Redemption (Ascendancy Legacy 6)

by Bates, Bradford

  A growl erupted from my throat. I jumped, and I could see John’s eyes widen in surprise as my blade came down at an angle, taking off the demon’s head. I dropped my sword and grabbed the demon, throwing it backward a few feet. It wouldn’t have done me much good to kill it only to have it crush my husband anyway. John dusted himself off and started moving toward the gate.

  “One more thing to do,” he shouted as he ran by.

  “Isn’t that always the case?”

  His magic bounced harmlessly off the gate, but it kept the demons from being able to slide the final few pieces into place. I passed him at a flat-out sprint, sword held above my head. I brought the blade down just as I was passing the gate. When the blade struck, it stopped, and I ended up sprawled on the ground. I got up and wrenched the blade free. This wasn’t going to work. It wasn’t a job for a sword.

  Sheathing the sword, I ran back in the other direction until I found the demon’s flail. As I hefted the weapon, I realized just how much danger John had been in. The spiked ball on the end was damned heavy. It was so big, that it felt clunky even to me. I ran back toward the gate and stopped two feet away. I held the morning star in both hands and started to swing the chain around. I aimed for the spot my sword had gashed into the structure. When the spiked back hit, huge pieces broke away. I didn’t know if that would be enough, so I hit it again and again until the left half of the gate fell off.

  John placed a hand on my back. “That should do it. Let’s go see if the others need help.”

  The gate started to topple over as we ran away from it. Several of the demons working on it were crushed as the structure crashed to the ground. I howled into the night, signaling our victory. I let the change take me and pulled John into a fierce hug when it was done. He gave me a lopsided smile and ran a hand through his black hair. He pointed across the battlefield, and all of my happiness washed away.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Marcus

  Sometimes I couldn’t stop thinking about how cool our lives really were. Sure, there was the fighting for your life thing that we consistently had to deal with, but that came with the chance to blow shit up. Tonight was going to start with jumping out of a helicopter. Normal people didn’t get to do this. Shit, a normal person would die if they did this shit. For me, it was starting to almost become routine. That didn’t make it any less heroic, with a huge slice of fun on the side.

  The light turned green, and I jumped. I felt April and Britta right next to me. I waited an extra second to activate my magic. I wanted to hit the ground first. This was my moment, the kind of moment I fell asleep dreaming about. Granted, I normally thought about a zombie hoard, and I was using an M-16 to mow them down, but this was even better. A horde of demons and only my magic to save us all.

  Some of the lesser demons charged at us as soon as we landed. I needed a moment to get my bearings. I created a circle of fire around us and pushed it outward. Some of the demons leaped through the flames, only to be put down by Britta and April. It was so cool watching them work together. Britta with the guns, and April with her swords. If they were characters on my PlayStation, it would have been just as sexy. Two beautiful killing machines. Did Britta just wink at me as she ran by? That was some sass I could respect.

  Why were these two getting to have all the fun? It was my turn to show them something cool. “Ladies, get over here and watch this.” They both gave me a look like I had better not have been giving them orders or addressing them as ladies. Well, it was too late to put that cat back in the bag, so I just waved them back over. It was my turn to show off now. Demons had started to gather around us in a circle, and I just couldn’t resist.

  “Whatever you’re doing, make it quick,” April shouted over the roar of the flames.

  “We won’t have long before they all say screw it and attack,” Britta added.

  “I don’t need long, trust me.”

  “Just what every girl wants to hear, Marcus,” Britta snapped.

  Ouch. I told you she was feeling sassy. Despite their reservations, they crowded around me. I pushed the fire out just a bit and then created a four-foot wall of ice around us in a circle. With a thought, I let the fire drop. I heard Britta swear, and then the demons started rushing in. April was about to move, and I grabbed her, pulling her back. Just as the demons hit the wall, spikes exploded around the outer edge, creating a barricade. A few made it over the wall, but Britta and April took care of them.

