Demorn: Soul Fighter (The Asanti Series Book 3)

by David Finn

  ‘Ok, Dee. Will you be home tonight? It’d be nice to catch up.’

  ‘I don’t know, babe. I have a job to do. A big one. Could be a good one.’

  Kate gave her a radiant smile. ‘Yeah, I get it. I’m super tired anyway.’

  She floated back to the floor. All she was wearing was a long shirt that barely covered her. A set of tats ran down her gorgeous leg. ‘It’s like we’ve been in the same room forever, don’t’cha think?’

  ‘Go have a sleep, Kate.’

  The chill had left the air. Kate gave her a sweet, sleepy smile. Her eyes were wide and haunted. Demorn didn’t trust herself to kiss her. Her heart was pounding hard in chest.

  ‘I’m not going to bite you, Dee,’ Kate said laughing. She came to her and Demorn was in her arms, pressed hard against her, the perfume alluring and reminiscent of times gone by, almost impossible to resist. They hugged each other hard, Kate giving her a small kiss on the cheek that touched her lips. Demorn didn’t want to go, but there were so many responsibilities she had to focus on.

  ‘Love ya, kid, take care on the streets,’ Demorn said, tears beneath her glasses.

  ‘Cool, Dee, go kill the bad guys,’ Kate said with a smile, giving her a last soft kiss then walking into the bedroom. Demorn couldn’t help herself as she watched those long legs that had graced catwalks and TV channels the world over.

  ‘There’s food in my bar fridge, eat up, skinny,’ Demorn said, trying to keep some kind of lightness in her voice. Kate’s laugh eased how she felt. It was time to go and do whatever heroes were supposed to do.

  A wave of heat hit her as she exited the room. Her glasses adjusted automatically to the sun. The room had morphed into the side of a building on a side street next to a huge shuttered garage. Even as she shut the door, it vanished into the grey wall.

  Demorn looked up at the building for any identifying landmarks. Reprise Car Rentals. There was garage but it was shuttered. She had to laugh. The old record label Sinatra had owned a million years ago had the same name. She gave the wall a fond pat.

  She looked up in the sky. Suns. Two burnt overheard, one red and huge, another higher in the sky, white. Strange red shadows fell upon the sidewalk. Demorn regretted the hoodie and considered stripping it off. There was nobody on the street, no sound. She moved. Her boots crunched on glass. She bent to look closer. It was a thin layer of ash.

  ‘Basically eerie as hell,’ she murmured, and drew her gun, running fast along the shadows, following the indicators on her invisible watch. Something cried out, inhuman in its urgency, a call to the heavens. Nothing responded. She looked at her watch. The screen pinged once then went dead. Wherever the room had taken them, it was the end of the road and Smile couldn’t reach her. At least she had a goal, a huge oval shaped zone about a klick away.

  As she moved, the deposits of ash and glass increased. For a moment Demorn thought she heard the sound of laughter and clinking glasses, but when she looked there was nothing to see. An empty restaurant shrouded in shadow. The twin suns were urgent with oppressive heat. She slipped off the hoodie and tied it around her waist. Another voice cried out, so loud the road seemed to shake around Demorn. She glanced at the cloudless sky. Blue on blue to infinity.

  She recognised the language. It was Corizan. The old witch cult. Let them howl, Demorn thought, ducking into a side alley, focused on the objective. She came across three people, frozen into glass statues and her heart lurched. It was nobody she knew, old people in poor health, perhaps beggars judging by their ragged clothes and worn faces, the toll of years obvious in their frozen state. Sorcery.

  Another howl, deeper, filled with hate. She caught the tail end of her name, spoken in the foul speech, that of the demon gods. The last time she’d heard that dread language she’d been deep in the Grave at the prison gate of an Elder God. Her life before was a series of events lost in dreams, brief moments of clarity that led to now, a pulsing in her ears, and the fear that when hell came crashing from the sky she was just another lonely mortal, doomed to die. She found herself looking too deep into the frozen statues.

  One began to move, slow and deliberate. With an abrupt kick Demorn shattered the figure, spinning to strike again, destroying the remaining statues. Demorn ran through the alley, every sense alive.

