by Diem, J. C.
For a moment, I smirked at the idea of unleashing the legion on the angel. Raziel hated me almost as much as Hagith and Brie did. “That’s tempting,” I said at last. “But I might need him one day. It wouldn’t be a good idea to antagonize him more than I already have.” Ingesting his essence had ensured that he would never forgive me. He’d been brainwashed by Hag and Orifice to believe I was evil. Now that he was imprisoned inside me, he had no reason to believe otherwise.
“That is a pity,” Morax said with a sigh. “Could you at least conjure up some hellbeasts for us to hone our skills on?”
Heads turned towards me hopefully as I considered the idea. “I guess I could try.” I still wasn’t sure what I could and couldn’t do inside the recesses of my own mind. “I’ll see if I can create some kind of arena for you to fight them in.”
Concentrating, I made the building larger, then a round stage about fifty or so feet across appeared. I put impenetrable glass walls and a barred ceiling around it so nothing could get out and attack the crowd of onlookers. Creating a door made of glass, I made sure it only had a handle on the outside and that it couldn’t be opened from within. Some of the beasts in the underworld were smart enough to be able to figure out how to turn a handle.
“Impressive,” Morax said with one brow lifted in approval.
I felt a strange sense of pleasure at his praise and a chill went down my spine. At some unknown point, he’d ceased to be my enemy. We were forced to rely on each other, which had made us allies. How long would it be before I became their kin? “What sort of creatures do you want me to conjure up?” I asked.
“Something vicious that will offer us at least a vague challenge.”
“How about a pack of hellhounds?” They were dangerous enough that the pack that was tied to me had taken down a Demon Prince. I was pretty sure they could have killed him if I’d let them.
“A whole pack?” a lesser demon said with a squeak of fright. “They would tear us apart!”
Rolling my eyes at his theatrics, I concentrated again and mist appeared in the center of the stage. A single hellhound formed out of the darkness. Its eyes glowed scarlet and it turned in a circle to glare at us through the glass. A low growl emanated from its throat.
“You appear to be able to create beasts in the same manner that the hellgates can,” Morax observed. The hound didn’t just look shadowy, it was made of the mists from my mind. Much larger than a normal dog, it looked a bit like a Rottweiler, but it had far more teeth than any canine that I’d ever seen.
“I’ll set the arena to spawn a new creature after the current one dies,” I said. “It’ll spit out something different each time.” As an added surprise, I mentally ordered the arena to sometimes create multiple beasts just to shake up the legion. It should keep them occupied.
So far, I’d only seen a few of the hellbeasts that occupied the underworld. Giant rats, evil gnomes, wyverns, arachnoids, hellcats, hellhounds and nightmares would be suitable for their sport. Leviathans and dragons wouldn’t even fit in the arena, so they were out.
“This is going to be fun,” one of the female lords said and rubbed her hands together in glee. Apart from Morax and Sy, I hadn’t bothered to learn their names. Some part of me still hoped that I’d be able to evict them one day. I was afraid that discovering their names would somehow bind them to me indefinitely.
A scuffle broke out as everyone wanted to be the first to enter the arena and take on the hound. Shaking my head, I teleported to Heather’s house. Raziel’s prison was only a short distance away. Seeing the curtain in a window twitch, I knew he was spying on me. He made no move to try to get my attention, so I ignored him and knocked on the door.
Heather opened it and let me in. “It’s good to see you,” she said and gave me a hug. Even with Sytry for company, she was lonely. He was a demon and they had nothing in common, except for being stuck inside my head.
“I wish I could come more often,” I said apologetically as we walked over to the table.
“I know you don’t have any control over when you can visit,” she said with a shrug. “At least I have music and movies.” I’d created a radio, a TV and a stack of movies for her to watch. She also had a never ending supply of books. I had no idea how I managed to bring everything to life. It just proved that the mind was a powerful tool.
