Demorn: Soul Fighter (The Asanti Series Book 3)

by David Finn

  She found her voice. Josephine smashed her hand into the pavement, cracking a stone. She slithered out of the red water, tearing off her green dress. Around her neck glistened a single soul skull.

  ‘I have power, I am the Lady Josephine, leader and last of the Necromancers of Malisk. I have killed seven worlds in my quest for you.’

  The Plague God looked into her eyes. Green shadows in his ghostly shell.

  HOW DID THEY DIE?

  ‘The worlds? Many different ways, my Lord. Reality bombs, deals with Triton and Shrine—’

  His voice became more human. He reached out and caressed her neck. His touch was ice cold. She could hear the chanting again, ten thousand voices crying out his true name, the name she longed to speak, the name that owned her soul and heart.

  TALK NOT OF TRITON HERE. HOW DID MALISK DIE? HOW DID MY WORSHIPPERS VANISH?

  Josephine felt a slight stab of shame. ‘I had to kill them all to escape. The Fracture Event destroyed our world. We drifted in a Temple for months, trapped . . .’

  He laughed, kissing her on the mouth. Desire and lust flooded her. She pressed her body against him as his hands squeezed and pressed her.

  I AM THE GOD OF PLAGUE WHO WAS NEVER FLESH. I AM THE INFECTION WHICH SHALL CONSUME ALL.

  He grasped at the shining soul necklace around her neck. It was Josephine’s chance to laugh, however weak and light it felt in her throat. Though she worshipped this being, she knew what he sought and craved. He sought release from his afterlife of imprisonment.

  WHY ARE YOU SO WEAK? WHY DO YOU FEEL GUILT? WHY ARE YOU A SHADOW OF WHAT I NEED? WHERE IS YOUR LEGION BRING ME A LEGION I NEED A LEGION TO UNLOCK THE VOID.

  He threw her off the holy rock. Josephine tumbled through the air, through the layers of smog and smoke, grit and ash, the charnel house of a world consumed. Josephine didn’t scream but was laughing as the dream which was a holy vision and perhaps a simulation, ended.

  ‘Damn. I knew there something unusual about you and that dress, Josie.’

  Josephine lay on the floor, her green dress splayed out and burnt in spots. She looked up.

  An intense looking brunette girl with the thousand mile stare of a killer watched her intently. Recollection came fast as the vivid memory of the Plague God receded. The assassin, Demorn, who had followed her from the Court to Bay City to this strange netherworld before the end. Josephine had kept a wary distance from her in Ceron City, but there was no distance anymore. Josephine realised her skin was reptilian. In all her years at the Court barely anyone had guessed correctly at her true heritage. Malisk was an eon ago, a magic city on a dead world, dimensions removed from the Ceron Court. The Fracture Event had wiped out the records along with the civilisation. Nobody should know about her true origin.

  ‘What were you doing in here? When I came in you were floating,’ Demorn said. She was looking around the room in wonder. The golden door closed behind her. Josephine always forget how impressive this would be for ordinaries. The collection inside the gold walls was filled to the brim with precious relics and trinkets of so many dead civilisations.

  Josephine laughed. ‘I was communing with the ancients.’

  Demorn popped a mint. ‘And what are the ancients saying these days? Is it time to smoke the peace pipe?’

  The assassin had a directness that rattled the diplomat inside of Josephine. She wasn’t explaining how she got inside the room and Josephine wasn’t about to give her the impression of weakness.

  Josephine shrugged. ‘That it’s all going to end with fire and rain and thunder.’

  Demorn smiled. ‘At least they’re consistent. And probably right.’

  Demorn pointed to the huge golden shields on the wall, emblazoned with standards of kings and gods and minor lords.

  ‘You’ve got a lot of cool stuff in here.’

  Demorn grabbed Josie’s shoulder with a steel hand. The light pressure she applied hurt just enough, a reminder of the assassin’s casual power.

  ‘Heavy on the voodoo in the corner, isn’t it. Those skulls look like they could breathe. Can they, Josie?’

