But I had a lot of life. The power fed me by my sword burned in my cells. I pulled golden magic through my body, gathering that lifeforce, drawing it to where I needed healing. My labored breathing strengthened. I felt warmth in the punctures as they closed. Skin knitted and pain fled as I became fully functional again.
Hearing slow steps, I turned and saw a woman approaching. Her eyes were black ice, her lips the blue of sorrow. She was thin and tall with milk-colored skin that would done a vampire proud. Her hair fanned behind her, descending from a silver crown dotted with black diamonds. Black silk veils wrapped her body, whispering as she moved. She carried a single black rose in her left hand, and behind her—like an evil omen—an onyx throne rose, its back like bat wings catching the winds of night.
Her sigh preceded her. She spoke in a voice sharp as a razor, “Now you’ve gone and spoiled my fun. I had wanted to play with you a little longer.”
My sword shrieked, Give her to me!
My cock said, No! She obviously need to be fucked to death. Really, it’s the only merciful thing to do.
Shut up! I told them both.
My Dragon Sight tattoo still burned, bringing little comfort. My magic found no weapons on her except the rose. It registered as a familiar of all things. My vision tagged her in overdrive with an ever climbing evaluation of power. Here was one of the Old Ones; a fey who’d lived ages, steeping herself in dark power until she was at the verge of transitioning into something more than fey, something beyond dangerous.
I slanted a glance across the great chamber, looking for an exit. fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck! No doors or windows.
I backed away, calling on my inner dragon. I need your wings.
My inner dragon stirred, looking out of my eyes at what was slowly advancing on us. You’re afraid of a girl?
“Just give me those fornicating wings, lizard-breath!”
Hearing me talk to myself, the Old One paused. She tapped her chin with the black rose. I could tell the petals were carved from obsidian. She said, “I’m sorry, am I interrupting something?” And then she was gone, not even a blur of motion.
I spun, somehow knowing she’d be behind me. She was, close as death. Her right hand caught my right wrist, taking control. She lifted my wrist, bringing my demon sword vertical, posting it between us so it could flip-off God.
I jerked with dragon strength, but my hand didn’t budge. I reached with my thoughts and brought a Berretta PX4 Storm out of nowhere. The comforting weight filled my free left hand. I felt my shoulder blades heating with golden fire, the bone reshaping, flowing. Calcium spurs poked out of my back, ripping shirt, vest, and coat. Blood drizzled down my back, dampening the cloth.
The wings were on the way, but I needed to buy time.
Her gaze ignored me for the moment, sliding along my black sword. She said, “Oh, how pretty.” The sword’s red haze glossed her black-ice eyes, adding a little pink color to her face. She smiled with thin, cruel lips. White flashed, ridges of spiky bone that reminded me of piranha teeth. She ran her rose through the red haze, twirling it up like a cotton candy vender. The demon sword aura seemed to have no effect on her rose. Drawing the rose to her lips, she lapped the petals and the haze that clung to them.
Her voice cut the cold air. “I hear the screams, I feel the despair of those devoured. Their torment is so rich!”
My sword whimpered in fear and called to me. Caine, help!
I held still, suppressing the pain, trying to keep her unaware of the wings forming behind me. If she smelled blood, I hoped it would be attributed to my previous wounds. True, I had the semi-automatic in my left hand, but I had the feeling that with the first shot, she’d break my right wrist in retaliation. I was putting that moment off as long as possible.
My sword continued to beg. Caine, please…
Oh, friggin’ hell. I cleared my throat. “Excuse me, but I would really prefer you didn’t damage my demon sword. They’re hard to come by.”
“Ah, a demon sword. I’ve heard of these, but never seen one. It’s alive, isn’t it? And hungry. I feel endless hunger, bottomless thirst, but it vibrates with so many deaths. So many souls are chained to it.” She closed her eyes and inhaled sharply. “The scent intoxicates. I feel my own hunger sharpening.”
The weight of my wings was growing. Fresh muscle and nerve tissue burned, screaming at me.