Sy was sitting on the floor in the living room as always. He looked up briefly then bent over a sketchpad again. His tongue crept out from the corner of his mouth as he worked on a new rune. I waited for him to finish it before I spoke. “I need to ask you something, Sy.”
Startled, he looked up with a frown. “What do you need, master?”
We all winced at his words. “I wish you’d stop calling me that.”
“I cannot help it,” he replied. Standing, he sloped over and took a seat. “I am surprised none of the others are calling you that yet.”
I’d been careful not to address any of the lesser demons directly now that I’d learned I was Sy’s master. As a lord, Morax had a lot more willpower. He wouldn’t easily bend his knee to a new master and I was fairly sure it was safe to talk to him still.
“What did you want to ask him?” Heather queried.
“Vepar is getting closer to locating our base. I need to know if she’ll be able to break in once she finds us.”
Sy’s face drained of color. “You have met Lord Vepar?”
“No. I only saw her from a distance.” Realizing they didn’t know that Vepar was cutting down demons to try to follow their evicted souls to our lair, I filled them in on her plan.
“This is bad,” Sy said when I was finished. “Vepar is one of the most evil and cunning lords I have ever had the displeasure of encountering.” All demons were evil, so this was saying something. “She is Dantanian’s consort, which just proves how twisted she is.”
Heather looked confused, so I explained. “Female lords never lower themselves to sleep with weaker demons. Dantanian is a scribe, not a warrior. It’s unnatural for her to be involved with him.”
“Then why would she have sex with him?”
“Sophia has a theory about that. She thinks Vepar is stringing the most powerful demons along, pretending to be in league with them all. She made a deal with the Prince of the ninth realm. She’s been plotting with Dantanian for four thousand years and she’s probably the Hellmaster’s pet as well.”
“It is true that she is plotting with the Head Scribe,” Sy confirmed. “I heard them talking in the Scriptorium once. I was hiding in the shadows and they did not realize I was there.”
“What did they say?” I asked. Clearly, Dantanian and Vepar hadn’t been as discreet as they’d thought.
“Dantanian was telling the lord to be patient. He told her that he was gathering the most powerful runes together and that they would one day turn the tide.”
“When was this?”
“A thousand or so years ago.”
“What did he mean that the runes would turn the tide?”
He shrugged uneasily. “I do not know. They moved away and I was too afraid to follow them. If they had learned that I had overheard them, I would have been punished severely.”
I mulled it over then let it go for now. There was no point worrying about a conversation that had happened so long ago. “Will Vepar be able to break into our base?” He might know if there were any runes that would enable her to infiltrate the building.
“It is possible,” Sy conceded. “I am only one scribe among thousands. I do not know what runes the others might have created.”
Unsurprised to hear that, I suppressed a sigh. “Your runes are great at keeping the angels out, but can you guarantee that they’ll keep demons out as well?”
He shrugged miserably. “They should, but for all I know, Dantanian may very well have spells to counter the ones that I have taught you.”
“If you come up with anything new that can help us, let me know,” I instructed him.
He bowed his
head. “Yes, master.” We all winced again and I faded out of the dream.
₪₪₪
Chapter Twenty-Six
Without any firm assurance that Sy’s runes would be able to keep Vepar and her death squad out, we had to resort to my original plan. I would have to try to lure stray souls away when they were evicted. Fortunately, she’d already whittled down the demon packs that had unknowingly staked out their territory near our base. She had to move further afield to find fresh victims.
Nathan and Leo took turns escorting me out on patrols during the day. I was with Nathan when my feathered nemesis finally tracked me down. Catching sight of the skeletal bird out of the corner of my eye, I turned to face it when it came to rest on a windowsill two floors above us. “Long time no see,” I said to it, knowing that it could understand me. It glared at me through its single milky eye. The other eye socket still wept black blood. It didn’t look like the wound was ever going to heal. Undead beasts weren’t the same as demons. Maybe they weren’t able to heal, or maybe the injury wouldn’t fade because of who and what I was.
