Daimonion (The Apocalypse Book 1)

by J. P. Jackson

  Alyx responded to our voices. His gaze was wild, the irises glowing hot and red, just like mine. Froth formed at his mouth, his teeth chomping down as if trying to bite his way out of his binds. He must have bit his tongue as he was thrown in front of us because blood had sprayed across near our feet. The front of his coat and chest was also covered in blood, both dried and fresh. Some of it—I could smell—was from Alyx, but most of it was not his. That told me Alyx had been feeding on humans.

  Marta’s grief overcame her as she reached out for her boy. Before she reached him, Alicia’s minions held her back.

  “Marta, I’m sorry.” I reached out for her, but she shrank away from me.

  Alyx whipped his head around in my direction. His violent behaviour escalated. His limbs contracted and flexed, pushing against the ropes that held him. His body lurched in my direction, wings flapping uselessly, maw open, and teeth lengthening. His jaw snapped with violent rapidity. He snarled and howled, the skin on his face shrinking and tightening. He appeared to be a lot less like Alyx and a whole lot like the demon he had become.

  Marta ripped herself out of the hands of her detainers, reached one hand, and placed her outstretched palm on her son’s forehead. She said one command.

  “Втихомирся!” Her homeland’s word in the mother tongue fell from her lips, and the air between her face and Alyx’s shimmered. As the air wavered, it began to glow, and the spell grew quickly. It surrounded Alyx and covered him, and the light intensified. It grew so bright that Alicia’s men had to take an extra step back.

  Alicia wound up and smacked Marta across the face. The loud crack of palm-meeting-cheek filled the room, and the glow from Marta’s spell vanished.

  “That’s quite enough of that,” Alicia said.

  “Mom?” Alyx relaxed his grimace and morphed into the handsome man I had seen in his mother’s bookstore. But now his expression was laced with fear, a sour aroma that wafted off of him and hit me with guilt.

  “It’s okay, Alyx, I know. I saw. Dati showed me. No anger, no more. I brought you up better than that, better than this…”

  “That’s it, witch, you’re done.” Alicia raised a hand, summoning one of her legion towards her, and with her other hand, reached out and grabbed Marta’s neck. Alicia’s sharp red nails dug into Marta’s neck. “You’ve ruined my fun. Time for something else.” She squeezed Marta’s throat, making Marta gasp for breath.

  Alicia snickered, then let her go as soon as she heard hesitant footsteps behind her.

  A short man appeared who was different than the others. He was tiny in comparison and dirty. He wasn’t built like the robust muscle-heads that surrounded us. His hair was thin, long, and stringy, as was his face. He didn’t belong.

  Stopping short just behind Alicia, he gazed at her longingly.

  “Sebastian, don’t be shy, honey,” Alicia said to short man. “Momma needs you now.” She reached behind her and held out her hand, and Sebastian took it gently, carefully, as if Alicia was breakable and priceless.

  “Remember what we talked about, sweetie?” Alicia cooed. “Could you do that for me now, please?”

  Sebastian nodded.

  He let go of Alicia’s hand, reluctantly, and then reached into his inner coat pocket and pulled out a very long centipede-like insect that wriggled and twisted. The thing’s mandibles were protracted and thin, and looked horribly sharp, like small paring knives.

  With deft fingers, Sebastian reached into another coat pocket and pulled out another one of the creatures. He then let them run around the palm of his hand as if they were pets.

  Alicia cued another one of her posse, this time one of the tall, handsome henchmen. Muscles rippled in his overdeveloped arms as he placed a hand underneath Marta’s chin. Marta twisted her head to escape the grasp, but others stepped in to hold her tight. Several hands held Marta’s head still and made sure her mouth was kept closed. She was forced onto her knees, so that her height met that of Sebastian.

  Sebastian stepped forward and held his bug-infested palm right under Marta’s lips. The leggy worms quickly transferred from the hand onto Marta’s face where they made a lap, running over her skin and through her hair until they found her nose, and quickly, the long centipedes with their dangerous mandibles disappeared up inside.

  Marta let out another noise. It sounded like a whine. But it was more of a terrified scream that was being stifled by the hands holding her jaws shut.