  Josephine looked into a collection of necromantic artefacts, perfectly organised and catalogued. That collection was beyond precious, it was the very tenets and testaments of their dark order. Josephine had studied and pored over the ancient scripts, a locked knowledge and a burden she carried alone, as the last surviving Necromancer of Malisk.

  ‘No, they’re dead things. Old memories.’

  ‘Cool. Make sure they stay that way. I dig the whole lizard look by the way, it’s kinda hot. Did Santos see that?’

  Josephine nodded, watching with those careful eyes. Demorn was no idiot. She doubtless knew that Josephine had slept often with the Baron.

  ‘It’s my true form.’

  ‘Why hide it? I’ve seen stranger things on the Front. Stranger things on the tour, even. What’s wrong with a little lizard love? I know Santos must have enjoyed it.’

  Demorn batted her eyes playfully and Josephine almost ended her with a death spell wrenched from the gutter of her heart. Her fingers sizzled with a death energy begging to be released, a form refined in the haunted chambers of Malisk. Demorn kept looking at her with remarkable, calm eyes. She stayed her hand.

  WHY ARE YOU SO WEAK?

  Josephine jerked herself back from the voice echoing inside her head. The room was heavy with magic. Treasures called out to the Plague God that drew him close. She had the still beating heart of a Priest of Death in a jar somewhere. It was wonderful when she was alone, and could float in the silent majesty and the skull eyes would light and she would drift across the barriers between life and death, where nobody could judge her. Her lips burnt from where he had kissed her. The soul necklace shuddered. Josephine touched it on instinct. The dress repaired itself and Josephine slid behind her exotic beauty.

  ‘Cultural reasons,’ she said.

  Demorn released her steel hand. ‘Ok, babe. Some day you’ll have to tell me what culture that is exactly. Assuming we make it out alive and all.’

  Josephine nodded. ‘The portal opens in a mere four hours. When the two suns reach their twin eclipse. You should rest.’

  Demorn grinned. ‘I’m rested and ready to roll. Me and Iverson’s protege are going to do some staff training.’

  Josephine’s heart skipped a beat. His protege. That could only be the Wolf.

  ‘Where’s the Investigator?’

  ‘Forced back to his ship by the Order. Wolf looks like a good soldier.’

  Josephine was light-headed. She didn’t feel like seeing Wolf. She had written him off as dead, collateral damage in her quest. Now suddenly back on the table, her emotions were more complicated than she wanted to examine.

  Demorn pointed to an empty spot on the wall. ‘Where’s the Bow of the Huntress? I remember you saying you had it in a pride of place. Did Toxis come and kick your ass and take it back?’

  WHY ARE YOU SO WEAK WHY DO YOU FEEL GUILT?

  Josephine closed her eyes, stilling her mind. ‘The Blood Clan bartered with me for the Bow’s return.’

  ‘Ah, did they. That’s awfully diplomatic of them.’

  ‘They’re a business now, Demorn.’

  I WILL KILL THIS WHOLE WORLD I WILL POISON THE SKY.

  ‘They’ve always been a business, Josie. Sleep light, hon.’

  I WILL EAT WHAT IS LEFT WHY DO YOU FEEL GUILT?

  Josephine ignored the girl’s sarcasm. She was used to it. Demorn thought herself so clever and above the fray. Demorn would be handy when they penetrated the Source Core. The girl was a vicious killer, the vessel of gods. Inside the court of Baron Santos in Ceron she had been both feared and loved in equal measure. She did not have friends but supporters and allies, a network that stretched from the ruins of the White Fort to the ice worm fields of the far North, and all across the Front. The girl served no side but her own, it seemed. Every single entreaty Josie had made to her in the Court had been rebuffed. She would be destroyed and cast as
ide as soon as she had fulfilled her purpose. The girl was too wilful and independent of mind to ever be a servant of the Plague.

  HER GOD IS DEAD HER GOD IS DEAD . . .

  And so is mine, Josie thought. But unlike herself, Demorn would be a long way from home and her allies and her gods when they penetrated the Source Core.

  ‘Hey Josie, your face is all marked with that voodoo-you-do. Just thought you’d like to know. Appearances and all that, when we go to save the universe.’

