Prom Knight

by Ben Reeder

  “Poison,” one of the wolves said to Sinbad as they drew back to where I was.

  “How many are we down?” Sinbad demanded. His shirt was gone, and his torso was gleaming with red. With his pale hair hanging to his shoulder and his white beard stained in crimson, he looked like a Norse warrior.

  “Eight dead, near as I can tell, and another half dozen are out of the fight,” a woman near him said. Shade shifted from her hybrid form back to human, her prom dress ripped in a couple of places and stained red as well. A gash across her shoulder finished closing as she rolled her shoulders and winced.

  “You got any more tricks to pull out your ass, kid,” Sinbad said to me, “you better use ‘em fast. Much more of this, and we’re gettin’ our balls handed to us.”

  “Just keep them contained,” Lucas said from behind me. “Don’t run in with them. Stay on the edges, where you have all the room to move.”

  “Don’t tell me how to fight, boy,” Sinbad snapped at Lucas. Still, he nodded to the first were beside him.

  “Give it up, wizard,” Gedeon boomed. “I can do this all night. My forces are legion!” He raised his arms and started chanting again, and more purple flashes appeared.

  “Dulka, I call upon you now,” I whispered. “The Way between Worlds is open.” Red strobes appeared among the purple bursts, and Dulka stepped through a larger portal of his own.

  “What are you doing here, you slime-sucking little bitch?” Gedeon called out as the red mists evaporated around Dulka.

  “Handing you an ass-kicking, limp dick,” Dulka yelled back. More and more demons appeared behind Dulka, and Gedeon’s numbers started to grow, not only in number, but in color.

  “What’s goin’ on?” Sinbad asked.

  “Gedeon’s calling on his allies,” I said. “And they’re bringing in their forces.”

  “How are we supposed to fight that?” Lucas asked.

  I brought the back of my hand across my mouth, steeling myself for the answer no one wanted to hear. “Briefly,” I said. Shade reached out and touched my shoulder for a moment and blessed me with a smile.

  “Not the reassuring answer I was hoping for,” Lucas said.

  “Looks like it’s time to bring out the big guns,” I said. Steve, and the Hands of Death had stepped into view, though I was pretty sure Gedeon hadn’t seen them, since he was still trading insults with Dulka. I raised my arms. “Igneus Pluvium.”

  Streaks of yellow shot into the sky, arced over the Horde and fell among the demons like incendiary rain. Infernal voices howled in rage and pain, and the fight was back on. Dulka’s red clad demons rushed to meet Gedeon and his allies, and the Nazarite brought the Maxilla into play.

  The first demon to fall to the blade brought the entire battle to a standstill for a few seconds, its screams shrill and terrified as white fire burst from inside it and consumed it. All eyes were on Steve as he pulled the glowing blade back and took a two handed grip on it.

  “Who’s next?” he called out. Demons backed away, their shoulders hunching as the cowered from the light it gave off.

  “Melchiel! Maplikt! Sammael! Burn this Nazarite to ash!” Gedeon yelled. Three demons stepped forward and brought their arms up. Bolts of various colored energy flew from their hands, sending Donovan and the Hands of Death scattering to avoid them. The weres’ charged in, and magic flew from the sidelines again. Chaos returned to the field, but this time, the numbers were against us, and the skirmish line rolled our way.

  I threw more fire into the fray, and Lucas stepped up beside me, his shotgun at the ready. Slowly, the weres began to lose ground, and Donovan, T-Bone and Cross found themselves cut off from the Sentinels’ line.

  “Kill them!” Gedeon bellowed, pointing at Donovan. “I’m going to take that sword from your hands and cut your head off to mount on my palace, Nazarite!” A group of demons started toward them, only to be cut down by T-Bone’s guns. Two more came at them from different directions, and I could see a third trying to get behind them.

  “We need to clear a path for them,” I said to Lucas. “Away from the Sentinel line.”

  “I’ve got this,” Lucas said, pulling a glass jar from his duffel bag. He brought his arm back and lobbed it into the group of demons nearest the Donovan and the Hands. When it shattered, the demons closest to it evaporated, and the ones further out burst into flame.