  2

  * * *

  She had prowled through the empty business district, where the billboards stood as monuments to a world that had gone missing. The advertisements blinked, barely-clad perfect models competing for her attention and her dollars, advertisements for sports and soft drinks and action movies scrolling in the centre space. Demorn felt like a ghost wandering through an empty world. Her watch pinged back to life. She kept following the tracker on her wrist. The giant corporate buildings merged into less dense shops, coffee shops and diners, then a sudden scattering of grass and trees, a more collegiate atmosphere blossoming opposite a towering mall plaza.

  Demorn lightly skipped across a wide city road. She felt naked on the street, locked into her mission but so distant from the goal. Crossing the empty roads Demorn moved onto the grass and into the welcome shadow of a huge, ugly remnant of post-modern architecture that stretched up to the sky. Some kind of an art college in the middle of the city. She heard sudden raised voices but couldn’t see anybody.

  An empty paved courtyard lay before her, a grove of trees. Everything felt haunted. She had to either move fast and with confidence, or hold position. She flicked the safety off the Athena gun and stayed still for now.

  Demorn heard a whisper. She saw a cluster of red shadows in the courtyard, there for a just a moment. Then she saw the Investigator. His tall thin body rose into the air, writhing, torn and pulled by unseen hands, dark magic that rippled to her eyes. No, she breathed. His jumpsuit was torn and ragged. On instinct she raised the pistol, targeting his head. End this.

  A clean shot, a clean escape into whatever the next world was. Away from this sorcery which could pervert and twist the spirit. Her purple sunglasses activated. Iverson looked like a ghost, his already pale flesh stretched and grave white. He was screaming soundlessly but she imagined he was crying out for her. His insides were torn apart, a cluster of circuit and goblets of blood bags, plastic skin. She jerked the pistol away. It wasn’t Iverson, just a cybernetic trap, a decoy. She saw the mechanics spilling out of him as he kept soundlessly screaming her name, way past the death point.

  Iverson’s body smashed to the ground, weakly writhing with the eerie rhythms of a cyborg. Everything in Demorn wanted to still put a bullet through the head. Forcing herself to remain still, she maintained cover behind a series of industrial bins full of sealed garbage bags. Whatever had happened to this place, they’d probably missed garbage day.

  Demorn could hear talking. Voices locked in debate. Demorn pressed her fingers to her ears. There was a tearing in the air, a scream not of this dimension that sent a shiver down her back. In the courtyard, she saw the tell-tale black sigils emerge, hanging in the air above the ruined cybernetic body. Wherever she ran, the demons of Triton followed. But where had she landed, she wondered. In what city, in what world, and to what horror?

  There was an echo of gunshots above her, cold through the air. Demorn gripped the locket, pain kickstarting her heart as she half flew, half ran up the wall, gripping bricks with a steel hand, hauling herself upward with the assistance of the pain locket shuddering in her other hand. Halfway up the bizarre structure, through plated glass she saw row upon row of books and study tables. A library. A collage of images took up an entire wall, a scene of an immense tentacled creature traipsing across a barren desertscape. It both drew and then repulsed her eyes.

  Art college bullshit, she thought with a grim smile, leaving the window and hauling herself onto the rooftop, caution warring with the impulse to punish in her heart.

  Iverson’s Moth sat on a landing pad on the roof. Demorn hustled for fast cover behind concrete supports. A tall woman in a green dress stood by the sleek black craft
, a glass of wine in her hand. Josephine. A man lay crumpled at her feet. It wasn’t Iverson. Black skin. Too small. Whatever this chick was up to, it was no good. Screw half measures.

  Demorn drew a bead on her, looking to plug her through the head. She caught the scent of lavender a second before she squeezed the trigger.

  ‘Not yet, kid. not yet.’

  His voice calm as always. Older, tougher, but still his voice, still owning a piece of her heart.

  She looked at him from the corner of her eye and put the gun away.

  She said, ‘Where you been, Frank?’

  ‘Busy staying alive, kid.’

  He was older and twenty pounds heavier than the last time she saw him. But all style in a light grey suit. Eyes clear and sharp, impeccable.

  ‘Who told you killing her will solve anything?’