  “Your wall is nice and shiny, Marcus, but we have demons to kill,” Britta said.

  “We can’t do our job if we’re trapped in here. If you have more to this plan, make it happen,” April shouted.

  Oh, there was more to my plan, a method to my madness. I was the mad scientist of magic, and this was just the beginning. The demons continued to rush in. Now they were trying to break the spikes off of the wall or to pull their impaled brethren free. That was just what I was hoping for. With a thought, the entire wall shattered, and I sent the jagged shards of ice outward with explosive force.

  The idea had come to me when watching Saving Private Ryan. I always loved the scene where the sniper wounded one man to draw the others out in the open. That was my goal here—to get as many demons around us as possible, and then, whammy! It was like a targeted shrapnel bomb. The demons closest to the wall were torn to shreds. Anything in a fifteen-foot radius was pretty much dead. Outside of that, they were wounded. After about thirty feet, maybe a few scattered cuts. April and Britta walked through the carnage, making quick work of the wounded demons as we continued toward our target.

  “Ok, I’ll admit it. That was pretty fucking cool,” Britta said.

  “Literally,” April snarked.

  There really wasn’t anything I could say to that. It was true. The spell had been pretty fucking cool. It hadn’t worked nearly as well when I had practiced it. Guess I just worked better under pressure.

  As we approached the woman and the man directing all the demons, something fell out of the sky like a rocket pointed toward the earth. That had to have been Jackson. He slammed into the man, and as the dust settled, I couldn’t make out either of them anymore. The woman didn’t hesitate to take advantage of the distraction. She ran toward us, shedding her suit as she went.

  My first thought was, damn, girl. It quickly faded as her body was torn apart and replaced by a monstrosity. I wasn’t sure which thought came to mind first. Was she an imp or a succubus? Either way, her feminine beauty had been replaced with something less than endearing. Her wings were small shriveled things. I wondered if she would even be able to fly. On the other hand, her massive breasts hung down to her knees and swayed with each movement. It was disturbing and gross. It reminded me of playing Dante’s Inferno, except this was worse. Much worse.

  She came toward us, and Britta fired her gun center mass. Her body just seemed to absorb the bullets. How did you fight something that could absorb bullets? April threw one of her smaller knives, and the same thing happened. Except this time, the knife came back out and fell to the ground with a clank. Interesting. I wondered what it was going to take to bring her down, but I had a few ideas.

  Some crazy orc-looking thing had John pinned under its foot, and Britta was firing at it. Her bullets wouldn’t work on the fucking thing either. We really needed to get her training with her magic more. If we got out of this alive, I promised myself that I would help her.

  April ran toward the succubus thing and started to attack with her swords. They pretty much had the same effect as the rest of our weapons had. I was up. Summoning vines from the ground, I wrapped them around the demon's feet. The demon stopped moving for a second and then tore free. I cast the spell again, but this time I added thorns to the vines. Again she tore free, but the scratches on her feet remained. I tossed a fireball and a ball of ice at her from different directions. The fire just burst across her skin and dissipated. The ice sunk into her and then came back out as water.

  The demon was more like a jugge
rnaut than anything else. April had been slashing at her the entire time I had been casting magic. None of her attacks had even left a scratch. She looked at me and shrugged. Until that moment, the demon had been ignoring her and moved slowly and inexorably forward. As soon as April had diverted her attention, the demon snatched her from the ground with one of its massive hands. The demon started to squeeze April and lifted her above its head. I didn’t know if the damn thing was going to try and eat her or squeeze her to death. April’s face was already turning red. It didn’t seem to matter how hard April struggled; she couldn’t break free. Jackson was counting on me to keep these women safe. I couldn’t let him down.

  I grabbed one of the beads out of my hair. I had used these once before when we fought the ghouls, trying to secure the Jar of Souls. I sure hoped it worked now. I filled it with my magic and thought the words ignite. I ran forward and shoved it into the succubus’s belly. I jumped onto her arm and hit her with a jolt of lightning. Her fingers spasmed, and April fell free. I gathered her up and started to run.

