Taija had considered using her magic before now. But she’d given up all hope. They’d only find her again, and she had no where else to go. But now her life was about to be ended, she had to fight back.
She could feel her sorcery rush through her veins like blood, itching to be let free.
Taija heard the door click suddenly and someone enter her cell. The straps pinning her to the bed were so tight, she couldn’t even raise her head, but Captain Elemon’s face soon loomed directly above her.
“Hello again.” He smiled, a ghastly sight.
Elemon looked like a completely ordinary man. Short, bald and bespectacled, he was unremarkable in appearance. And yet an air of menace cruelty lingered around him.
“Now dear,” said Elemon, raising a knife before her. “Are you ready to tell me your secrets at last? Or am I going to have to convince you?”
Taija just glared at him.
“I mean it, girl,” said Elemon. “Tell me now, save yourself from the death penalty today. I just want to know about the slave rebellion. Who broke you out of here and slaughtered members of staff? Did he take you to the rebellion’s headquarters? Where are they located?”
“I told you,” she growled. “I don’t know anything about no rebellion. But I hope there is one. I hope they kill you and everyone who supports slavery in Sarume.”
Elemon sighed heavily. “Well, there’s nothing else for it. I’m going to have to hurt you now, Taija. I’ll make sure you don’t bleed out though, your death will need to be public later. To show a message, you know how it is.”
Elemon then bent down and clamped her arm with his hand. He raised his other hand, holding the knife, and set the point against her forearm.
Taija grit her teeth as the blood roared in her ears. Mountains of magic threatened to crush her, pressing down.
She felt a sharp sting as Elemon pressed the knife down, stabbing through her flesh. Taija craned her neck as blood trickled from the wound. There wasn’t just blood, but black smoke too. The smoke coiled out of her, rising into the air. Building and building until black smoke filled the room.
“What the…” Elemon stuttered in disbelief.
An avalanche of insurmountable power made Taija’s body shake. An unnatural strength filled her, as she writhed on the bed the straps that held her snapped in half.
She ran from the bed and to the corner of her cell, watching in shock as the black smoke formed a crescendo of swirling shadow. She drew on her power without meaning too, without knowing what was happening. She drew on it until it made her scream.
The fragile bonds that had held her mind together throughout her time here had finally snapped.
Not going to let them kill me, not going to let them kill me. The words crashed into her head again and again and again.
She couldn’t let the doctors kill her; she couldn’t let them run tests anymore. She had to escape; she needed to get out of here.
The midnight mist converged above her, beginning to spin furiously, to knit together and fabricate into something else.
Deep in the recesses of her mind she felt a presence, a black stirring of eternal evil. The evil force felt her presence in turn and responded in a surge of shocking power.
Suddenly the spinning black smoke imploded into a vicious gaping portal. The portal roared thunderously as lightning bolts streaked across it. Then, to her utter horror and helplessness monstrous things spewed from its bowels.
Her screams turned to hysterics as she gazed upon their many grotesque and unimaginable forms.
Elemon tried to run, only to fall as a monster with a fox’s head clamped down onto his ankle. Elemon fell to the ground, where he was covered by monsters in a second. They used claws, beaks and teeth to rip Elemon apart, limb by limb, organ by organ.
The creatures cheered gluttonously when no morsel of Elemon was left. Many turned their sights to her next. But then the monsters saw the smoke still connected to her arm wound, and shrank back in fear.
They were scared of her?
One monster, a thing with a man’s body, but the head of a pale pig, slapped his hands against the door of her cell and burning it to ash. The pale pig squealed in delight and followed the rest of the monsters as they scampered outside to unleash all hell.
*
“Our worst suspicions have been confirmed,” Dr Toom spoke gravely to his associates, holding up a vial of Taija’s blood. The blood within was unnaturally dark, almost black, but it was the fact that the blood didn’t match up with any of their tests that so deeply concerned the doctor.
