by Stead, Nick
I hadn’t noticed the window, my attention entirely focused on that dark shape waiting for us on the other side of the chamber. But I poked my head in for another look and sure enough there was a large glass pane at the top of the wall, though I couldn’t see anything through it from where we were standing. The room behind it looked to be as dully lit as the one we were about to enter.
Seeing that window gave me some small hope though. At least if we did somehow survive this last fight then we had a potential way through to David and the other Slayers, and more importantly, a door to the outside world and freedom. We just needed the chance to get through. That would be easier said than done with the demon standing in our way.
“Okay, what do we know about this demon, then?” I asked.
“I already told you all I know,” Gwyn said. “It’s big and it’s demonic.”
“Lady Sarah; Selina? Either of you have much experience with demons? Either of you recognise what type of demon it is?”
“No,” Lady Sarah answered. Selina just shook her head.
“What if we didn’t have to fight it? Could we possibly reason with it or make some kind of a deal? That is what demons are famous for, right? Making deals?”
“Not all demons are capable of reason, Nick,” Lady Sarah said. “Some are as sharp and as cunning as the greatest human minds, but others are more bestial, driven only by base desires.”
I growled. “I hope you’re not implying beasts are dumb. I’d expect that from humans or from that bastard sire of yours, but not from you.”
She ignored the insult to Ulfarr, but I thought I saw a brief flash of anger in her eyes. Then it was gone, her emotions as difficult to read as ever. “No, I am not so arrogant as to think only humans and vampires have thoughts and feelings, as you should well know by now. I meant only that certain types of demons are more bestial in nature, and some are lacking in anything but instincts to guide them.”
Zee reached for his hip flask and took a swig of his rum, looking thoughtful as he swallowed. “So if we can’t reason with it, and we can’t fight it, what can we do?” He offered the hip flask round as he spoke. The rest of us declined, except for Gwyn.
“The Slayers must have a way of controlling this thing,” Selina said. “I do know of rituals for summoning demons, and like with necromancy, if we can kill whoever the demon is bound to then that should free it from the magic controlling it. There’s no guarantee it would ally with us though, even if it is one of the more intelligent of its kind. But at least it wouldn’t be focused just on us. Demons thrive on pain and suffering and the Slayers would make as good a target for tormenting as we do.”
Gwyn took another swig from the hip flask. “That leaves the small problem of a demon on the loose, once it’s finished dragging everyone in here down to Hell. We could let it slaughter our enemies for us while we escape but what about when it’s had its fun here and moves on? Can you really see it going back to Hell with all the games it can play up here?”
“Let the humans deal with their own mess,” Lady Sarah hissed as he handed the flask back to Zee.
Zee gave the flask a shake and grimaced at the small amount sloshing inside. He was down to his last drop. “And what if our kind are caught up in that slaughter? I agree with Gwyn, we can’t just set it free and leave it to run amok.”
“I might be able to work a banishment ritual if we can find the right tools I’d need in the main base,” Selina said. “If the Slayers have a spellcaster in there then there should be at least some of the most basic ingredients for working any witchcraft.”
“We still have to get past the demon to escape into the main part of the building,” I pointed out. “And we’re pretty sure we can’t beat it in a fair fight.”
Zee tucked the hip flask away again and met my gaze. “It would seem our best hope is to try and escape through that window. If we can’t defeat the demon, all we can do is hold it off for long enough to make an escape possible.”
Lady Sarah shook her head. “Even that will not be easy when only two of us are fit to fight.”
“I can still fight,” I growled.
“You will be a liability, Nick. At the moment you are as good as human and as if that were not bad enough, you are also wounded. You would do better to stay back with the others and let Zeerin and I engage our enemies.”
“Lady Sarah’s right, you’re too vulnerable at the moment,” Zee said. “You four focus on finding a way up to the window and if we can, we will use our power to break the glass for you.”
“Won’t the window be as tough to break through as that one in the passage back there, though?” I said, not happy at leaving the fighting to them. They may well be sacrificing themselves to allow us to escape, if the creature was every bit as powerful as the terror its mere scent induced suggested. Even if we could successfully break through the window, the odds of them being able to slip away from the demon were slim at best, and it might take us time to track down whoever had summoned the creature to our realm – probably longer than they would be able to survive against it.
“We have to try,” Zee said. “There don’t seem to be any other options.”
Selina clearly wasn’t happy with this plan either but she didn’t argue. She looked resigned to going along with it, the weariness back in her eyes and a grim set to her face.
I glanced at Gwyn. If only we could have relied on his spirit form, but I had a feeling David would have thought of something to prevent that after planning for everything else so far.
My gaze shifted to Amy. I would have preferred to keep her out of the fight completely, if I could. That would mean leaving her locked out of the chamber though (assuming it would seal itself like the others had), with only the barghest to guard her. And there was no guarantee we’d be able to come back for her if we successfully made it into the main part of the building. I knew it was better to keep her close as we made our escape, but I didn’t like putting her in harm’s way.
