a tired last swing, flinging herself into the air. Xalos was light in her hand as she carved with arcing purple fire through the dark air, slicing his head off with a mighty swing.

  His head bounced on the walls of the shield spell. The crowd brayed wild support. The fire-stones roared up. Exultation of victory filled her, and her wounds from the round healed. Demorn kicked his headless body over.

  A coldness rolled over her back. She glanced over her shoulder. The fire-stones sputtered out and the candles blew low. The tight crowd parted as a tall, dark, thin figure walked through them. Eyes avoided the creature, bodies shifted, as if there was something repellent about it. Her stomach muscles tightened. She glimpsed something the world should not have seen and did not want to see. A Banker come to collect a soul.

  Demorn’s fingers curled around her blade. The Vangarian looked up at her with sudden desperation, his head shifting back and forth in ghostly reverberations, caught between this world and the next.

  ‘Soul or life?’ she asked.

  The Vangarian’s answer was a dry whisper from the lands of the dead. Demorn pushed her boot down harder on his chest, lowering her blade onto his open throat. The reverberations settled into a blurry terror.

  ‘Death comes now and I can’t hear you! The Death Banker comes! Soul or life?’

  The Vangarian grunted, swearing in his native tongue, looking at her with the hunger of a wolf. She had fought with his kind more often than against. Their dread of mages ran deep. She pressed Xalos against his throat. Purple flames burnt his skin.

  ‘Soul! Soul, you motherless bitch!’

  He grasped at a worn leather strap around his neck and tore it off. She glimpsed a single tiny stone black skull, no others. His last stone . . .

  ‘Help me! Aid me, Demorn!’

  The fire-stones died out. The thin robed figure strode into the circle, almost invisible, sliding through some gap in the light. Demorn turned away, murmuring a half-hearted prayer to gods she didn’t believe in. The pale wizened hand of the shadowy creature went around the Vangarian’s throat. The bulk of the soldier was nothing before the choking void. The images of both their corpses shimmered, drawn back into the Banker.

  The crowd surrounding the circle had fled to the countless other matches in the vast Arena. Even her own eyes wavered, bidden by deep magic to avoid the presence of the Death Banker.

  ‘SOUL! SOUL, YOU MOTHERLESS BITCH!’

  A miniature frozen black skull was in her hand. Her eyes blazed as the power thundered into her. A surge memory flowed unchained
through her mind, a taste of his past, his love for his daughter, dead on the frozen plains of Red Prussia, tight blonde ringlets in snow. Beer and wine, blood on his axe. Surface memories of fast chances and debts unpaid. A tale of desperation that ended with the Souls Tour. And so much fear for so mighty a warrior.

  Demorn tossed the tiny black skull back to him. The Vangarian caught it.

  The Death Banker released his grip, looking at her, his vacant expression registering mild shock. She was looking into an abyss. She was looking into a sick version of herself. Her skin crawled but she didn’t look away.

  ‘Leave, empty one. I have not damned him.’

  The Banker kept staring. Demorn felt completely hollow inside. She took a single skull off her necklace, kissed it, and tossed it to the Banker. His wizened hand caught it.

  ‘Go away. You have nothing to collect from me.’

  The Banker smiled with perfect teeth, a flash of something brutal and wholly rotten that lay beneath everything here. Beneath the lights and the glamour, she saw the core of Bay City, a row of black skeletal ships that travelled on the Endless Ocean back to the deathless, mysterious core.

  With an almost imperceptible nod, the creature vanished. The universe and air around her seemed to sigh throughout the vast Arena. The Vangarian looked at her with pathetically happy eyes. The skull glistened in his palm. He wound the leather strap around his hand.

  Demorn put a hand lightly on his shoulder.

  ‘You were a great man once. This was your last chance. Don’t come here again.’

  His Nordic eyes were blurred with tears. He bent down to pick up his fallen axe. Demorn loosened her sword hand.

  ‘You know what I need.’

  Head bowed, the Vangarian sank to the ground, Xalos burning near his neck.

  The Vangarian spoke quickly in his own language, thick and familiar to her, from old missions both in his homeland and far abroad as a comrade and fellow sell-sword with his countrymen.

  ‘You beat me. You beat me to my last soul. And you did not let the Death Banker claim me? Why?’

  ‘I like you, Jon.’ Demorn’s eyes held the faintest trace of pity. ‘Vangarians are insane for never choosing true death.’