“I refuse to believe that this girl is- is some sort of …alien, as some of you are suggesting. I do believe, however, that she may be a new hybrid of human, the next step in evolution. Surely that would explain the bizarre abilities she seems to possess.”
Some of his associates nodded while others shook their heads in disbelief.
Dr Tomb began leading them down the institution’s corridor in the direction of Taija’s cell.
“Now, I would like for you all to take a look at the specimen yourselves, it will be the last time you get to see her. She is due to be executed this evening. Now, be incredibly weary, she is known for her bouts of violence and hysterics.”
Immediately after his words, the screaming erupted.
Dr Tomb ran toward the scream, the others following as it worsened.
Abruptly, as they rounded a corner, Taija’s screaming was lost in the flood of their own.
Dr Tomb at their head was suddenly buried under a mountain of ghastly bodies that screeched and giggled ecstatically, the first of them beginning to chew the doctor’s head as the others pounced on all the humans they could reach.
The air became thick with the stench of death and blood painted the white walls red.
*
Evan jumped up the steps as their group ran toward the sounds of battle, climbing a series of steps that twisted up to the top floors of the asylum. He could hear the howls of the demons clearly now.
“What do we do once we’re up there?” he had to shout so Tarensen could hear him.
“Kill every demon you see,” the Master replied.
“I mean, do you know who we’re looking for?”
“A teenager,” Tarensen replied. “Or wherever the demon magic is coming from. If it turns out that the dark sorcery is coming from a Dread Lord, all of you must stay back and let me handle it. For your own safety.”
They reached the top of the steps then, confronted by a set of chained black doors.
“I’m telling you,” said Daniel, “this isn’t any Dread Lord.”
“Aye,” Jason said, “I’ve never felt anything like this before.”
Evan could feel it too. There was a sense of acute menace lingered in the air. A part of him wanted to turn and run back down the steps. He felt only evil and depravity lay ahead.
The monstrous keening grew louder and louder. It appeared that the abominations were only feet away now. The screeches and cackled of hunger and rage pierced his ears, making him wince.
“Everyone, draw your weapons,” Tarensen instructed, stepping to the locked doors.
He and Jed unsheathed their weapons at the same time, whilst Joelle notched an arrow in her bow, ready to let fly.
Daniel pulled out a plasma gun, Jason has a hefty broadsword and Sofia carried a set of knives.
Evan nodded at Jed and Joelle, seeing how pale with fear both of them were. He didn’t need a mirror to know he was the same.
C’mon, you can do this. You need to do this. If there really is another demon-spawn here, you need to help them.
Tarensen held his own sword in one hand, whilst enchanting his free hand with inhuman strength so he could rip the chains from the black doors and then kick them open.
The doors swung back to reveal destruction. Evan guessed the vast room beyond might have once been the asylum’s cafeteria. It was a huge white space, with tables and chairs placed in two lines. Only now the space was
swarming with demons. Many of the tables had been wrenched apart, the walls splattered with blood and the tiled floor covered in body parts.
A huge bear-like behemoth stepped before them, giggling like a human toddler.
“Quickly, kill them all,” Tarensen roared, charging forward and hacking the bear demon in half.
The adult Venators rushed in next, pushing the tide of monsters back and away from the doors.
Bracing himself, Evan led his friends into battle. He fought off the fear knifing through his chest, focusing on throwing as many magical bolts as he could, as demons surrounded them on all sides. His first bolt hit a monster with a fish’s head right between the eyes, then a second energy bolt put a giant mole monster down.
Beside him, Jed froze two demons at once and used his axe to smash them to shards. Joelle crouched down on his other side, letting loose arrow after arrow in rapid fashion, always striking the demon’s in their heads. Many of her arrows were enchanted with elemental magic, exploding the monster’s heads apart with fire, ice of electric blasts moments after the arrows hit.