  Josephine had to control every muscle and reflex in her body not to stare instantly into the mirror. She slowly turned her face. Sure enough, a complete engraving of the Plague God covered her right cheek, a complex system of messages that called for his resurrection and return. For a moment she thought it was a tattoo. Josie placed her hand against her face, feeling an ice cold ash. Her eyes filled with bitter tears as the connection with the Plague faded, his conduit into her mind gone as she wiped away the symbol.

  Demorn kept watching her with those glittering eyes.

  Josie said, ‘Thank you, it was a ritual. You said Wolf has come back. Please send him in. I want to speak to him.’

  Demorn looked like she was going to say something more than those merciless eyes already did. But her voice was light and easy.

  ‘Sure, but don’t leave a bruise. I know you like to play rough and I need him for the championship round.’

  Josephine’s thoughts were a cold blast of hate. But she had lived with them for so long that the hate was now a callus, a manageable roughness, a cold anger she could displace.

  Josie said, ‘Wolf has run through more than a hundred worlds with me. He’s a survivor.’

  Demorn shrugged. ‘Well, hundred and one must have been doozy because he barely did that.’

  She said nothing as Demorn softly opened the great golden door, which was supposed to be inviolate, and left. Josephine tried to will flesh over her lizard skin but her powers were at a low ebb. Wolf would have to take what he got. In her dead land they had called her beautiful and she was still young. But her people were as dead as that land. They wouldn’t come back and neither would her planet. The farther she had travelled into the chain of multiple worlds the more she had realised this.

  The tears wouldn’t stop and Josephine turned away, aware of how far she had fallen, how naked and desperate she had become, and how little choice she had ever had in the matter. She looked upon her treasures and her baubles gathered in the many years of traveling and it felt as insubstantial as air. She saw the great Spectre she had liberated from the Prussian capital in Parallel 43, bejewelled and unmistakable.

  Parallel 43 was gone seven years now; this scary heirloom meant nothing to the people of this world. Their script and language was similar but different. They worshipped the same demon god by different names. Echoes of their history fell upon the other, but in reality there was a chasm between them which should never have been crossed. Only a fool or a genius would dare to do so repeatedly, and Josephine, exiled from the Court, had long ceased to think of herself as anything other than a bargaining diplomat.

  Her cheek was still icy from the ash she had wiped away. The Plague God was still whispering inside her mind, calling her to the Source Core. Every time she closed her eyes she could see the cold glittering eyes of Demorn. They were rushing toward a conclusion Josephine could no longer control. Her scheming had brought them this far, and only barely at that. On other worlds, different universes, Josephine had gathered armies, once even a league of minor superheroes beguiled by her promises and visions, as she sought to impose her will upon the land. That had ended in fire and ashes and heartbreak. She couldn’t remember his real name but he had loved her and judged her worthy until the holy spear of her enemies gutted him. She had fled and run from so many worlds and so many enemies she saw the ghosts in the shadows now, friends and foe alike.

  Only in her golden panic room did she feel safe, and it was an empty feeling born of fear. There were not many worlds left to bargain with now. Ultimate Fate pressed against the walls of reality, like an angry child waiting to be born, already harbouring grudges. The shadows grew close, even here, in this room of wonders. There were enchanted mirrors that Josephine had covered. She feared the reflections. For the first time Josephine realised this was no refuge, it was a tomb filled with the articles of the dead.

  Josephine was almost spent. Her passion was gone. She was tired of the routine she had practised across the dimensions. The careful building of trust through channels, a slow accumulation of power and influence until the inevitable betrayal such as there had been at Ceron Court. They could have killed her. Only the mercy of the Baron had prevailed. This was a dangerous Universe, so close to the Source Core. And yet, they had somehow made it here, to the very edge of her goal, secure in a Dimension Fort. The twin eclipse calculations had been checked and rechecked by somebody far more knowledgeable than herself.

  For Josephine, the moment was both thrilling and a cause of great stress. There was no army, no league of super-humans to guide them or tear the walls from the demons. The fate of so many would be in the hands of a killer, a mercenary, a person Josie barely knew and did not like. Demorn was a stone cold killer and Josephine had watched her operate with impunity in Ceron.

