Let There Be Dragons (The Children of Ankh Book 3)

by Kim Cormack

  Frost laughed aloud. Grey’s sense of humor was always an effective tension breaker. It was as though they were not about to do anything out of the ordinary. Killing two hundred and seven demons was not even an issue. Frost disputed, “No, the first rule of demon fight club is you must stay the hell in the cabin while the Dragons fight. Get it right Greydon.” He turned to look at Zach and clarified, “That’s your cue. Run back to the cabin, toss our Dragons a few of those Ankh swords and get the hell inside.”

  Grey made another revision to the list of demon slaying does and don’ts, “Okay, if that’s the second rule. The third is, “Do not break that line of salt at the front door of the cabin while you’re running through it. Jump over it.”

  Zach leapt over the line of salt and came running back with a couple of demon slaying daggers in his hand. He tossed one at Lexy and she caught it in midair. He tossed one to Kayn, who did the same. Zach yelled, “What happens if they drop them?”

  Frost looked directly at Kayn and said, “Fun fact. The Demons can’t even touch those blades, not even with gloves on. The slightest graze and the demons will drop to the ground and be expelled from those shells.”

  The slightest graze. She planned on doing more damage than that.

  “We’re all going to go inside now and find our seats for the show. This is where we find out what you two are capable of together. Take out every demon that has the balls to show up here,” Frost proclaimed as everyone but the two Dragons strolled back into the cabin. A few seconds later Frost appeared in the doorway and cast more daggers into the dirt outside. They each picked up the spare weapons and creatively concealed them.

  Kayn was fully prepared for this. She felt more ready than she’d ever been for anything. Lexy motioned for her to follow her around the side of the cabin. She trailed her fellow Dragon, keeping their bodies flush against the cabin so they’d be concealed by shadows. “What are we doing?” Kayn asked with a hushed voice while waiting for the shit to hit the fan.

  Lexy whispered back, “We’re going to let them walk their cannibalistic ass’s right into our trap. They’ve probably sent in a few scouts. We’ll take these first ones out quite easily.”

  Kayn tightened her grip on her blade. She became giddy with excitement as she heard snapping twigs in the distance. Suddenly, loud music began to blare from within the cabins walls and it became more difficult to hear the snapping of the twigs. That was how she’d been gaging the distance of her foes. Fricking Greydon. She glanced at her fellow Dragon. Lexy appeared to appreciate Grey’s choice in battle tunes.

  Lexy noticed her scowl and explained, “He knows I like to listen to eighties rock while I’m fighting. It’s one of our things. Got to love those ass kicking anthems.” Lexy began to gingerly sneak around the back of the cabin. She paused, tugged her fingerless glove off her hand and tossed it into the dirt. Kayn smiled for it felt like her fellow Dragon was shedding the pretence of normalcy. Just as they were about to step out of the shadows, a half dozen shells appeared from the brush. Lexy paused, glanced back at her and said, “Allow me to show you how easy this is going to be. I can take all six without even breaking a sweat. Watch and learn.” Lexy strolled out of the shadows with her dagger in hand, ran directly at the demons and in one swift movement she slashed one just above his collar line. The shell clutched his throat as he staggered backwards with blood spurting from the severed artery in his neck. A cloud of smoke spewed out of his mouth into the ground. She spun around in a circle grazing multiple demon’s arms and the same thing happened to them. The fifth assailant ran at her with a knife. She kicked him in the chest and landed on his back with a thud. Lexy didn’t finish him off while he was on the ground struggling to catch his breath. She stood there and watched him as he scrambled to his feet. A female shell burst out of the bushes and sliced Lexy’s back with her weapon. A pool of red expanded on her light colored shirt. The Ankh symbol on Lexy’s hand lit up and in that second the game changed. The demons froze as Lexy lifted her shirt to show them that the wound was no longer. Kayn felt her own symbol heat up. She tugged her glove off and tossed it on the ground. It was time to let these abominations know who they were dealing with. The shell Lexy had kicked to the ground fled into the bushes as she finished off the fifth demonic assailant with a swift slash of her blade. They couldn’t let him get away. Kayn sprinted out of the shadows and gave chase. She maneuvered the uneven terrain with the agility of a mountain lion seconds from subduing its prey. The shell was fast but nowhere near as fast as she was while free to be her supernatural self. She leapt into the air and knocked him down, raised her blade and thrust it into his back, watching as a black cloud of smoke funnelled out of its mouth and disappeared into the forest floor. Somebody grabbed her by her throat and yarded her off the creature she’d just subdued. Kayn flipped them over her shoulder in one stealth movement. She spun around to see how many of them were there and laughed aloud. She was surrounded by fifty, maybe sixty demons adorned in human flesh. Adrenaline surged through her as she yanked out her concealed second blade, clutched one in either hand and hissed, “Bring it on, you demon bitches!” They had her surrounded but she was having far too much fun to care about silly things like being outnumbered. All it would take was the smallest slice on their flesh to send them back to purgatory. The hoard closed in on her. She swung around, slashing at them from every angle until her vision was obscured by both an endless mist of red and the smoke as it left the parted lips of their stolen bodies. She felt it each time the shells blades penetrated her skin but it wasn’t painful, it was an adrenaline induced pleasurable response. How long would she last? Kayn kept swinging and spinning around in a continuous circular motion, with the blades gripped tightly in both of her hands, even though she could no longer see. She was operating on pure instinct. When the fine mist cleared and the last body dropped to the forest floor. She was standing there absolutely soaked in the blood of her enemies with piles of bodies to every side of her. For a moment, she was worried. Had she accidentally killed Lexy in the haze of blood and demon smoke? She heard the clinking sound of metal and darted around to the other side of the cabin. Lexy was dealing with a similar hoard out front. Kayn ran around the outside of the demonic swarm of cannibalistic beings, slicing their backs as she sprinted in a circle. They dropped to the ground from both the inside and the outside of the herd. She decided she’d stay on the outskirts and take each one on as they appeared from the bushes. She knew Lexy had a method to her madness much the same as she did. Another surge of demons burst out of the bushes and Kayn took them out, one by one. The next hour was a haze of blood spray and smoke until two Dragons were the only beings left standing.