  Demorn gave a quiet laugh. ‘The Investigator calls her a terrorist.’

  He put a hand on her shoulder. ‘Is that all it takes these days? Somebody calls somebody a terrorist and you plug them in the head?’

  Demorn shrugged. ‘I used to kill whoever you wanted me to, Boss. I didn’t ask many questions all those years ago. Back in Vegas. You remember?’

  ‘Yeah, I remember. And I paid you well and told you I wasn’t really your boss. We were fighting actual demons. Are they even paying you, kid?’

  Sadness ran through her. What Frank said felt pretty much true. She gave his hand a tight squeeze. Josephine left the rooftop. Demorn saw vague red shadows moving in her wake.

  ‘Somebody’s paying. Smile balances the books. I’m seeing shadows. What are they?’

  Sinatra replied, ‘The Lady Josephine is protected by Blood Clan. They follow her.’

  Demorn whistled softly and shot Sinatra a smile. ‘That makes things more complicated. And just when it was all getting so simple.What are you doing here, Boss?’

  Frank lit a clove cigarette with his gold lighter.

  ‘Came up for a smoke. We’re not even allowed to smoke inside anymore. Might distract some of the precious artists.’

  Demorn laughed. Of course he had. Sinatra held out his hand and she took it. He smelt of lavender and beautiful aftershave. The ruby ring burnt on his finger like a tiny star. His elegant grey form was a silhouette against the twin burning suns.

  ‘And this world? How long does it have?’ she asked.

  ‘How long?’

  It was hard tell if he was asking a question. She folded the sunglasses into her hoodie and Frank put a soft hand over her eyes. They walked to the opposite edge of the huge building. He moved slower, a graceful old man now. He was gentle and she didn’t want to resist as he led her to the edge of the bizarre building. I trust him, she realised. After all these years, in this bizarre world beyond the worlds, I still trust him. She could feel the power of the ruby ring in his fingers over her eyes.

  Sinatra whispered, ‘They’ve taken over the whole world.’

  He took his hand away. The trees had vanished. The art museum stood in the middle of desolation. A massive burnt out concrete ruin sprawled in front of her, miles wide and long. Demorn recognised the ruins of the Arena. The same Dome in Bay City where she had fought and partied and killed and put her soul on the line. The same Bay City. With a slowly dawning horror Demorn realised it was all gone, all of Bay City, the hill it was built upon crushed into dirt, rubble where streets and buildings had been, the ruined Arena the epicentre of it all, the only landmark that had survived. Where people had fought their Soul Fights and had their victories and little losses, herself included.

  ‘What the hell happened?’

  Sinatra was a whisper. ‘Triton has taken over this whole world.’

  ‘Yeah, because people like you sold it,’ she snapped, feeling bad even as she said that.

  He was equitable. ‘Do you really believe that, kid? I sold the world for an office in a fucking art college?’

  Demorn sighed, feeling alone, at the end of something. She could see the red ghost around him. The two suns burning behind him, terrible. ‘Not really. Sorry, Boss.’

  Frank gave a cheeky grin. ‘I’ve heard worse things said about me in the press, but I love you, Demorn.’

  She gave his hand a squeeze. ‘You are alive though.’

  ‘Look up at the sky, Demorn. The comet crashed into Bay City last year. Everyone died. No peace treaty saved them. Politics didn’t save them. The Duke and his junkie Duchess probably went out with needles in their arms. Good riddance to them.’

  ‘What were you doing here?’

  Sinatra took a drag of his cigarette. ‘Working. I played that Arena almost fifty times. I played all over the Dome clubs, all the Jade Hotels. I got bookings everywhere. The tourists and the players loved I was the real thing.’

  Sinatra chuckled. ‘When I think back to those crazy days in Vegas when we fought the first demons, who knew this is how it would all wind up.’

  Demorn kept looking out from the Arena, to where the sea should be. But all she could see was the desolate waste stretching for miles.

  Demorn said, ‘Where’s the damn water? Bay City was built on the ocean.’