Lady Sarah interrupted my thoughts. “We should not delay too long. We cannot be certain that the demon will not attack.”
“One more moment,” I said, my eyes still on Amy. She looked at me with all the nerves Zee’s spell allowed. “This is going to be more dangerous than anything else you’ve seen so far. Hold tight to Varin and if we tell you to do anything, you have to do it without question. Do you understand?”
“I think so. Will we go straight home after we escape?”
“Yes. I don’t want to worry you anymore than you probably are already but this might not go to plan. I swear we’ll do everything we can to see you home safe but there’s a chance I won’t make it with you. So I have to ask, can you forgive me for killing Hannah?”
And everyone else, I added silently. But she didn’t seem to have connected the dots where my other kills were concerned yet.
She nodded. “I hadn’t known her that long; we only met after moving house. But you’re my brother. I still love you, even if you’re a werewolf. What was she doing in here anyway?”
“Hang on, you moved?”
“Losing you and Dad hit us hard,” she said quietly. “We needed a fresh start – too many ghosts in what used to be our family home.”
“And David still found you…”
That worried me. I supposed if they hadn’t gone too far it probably wouldn’t have been that hard for him, especially with all of the Slayers’ resources at his disposal once he’d joined them. And as for Hannah. I thought back to her last words and the pieces began to fall into place.
“Wait, David as in your best friend David?” Amy asked.
“Not anymore,” I growled, then answered her previous question. “We can’t know for sure why Hannah was down here, but I suspect David threatened her and put her up to befriending you in the first place. He used her to get to you, and through you to get to me. I think he wanted her in here to make things that little bit more personal, and he gave her the task of injecting me with whatever that serum was that
’s stopping me transforming. I think he threatened the lives of her family if she didn’t go along with it, even though she would have to sacrifice herself to play her part. Or maybe she didn’t know she was going to end up dead until it was too late. Either way, that would be my best guess for why she was imprisoned with us. But it is only a guess.”
That teenage anger I knew so well swept across her features. “Well if you’re right, then David deserves to be torn apart.” She paused and the anger receded, a pleading look in her eyes. “Just, let one of the others do it. Please, for me. I don’t want my brother to be a monster.”
“For you, sis,” I lied. I had no intention of leaving him to the others, but she didn’t need to know that. “One thing I can’t explain though. How is it Hannah was able to lie to us when Zee used his powers to question her?”
“There are spells that can be used to combat a vampire’s power,” Selina answered. “They would probably have taken such measures as a precaution, preventing her from divulging any of their secrets too soon.”
“Ah.”
Silence fell between us, broken by Zee drawing his cutlass again.
“Shall we?” he said, gesturing with the blade to the last challenge standing between us and freedom. Well, freedom from the dungeon. Fighting through the rest of the building would be a challenge in itself.
“Let’s do this,” I growled.
We stepped into the chamber, our hearts pounding. Even Amy’s quickened, the creature’s power so strong that it negated the effects of Zee’s spell. As one, we were hit by the urge to flee. But there was nowhere to run and nowhere to hide. Flight simply wasn’t an option.
Crossing the chamber wasn’t easy when every fibre of our beings wanted to get away from this nightmare thing we were about to face. I forced myself to keep moving, glancing up at the window on the left wall to find David was indeed watching. At first he was just a shadowy figure up there. But once we were far enough in the room, my eyes could make out those features I once knew so well. My anger stirred at the sight of him.
I forced my gaze back down to the bigger threat and the first obstacle to overcome before we could reach David. The demon’s profile was also obscured by shadow but I could just make out huge, leathery bat-like wings. My mind cast back to that place between life and death and the powerful being wielding a fiery blade to save my life. Could it be the same beast? Had David had a hand in my fate even then, when I thought I’d passed beyond his reach? But surely that couldn’t be possible for a mortal with no particular powers or abilities to speak of. Surely he had no control over that realm on the very edge of Death’s domain. So how would he have known enough about what was going on to send the demon at just the right moment?
My heart thundered quicker still, hammering so hard and fast I thought I was going to have a heart attack. Thinking became an effort under the weight of the sheer terror squeezing me in its icy grasp. Seeing the Hellish features of our adversary only made the fear worse, once our eyes were close enough to penetrate the shadows and pick out the details of its nightmarish form.
It wasn’t the same beast who’d saved me from the Reaper after all. They might have both been winged and black, but that was where any similarities ended.
Necrotic skin covered its body, leathery like its wings and hairless, stretched so tightly that the bones of its ribcage were clearly visible on either side of its torso. In the centre of its chest its ribs poked through. They looked to have been fractured and pulled outwards, revealing an empty cavity where its heart and lungs should have been. It was utterly hollow, devoid of all the ingredients of life.
There wasn’t much flesh on those wasted bones. Some muscle clung to its limbs, but I was reminded of the lithe form of a runner rather than the exaggerated bulk of a body builder.