  The front door of the cabin opened and Frost announced, “Consider me personally impressed. There’s got to be close to two hundred out there. Great job ladies. I’ll bring you some towels. Consider this immortal combat half time. We’ll check the bodies and make sure none of them are only playing dead. We’ll do a count. After that we’ll have to go door to door and make sure none of them have been left alive.”

  Kayn was not capable of responding for she was no longer capable of a single thought. She remained there unable to move a muscle until a voice in her mind whispered, sleep. You need to rest. She curled up in the fetal position in the dirt and her eye lids grew heavy as she heard Frost’s voice in the distance, “We’ll search the town at first light.” Kayn closed her eyes and deafening silence became nothing at all.

  She awoke to the over powering scent of bleach. It was too dark to see. She knew she was lying on a bed next to someone and sensed it was Zach by the way that he was breathing. She felt clean and suspected that he’d bathed her but this time she didn’t care. She was wide awake, staring into the darkness of the cabin. Had they completed the job without her? Having no concept of time while lost in the emotional void, she took a deep breath in and then expelled the air slowly. She vaguely recalled the mist of blood and smoke in the air. The last memory was of lying down in
the dirt and closing her eyes. She needed to use the bathroom. Kayn swung her legs over the side of the bed and maneuvered her way through the darkness towards the crack of light that glimmered from the almost closed bathroom door. She stepped into the washroom and closed the door behind her. After doing what she’d come in to do, she stopped in front of the mirror and stared at her reflection. Her eyes were vibrant green. She lifted her skirt and her wounds were completely healed. There wasn’t a mark on her flesh to show that she’d just been in an epic battle with the undead. Someone opened the door. It didn’t startle her. She’d sensed it was Zach.

  He was leaning against the door’s rustic wooden frame. He whispered, “There’s only five missing, but that’s going by the population sign. In the morning, we’ll go door to door and do a thorough search of each residence. Once we’re certain we’ve killed all of them, we’ll call in the Aries group to dispose of any evidence.”

  She nodded at him while staring at her reflection. She didn’t feel like speaking… not yet.

  Zach step out of the doorway as he quietly urged, “Come back to bed.”

  She nodded and padded across the room barefoot in the dark, following the sound of his footsteps. She climbed under the covers and he slid in beside her, leaving some space between them. She was glad. She needed him to be close by, while maintaining the emotionally void cocoon around her. When she was ready she would burst free and become a butterfly with a rainbow of emotions but not tonight. On this night, she needed to feel nothing. Kayn closed her eyes and for a while, she fought the slumber her exhausted body required. Without knowing, she slipped into a dream.

  In her dreams she was standing in the silky sand of the in-between beneath the watercolor splashes of blue in the sky. She knelt in the sand and while on her knees, she picked up a few handfuls of the glorious feeling grains and allowed them to trickle through her fingers. Feeling something was amiss in her heavenly hideaway, she glanced up to the multihued majesty of the sky above. There was a swirling black circular object hovering above her, beckoning her closer. It felt like she was being hypnotized.

