The Demon's Apprentice

by Ben Reeder

  It took everything I had to keep from going through the window at King as he tried to force himself on her. I watched anger creep across his face as she resisted, and he looked to Brad, then back to Alexis. As he drew in a ragged breath, I could feel some dark power gathering around him, and when he let it out, the word that followed was laced with a dank, corrupt magick that made me feel dirty all the way down to my boots. From me, that was saying something. I couldn’t understand it, and I didn’t want to.

  “Obey!” he snarled.

  Silence followed for a moment after he uttered it. As one, everyone in the room ducked their heads and went submissive. Alexis laid her head on his shoulder and molded her body against his. She murmured something into his chest, and the boys said in unison, “Yes, Master.”

  Even I felt the force of that slimy will trying to push my spirit back into itself and force me to submit to Dominic King. It wasn’t in my nature to submit to him, and somehow, the magick felt…off. Like it was a command spoken in a language I didn’t quite understand. This was a dark sorcery like nothing I had ever wielded, an evil power and a slithering, oily distortion of what it was made for. This magick was originally supposed to do something beautiful, but King had subverted it to mind control and to feed his own lust.

  “That’s better,” he sneered. “There’s not a one of you can take me, so don’t even think of trying to challenge me. You do as I say, and you don’t ask questions. That is the Law of the Wolf. The strong rule, the weak obey, or suffer.” He pulled Alexis to him and covered her mouth with his. I shuddered as she went limp in his arms. She turned away when he let her go, her face pinched in revulsion and pain that I could almost feel in my own chest. He dragged her toward the door in the back of the room, and I could see Brad’s head turning to follow them as they made their way through the rest of the pack of teenaged werewolves.

  While they were down and focused on Alexis and King, I started moving along the side of the building toward the back. I crept as quietly past the door as I could and hoped no one opened it before I got past it, then headed for the corner of the lodge. I crept around the side and peered into the first window I came to as the wind moaned through the trees and along the sides of the building. Here, the lodge provided me with some shelter from the wind, and the tall trees that grew along the south side shielded me from most of the light, so I was essentially invisible in the darkness. I got to the window in time to see Alexis picking herself up off the bed, and Dominic starting to undo his belt.

  “You know the drill, bitch. Strip,” he commanded her. She sat up on her knees on the bed and pulled her black t-shirt off, revealing a satiny white bra and a perfect back. Smooth white skin that flowed into seductive, but somehow still wholesome, curves dipped into the black leather pants she had on. Her arms came up behind her back to unhook the clasp, and her hands went to opposite shoulders, trying to keep herself covered for as long as possible. Dominic smiled as the bra fell away completely, and I found myself shaking with suppressed anger.

  I had to do the smart thing and get the hell out of there. I was outnumbered ten to one by werewolves, one of them a potent sorcerer. If I got caught peeping, Alexis would never forgive me, and that was more upsetting than the thought of facing nine other pissed-off lycanthropes. Still, I didn’t move, trembling with stifled anger as she got up off the bed and slipped out of her leather pants. As the top of her pants slid down, I got a peek at what most of the guys in my class would have traded limbs and other body parts to see. Alexis wore matching white bikini panties that covered just enough to be modest, but left enough bare skin that she didn’t look like she’d borrowed her grandmother’s underwear. There was some sort of pattern, but I couldn’t make it out, and I was trying not to look all that hard. I tried not to let my eyes stay for too long on any one part. She was revealing the long, trim legs that I had seen earlier that day, but seeing them like this was much different. Once her pants were down, she kicked them to the side and straightened with her arms crossed over her breasts again.

  Dominic stepped up to her and grabbed the panties by the waistband, ripping them away with a quick motion, then he shoved her back onto the bed. He opened his pants and fell on top of her, struggling for a moment to get things started. As he worked his hand in between their bodies, Alexis turned her head to one side, and I could see her eyes squeezed shut. Her body convulsed once in an unheard sob, and I saw the first tears slide down the side of her face, leaving glistening trails on her cheek.

