Crimson Night

by Marie Hall

  I was almost there. I shoved two more people out of my way. The kids battled for their life. They bit and kicked at the red robe. Pounding small fists into the back of its head, even as the knife came crashing down into the body of the one it straddled.

  “No!” And something inside me snapped, Pandora was gone and in her place something wicked came.

  I swatted, clawed, and killed until finally I reached the robe. I pummeled my fist into its head, snapping its head back and unmasking the neph.

  I blinked. So shocked it startled the demon to silence.

  “Pandora, please,” Kemen held up his hand, “this isn’t what it looks like.”

  “Pandora gone,” Lust growled, “you’re next.”

  I reached for the sword in my scabbard and pulled it free.

  Kemen stood, kicking at the children who screamed and cried, “Why did you hurt us? Why?”

  Something was wrong. I could sense it, feel it. I screamed at Lust to go away, but she was firmly in control.

  No. Stop. This is wrong, not Kemen. I tried to shake Lust’s grip, tried to regain control of my body, but I was too weak and she was too strong.

  Kemen didn’t even move, or try to defend himself. He stared at me with huge sad eyes as I skewered his belly with my blade.

  Lust threw her head back and laughed, kicking him to the ground. She straddled his body, smearing his blood on her hands.

  Noooooo! I shouted over and over until my throat grew hoarse, I could feel myself growing stronger, begin to take back control of my body.

  Lust sensed it and panicked as she started to lose dominion. Her panic spurred her on. She sharpened her claws and sank them deep into his chest. Ripping out his heart. He jerked, but was still alive. Hand covering the hole in his body as he tried to stem the flow of blood.

  “Pandora...” His voice was feeble, weak.

  Lust licked her lips. There were two souls inside my body. Pandora and Lust. And we were waging war against each other.

  I slapped at the demon, kicked her. Fighting my way out of the little black box of consciousness she’d trapped me in.

  She stood and poised the tip of her sword at the base of his throat.

  “Neph, don’t.” A new voice, a low growl. I knew that voice. It washed over me, slamming Lust with a wave of sexual desire.

  “Bi...lly,” and for a fraction of time the voice was mine, but then Lust took control again and growled, “not stop us.”

  I grabbed a hold of Lust’s soul with my vaporous fingers and squeezed her. She hissed. “Pandora. Let go,” she huffed.

  No. You will not kill him. You will not.

  Then she slammed her awareness against mine and it was like having ten thousand bolts of electrical impulses run through my brain, frying cognizant thought and any control I’d had. I cried and jerked. My grip on her went slack for a second. That was all it took.

  She cackled and swung the blade at Kemen’s neck, loping it off.

  I shrieked, and pummeled her as I slipped into the madness of grief. Then a body slammed into me, arms wrapped around mine. Then another body, and another.

  Little arms around my neck. Mouths on my calves biting and grinding. I grunted, trying to shake them off.

  Clapping.

  “Well played, neph, well played,” said a small bell like voice. A little Asian girl walked up to me, wide grin splitting her face. I drowned in her black liquid gaze, lost to the tumultuous swirl of silver dancing through them.

  The discovery of shock hit my demon full in the face. The little girl was really a demon in disguise and I’d recognize the evil glint in her eyes any day. Her name was Chaos, second in command to Wrath.

  Lust’s fear raced through my body like venom pumping through blood. I’ve always had the awareness of sharing my body with another, but for the first time in my life I felt alone and abandoned. Lust had tucked tail and run. Hiding so deep in my consciousness I could no longer sense her.

  Chaos snapped her fingers and a shimmering net, its luminous strands nearly invisible, spread around us. The humans and vamps continued on in worship, not one glancing in our direction. It was like being suspended in a different plane of existence. A realm separate and yet part of present reality.

  “Oh no,” was all I could say in that moment when the reality of my circumstances finally hit home. The kids crawling on me weren’t kids at all, but more demons. LCD’s to be exact. That was why I kept smelling sulfur, because this cavern was crawling with full blooded demons. How many of the kids I’d seen had actually been kids?