  “Come on!” I yelled, but they didn’t seem to hear. I tossed a TK bolt through a group of demons rushing toward them, and that finally got T-Bone’s attention. He shot a demon and gestured for them to move, but the gap closed before they were halfway to us. Lucas threw another jar, and they made it closer, but the gaps closed faster than they could move.

  “We have to get closer!” Lucas yelled and started toward them. I took off after him, my battle gauntlet glowing as I pulled the crystal from the mount on the back of my hand and slipped another touchstone into it to power it. Shade and Sinbad fell on the group of demons closest to them, and for a moment, it looked like we were going to get them free.

  Then a major demon walked into the fight. Fourteen feet tall with bright yellow skin and pincers for hands, it swept Sinbad aside and thrust its claw into Shade’s chest. She screamed, and my world stopped. I watched it pin her to the ground and bring its other pincer toward her throat. She struggled to push the one stuck between her breasts up and out of her body.

  Then I was able to move again, and I heard a full-throated roar coming from my own throat. Demons were cowering to either side as I flung fire and telekinetic energy at them with every step. Ahead of me, I saw Donovan toss the Maxilla into the air, and watched Gedeon’s blazing form leap toward it. A detached sort of glee took ahold of me as my left foot hit the pavement. My left hand came up and reached out for the Maxilla, even though it was still yards away. Gedeon’s massive hand started to close around the grip at the same moment I exerted my will and pulled on my connection to the sword. In a flash of white, the Maxilla disappeared and then reappeared in my hand. With a yell, I jumped into the air and brought the sword back over my head, hurdling a fallen demon. The yellow crab demon’s eyestalks swiveled toward me as I cleared its fallen comrade, and it twisted the claw that pinned Shade to the ground. Blood sprayed from her mouth as her body arched up against it, and I brought the sword down across the demon’s arm.

  Fire flared against the stump of its arm as it reeled back from the blow, and a shockwave blew everything Infernal from in front of me, except the crab demon. I swung again and sliced through a half dozen legs, bringing it to the ground. It tried to scramble away, but I stood my ground, straddling Shade’s body.

  “No, you don’t!” I yelled. “I find your lack of faith disturbing!” The chiton above its two main arms cracked as my telekinetic choke closed on what passed for its neck. The spell held when I yanked it back toward me, and it pulled its remaining pincer back like it was going to try to attack. I severed that one at the shoulder.

  “Die, asshole!” I snarled when I drove the point of the sword through its torso. The sound of its scream brought a smile to my face, and I pushed it away from me to die. More demons rushed forward to take its place, but I wasn’t interested in a fair fight. I turned the sword point down and thrust it into the asphalt, then drew both the paintball gun and the LeMat and opened fire. All I could think to do was hurt as many of the demons as I could for as long as I could make them suffer. The first shot from the LeMat blow a leg off, then I put a holy water round into another demon’s mouth. Another limb, a tentacle this time, exploded under the fire from the LeMat. A face melted under the bath of holy water, a demon’s head blew apart, then I put a round into the oversized genitalia of another demon. Every shot, every scream fed into my rage, made me feel more and more powerful, even as I felt myself die inside at what I’d just seen happen to Shade. When the charge made it to me, I holstered my pistols and grabbed the Maxilla again.

  The first to reach me was a snake demon, and I brought the blade up in a slash that left a
gaping, flaming wound in its torso. I brought the sword around to slice through its neck. Its death throes had barely started when the next one, a multi legged bug looking thing, reached me, and I thrust the point through its body, impaling it and the more humanoid demon behind it. Not satisfied with knowing they would die painfully, I wrenched the blade to the left, slicing through demon flesh to cut into another one.

  The fading knowledge Kim had given me drove me to pull the blade back and turn, bringing my weapon around and reversing it to meet a charging demon with the point. It staggered back as I let go with one hand, then delivered a palm strike to its chest to knock it away. Five more rushed forward, and I dropped into a low stance, the sword held behind me. For a split second, I was still, until they reached the point where I knew they were all within my reach. I brought the sword up, then back down in two graceful arcs, a move known as the Sparrow’s Wing. All five fell, their bodies smoking as the blade sliced through them.