She licked the blade with a tongue of blue-shadows that stretched out a good seven inches. Touching the energies of the blade had no effect on her except to produce a sexual squeal of excitement. Her grip on my right wrist tightened painfully, as a mist of silver-blue spirit energy wafted from the sword, drawn in with her breath. Like a leach—the vampire kind that drain lifeforce—she did to my sword what my sword normally did to others.
The sword said, Caine, don’t let her eat me! You really want a lifeless sword?
What I want is more time, dammit. Oh, well.
I swung my handgun’s muzzle up to her face. “Ever seen one of these?”
She went still, eyes fixed on the weapon. She frowned as fey instinct warned her of danger. “Cold iron? If your sword cannot harm me, why do you think this curious toy can?”
Curious toy? It seems she doesn’t get out much.
I squeezed off a shot, aiming between her eyes, hoping the shock would cause her to release my sword hand. At the moment of firing, I closed my eyes, not wanting to blind myself with the muzzle flash. There was a hard crack of sound and red light seen through my eyelids. I opened my eyes, my hand still captive.
Her head was back, face turned to the sky. Her tongue poked up like an aerial, its tip a coil.
I lowered the gun so it pointed at her stomach.
Her face came back down. The tip of her tongue coiled around the bullet. Her eyes blinked. Gunpowder stippling dotted her milky flesh. As I watched, the grains sank into skin and vanished. Her gaze cleared. I saw real anger from her for the first time, her face hardening into a scowling, demonic mask. Her grip on my right wrist tightened even more.
I felt the bones break. If she expected a reaction, I disappointed her. The pain my own magic regularly inflicts on me out-scaled so simple an injury.
“That all you got, bitch? Have some more.” I emptied the full clip into her jerking body. By the last shot, she released me, staggering back a few steps. While she was off balance, I returned the gun to my armory and joined hands on the sword hilt. I rushed in with a high, horizontal slash that I hoped would take off her head.
But my chicken-hearted sword swerved in my weakened grip. Caught off-balance, I couldn’t keep the demon blade on track, and was wrenched into a fall, the slick floor betraying me as well. I hit heavily. The sword skidded out of reach, and jumped back to my armory on its own, abandoning me.
Fucking sword! I’ll get you for this.
I warmed my Dragon Fire tattoo and paid the price in agony as my head exploded into what felt like smoking ruin. As the pain retreated, I brought my hands up to throw fire at the Old One. Only she was gone.
Not again.
My left fist ignited, becoming a fire-wrapped mace. I used a spinning back-fist attack. Coming around, I saw I was right, that she had blind-sided me once more. I think this was a method she’d developed for ratchetting up fear. What she didn’t realize was that it also made her predictable. My flaming fist rocked her head.
She collapsed into a pool of darkness that drained away to nowhere.
I kept my body turning and caught her with a second blow as she surged up, trying to blind-side me once more. This time, she held her ground, reaching out, seizing my coat and pulling me so my back was to her. Her hands shifted to my newly formed dragon wings. Her fingers dug in. And she tore the wings off, breaking the ribbing, sheering the bone-spurs cleanly from my shoulder blades.
It hurt. It really fuckin’ hurt. I choked on a scream.
Her cold laughter cut like a whip.
THIRTY-FOUR
“There’s crazy, insanely
stupid, and then there’s me.”
—Caine Deathwalker
Her laughter echoed off the far walls and the floor, rising to the fixed eclipse in the shadow-sky above. Yeah, she was scary, working hard at it, but I didn’t have to work at all; scary is my middle name. I joined her laughing as dragon fire climbed my arms, spreading across stomach, chest, and back. And then I was wearing the fire as a mask, and not burning at all. No dragon is burned by their own fire. I poured flame from my flesh, driving her back, and back.
She screeched, an inhuman sound. Her substance thinned, as she became a three-dimensional shadow you could look through. Her shape enlarged as her substance dispersed. And her eyes were black pits rimmed with white like the lunar eclipse above. She was living darkness, rising up above the roaring fire like smoke, running from the one element she couldn’t face, and already halfway to the hall’s high rim.