  When the explosion went off, I was blown forward at least ten feet. April flew from my arms and landed hard on the ground in front of me. I rolled onto my back and looked behind me. This wasn’t like a dream anymore. This bitch had just turned into one of my nightmares. The succubus’s stomach was gone, as well as her huge sagging breasts. Half of her twisted face had blown off as well. And yet, she was still walking forward at almost the same pace. What in the hell was it going to take to bring this thing down? Her flesh started to knit back together, and Britta’s guns rang out.

  She emptied her two nine millimeter weapons into the gaping wound I had left on the succubus. She must have hit something important with one of her shots, because the demon finally stopped moving forward and fell to the ground. April dashed toward the demon and started to hack the thing’s head from its shoulder. It took her at least eight swings, but she finally got it.

  April turned to me covered in blood and gave me a thumbs-up. “Got it.”

  “Hell yeah, we did,” Britta said, doing a little fist pump.

  “Just another day in the life.” I couldn’t help but laugh. I had watched Office Space in my trailer before going to meet up with Jackson tonight, and all I kept hearing in my head was, “Damn, it feels good to be a gangster.”

  I turned to look where April was pointing. “Fuck.” As if this demon hadn’t already tested us enough.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Jackson

  Watching everyone jump out of the chopper before me was tough, but if I didn’t succeed at what I was doing, none of this mattered. Spotting my target was easy. As soon as I locked on to him, I jumped. I surrounded myself in a shield, and then another and another. There wouldn’t be any stopping myself this time. I might be able to take him out with one hit.

  Lucky turned to look at me at the last moment, and I went weightless for a split second before I slammed into him. The impact still left a crater in the ground. How either of us had lived was a shock to me. I climbed out of the small hole and scanned the battlefield. Lucky was standing on the other side of the crater and had a smile on his face. His tittering laugh filled the space between us.

  “Ballsy, I’ll give you that. Very ballsy.”

  “Well, I needed to do something to get your attention. It seems like every time we meet, you try and run away.”

  “I’m done running now.”

  I didn’t answer. I just leaped across the crater, pulling my swords from my back while I was in the air. Lucky dodged away from me and stood still as I landed next to him. His hands seemed to reach into empty space, and he pulled two black blades from out of nowhere. They looked like the same material as the dragon’s scales or the rocks from that world. That meant my swords wouldn’t be able to just cut through them. We were going to have an even fight. At least, as even as you could get while fighting a demon.

  Lucky’s laugh bridged the gap between us again. He crossed his swords in front of himself and gave me a little bow, as if we were facing off in some kind of duel or as gladiators. It was like he thought his little bow could convince me he wouldn’t use every dirty trick in the book to try and win. I had to be ready for anything. The white gem at his throat flared briefly, and I remembered that destroying it might be the key to winning. Moving my eyes away from the gem, I thought about every evil thing I had seen one of the demons do. It was because of him. All of that pain and suffering could be traced back to one man. I was so ready to rumble.

  He attacked first by kicking some dirt in my direction, hoping that I would watch his foot instead of the blades. He must have thought I was some kind of amateur. Didn’t he realize I practiced daily with one of the best swordmasters in the Ascendancy? April had taught me well, and my dad had given me a few old-school tricks. Lucky was going to have to do better than that to trick me.

  Our blades clashed, and then we broke apart. He had an advantage, at least on paper. His blades were longer than mine, but if I could get close enough to him, that advantage switched to me. He brought one blade down from overhead and kept the other blade poised to stab. As I blocked the first strike, his second blade jabbed out. Instead of blocking it, I spun closer to him. My initial thought had been to bat the blade aside, but he had left his core open. As I spun, my blade found the side of his stomach and cut through it.