  My anger turned into barely controlled rage. It might as well have been me on that bed, for all I was concerned. No one was helping her, not her boyfriend or her classmates, and her parents didn’t even know. The man on top of her was using her for his own ends, and she was just a kid. Just like me.

  Some part of my head tried to tell me not to do something stupid. The hairy monkey brain was alternating between wanting to beat the ugly bastard paw the hot babe on the bed and wanting to grab her for its own. There was a white-hot fury burning in my head that suddenly became a cold, calculating wrath. All that Alexis knew was that she was alone. She didn’t have any hope of rescue, no glimmering light at the end of the tunnel. All she could do was endure the pain and humiliation and try not to cry too loudly later on. She had no knight in shining armor to come to her rescue, no dashing prince to sweep her off her feet to a fairy tale ending. She only had one person who could help her.

  She had me.

  Not much in the shining armor department, and nowhere near being a prince, charming or otherwise. I should have done the smart thing. I should have left.

  I did the right thing, instead.

  Hairy monkey brain shut down, rational thinking mind shut up, and the pure, cold intelligence that had planned Dulka’s defeat kicked into gear. I stood up and whispered dark, angry words into the night.

  “Ignus Infernum!” I hissed, and called up pure Hellfire. It slid up my legs and over my body until it settled on my arms and hands. There’s no way to miss being lit up by it, but King managed. Alexis, however, opened her red-rimmed eyes and looked directly at me. Maybe it was her gasp that caught Dominic’s attention, maybe it was the sickly black light that was flickering across the ceiling and walls, but whichever it was, it made him turn to face me. He rose up to look at me, and that put him right where I wanted him. Off of Alexis.

  “Dominic King!” I yelled. The Hellfire amplified my voice so that it shattered glass and cracked wood, and sent shards of glass flying into the room. The challenge alone knocked him off the bed and across the floor. Alexis scampered across in front of me to gather her pants and top, then found an out of the way corner to hide in. I stepped through the shattered window and flung my hands forward, screaming the release phrase for the spell at the top of my lungs. “MITTERRE !”

  Infernal flame flew across the room in a solid column of sickly blue and black, leaving a dull boom in its wake. King almost got a strong enough defense up, but not quite. The purple miasma of his shield bowed in for half a heartbeat before the hellish flames, then it buckled. The blast hit him mid-chest and flung him across the lodge. As in: through the wall, across the main room, and out through the other wall. I crossed the bedroom to the smoking ruin of the inner wall, sparing a moment to give Alexis a glance and a nod as she scrambled into her clothes.

  Brad and the boys cowered back when I stepped into the main room, caught between me in my adolescent wrath, and their master’s twisted spell over them. Their half-naked master clambered back in through the hole I had sent him out through, looking stunned and worried.

  “Who the hell are you?” he blustered.

  “Chance Fortunato, asshole!” I yelled back at him as I pulled the TK wand from my pocket and the paintball gun from its holster on my left leg. Without stopping, I sent a blast from the TK wand screaming across the room at him and flung him back out through the same hole.

  He came back in barely a second or two later, and I had to hand it to him for sheer balls. Not many people co
uld handle a blast of Hellfire, much less survive a telekinetic blast as a chaser. I suppose that should have been my first clue as to how deep in it I really was. When he moved again, it was an impossibly fast leap into the room. I barely got a TK blast off before he was right in front of me, and I was sliding across the floor on my back. It was only after I stopped moving that I felt the pain in my chest from where he'd stiff-armed me. My arms were heavy as I tried to get the wand back up, but I found myself staring at empty hands. Then, he was in front of me again, with his fist drawn back and a savage snarl on his face. I barely had time to think “Not again!” before it came crashing down across my face and the world went black for the second time that night.

  Chapter 14

  ~ Never assume anyone you’ve broken will stay that way. ~ Infernal provern.

  I woke up to a new ringing in my ears and the sound of flesh on flesh. The whole left side of my face felt like it was on fire and my arms were pinned behind me by something firm, but kinda fuzzy. There was another slap across my left cheek, and my head was rocked to the side.