No, you are not escaping me.
I ran to the wall, swerving to follow its curve as I got there. Pressed against my abdomen, my broken wrist throbbed, each sharp movement stabbing it with knives. My inner dragon was fixing the damage to my back and wrist, and doing a little more besides; my hands were becoming claws, the kind you need to rip fey apart. Pain was fading.
Feeling almost my old self again, I leaped and landed atop the angled shaft of a torch, staying just long enough to launch again. And again. And again. I didn’t follow the gradual upward spiral but leaped higher, setting a diagonal course from curved line to line. Hop by hop, using dragon strength, I let momentum build, but never tried to jump too far. Landing with too much force would break a torch and start my escape all over from scratch. If I lost track of her now, the murder and mayhem in my heart would rage unquenched, and I’d miss out on a world of payback.
The Old One’s shadow haze spilled over the rim like black mist.
A last leap carried me out of the barrel. I landed on the top edge, a four foot rim where wind screamed. Black and white crows scattered, taking wing. I looked over the edge for my prey and only my heightened vision discerned one shadow moving through others, running into a labyrinth of obsidian walls.
A maze. How quaint.
There was something off about the walls, a not quite solid feel. The material seemed to ripple in place.
Of course, this is Fairy where everything is suspect. Now, how do I get down from here? Only one thing occurred to me. I hoped I’d live through it.
Facing the wall I wanted to descend, I dangled my legs over the edge and slid down to hang by my scaly, oversized hands. I kept tension in my finger, digging claw-tips into stone, and allowed gravity to do the rest. My claws gripped the obsidian with full dragon strength, trying to dig furrows to slow my descent. The process didn’t work as well as I hoped since the surface was so damn slick.
The scrape of nails was loud. My speed too high. Seeing this, I kicked off the wall for distance, and crashed through tree limbs that slowed me at the expense of a few gouges and bloody scrapes. I came out of the tree limbs and slammed into some picketed horses. They panicked, stumbled sideways, pulled free, and ran away. Then I crashed into the ground. Alive. It was just as well I’d sent the horses off; their dead owners inside the building wouldn’t be needing them anymore.
I picked myself up and ran toward the oddly shimmering surfaces of the dark maze.
Plunging into the labyrinth, I noticed that the walls were thin, and that they were made of black chains that swished, producing a metallic shimmering sound. This was a hunter’s maze. The sound would distract prey from footfalls, and the hunter could go through the walls to make a kill. A challenging environment. Normally, I’d go high and use the top of the walls as a road. Here, the top of the frames that held the curtains of chain were razor edged. They’d slice through my shoes and then start on my feet.
The Old One had run, but only to lead me to a killing ground of her choice. She’d be lying in wait now, ready to ambush me. And the razor edges up above wouldn’t cut her. Darkness doesn’t bleed. I needed her to return to being a corporeal fey. Dragon Flame was just going to drive her off for a while. Perhaps fighting darkness with darkness… I looked at the back of one clawed hand where I wore the shadow brand I’d made. A thought pulled out dark jags of energy to dance along the skin.
My heightened dragon senses pulled in the moan of wind, the shimmer of fine chains, and little else. Using the edge of sight like a predator wasn’t working; there was too much rippling from the walls. They caught at my attention, distracting me. I tried easing through a wall to see how quietly it could be done. The excess sounds could be heard but not from too far away. Of course, crashing through a wall would be different.
I decided to go with a what-the-hell tactic. From inside a wall, I threw handfuls of chain up over the razor edge until I had metal wrapping the top as insulation. Stepping out of the wall, I used dragon strength to jump up to the wrapped edge. I balanced there, using the added height to see if the dark fey were running toward me. I saw no suspicious shadows in motion.
Damn. This is going to take a while.
I jumped down and crossed to another section of wall deeper in the maze. I eased myself through and started to down a corridor. From a distance, her laugh soared, a taunting slash at my confidence. The bitch was trying to rattle me.
Like that’s going to work.