  The Maxilla glowed as demon blood sizzled against it, and I took a two handed grip again. While I wanted to wade into the Horde, my feet stayed where they were, astride Shade’s fallen body, determined to kill as many as I could. But they quickly learned that I wouldn’t pursue, and started moving around me, avoiding the lethal reach of my sword. With a widening circle around me, I took the sword in my right hand, and summoned Elemental Fire with my left. Then, with a yell, I thrust my hand forward and sent a gout of flame into the one nearest me. It was engulfed in white hot fire, and died as the stream of fire punched through it and incinerated two more behind it.

  As the rage consumed me, I threw more and more magick at the demons around me. With their ranks devastated from the front, very few saw Dr. C, Kim and Amanda join Steve and the Hands of Death coming at them from behind. Those closest to them died too quickly to warn anyone. Demons started falling around me, and I heard the bass voice of Lucas’s shotgun. Blessed buckshot tore through the ranks of Hell, barely stopping for Infernal flesh and shell. Then the chaos stopped, and I was left with nothing but rage and pain, and nothing to throw it at.

  I could only throw hate into the hole Shade’s loss left in me for so long, and with nothing left but that void, I could only thrust the sword point first into the asphalt and fall to my knees beside her. I couldn’t cry, I couldn’t fight. All I could do was pour everything I had through my voice. The sound that came from me was like the tearing of my world, part roar, part snarl and part sob. When it was done, I could only pant and moan, feeling hollowed out inside. I would have given anything to feel numb. I had no idea if she was alive or dead, though everything pointed to dead and I was too scared to hope.

  “I know that sound,” Lucas said as he stepped up beside me. “That’s the sound my heart made when my parents died.” He put his hand on my shoulder and knelt beside me. His voice broke, and another hand rested on my other shoulder.

  “Chance,” Dr. C said, pouring enough emotion into that one word that all I could do was let him pull me to him.

  Booming laughter rolled across the field, and suddenly my hate had a target. “Aw, look at the big bad warlock,” Gedeon taunted from across the carnage of the field. “Boo-hoo, some mean old demon just gutted my girlfriend.”

  I stood, and turned to face the fiery form of Gedeon. The laughing kept going. I took one step, then another and reached behind me for the Maxilla. The laughing stopped when it came free of the asphalt. Demons crowded each other to get out of the sword’s fatal reach. Their leader had mocked me on the field. That was a personal challenge, and none of them wanted to face the bringer of true death that I carried in my left hand. As hard as monkey brain wanted me to pound Gedeon into paste, there was still something bigger happening. And if I played my part, Gedeon would spend a hundred years or so suffering. I could live with that.

  “She fell fighting for something she believed in, and you just fell for everything,” I said as I got closer.

  “She fell because you’re a pathetic mortal,” Gedeon replied. “Because you can’t win. I’m going to roll over you, kill your friends and own this world.” Behind me, I could hear people moving, and demons started shuffling as the flankers started filing toward the area where I’d made my stand.

  “We didn’t have to beat you, Gedeon,” I said. “We just had to slow you down long enough to get everyone out.”

  “You’re bluffing,” Gedeon said.

  “Maybe,” I said. “And maybe I’m telling the truth.” I looked over my shoulder. Donovan had picked Shade up and had her cradled in his arms. Her hand moved, and I felt my heart leap in my chest. Maybe she was still alive. She was a werewolf after all.

  “You would never tell the truth,” Gedeon said. He looked to the sides and then back to me. “And your friends wouldn’t be trying to sneak away.”

  “We’ve held you long enough,” I said. “In a few more minutes, the whole place will be empty, and good luck finding enough innocents in one place in this town after that.” I turned and walked over to Steve.

  “She’s breathing again,” he said softly as he handed Shade over to me. Once she was in my arms, he took the Maxilla and stepped past me. Dulka came up, a smile on his ugly face, and squatted down beside me.

  “Things aren’t going half bad, runt,” he said. “At this rate, I’m likely to double my holdings before the night’s through.”