  Lucky had spent too long being able to control people and read others’ thoughts. He couldn’t do that with me. His sword work was out of practice and sloppy. He might have been able to bring down an amateur, maybe. He paused, stabbing one blade into the ground and placing a hand over his wound. It glowed for a moment and then stopped bleeding. The look on his face told me all I needed to know. The wound hadn’t healed all the way, and he was going to try and run. So much for his little show a few moments ago. The demons all around us were engaged in a fierce battle. No one was left to witness his cowardice.

  Plucking the sword from the ground, he threw the blade at me. It wouldn’t do him anything except buy him a few seconds, but that might be too much time. I batted the blade away. It was such a lazy strike, but even those could be deadly. The blade spun away, falling harmlessly to the ground. I called on my wolf’s strength to accelerate. Lucky had a few steps on me, but I dove forward and slashed at the back of his leg. Bright red blood flowed out. I hadn’t expected that. Demons had black blood. Something was wrong here.

  Lucky stumbled a few steps forward before falling to the ground, clutching his leg. He tried to pick himself up, but fell back to the ground in a heap. He wasn’t laughing now. This was pure survival mode for him. I stalked closer, taking my time. He had a few more tricks up his sleeves. I knew it. When I was a step or two away, he rolled onto his back and slashed out with his blade. The tip of it cut across my leather jacket. Not deep enough to touch the skin, but it reminded me to be careful. Maybe I’d just been too careful. He was wounded, and it was time to end this.

  He tried to slash me again, but I had all the leverage. I knocked his blade aside and then brought my boot down on his wrist. I heard the bone break, and the blade fell out of his grasp. I kicked it away, and Lucky tried to shuffle backward. He left a trail of blood, so my swipe at his leg had been more on target than I had thought. Something vital in there had been nicked. Score one point for me.

  My hand moved back, and my sword slipped into place for the final strike. After this moment, the king of hell would be dead. The blade started to descend, and then the ground under my feet shifted, throwing me off balance. The strike went wide. I looked at Lucky, and he smiled but hadn’t been the one shaking the ground. Jesus, what could be happening now? A quick glance over my shoulder showed me the biggest demon I had ever seen bursting from the earth. The thing was the size of a large building. What in the fuck were we going to do against that?

  Lucky used my momentary distraction well. By the time I turned back from looking at the demon, he had created a portal and was pulling himself inside of it. He sent a blast of p
ower at me, knocking me back a few feet. It was enough. That tiny bit of magic had bought him enough time to slip away, again.

  The demon behind me roared, and I heard the demons chanting one word. Baphomet. Should I stay and help, or use the stone to go after Lucky? I spun around in a circle. The battle looked to be well in hand. Most of the key players were dead. I was going to go for it. Lucky had to be stopped once and for all.

  The demon stone felt warm in my hand, like it was ready to be used. I focused on the spot I had seen Lucky summon his portal. The edges ripped open and were tinged with red. The tendrils of energy flickered and wavered in the dark night. I knew I could end this. All I needed was the courage to step through that portal, knowing I might never see the people I loved again. I sent up a silent prayer that I would be able to make it back, and stepped into the darkness. Before the portal closed around me, I heard someone scream my name. I’d like to think that it was April. I’d keep her in my heart no matter where I ended up.

  When the portal spit me out, I wasn’t sure it had worked. At least, not until I saw the streaks of blood leading away. They stopped after a few feet, but it was easy enough to follow the bent grass. This place didn’t seem like hell. It reminded me of when I had first entered Adramelech’s realm. It had been peaceful. Almost as if I had gone back to a simpler time. A time with less people and less crazy. A place where people didn’t bring bombs to marathons, or go to the mall for any reason other than to purchase something.

  As far as I could tell, there were no people here, and no demons. There weren’t even the normal sounds of life you would find in a grassy field. Sure, the grass rustled against my pants as I moved, but there was no wind, no bugs, and no fucking life. This was a prison, just one of a different kind.