  A baritone voice spoke, “Come to me. I have something to show you.”

  Fascinated by the whirling ominous vortex, she stood directly below it.

  “Do you know what you are?” The deep disturbing voice prodded.

  She whispered, “If you want me, I’m right here.” The black hole turned into the funnel of a tornado. She did not move an inch or cower from the unknown. Kayn stood her ground and shrieked, “What are you waiting for!” The funnel descended from the heavens, snatched her up in its swirling vortex and sucked her up into oblivion. It dropped her onto the bed where she opened her eyes and tried to scramble out from under someone that was trying to restrain her. She flailed and lashed out with every limb until she was being pinned down by something. No! Noooo! She clawed and scratched at what restrained her. She felt heat on her hands and euphoria, followed by a surge of adrenaline that felt so glorious it overwhelmed her. Her back arched in response to the energy surging through her being.

  Lexy’s voice ordered, “That’s enough Kayn! You’re taking too much!”

  She felt the absence of contact from her energy source. A sense of calm washed over her being and she was able to focus on her surroundings. She’d obviously been taking Lexy’s energy. Her friend looked more than a little bit pissy.

  Kayn groggily whispered, “What happened? Did I hurt you?” She tried to sit up in bed and the room wavered around her and came into focus once again. What was this?

  Lexy sat down on the edge of the bed and questioned, “You absorbed some of that dark energy last night, didn’t you? It can send you on one hell of a disturbing trip.”

  She honestly didn’t remember. There was no way she would have had the time to do that in the middle of a fight.

  Grey wandered over to Lexy and offered, “Take some of mine.”

  Zach was sitting on the bed beside her. He whispered, “That was one hell of a nightmare.”

  Kayn sat up as she tried to explain, “I was in the in-between and there was this swirling black hole above me in the sky and then it dropped down and sucked me up into it.”

  Lexy let go of Grey’s hands and he crumpled to the floor. “Whoops,” she chuckled. “Am I bad? I gave you shit and then took too much myself. I’ll deal with him in a second. Can you chuck him up on the other bed Frost?”

  Frost grinned and sighed, “I’ve got him.” He dragged his buddy to the other bed. Lily grabbed Grey’s legs and they tossed his limp body onto the bed together.

  Lexy sat down beside Kayn and said, “I’ve had that dream before. It’s just a nightmare. It’s no big deal. I thought maybe you had some internal injuries that hadn’t healed properly. We’re kind of flying blind here. We’ve never dealt with a Conduit’s abilities before. We don’t even know how long you have between siphoning someone’s ability and losing it. Hell, we don’t even know if you lose it. Maybe you keep them all.”

  Kayn hadn’t even attempted to use Grey’s ability the night before. She hadn’t had the time to figure it out. Did she still have it? The sun was shining. Particles of dust pirouetted in the stream of light that shone through the curtains. It was such a simple moment, she’d always thought this was beautiful. The magical sight of a million particles of dust shimmering in a ray of light. Kayn allowed it in. She felt joy as her heart soared. Kayn smiled, knowing she had found her way back on her own. She’d managed to burst free of her emotionless cocoon in record time. It felt like a miracle. Perhaps it was. Her face exploded into an animated grin. She turned and embraced a confused Zach. He stiffly hugged her and gave her a few sturdy pats on the back. She whispered, “I’m alright. I found my way back. I’m me.”

  He squeezed her tighter and whispered in her ear, “Oh, thank God. That was one dark night of demon disposal.”

  She knew this was what she’d been created for. She was a weapon. A sacrificial lamb for the greater good and last night was only the tip of the iceberg. She peered up at Frost. He was quietly watching the exchange between Dragon and Handler while smiling. There was something in his eyes that she couldn’t quite place. When their eyes met, he quickly looked away.

  Lexy finished healing Grey. She cleared her throat and announced, “It’s time to go. We’ll separate into two groups and go door to door. One person guards the front of each house while the other stands guard at the back. The other will do an internal search. We’ll work our way through the whole town this way, leaving no stone unturned. We must have every one of those shells accounted for and disposed of.”

  That sounded easy enough. In this line of work things were never as easy as they seemed. Kayn was the first one to step over the line of salt. It had not been broken the night before. She paused mid step as she laid eyes on the enormous pile of bodies in front of the cabin. They were empty, nothing but shells. She stood before the pile of soulless corpses and wondered who they’d been before the darkness had taken them away.