  “Wake up, boy,” King growled. My eyes grated open, though the left one only came up about part way. “Time to scream.”

  “You,” I rasped, “hit like a girl.” That earned me another slap, and maybe a few more minutes of semi-consciousness. When my focus cleared again, King was still there, with his index and middle finger of his right hand pressed against my forehead.

  “Who's with you?” he demanded. The reverb in his voice and the pressure in my head were demanding an answer. It felt like it would be so much better to tell him what he wanted to know, what he deserved to know, so I could be good and he would reward me. The compulsion hit my mental wards like a bug on a windshield. “Who brought you here?”

  Another compulsion broke against my defenses. I knew I could hold him off pretty much indefinitely, but eventually, he'd figure that out. I had no idea how long I'd been out, but hopefully, Lucas and Wanda had called the police by now. Still, I needed to give them as much time to get as far away as they could, and wait for the cops to get here.

  “I…I came…” I whispered, willing him to lean in closer. He did, and I drew my head back and smashed it into his nose. There was a sickening crack and I felt cartilage give against my forehead before I saw King staggering back with his hand over his nose and blood streaming over his scraggly beard. “I came alone!” I said defiantly.

  King howled in pain for a moment, then straightened and started pressing against his nose with his fingertips. My stomach lurched as I heard a grating sound, then he pulled his hands away. No more blood flowed from his nostrils, and his nose looked close to straight.

  “Werewolf, dumbass,” he chided me. “I can heal from most anything. He's not alone, boys.”

  “He hangs out with some Goth bitch named Wanda, and that loser, Lucas Kale,” Brad offered.

  “Good thinkin',” King said with narrowed eyes. “Pete, take a couple of the boys and head for the road. Check by the gate.”

  I cursed silently. How had he figured out I was stalling? Had his mind control worked somehow? “What makes you think I'd drag anyone else along?”

  “If you came alone, you'd want me to think you didn’t.” He gave me a smug grin as I thought about what he'd said. He was right, if I'd been alone, I'd be trying to make him think the cavalry was coming when it wasn't, so he wouldn't want to hurt me for fear of being found out. In trying to buy my friends some time, I'd admitted to doing something stupid instead.

  “You're not as dumb as you look,” I admitted. He just gestured to Brad in response, and suddenly, I was hoisted over his shoulder. He carried me into another room and dumped me on the floor. My head bounced off what felt like concrete or stone, and I saw stars for a moment. When my vision cleared, the lights were on, and I could see that I was in a kitchen. Everything was done in industrial steel and institutional white except for the red stone floor against my face.

  “You son of a bitch!” Brad hissed, and my inspection of the floor was interrupted by his boot in my stomach. “Who was that bastard with you at school? Who shot Rick?” Each question earned me another boot to the body. With my hands tied behind me, I couldn't protect myself very well, even curled up into the smallest ball I could manage. He kicked me one more time, and I spewed lunch across his shoes. With a curse, he danced away from me.

  While he was wiping his shoes clean, Alexis slipped in and closed the door. Her eyes zeroed in on me as I lay there gasping and retching, and a frown flickered across her face. Brad started for me again, but she stopped him with a hand on his shoulder.

  “Brad, please,” she said softly.

  “Don't tell me you feel sorry for this punk,” he sneered.

  She shook her head and closed her eyes before turning them on him full force. “No, it's not him. You know I hate it when he makes me go with him like that,” she said softly. “I need your touch, Brad.” She melted into his arms for a moment, then his hand went to the nape of her neck. He pulled her head back by her hair and nuzzled at her neck before he covered her mouth with a deep kiss. His other hand reached around and groped at her ass while he held her against his body.

  “He didn't get too far this time, did he?”

  Her voice was rough as she forced out a “No.”

  “Good. You're still mine, no matter what he does to you,” he murmured as his hands wandered over her body.

  After a moment, she pushed back against him. “Brad, not now,” she protested.