  What lay ahead could perhaps save something of what Josephine had lost or it could most certainly damn them all. There were worse things than death. Josephine knew enough to know that. She caught sight of her face in a normal mirror, one that did not look too deep inside. She hoped Wolf still liked her true face, for she had grown fond of him and desired him now in the closing hours.

  But first, she had to make the call that made her a traitor. The call that damned her and haunted her and had to be made if anything was going to survive at all. She tapped the number for Triton Corp. Josie kept looking at the mirror. She wondered what would change. She wondered if she would even notice the difference. The hold music paused, a woman’s voice came on the line.

  5

  * * *

  Iverson had gone when Demorn came back into the art room. It was night outside, clearly visible through the great window. A giant blood moon cast long shadows on the exhibits. Just what monster art needs, an extra layer of creepiness. She’d probably spent four minutes talking to that loveable kook, Josie. Time was fluid in here. What a surprise. Time always felt so fluid, the further she got into this mission, ever since she had begun her journey across the Glass Desert. Demorn longed to be grounded, in the tight body of a beautiful girl, or tracking prey on a Babelzon side street. She longed for the taste of double cheese from Rob’s Burgers. She longed to take Winter on a big dumb action movie date, staying up all night, playing video games in the future city of Babelzon, hanging out in the Music Room back at the Clubhouse. Simple human things that seemed so far away since Demorn become so entangled in the endless wars and politicking of the Firethorn dimension. These god wars had to stop, or at least her involvement in them. She felt like a cartoon character stretched too thin in a universe where the rules kept changing. She preferred to have a bounty to collect, a target to kill. Saving the universe was like fighting an amorphous fog. Demorn felt like she had been thrashing blindly trying to reach a truth and result that evaded her.

  ‘She wants you in there, Junior. I didn’t lock it. Careful. She’s in a mood.’

  Wolf looked embarrassed, mumbling something about how it would be okay, he was used to her moods. She guessed he would be. With the years shaved off, he looked pretty good. Hair short back and sides, ripped body. The military uniform was tight. Demorn barely resisted the impulse to slap his ass as he walked by. Why add to the tacky tension of forbidden romance between the treacherous diplomat and the Order lackey?

  ‘Hey, Wolf, I’m kidding, man. She’s got a Roman orgy style four-poster bed in there. Have some fun. After all, we might all be dead tomorrow.’

  She laughed her scary laugh as Wolf turned to look at her, shaking his head as he went through the golden door.
He looked more like a lost puppy than any wolf she had ever seen. Demorn popped a mint, grinning. Nobody got her sense of humour sometimes. There was lightness to her the world didn’t catch, obsessed as it was with darkness and grime, tearing itself apart in the never-ending desire to be called RIGHT. Oftentimes, she’d rather read comic books than hearing another would be Tyrant would be King would be God Emperor deliver another gloomy treatise on the state of the world. More than once she’d interrupted Baron Santos in his ridiculously detailed mission briefs to remind him she just needed to know who to kill.

  Demorn saw the face of a monster leering down from a painting, tentacles thrashing from the face, insanity written large across its features. The bodies of the many dead were piled around it. Another apocalypse. She thought of the comet about to plunge into Bay City, the nukes over Ceron City and the mountains of the dead that populated the Front. Do we really need monsters to finish this place off for us, she thought. We are so good at creating our own apocalypse.

  Cold rippled over Demorn’s body as she kept staring at the beast, horribly aware that perhaps that was always the artist’s point. But she had seen those things and she had killed them. Holy Athena bullets to the head put them down in the end, but she couldn’t beat a legion. The demon gods that came through the portals were real, they were the nightmare formed into flesh.

  Babelzon and late night movie dates seemed so far away. Demorn checked her Athena gun and descended the spiral stairs, her fingers rapping the railing, steel to flesh, flesh back to steel.

  Demorn waved her blue watch around with faint hope but there was no reception down here, no way of reaching Babelzon. The signal from Firethorn was always uncertain outside of major cities. She tried more out of habit than any desperate need to say some last goodbye to Smile. They had spoken at length only days ago and said everything that needed to be said. They spoke in half-coded language, reliant but feisty, loyalty unquestioned. She’d sooner drive Xalos through her own heart than let somebody hurt him.