  Grey proclaimed, “There’s another mountain of bodies just as large as this one out back.”

  She didn’t need to see that one. She’d created it. One by one they got into the truck and headed away from the cabin. It was an eerily silent drive into town. With not a soul in sight.

  Frost pulled up in front of the diner they’d had breakfast at the day before. Home of the sketchy people bacon. She glanced at Zach. He still didn’t know.

  Zach glared at her and questioned, “What?”

  She smiled and replied, “Nothing important.” Kayn turned away from him and tried to silence her thoughts because she knew sometimes he could hear them loud and clear. She climbed out of the vehicle and took in the picturesque little town. It had been the perfect cover. How long had it taken the demons to take this whole town over?

  Lexy started barking orders, “Kayn! Come inside with me! I’ll show you how it’s done!” She motioned for her to follow.

  Kayn wandered after her fellow Dragon and th
ey started by slowly strolling past each booth. Lexy grabbed the broom, tapped on the ceiling and pushed up one of the panels.

  “These panels won’t hold the weight of an adult, but they might hold that of a child. I’m sure you remember what that demonic toddler did to you. We’ll have to find the opening to the attic. It’s usually in a closet.”

  Kayn nodded as she followed Lexy into the kitchen. It was empty. They would have sensed the presence of any unsavory beings. There were no survivors hiding in this restaurant. She was certain of that. Kayn opened a metal door. It was the freezer. She grimaced at its contents. If she’d had any residual guilt over slaying two hundred demons the night before, the freezers contents cured that glitch. She called Lexy over, “Take a look at this sick shit.”

  Lexy peered into the room full of icy bodies eerily suspended from the ceiling by meat hooks. She stated, “It’s a shame it took so long for us to find out about this place.” She stepped into the freezer and wedged the door open with multiple things. “If you watch what I’m doing here. It might save you from getting locked in a freezer in the future. First, you always take the necessary precautions. You’re going to want to make sure you’ve inventively wedged the door open, with more than one object. That way you’ll always have enough warning before you get locked inside.”

  Kayn watched Lexy wander through the creepy display of frozen people meatsicles. This is so messed-up.

  Her fellow Dragon disappeared in the back of the room and then reappeared with an announcement, “The entrance to the attic is in the back and that is all clear. Off to the next store.”

  They searched the whole town this way, store by store and residence by residence. This continued for many hours until they were only a few houses and a school away from having thoroughly searched the entire town. They hadn’t found one demon. Perhaps they’d all been killed and their job here was completed. They decided to do the last houses, two by two and the elementary school as a group. Kayn wandered up the cement walk way of a light blue house with a mail box that was a miniature version of the home. Zach stood watch while she broke the small decorative stained glass window beside the front door, reached inside and unlocked the door. Smiling pictures of the family that dwelled within the house prior to the demonic takeover adorned the walls of the landing. A vision of her own family’s pictures flashed through her mind. She blinked the images away. No, she wasn’t going to think about that. Kayn chose to search downstairs first. She descended into the dimly lit basement and felt around for a light switch. She turned it on and the room lit up, revealing a child’s bedroom. There were whimsical clouds painted on the pastel blue walls. Teddy bears, dolls and books were lined up on the shelves. She sat down on the toddler sized bed and picked up the family portrait poised on the miniature end table. A little boy with a cherub face grinned while being cradled in his father’s arms. His mother stood proudly beside them. The child was at least two years old, possibly three. He looked so much like the baby pictures of her brother Matt. She considered taking the picture out of the frame, folding it up and putting it in her pocket. They weren’t allowed to keep the pictures. She put the picture back where she found it as something furry touched her ankle. Kayn tossed the toddler bed aside and a black kitten sprinted across the room. She sat down on the floor and called the emaciated feline over. The scrawny kitten cautiously crept towards her. She sat there for a while, stroking the kittens soft fur, listening to the soothing sound of its purring. They’d be waiting for her. She kept the kitten in her arms as she got up and peered down at the happy feline cradled in her arms. She stroked its soft fur as she whispered, “They’re not going to let me keep you.” Kayn brought the kitten with her as she searched the rest of the basement. In the next room was a freezer. She didn’t want to open it. Leave no stone unturned. Please let there be no toddler. Please let there be no toddler. She took a deep breath and opened it. The freezer only had normal freezer contents. Kayn scaled the stairs and continued to search the entire house. She came back outside with nothing but a tiny powder puff of a kitten cradled in her arms.