It stood twice as tall as the average human, on bony feet akin to my own in my hybrid form, resembling the paws of a canid or a feline. Surprise mixed with the terror – I’d expected it to be much bigger and bulkier after the brief encounter earlier in the dungeon. But fear has a way of distorting things. That had to be part of the demon’s power, allowing it to inspire much greater terror in its prey.
Humanoid hands hung by its side, so skeletal it was hard to tell there was anything at all covering the bones. Its head was also humanoid and skull-like, its eye sockets empty but covered by more of that black skin, unbroken by any kind of lids.
There was the usual space in its skull for a nose and ears, but no cartilage to form either of those features; only the holes in its head where they should have been. Its mouth was more like a gash in its face with no lips to give it any definition, parted just enough for us to see the fangs within. They reminded me of snake’s teeth, each shaped like wickedly curved hooks designed for holding prey, with two large upper canines at the front and several smaller fangs lining its jaws. A forked tongue rested between them.
Horns like those of a ram curved downwards from the top of its head, the skin puckered around them as if they were unnatural growths which had burst through its flesh. Bone also protruded from its elbows, forming two spikes, and its tail looked like a lizard’s, ending in another sharp, bony point. Vicious claws on the end of each of its fingers and toes completed its set of physical weapons, though no doubt it had far worse powers at its disposal.
The demon was completely naked and apparently sexless, with no visible male or female genitalia. It probably had no use for sex organs since this was clearly a thing of death and suffering, its entire existence built around causing death, not creating life. I fancied it was one of Hell’s soldiers, sent forth to slaughter mortals so that their souls might be delivered into its master’s clawed hands – back in the days when they had been free to roam Earth, or at least freer than they were now with the Slayers. Assuming there was such a thing as the Devil who lorded over them all. Maybe there was no actual hierarchy and I was merely letting my imagination get the better of me. I didn’t really intend to find out, wanting nothing more than to slip past the demon as planned and run as far away from it as I possibly could.
About halfway across the chamber, the four of us lacking the strength to fight made our way to the left wall, along with Varin. I had no idea how we were going to climb up to the room above, even if we succeeded in breaking the window. It’s not like I could grow claws to dig into the stone and there were no handholds for any of us to grip. The room was bare apart from the demon, offering nothing to help our ascent. But we had to find a way up there somehow, if we wanted to escape the encounter with our lives.
The two vampires advanced towards the demon with raised swords, their senses focused solely on their opponent. But the thing may as well have been carved of stone. It stood motionless, like an empty vessel waiting to be brought to life, and it wasn’t until the vampires were almost level with it that something happened.
The movement came from above rather than ahead of us, the seemingly solid ceiling grinding into action like the door panels that separated each chamber. A large hole opened up over our heads, revealing what looked to be part of what was once a mining shaft leading up to the surface. That vertical tunnel wasn’t particularly long and the night sky would have been clearly visible through it, if cloud cover hadn’t obscured the stars. But I suddenly became aware of the unseen moon overhead. I could feel its power, almost see its ghostly beauty in my mind’s eye, and the urge to howl flashed through the icy mist of fear enveloping my mind. I didn’t need to physically see it to know it was full.
I embraced that feeling of power and tried to answer, tried to allow my primal fury to sing through me and return the moon’s call until it set my blood boiling and my flesh remoulding into a shape more suited to the wild. But still the suppressant, or cure or whatever it truly was, kept me from turning. A howl of frustration escaped my jaws then. It was almost like how things had been before the curse had awoken my lupine side. That part of me had lain dormant all those years of my life, awaiting the bite of a kindred spirit to set it fr
ee. I’d feel the pull of the moon and I’d feel wolfish, to the point where I would start acting like a werewolf, but I’d remained trapped in my human body.
How I’d longed to transform back then, to feel the strength of a wolf’s body and to experience the world with superior senses. Having got my wish and lived out my fantasies for well over a year, it made it all the harder that night to be yearning to change beneath the full moon and to be denied my heart’s greatest desire again.
Despair took hold. I felt like the wolfish side of my nature was straining against his human prison with everything he had, but the new chains he’d been placed in kept him from breaking free. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if we were to fall to the demon’s might after all. Life didn’t seem worth living without that side of me I’d finally accepted, and even embraced.
Then the second thing David had been waiting for us to trigger happened.
The vampires had paused when the hole in the roof began to open up, probably expecting some kind of trap to spring on us. Once the stone settled and a minute or so went by with nothing else changing, they started forward again. But they had barely gone a few steps before the demon finally came to life.
A red glow appeared in those hideous eye sockets and the thing’s head turned to look downwards at its opponents. Then the fight began.
CHAPTER TWENTY–SIX
Endgame
Zee and Lady Sarah rushed forward as one, their two forms a blur. They didn’t even come close to striking the demon’s twisted body, a hideous shriek and a wave of one clawed hand sending them flying backwards with a burst of telekenesis. They landed heavily, but each sprang to their feet an instant later and I saw no sign of any injuries. Our situation suddenly seemed much grimmer though. If they could be overpowered so easily this early on in the fight, what chance did we have of escaping?