  “Glad you’re doing well,” I said my voice little more than a growl. “Hold them off as long as you can. We’ve got to get to the auditorium and make sure they’re all clear.”

  “As long as the Nazarite is here with that sword, I’ll be throwing him demons to kill.”

  “You do that,” I said.

  “Sinbad, get your people out of here,” Dr. C yelled. “It looks like we have some reinforcements.” From the darkness, figures began to emerge. As they got closer, they resolved into Dwarves bearing heavy weapons, everything from axes to the massive pistols and rifles they favored. Elves with long, slim swords and spears, Redcaps carrying rusty looking polearms and almost every kind of hybrid demon or fae creature I’d ever seen or heard of. Then the last person I expected to see stepped into the light. Nick Draeden walked toward Dr. C, who had gone pale at the sight of him.

  “Come now, Trevor,” Draeden said with a grim smile. “You didn’t think I was going to miss out on all of the fun, did you?”

  “Sir, this action was supposed to be unofficial,” Dr. C said as the battle lines started to draw up behind us.

  “I believe the term you meant to use was unsanctioned, or perhaps, an act of insubordination?” Draeden smiled and winked before he put a hand on Dr. C’s shoulder.

  “You could look at it that way,” Dr. C said.

  “I prefer to describe it as bold to the point of recklessness, and also, a need-to-know operation. Now, you get to where you need to be. I’ll head things up here for now.”

  “We only need a few minutes head start,” Dr. C said. “Don’t risk more than you have to.”

  “We’ll see to it.”

  We kept going until we got to the cars. As I made it to Dr. C’s Range Rover, Shade stirred in my arms and opened her eyes. “My dress is ruined,” she murmured. She reached up and fingered the rips and tears in my jacket, then ran her hands down the bloodstains on my shirt. “Did you get these standing over me?”

  “Some of them,” I said. She smiled and pulled herself up to kiss me.

  “You can put me down now,” she said. “I need to change.”

  “We need to get to the auditorium,” I said.

  “And I can run there faster than you could drive it.”

  “Are you sure? You’ve been mostly dead for a few minutes.”

  “Not even close,” she said. “I’m going to feel it in the morning, though.”

  “Then you’ll need to know where to meet us,” I said, and gave her the location. She looked at me quizzically for a moment, then nodded.

  Moments later, Lucas and I were in the back seat with Amanda and giving Dr. C directio
ns on where to meet Shade. He nodded, gave me a questioning look, then put the truck in gear as the din of battle rose behind us. Halfway there, his phone rang.

  “You’re on talk radio,” he said as he answered it.

  “Corwin,” Draeden’s breathless voice came over the phone’s speaker. “They’ve broken through. I’m sending Donovan and the Hands to rendezvous with you. The forces of Hell are missing a few major players this evening thanks to the Nazarite. And tell Fortunato that I have some choice words for him regarding his choice of allies.”

  “I think he knows,” Dr. C said. “I’ll text you the address for them to meet us. And I appreciate you coming, sir.”

  “Only so far as it helped you, I’m sure,” Draeden chuckled. “Whatever plan you have, all I can say is that it had better work.”

  “I was thinking the same thing,” Dr. C said before he ended the call. He looked back at me for a moment, then turned his focus back on the road.

  The first demon appeared in the rear view mirror seconds later. More joined it, until they filled the road behind us. Dr. C hit the gas, and they stopped gaining on us, but the gap wasn’t getting any wider. We needed more room than we had and a lot more time. I rolled the window down and leaned out, aiming my wand at the horde. On the other side of the car, Lucas was doing the same thing, only he held his stubby shotgun and a jar full of water.

  “You open!” he yelled.

  “Murus ignis!” I called out, and a barrier of flame sprang up in the demons’ path. A few jumped over it, but the majority just ran straight through it. Some fell and writhed on the ground before fading. Then Lucas threw the jar he was holding into the air. He waited until it was a few feet above the horde before he pulled the trigger. The jar exploded, spraying its contents over several yards and a dozen demons. The result was about the same as dousing them with flaming napalm. Demons screamed as they were immolated in sacred flame, and we gained a few seconds.