Nathan put his hand on my shoulder and teleported us away. “I do not trust that creature,” he muttered when we appeared on a street near the Upper East Side.
I could see Zach’s apartment building from here. I took one long look at the penthouse before turning away. As casually as possible, I headed northward. “I wish I knew how it keeps finding me,” I said.
“Perhaps it is able to communicate with other birds,” he suggested. “It could have spies everywhere.”
We walked past a flock of pigeons that had gathered around a stale piece of bread. Ignoring us completely, they were in a pecking frenzy. I watched them warily until they were well behind us. I’d been attacked several times now and I’d developed a slight fear of anything with wings. Thankfully, it was nowhere near as strong as my claustrophobia.
“The city is full of birds,” I said darkly. “It kind of makes sense that it’s using them to find me.” I wondered why it had been absent until now. Maybe its master had been keeping it busy in hell. As far as I knew, the raven was the only creature that could move freely between Earth and the underworld. Creatures that had been created in hell couldn’t survive for long in this dimension. The bird had been taken through a hellgate while it had still been alive. Beasts were different from humans. They didn’t become imps, but instead became undead minions of the ruler of hell.
Knowing my nemesis was searching for me made me jumpy. My head turned constantly as I kept a watch for it. It only took a few minutes for it to find us again. “It’s back,” I said to Nathan.
“I see it,” he replied, but he didn’t turn to face it or try to teleport us away. “Perhaps we should pretend we do not know it is there and wait for it to make a move.”
It was hard not to hunch my shoulders as we waited for it to strike. As surreptitiously as possible, I searched the sky, expecting it to call on its avian allies to attack us. Instead, it merely glided from spot to spot as it followed in our wake. “What’s it waiting for?” I muttered after we’d been walking for half an hour or so.
“I do not know,” Nathan replied uneasily. Even he was becoming a bit spooked by it. We both knew it was up to something, but we didn’t know what it was.
Catching sight of a boiling mass of black souls streaming towards me, I barely had time to brace myself before I was inundated by fresh evil. Nathan held me as I suffered through the thoughts and memories of a new batch of six demons. Again, I saw the vessel that Vepar had taken possession of, but only because I was looking for her this time.
“Did you see anything of importance?” my guardian asked when it was over.
“Not really. Vepar and her minions are to blame again.”
We were both distracted by the barrage. We didn’t notice the raven was swooping towards us until the last moment. Nathan pushed me out of the way and the bird’s talons raked across his face instead of hitting me in the back of the head. Blood flowed down his right cheek from deep scratches. He winced in pain and glared at the unholy raven. Lifting a hand to blast it from the sky with his power, it flapped its wings frantically to escape. I saw a brief flash of bright light then the bird squawked in pain. A few mangy feathers drifted to the ground when it slammed into the wall of a building. Instead of dropping to the ground, it managed to right itself and painfully flew away. Strange shadows clung to its feet, obscuring them from my view.
Nathan turned to me and a chill went down my spine when I saw that the wounds hadn’t healed. Thin black lines had formed with small tendrils branching off them. He staggered and I caught him before he could fall. “Something is wrong,” he said and his voice was slurred. “I do not feel well.”
He went down to his knees and I didn’t have the strength to keep him on his feet. Reaching out mentally, I called Brie to me. Appearing on the sidewalk beside us, she was startled for a moment as she took in the scene. “Take us to our base,” I told her.
Obeying me without question, she whisked us to the alley behind the store. The angels that were keeping watch couldn’t see us from this vantage point.
The backdoor was locked and I banged on it with my fist as Brie did her best to prop Nathan up. He was on the verge of unconsciousness and would collapse at any moment.
Leo opened the door and shock coursed over him when he saw Nathan’s condition. “What happened?” he asked.