  ‘Calm down, kid. This is Parallel 37. Close to your Babelzon, just one parallel universe across. They built their Arena in the middle of the Glass Desert. Do you really think it’s so different to your own world, do you think the people there care more? Do they think they will rush out and save Bay City? Or will they just kick back on their couches and eat some popcorn and let whatever happens, happen?’

  Demorn was numb. The horror didn’t end. It never ended. ‘No. All people care about back in Babelzon is themselves. A few keep an eye on the main Front. But mostly, they couldn’t find Bay City on a map.’

  A needle hit her neck and her eyes span as drugs fed into her body. Sinatra held her so she wouldn’t fall off the building. Visions span. She was looking at the grove of trees, blurring into the ruins of the Arena and back. Demorn tried to form a fist but there was no energy in her. She saw a hooded Blood Clan member by his side, quickly vanishing into an opening in the rooftop that led down into the building. Frank picked her up with a slight grunt of effort.

  Regret tinged his voice, ‘I was never your boss. That was another Sinatra, in a different world. I’m sure he wouldn’t have betrayed you.’

  Demorn fought to speak.

  ‘He wouldn’t and you look like a fake,’ she said, as unconsciousness came as a relief.

  3

  * * *

  The electric net tore and burnt at her skin when she shifted. Her hoodie was the barest of protection, charred from repeatedly touching lines of current that wrapped around her, making for a tight fit. Iverson and the Lady Jacqueline stood before her. Josie still had a glass of wine in her hand. Iverson looked serious and uncomfortable.

  ‘What happened to the warrant for Josie, Investigator?’ she said sarcastically. ‘I thought you were desperate to arrest her and stop the end of everything. I just saw what happened to Bay City, Parallel 37. I’d say we can’t rest easy just yet.’

  ‘New information came to light,’ Iverson replied. There was a touch of senatorial command in his voice, but she could sense his deeper unease. His body language was betraying him.

  She tried to look around. It seemed to be a huge dark room. ‘Where am I? Hauled off to the dungeons?’

  Josie laughed. Demorn sneered. She could hear the slur in her voice. The diplomat looked flushed and overly excited. ‘Not at all, my dear! My god, Demorn, I kept telling you I wanted you here. But you’re so restless and savage, just like you were back in the Court.’

  Demorn rolled her eyes at this latest character assessment. Josephine clicked her fingers. They were in a huge art installation, panel after panel of spectacular scenes of combat and destruction. The picture Demorn had seen through the glass rose above them. An ancient monster, surging across a primordial swamp. She recognised charred signs burnt into the hide of the beast. Elsewhere on the walls were various renditions of huge crea
tures and demons destroying cities.

  She saw the White Fort burning. Corrupt zombie Vangarians strode the walls. She had fought them herself, years ago, in another life. A nuclear explosion over Ceron City, the mushroom cloud billowing with complete destructive power. The comet destroying Bay City. It looked so perfect that Demorn couldn’t tell if it was real or an artist’s rendering. The images sent chills down her spine, blows to the heart of the universe, images of devastation and defeat. There was no hope here, no future. These monsters which rose from the swamps and strode across the dead cities were the flesh incarnations of the ancient ones, the Elder Ones locked for so long inside the God Prisons. This was the coming of the Void. This was a death knell to civilisation and hope. This was more depressing than the worst sad Christian rock song she had ever heard. Could this be avoided? For all her cynical, jaded leanings, Demorn goddamn hoped so.

  Demorn’s smile was tight. ‘I don’t get it. Do you worship them now, Josie? Is that what all this art is supposed to be for? Are you holding a candle for the monsters that will come through those sigils outside? Do you worship Ultimate Fate even though you know what it will do to us? When you have already seen it? Then you truly are amongst the damned!’

  Josephine looked uncertain. Her smile was lopsided, beauty strained. She gave Iverson an uncertain look. His expression was unreadable. ‘You misjudge me. You misjudge our effort.’

  ‘Maybe if you let me out of this bullshit electric prison I might believe you, luv.’

  Josephine drained her wineglass and murmured something to Iverson. She appeared to be on the verge of tears. She stormed away, throwing her wine glass into one of the massive paintings. Iverson went to the wall. The electric bars vanished and Demorn fell the short distance, lithe as a cat on her feet. Iverson approached her, palms upturned.