  Her gaze dashed around the room, searching desperately for help.

  “See, honey, I know a white witch is kinda useless without her words. So I came prepared. My little friend’s companions are gonna help keep you quiet while we finish up what we came here to do. Sebastian, please?”

  Sebastian snapped his fingers. As the sound echoed through the room—much louder than it should have been—the arthropods pushed up against Marta’s cheeks, bulging her skin outwards from inside.

  Marta made horrible garbled noises, chokes, and sputters. She shut her eyes tightly, tears still streaming down her face.

  With complete synchronicity, all four of the sharp mandibles pierced through her lips. Two upper, two lower, and then clamped down, pinning Marta’s mouth closed from the inside.

  The multitude of hands holding Marta let go. Marta slumped sideways. The closest muscle-man caught her by the scruff of the neck and held her upright, shaking her with enough force to keep her conscious.

  “Oh no, hon, you need to be awake for this,” Alicia said before turning her attention to me. “You see, Dati, when Master gives me an order, I gratefully accept and usually relish in the task. All I ever hear from Silenus is how you whine and complain and fight back and give him grief. I mean, after all, you’d think you weren’t a demon. This is why you know nothing or have any idea why you’ve got those clever little minions in you! And why Master chose to insert them into you the most painful way he knew how, because you can’t be trusted and must be manipulated.

  “See the rest of us, on the other hand…well, we had it much easier.” Alicia opened her mouth wide and brought her hand up to her lips, palm up. From the back of her throat, silver spines crawled up and across her tongue until a silvery bug came out of her mouth and sat obediently on the palm of her hand. It was the same kind of parasite that was living in my gut. The spines had left their usual puncture marks, and blood trickled out the corner of her mouth. Her tongue whipped out and licked it up. She glanced at me, winked and smiled, then turned towards Alyx.

  “This little devil is for you, honey. I saved it special, and Master, that sly ol’ goat, is gonna be so happy to hear that you’re now three times the demon any of us could hope to be. Just think, a little Satyr, a little D’Alae, and a little Succubus. Well, maybe Incubus. Anyway that turns out, it just equals sexy!” Alicia stepped forward towards Alyx. “Your daddy is gonna be so proud.”

  “What do you mean ‘daddy’?” Alyx said. With the ire gone, he was now confused. He didn’t know what Marta had shared with me, but he knew what was coming, and he started to wrestle against the knots that bound his limbs. Alyx was no longer human and his demonic strength was giving the bonds that held him a difficult time in subduing him.

  “Alyx, sweetie, there’s no point in fighting. This is gonna happen, so you have a choice. Either you let me just slip my little buddy here down your throat and you swallow it just like I know you can, or we can go a more difficult route.”

  Alicia lifted her hand into the air and gave a little wave. From the sides of his mother’s shop, men stepped in again, and two of them held each side of Marta while the one, who held her by the back of the neck, pulled her head, exposing her neck. A fourth brandished a large sickle with a serrated edge. Alyx’s eyes went wide.

  Alyx met his mother’s gaze. I could see the terror and pain in both mother and son.

  “You leave her alone!” Alyx snarled.

  “I love it when a man is forceful!” Alicia said mockingly. “Unfortunately, honey, you don’t have the a
bility to tell me what I can or cannot do. So open wide and swallow my little friend, and we’ll let your momma go. Fight me, and I’ll slit your belly open and shove the fucking insect into your gut, and then I’ll slit her throat. Your choice, sweetie. So which do you want?” Alicia said everything with a sickeningly sweet voice, but the undertone was decidedly vicious. She meant every last word.

  I couldn’t control my demon rage any longer.

  “Alyx,” I bellowed, my voice filling the room, gravelly and sinister. “Don’t do it!” I howled in rage and flung my wings out, hoping I’d knock some of the crew off balance and give me a fighting chance to break our way out of this. I was going to save Alyx, rip Alicia’s head off, and beat the mob of men around us to a pulp.

  Alicia’s men flinched. With my outstretched wings and in fighting stance mode with demon talons and fangs, I was formidable.

  Alicia, however, was having none of it.