A large insectoid demon leaped over a broke table toward Evan next, lashing out with purple tentacles. Before he could evade, the tentacles wrapped round his back and dragged him into the monster’s embrace. The minion attempted to crush Evan in its slimy grip, but he plunged Ruaden deep into its beetle-like body. The demon screeched, but kept squeezing, so Evan set Ruaden alight with a fire spell. Emerald flames flew down Ruaden’s length and burned the fiend from the inside out.
As he staggered away from the demon’s charred remains, he felt a force of air rush past him. He turned to see Jed had lifted up a table with air magic and threw it at a cluster of oncoming greyish blobs. The gelatinous minions fell under the impact and Jed jumped atop the wreckage to finish the job with his axe.
The room crackled with vicious magic and hideous wails as they continued to fight.
Tarensen was a tempest of destruction. His steel flashed to and fro, slaying a score of demons and causing a pile of limbs.
Jed and Evan battled as a tandem, before they became overwhelmed.
A hyena, which stood like a man, careened toward them, striking with wicked blue claws.
Jed ducked the hyena’s swipe, then slammed his axe into the beast’s side, causing the demon to collide with Evan, who slashed the fiend from shoulder to hip. The hyena crumpled, but a scorpion with a woman’s head took its place, spitting venom.
Jed wasn’t fast enough and the venom splashed across his shoulder. He looked down in horror as the luminous blue liquid ate into his armour. Fortunately, Evan threw a jet of water Jed’ way, eliminating the venom before it reached Jed’s flesh.
This left him open to the scorpion woman however, and she would’ve spat venom full in his face if Joelle’s arrow hadn’t flown into her open mouth at just the right second. The demon fell back, choking, but Evan ran to lop off the human head that had no place being there, before shouting at a thank you to Joelle.
There was no time for a respite though, as a rabbit the size of wolf and bedecked with horns hurtled for him next, aiming to disembowel him. Evan rolled to the side just in time and Tarensen took care of the minion with an energy blast that erased it entirely.
“C’mon,” Tarensen barked. “We need to find the source of the dark magic.”
Spluttering and seething monsters strived to block their path, but Tarensen blasted them aside as the rest of them took care of the stragglers.
“Whoa, this is unbelievable,” Jed exclaimed, decorating the wall with one demon’s blood.
Down twisting white corridors they ran, always encountering more monsters that should only belong in nightmares. They sprinted directly behind Tarensen, with Joelle and the adult Realmers bringing up the rear.
He and Jed almost ran straight into an eight headed hob-goblin, wielding knives of warped metal. The abomination shrieked some unknowable demon language as it slashed with both knives.
Simultaneously he and Jed cast fireballs, smashing the demon to the floor before they set about hacking off as many of its heads as they could. They managed to take off five before the monster rose again, a gory mess. Jed took out its legs and Evan plunged his sword deep, striking the heart.
Only one more demon got in their way, as they ran after Tarensen. This time, Evan brought a hanging light bulb down upon its head using air element, whilst Jed fried its brains with volts of electricity.
As they turned into the next corridor after Tarensen they stopped dead. A human scream pierced the crimson chaos as a man in a white coat ran their way, gibbering incoherently.
The demonic swarm was becoming even thicker here. They had to be close to the source now.
“Okay, stay close,” Tarensen roared. “This will take all my sorcery to do, but it’s the only way.”
Tarensen raised his hand high, conjuring a sphere of energy magic. The sphere bloomed into a dome, surrounding all of them. Now, as they continued on, the demons who attempted to attack only crashed against the magical dome, unable to break through.
The further they went into the asylum, the thicker the current of monsters became. Tarensen led them down several wide corridors, each one filled with doors leading to cells. The majority of cells were empty, but Evan knew the cell at the end of the corridor was the one. He didn’t how, or why, but he instinctively knew that cell was occupied. Tarensen appeared to agree, and as they reached the room, Evan saw he was right.
He froze when he saw her.
A girl with tangled red-brown hair sat, motionless in the corner of the room. Her grey eyes were open-wide, but crazed, as if she couldn’t see anything in front of her.