  Oh my God. Oh my God. OhmyGodohmyGod…

  The one on my back stopped moving, as if waiting for Chaos to give them some form of acknowledgement.

  “Hello, sister,” Chaos spat. The “s” in sister flickered with the sibilant sound of a snakes tongue. She grabbed my chin, yanked my head down and pierced my flesh with her black-clawed hand. My blood trickled down her chubby fingers and she giggled.

  “Chaos,” I snarled, the horror of my mistake only just beginning to take root. Kemen hadn’t been killing children. He’d been killing LCD.

  Chaos was in a form I’d never seen her use before. But Lust recognized her brethren. Of all Wraths creations, Chaos was top of the pecking order.

  “It was you, wasn’t it?”

  She lifted a delicate brow. “Me?” But I could tell by her smirk she knew exactly what I was talking about.

  “You were the black robe yesterday. You were the one that stabbed me. That’s why I didn’t sense you. It was you.”

  God, I was so stupid. Of course it was a demon. A true demon. I should have known by the sulfuric stench, neph smelled of sulfur, but never so strongly.

  She sighed, squeezing her hands together as if she’d discovered a juicy secret. “My how observant we are. I think you deserve a cookie for that.” She laughed, and the sound of it chilled my blood.

  “The black robe today? He was a ruse. You were the one all along.”

  Her lip curled. “Of course I was.”

  “How long have you been following me?” The eyes on the rooftop, had it been her and not Billy all along as I’d assumed?

  “Please.” She glanced at her nails. “Don’t flatter yourself, Pandora. I have better stuff to do than follow you around all day.”

  Then she clapped her hands, and the sound of it was thunder. “Have fun boys.”

  The LCD on my back squealed, and as one they began attacking me. They wrapped their fingers in my hair. Pulled and tugged. Ripping out hair in chunks. Others grabbed a hold of my arms. My legs. They tried to force me to the ground.

  “Dora,” Luc screamed, his fear sliced through me.

  “Lu—” I tried to call back, but a hand shoved down my mouth.

  Chaos gave a lazy smile as she licked my blood off each of her fingers with long strokes and moans of appreciation. She made no move to join the LCD upon me, as if to do so were beneath her dignity.

  I bit down on the hand and the LCD howled. A fist connected with the back of my head. Fingers shoved their way into my eye sockets, threatening to gouge my eyes out.

  Now when I needed to call on the power of my demon, Lust wouldn’t respond. It was like she’d gone catatonic in Chaos’ presence.

  A set of sharp teeth clamped onto my neck and pierced the flesh. My heart slammed against my chest. They were going to kill me and Lust wouldn’t help me.

  I rolled, slamming my weight down on the demon attached to my neck. There was a muffled crunching sound and the mouth released me. I gasped, covering my neck as hot blood spurted with the rhythm of my beating pulse.

  Then someone head butted me. Lights danced inside my vision. I grabbed a neck. More hands began to claw at my body. I choke slammed the one I held and shoved the others off me.

  Something pricked me from behind. I jumped to my feet, turning in time to see another LCD with a needle in one hand and vial of my blood in the other. He grinned.

  And in that instant it takes you to blink I remem
bered the vamp in the field also trying to take a vial of my blood. But where he’d been unsuccessful the LCD had triumphed. But I didn’t have time to think on it more.

  I reached for him. But another tiny body slammed against mine with the force of a freight train. It knocked the air out of me and flung me back to the ground.

  I couldn’t stop this. I’d get one away from me only to have another take its place.

  “No.” A man’s roar filled my head, I turned to look and spotted him out of the corner of my eye. It was Billy and he was shoving bodies away as he raced toward me.

  Hands on my leg. Shoving my pant legs up, reaching for my ankles. Teeth cutting into my thighs. Tongues licking my face.

  One of them squealed when my birthmark was revealed. He traced the flesh with the tip of his sharp nail, drawing blood. I kicked his teeth in and was able to shake him.

  I slapped at them, tried to move. But I was pinned down. My efforts were growing weaker and more useless by the second. The strength of the LCD’s overwhelmed me. Even in child form, it was more than I could handle alone.

  I was bleeding everywhere. It filled my nose. My eyes. My mouth.