  “I can’t kill you, as much as I’d love to. Orders are what they are,” she said pointedly to me before turning to her pack. “Make him quiet.”

  I felt a heavy object hit the back of my head. And then again several more times. I could feel blood trickle down the back of my neck. Blinding pain flashed white light across my eyes. I went down on my knees, struggling to keep my head focused and aware. The beating continued, but not before I managed to grab a man’s leg, pull him towards me, and gut him with my claws.

  “Enough! Seriously, you people!” Alicia hissed. Suddenly there were enough hands and boots on me to keep me subdued. My rage pulsed within as I struggled and fought back, but there was no escaping from those that bound me.

  “Now, Alyx, darling, open wide and let my little acquaintance in.” I stood by in horror as Alyx complied. His eyes were shut as the parasite scurried down his throat. I could see the grimace of pain on his face, feeling pain of my own, knowing that the sharp spines of the creature’s legs were puncturing the inside of his throat as it crawled down. He coughed, spluttering blood. Alyx appeared to struggle hard not to panic as he waited for the inevitable—another cocoon.

  “There, see, that wasn’t so hard, was it?” Alicia said. “Now”—she petted his head—“for being such a good boy, you get a reward.” She leaned in and gave him a kiss, then whispered in his ear. He started flailing with wide eyes. Alicia glanced up at the figure brandishing the large knife and then directed her glance to the muscled one still holding Marta by the scruff. She nodded.

  The large half-circle serrated blade whooshed through the air, the teeth of the knife catching his mother’s flesh, slashing through the skin across her neck. Blood sprayed everywhere and quickly flooded down the front of Marta’s shirt. A puddle formed around Marta’s knees.

  I was pinned on the floor, a small rivulet of my own blood running into my eyes and mouth as I started to scream.

  Alicia’s crew slowly disappeared. Some simply walked away as if nothing had happened, a few slid into the ground like disintegrating shadows, and the monster with the long black hair shifted into the flock of crows and flew away.

  Alicia leered at me and said coldly and bitterly, “That is how you follow directions.”

  Alicia calmly turned and walked down the hallway, her statuesque form disappearing into the blackness as her boots rang out until the chime of the door decreed her departure.

  The man with the overdeveloped biceps picked up Marta from the back, carrying her like a limp rag doll, and walked away, a trail of blood following them.

  Alyx was losing consciousness. Fine white threads were spewing out of his mouth from the forming Succubus pod. Soon he would be entrapped once more.

  Blinding light blurred my vision and my ears rang. I swayed violently and lost control. Dropping to the floor of Marta’s office, I fell into the pool of Marta’s blood. I was useless, but I wanted so much to do something, anything to help get Marta back, to stop the morphing process, to regain Alyx’s trust. But it was all futile. Everything had gone wrong again, and I had been the center of it. I had brought all of this upon Alyx. I had failed him again.

  In a half-conscious stupor, I crawled towards Alyx and reaching out one hand helplessly—a rule is a rule—no contact can be made while the cocoon is forming.

  Alyx’s gaze met mine, and for a second, there was a flash of emotion—a glint from him that said help me.

  As I lost consciousness, white gossamer wrapped themselves around Alyx, forming his second death cocoon. Strong luminescent threads whipped around him quickly, obscuring his body, but they were also dragging him across the floor, into the corner of the room. As soon as the silken body hit the juncture of floor meeting wall, the body inside inched its way up the wall, defying gravity, until it nestled itself neatly into the corner of two walls and the ceiling.

  Sticky strings lashed out around Alyx’s body, adhering him to the wall as slithering masses of white spun around what had been Alyx the D’Alae.

  I couldn’t keep my eyes open.

  ALICIA WALKED DOWN the back alley as a flutter of crows’ wings descended next to her. When the bird bodies’ morphed together again, the monster with straight long hair appeared, and then the image of his monstrosity wavered and morphed until the translucent-skinned, eyeless Mindbender stood beside her.

  “Did it work?” Alicia asked.

  The demon answered her, but only Alicia would have ever heard it. Its voice rang in her head…

  Of course it did.