“Take him to my room,” I said instead of answering him then turned to Brie. “I need your blood.” Thanks to Sy’s runes, she couldn’t enter the store. The only reason she’d appeared in my bedroom was because I’d drawn her directly to me. The runes had been localized to that one area rather than spreading out to encompass the entire building. I’d have to reactivate them again to allow her inside. It would be quicker just to add her blood to the runes that already existed.
She offered her hand without comment while Leo took Nathan from her. I pulled my dagger and pricked her finger. Smearing her blood on my fingers, I dashed into the front room and added her blood to Sy’s runes. Seeing my panic, Sophia pushed away from the table and raced after me to the kitchen. Leo and Nathan were gone and I could hear Sam talking upstairs. His voice was urgent as he asked Leo what was going on.
“You can enter now,” I told Brie. She darted inside and Sophia shut and locked the door again. Brie took us by the hand and teleported us all upstairs into my room. I pushed my way past them to see Nathan lying on my bed. His eyes were closed and he was breathing shallowly.
“What has happened?” Sophia asked.
“It was the raven,” I explained as I knelt next to my bed. Nathan had lapsed into unconsciousness and the scars were wider. “It scratched him with its talons and now it looks like he’s infected with the same sort of toxin that’s inside me.” That explained why its feet had been hidden by strange shadows. It had been carrying part of the Hellmaster’s evil essence with it like some kind of deadly plague.
From the corner of my eye, I saw them exchange disturbed glances. “I thought only Wraith Warriors could cause this type of injury,” Brie said.
“Who knows what the Hellmaster is capable of?” Sophia replied. “Can you heal him?”
“I can try,” the teen said, but she didn’t sound very certain. I made room for her and she placed her hand on Nathan’s forehead. She concentrated for a while then shook her head. “It is not working. This wound is not normal. I can feel the evil spreading through him.”
His face was pale and he was sweating. I’d managed to survive the toxin, but only because I was Hellscourge. I had some sort of natural resistance to it. Nathan was an angel and his system wasn’t designed to withstand evil. The raven had tried to mark me with its master’s toxin, probably in an effort to try to weaken me. Instead, it had wounded my guardian by mistake. He should have been nearly immortal and only having his essence harvested would leave him vulnerable. Yet I could see the evidence that he was going to die right in front of me.
“W
hat can we do?” Sam asked. He stood at the foot of my bed, wringing his hands in worry.
“There is nothing that we can do to help him,” Brie said sadly. “We can only try to make him comfortable in his final moments.”
“No,” I refuted fiercely. “I’m not going to let him die.”
“I do not think that you can stop it,” Sophia told me. She sounded close to tears.
“Like hell I can’t.” Leaning forward, I put my hands on Nathan’s chest and kissed him. Voices protested and they tried to pull me away. I ignored them as if they didn’t exist. My rage was stronger than all of them. Not even holy power could combat my wrath once it rose.
I tried to heal my guardian as he’d healed me so many times, but nothing happened. Filled with despair, I tried another tactic. Sensing the evil that was spreading through him, I drew it towards myself. Pausing, it seemed to turn towards me. Then it was rushing at me and I gladly absorbed it all. I almost gagged at the filth that seeped into me. It was far worse than the toxin from the Wraith Warrior. It had come from a being that was so evil that I could barely fathom it.
Nathan regained consciousness and felt my distress. His hands came around me and he deepened our kiss. Not even the combined strength of our friends could break us apart as he poured his essence into me.
Holy power warred with the evil that was trying to take me over. I was wrenched away and Brie teleported us somewhere else. Sam had been drawn along as well. Collapsing, I drew my legs up until I was in a fetal position. Sam knelt beside me, crooning something under his breath as he tried to soothe my pain. “What is wrong with her?” he asked the teen.
Brie knelt beside us. I didn’t know where we were. I felt carpet beneath me and I heard the sounds of traffic somewhere outside. She put her hand on my forehead to probe me with her power. “I sense that there is a struggle going on inside her,” she replied. “I believe it is Nathan’s essence battling with something.”