  I continued to punch, but muscles were starting to tremble with fatigue.

  A large body slammed against mine. Covering me. Crushing me.

  I saw silver hair and a dagger swing toward me. I was not going to die this way. I elbowed Billy and connected with his nose. The bone jarring impact freed my hand just enough so that I could reach down the front of my shirt.

  “Pandora!” I barely heard Luc yell.

  “Do it now,” Chaos ordered. I wasn’t sure who she was talking to and frankly right now I didn’t care. All I knew was that somehow I had to shake Billy off me.

  “I will not let you kill me, Priest.” I snatched the ring and slammed it against the side of his neck, reciting: dust to dust, ashes to ashes.

  “Don’t do it,” he snarled, slapping my hand hard enough that the ring fell to the ground.

  But it was too late. Red and pink flames shot out of the ring, a thin line at first. But it became larger, wider and thicker as it grew. It threaded between us, like a snake curling around prey and squeezing tight in an ever-contracting circle.

  It licked at my body, singed the hairs on my head. My skin blistered. The LCD on me howled as the inferno devoured them.

  Chaos sang with laughter as she shed her skin, revealing her true form.

  “Pandora,” Luc yelled, but it was a whisper inside the netting Chaos had cast. Like the memories of a dream, it echoed faintly.

  Shredded wings pulled from Chaos’ back. She grew ten feet tall, covered in green scales of iridescent brilliance. Her face a frightful distortion of beauty; the snout long and her breaths sounding like the squeal of a dying pig. Tusks curled from the bottom of her jaw. Red eyes glowed with satisfaction. She curled her black taloned hands around her mouth and yelled, “Father, take us home.”

  Luc was so close, screaming my name. Billy jumped to his feet, drew his knife up.

  The clap of thunder roared around me. Darkness rolled in, grabbed me with cold fingers and sucked me down into a hole that had suddenly opened up in the earth.

  Terror clamped my throat shut. My skin was on fire. I burned and tried to scream, but nothing came out. I lifted a hand, but saw only white bone. I looked at the rest of me and I was nothing but skeleton, then flesh reformed and the fire ate it again. It happened over and over.

  I flapped my arms, trying to grab hold of something. But it was a seemingly empty tunnel of black. I could see nothing beyond myself.

  Then hands tore at me. Moans shrieked in my ears. “No,” they wailed. “Please, we’ll be good.” The ghostly whisperings made me shiver.

  Then I saw light. Blinding orange light. And I could see the end of the tunnel. See the rocky ground that loomed larger and larger as my speed continued to pick up.

  Hands still grabbed at me. “Please, take us out of here. We’ll never do it again...” Unknown and haunting voices that I knew I’d always remember in my worst nightmares.

  I couldn’t save myself, much less anybody else. Terror wedged tight in my throat, so that I couldn’t speak. Could barely breathe.

  Molten lava bubbled in shallow pools filled with writhing, bodiless souls.

  I was in hell.

  Literally.

  I had barely enough time to cover my face with my hands before I slammed into the ground. I landed on spires of razor sharp rock. I was flesh again and it pierced me. It cut through organs. Muscle. Tissue.

  I screamed as my skin began to melt from the heat. I was bone again and free of the rock.

  I trembled and tried to stand, but then fell to my knees and clutched my ribs that were flesh and then bone, flesh and then bone. Every time the skin melted it was a brand new agony, growing worse and worse each cycle.

  The clang of metal drew my attention. Billy and Chaos and the other LCD that had attacked me were to my far left. They were swarming him. Stabbing him. He was a blur of moving shadow as he fought back.

  An LCD hopped toward me, leering with a face half eaten by maggots.

  “Leave her, she belongs to the Master.” Chaos pointed to the tiny furry demon.

  “Ya-el.” The booming voice cut through the madness of voices and battle and made my heart stutter. It was the monster of night, death and vengeance. It was the demon Wrath.

  I grabbed my head. His presence sank in like black mold taking over my body.

  I was bone, but now there was a heart beating inside my ribs.

  “Ya-el,” he whispered again, “at last you are mine.”