I took a moment to strip my upper body. Dank with blood, shirt, vest, and coat were uncomfortable and a hindrance to the smooth flow of my muscles. My thoughts reached through my arsenal tattoo across the veil between worlds, pulling a Kevlar vest out of thin air. Getting the vest on was difficult with my enlarged, claw hands. Thinking about it, I let my right hand begin the process that would return it to normal. I waited until I could grip a handgun, then summoned one from my armory. That gave me close range and distance attacks.
As an extra safeguard, I flushed all of my tattoos with raw golden magic so my full array of spells were at fingertips. Multiple agonies competed for my attention as I paid for the spells. My feet felt flayed and soaked in acid. My intestines knotted, my heart exploded in my chest, and it seemed as if my eyeballs wanted to burst from a hot steam injection.
My thoughts focused through the sensations as they faded. I imagining all the things I wanted to do to this bitch: Damn shit-stick licking douche-mongering twat of an ass-clown. You will share my pain.
Payment made, I shrugged off the psychic after-shocks, smiled, and stealthily advanced across small black brickwork with dead weeds poking up at intervals. The metallic whispers of the chains hid the sounds of my steps, giving the enemy the same advantage. Minutes crept by, but I was pretty sure she didn’t have escape in mind. An ancient fey wouldn’t believe she could lose. Her death was going to come as a hell of a surprise.
I should have been tired from a day of battle, from full transformations, magic expenditure, and from the drain that hyper-vigilance requires, but my system was flushed with adrenaline; my tiredness crowded away by the joy of killing. Red eyed rats took one look at me and scurried away.
I made several turns and found myself in a very long corridor. This aisle might very well divide the entire maze. And dead center, waiting for me, was the Old One. I saw her human shape, but there was still a shady, spectral quality to it. My dragon flame had taught her the danger of being too close, too solid. I moved toward her. No hesitation. Relentless. The grim reaper’s calling, baby!
But it seemed too easy. Why had she chosen this place? What was special about here? I swept the brick work with my dragon enhanced sight. The bricks lost definition in a spot fifteen feet from her. They kinda melted together. As I approached that spot, I breathed deeply, drawing in all scents. The Old One could use fey glamour to deceive my eyes, her power being considerably greater than other fey I’d messed with. I needed to suspect everything around me.
I caught the scent of old, rotted blood. She’d killed here before, though not recently.
I stopped at the lip of the suspect bric
ks, noticing that they were gummed with dried blood and gore. Here and there, I saw fragments of bone. I also heard breathing left and right, coming from the side walls of chain. Two … things … were there. One was cannily quiet. The other thought it was doing the same, but I heard the soft, near-vibration of its impending roar, straining for release.
Monsters in a maze, how unoriginal.
I showed her my best wicked smile. “Nice trap. Too bad it’s not enough.”
Her own smile stayed in place, but showed a hint of tension.
I didn’t want her to flee again while I tangled with the hiding beasts, so I decided to try to stun her and then deal with the other threats. Manifesting as a shade protected her from my claw-hand, handgun, and dragon fire, but it didn’t protect her from shadow magic. My hand swung up, wreathed in shadow lightning. I hurled stabbing forks of black energy at her. She wasting a precious moment of reaction time by staring.
Fuckin’ surprise, bitch!
I understood her disbelief; she was Mistress of Darkness, she ruled the Shadow Court. No one was supposed to be able to use her element against her, especially an outsider to Fairy. My black lightning cut through her ephemeral presence. She wilted, screaming, and sprawled on her face, shuddering into silence. Her long-nailed hands clawed at the black bricks.
A few steps ahead and to either side of the corridor, the chains lashed violently as big, dark shapes lumbered through. Black fur with a satin sheen, slabs of muscle, small heads with glowing, orange-red eyes. I recognized wolf traits, but there were simian elements as well, and the tails definitely seemed lizard.
They growled, whirling toward me, going shoulder to shoulder while putting themselves between me and my prey. My black fire tangled them, stinking the air with burnt fur. Shrill, falsetto roars burst from their lips. They staggered, but remained standing.
Demon Lord 5: Silver Crown King Page 26