Tendrils of black magic oozed out of her, sorcery very similar to the mist Evan had summoned before. There was no mistaking it, this girl was his sister.
She screamed as the midnight tendrils spewed out of her and poured into the black portal, making it spin faster and faster. The more her magic swirled into the portal, the more demons vomited from the vortex.
It was too much, it was more demon magic than he’d ever used. The girl had brought the monsters here, through the portal her demon sorcery created. Evan didn’t know that was possible, but then he hardly knew anything about his own dark powers.
It was all so confusing, so terrifying, but all he could register right now was that the girl was going to kill herself.
She appeared possessed, as if the demon sorcery was controlling her.
No, she wasn’t going to kill herself, he contradicted, she was going to kill them all.
Now, the fiends didn’t even try to attack them. They emerged from the portal hungry and full of bloodlust, but ran in fear when they saw Taija and her sorcery. The monsters poured out of the cell in a flood, running down the corridor in search of easier prey.
Tarensen let go of the shield spell and slumped over, so exhausted he could barely stand.
“We need to reach her, but the demon sorcery will destroy us,” Tarensen cried.
“Maybe we could fire Stunner spells at her,” said Sofia.
“Aye,” Jason agreed, “if she’s knocked out, maybe it will all stop.”
“What about if you spoke to her?” Jed muttered to him. “Maybe she’ll, like, recognise you or something.”
“I don’t know,” Evan said as Joelle fiddled with her bow beside him. “I’m not sure it works like that, Jed.”
“What do you mean?” Daniel asked. “Why would this girl recognise you?”
Before Evan could answer the precarious question, the swirling portal surged, spreading wider, inching closer toward them.
“We need to do something, quickly,” Sofia shouted.
The ebony inferno grew bigger still, roaring so loud they could no longer hear each other speak. Suddenly, Joelle fired and her arrow struck Taija in the chest.
“What the hell are you doing?” Evan cried. “You can’t kill her!”
The demonic vortex pulsed, moments after the arrow struck. The
girl’s chin slumped to her chest as she lost consciousness and the sorcery began to dissipate.
“Relax,” said Joelle. “I hit her with a sleeper arrow, the arrowhead implants into the skin without causing a wound. She’s only knocked out, and she’ll stay knocked out until the arrow is pulled free.”
“Good job,” Tarensen said. “We’ll take her back to Veneseron, after we’ve destroyed the demons. We can’t let them escape this asylum and run loose.
Jason scooped up Taija’s prone body as they ran back through the corridor.
“Keep the girl safe whilst we eradicate the remaining fiends,” Tarensen told Jason.
The others ran on in front, but Evan jogged beside Jason, gazing curiously at the girl. He could see she bore a passing resemblance to him. They both had the same fine cheekbones and thin lips. Before she’d been knocked out Evan had seen she had grey eyes too. She was his sister, he knew it.
They turned abruptly into a new passageway, this one full of demons squabbling over the bodies of the asylum’s murdered staff. Jason set the girl down and stood over her, firing off spells as the rest of them cleared the corridor of its atrocities.
He’d just finished disembowelling a demon with a pig’s head, when he felt the presence.
Evan shivered as a horrific sensation crawled across his skin. It was a feeling similar to seeing someone die before your eyes. He stopped in the middle of the passageway, unable to go further. He turned slowly, dread filling every fibre of his being.
A man stood feet away, his eyes fixed intently on Evan and a subtle smile upon his lips. The man was tall and slimly muscled, his skin as white as chalk. His long hair was white as his flesh, but his eyes were bright blue ice, emanating a coldness that seeped around the area.
He wore a black shirt, unbuttoned enough for Evan to see the grisly scar slashed across his chest. As the man lifted his hand Evan noticed his claws, no, they were just human fingernails grown long, a perfect white colour, like the rest of him.
Moonlight War- Act II (The Realmers Book 3) Page 34