  Evil. Dark. Pure. That voice shivered down my spine with its soul sucking cold.

  I gasped, clutching my chest as my heart went into cardiac arrest. Finally Lust seemed to snap out of her catatonic state. She curled her soul around mine, sinking her claws into my already frayed and battered consciousness. For the first time I not only welcomed her, I sobbed with joy to feel her return. Like it or not, she was a part of me. A part more vital than I’d ever believed was possible.

  The feel of her was like a warm blanket on a cold night. I drew off that warmth and wrapped myself in it. I winced, fighting Wrath’s voice in my head. Fighting his insistence that I get up and follow him.

  But it was a physical rending to do it. I hadn’t even realized I was still moving forward, but now I could make out the vague outline of his body. He was large, masculine, completely alluring.

  And that voice... “Ya-el.” I shivered. How could I continue to fight this when every instinct inside me wanted to obey?

  “Come to me beloved, Ya-el. My favorite. You were always my favorite.” That voice intoxicated me, like heroin—it shot through my veins in a glorious rush of pure white ecstasy.

  I curled my bony fingers into the ground, battling every instinct to get up and throw myself at him.

  “Ya-el, do you not desire me?” His words were soft, tender. So very gentle. I bit my lip and whimpered.

  Ya-el, my true name. There was power in a name. I remembered that. The last bit of sanity left in me whispered this was wrong. I tried to understand why, but he called me again and that voice fell silent.

  As if there were a thread connected from his body to mine, he dragged me closer and closer toward him. I groaned, writhing with the beginnings of desire.

  “Ya-el,” he shoved more of his power into his voice, wielding my name like a sword and cutting me in two. Like a thin sheet of ice, the last of my frail resistance snapped.

  Oh yes, pleasure coursed through me. Lust flared to life, filled me with longing so profound it was like a little death. “Anything,” I whispered.

  “Come,” he said with the seductive burr of a lover.

  I stepped toward him and heard the heavy clink of chains. Adrenaline rushed through me. I could no longer remember why I’d ever thought to resist him. He was glorious. Beautiful. Suddenly all I wanted was to please him. Feel him wrap me in his large arms and take
me. Even knowing that taking would kill me, it no longer mattered. It was him and me. There was nothing else.

  He laughed and repeated my name, each time I stepped one foot closer.

  He was so beautiful.

  I moaned. Lust sighed.

  “It doesn’t hurt anymore,” he said, curling his full firm lips. His long black hair fell in waves down his nude back, gleaming differing shades of twilight in the hazy orange light. An overwhelming desire to run my fingers through it and wrap it around my body crowded my thoughts. My fingers curled. His green eyes flamed and in them I saw the beginning of time. The stars, the heavens, all creation.

  “Come to me.”

  I smiled. I wasn’t hurting anymore. It was okay. This was good. This was right.

  He was so beautiful. Too perfect, it was an almost physical pain to gaze upon him and yet I couldn’t look away. Because to do so would only make it hurt worse.

  The roped muscles of his body flexed as he leaned toward me. Thick steel chains bound him to the rock wall. I frowned, wanting to take the chains off. Free him, hold him and worship all that masculine splendor.

  “A kiss,” he said, lips curving.

  “Yes.” I tried to think, to work up some emotion outside of this moment. But it was as if I’d never existed before this. My life was a blank. I should have been terrified. But I wasn’t. There was nothing but a hard certainty that I belonged here with Wrath. I lived for him. And I’d die for him.

  “No!”

  I stopped, my left foot suspended mid-step.

  “She’s mine.”

  The voice was so familiar. It tugged at me. At some hidden thought buried deep in the central core of my very soul. It pulled me back. Made me pause.

  “Come to me,” Wrath roared. I blinked, frowned. An internal battle waged inside me, the obsessive need to obey and the tiny fluttering memory trying desperately to make itself known. I edged my foot forward.

  I was grabbed from behind and flung to the ground. The jarring impact snapped me violently back into the present. I screamed, writhing and bucking and able to turn my head to the side long enough for me to see who held me down with such force. Billy sat on my back with his hand pinned between my shoulder blades.