  “C'mon baby, don't tell me you're getting modest all of the sudden.” He grabbed her ass and pulled her back to him. She shoved herself away from him and stepped back.

  “You don't get it,” she spat at him. “You never did.” She shoved him toward the door, and he gave her a lost look before he shook his head and slipped out into the main room. She threw another curse after him before she turned away from me and put her hands on the counter.

  “Last thing you want right now,” I managed to get out, “is sex.”

  “Shut up!” she cried. “Besides, what the hell would you know about it?”

  “More'n you think.”

  “Yeah, right. What the hell do you want from me, anyway?” Her eyes were dark, and the question caught me off guard.

  “Nothing!” I finally managed to get out. “I didn't even plan on getting involved in all this. But I saw what he was doing, and…I just…I know what it's like, okay? And I couldn't…I couldn't just…I had to do something. Even if it was stupid.” I saw a faint hope in her eyes. For a moment, it looked like she was going to say something. Whatever it was, it was lost when the door opened.

  Three of the werewolves trooped in with limp forms over their shoulders and laid their burdens down unceremoniously before turning and leaving. One of them handed Alexis a bundle of things on his way out, and her eyes went to the people on the floor before she set whatever it was on the counter. Three pairs of feet were all I could see no matter how hard I craned my neck. I recognized Wanda's chunky wedge heels and Lucas's worn sneakers, but the pair of leather loafers and black slacks were new. Who was that guy?

  “What the hell were you thinking, bringing them back here?” I head King scream in the front room. “Why didn't you just kill them?”

  “We've never killed anyone before, sir,” one of them protested. There was a thud and a yelp from the front room, and I saw someone fly past the door.

  “Too bad. Learn quick, boy. Better him than you!”

  “The third guy's a cop!” someone called out.

  “What?” King bellowed. “Son of a bitch! You idiots took a cop?” More thumps and cries of pain followed.

  “We didn't know!” one of the guys cried out. “He wasn't in a cop car, and he didn't have a uniform on!”

  “He prolly told someone where he was going,” King growled. “Pigs don't go nowhere alone.”

  “What do we do, sir?” Brad asked with a tremble of desperation in his voice.

  “I'm thinking! We
gotta get rid of them somehow…leave no trail back to us,” King replied. The rest was cut off as Alexis pushed the door closed. She stepped out of sight, and I heard water running, then she was kneeling beside me with a rag in her hand. For a moment, she seemed undecided about something as she cocked her head at some muffled sound from the front room. Then she slipped her hand in her right front pocket and pulled something out.

  “We have to get your friends out of here,” she whispered as she reached behind me. I heard the click and scrape of handcuffs being unlocked; suddenly, my wrists were free, and Alexis was tucking a pair of handcuffs lined with pink fur into her back pocket.

  “Yours?” I had to ask. She just nodded and blushed. Monkey brain expressed its approval, and I slapped it back down before it could conjure up any visuals to distract me. As I was wrestling my hormones, she reached down and snapped the rope around my ankles. I sat up and she pressed the wet rag into my hands. While I wiped my face off, Alexis went back to the door to keep an eye on things. I knew she was a victim here as much as anything, but I still wasn't sure how far I could trust her. At the moment, though, I didn't have much of a choice. She was our only shot at getting out of here alive.

  My knife, wallet and a couple of my cinnamon candies were on the counter's smooth surface, next to a leather shoulder holster and another wallet. Once the knife and my wallet were back in my pockets, and one of the cinnamon candies was burning my tongue, I flipped the wallet open to see a badge and ID. Officer Demetrius Collins’ stern face stared back at me from the card. Lucas' keys and Wanda's cell phone were under the holster, and I stifled a curse. How in the hell was I going to get all three of them out of there?

  As my brain wrestled with the problem, I went to the end of the counter and flipped my knife open. Lucas and Wanda were just tied up, and the ropes were easy enough to cut through. Collins' feet were tied, but he was handcuffed like I had been…only without the cute fur. It was a good bet his key was in someone's pocket in the front room.