  Haunted

  JENAE

  “That was the most disgusting thing ever.” I gagged while opening Dati’s condo door. Caleb was close on my heels, as were the two Shishi, happy to be home. Hemming and Riken followed in behind us.

  “I’m sorry,” Caleb said, his eyes pleading.

  “Never again. Barf.”

  “Jenae, the boys didn’t know what was going to happen…” Hemming started.

  “Yeah, but you did!”

  “I do believe I told you not to come.”

  “Ugh.” I wouldn’t admit to Hemming that he was right. We all had left days ago, after the boys hatched from their Shape-Shifter pods. Their first meal had to be the animal that lived inside of them. The animal’s flesh and blood helped the demon animal remember what shape to change into. I should have just left the boys to their feast and hung out with Dati.

  A lamp in the corner of the room tilted back and forth until it righted itself. The light blinked on and off a few times.

  “Did you just see that?” I asked, pointing to the corner of the room.

  It was darker in the condo than I remembered, and now that I was concentrating a little more, I could see rot stains in the shadowy crevices of the rooms, creeping up from the baseboards. The place reeked, just like Mirabelle’s place did after she died. The air was stale and felt thick, oppressive.

  “See what?” Caleb took my hand.

  The scuffed leather sofa skittered several feet across the room.

  “Um, maybe that?” I pointed to the couch.

  “Shit. That’s not good.” Hemming’s brows furrowed in concern. “Dati, man, where are you?” he yelled into the apartment. The four of us had barely entered the living room when the coffee table slid in front of us, barring our way.

  Hemming disappeared down the hall towards Dati’s bedroom. I stayed put, especially as the Shishi decided to sit on my feet. They had taken up to perching on my lap when they could, and when that wasn’t an option, they were as close as possible. They let out a little whine.

  “What the Hell is going on?” I yelled down the hallway to Hemming.

  In response, Dati’s bedroom door slammed and soft whispering voices could be heard coming from down the hall.

  “Ah, Jenae, you might want to move away from the wall.” Riken pointed over my shoulder, his pale features made his face easy to see in the darkness. His thin lips scrunched to one side from a mix of surprise and uncertainty.

  “For god’s sake, what the Hell…” As I glanced over my shoulder, a face stared back at me,
masked by a layer of wallpaper. It was as if someone had buried a body in the wall and it had decided now was the time to come out. It stretched towards me, elongating its neck and pulling the entire wall with it. A hand pushed out, trying to grab me, but before it could, I stepped into the center of the room with Caleb and Riken.

  The whispers shifted into an eerie moan.

  The body melted back into the wall, leaving the wallpaper as it had been, stains and all. The wall rippled and ebbed like water as the body vanished. The tiny waves of wallpaper travelled towards the floor. The baseboards appeared to be moving.

  Well, that wasn’t correct.

  I bent down to take a closer look. A steady stream of bugs, tiny ones, large ones, ants, beetles, spiders crawled along the baseboards as if they were some insect highway.

  A pounding noise came from down the hallway.

  “Caleb!” Hemming was trapped behind the closed bedroom door, which muffled the shout. A touch of panic escaped from him as his words trembled, “Caleb, where are you?”

  I rushed to Dati’s bedroom door, Caleb and Riken behind me, and yanked on the handle. It was shut tight.

  “Hem, I’m right here,” Caleb said, trying to be assuring. He sucked at it.

  “Get me out of here,” Hemming hissed.

  Caleb reached for the doorknob and then pulled his massive hand back. A huge spider had taken up residence on the handle. It reared its front legs and exposed sharp little fangs.

  “Dude, what’s going on? This whole place is fucked up,” Caleb growled.

  “Bear down the door. Bust this thing open and get me out. Now!” Hemming ordered. “We need to get the Hell out of here.”

  Without a second thought, Caleb’s arm shifted from a massive muscled human arm into a giant demon-bear paw and began pounding on Dati’s bedroom door.

  Nothing. The door didn’t budge or give. Before we could try again, a hallow moan broke the silence, coming from directly behind the three of us. I turned around to see the walls of the hallway oozing tar-like goo from the ceiling. The liquid seemed eerily like the remnants left from the hatched pods.