Caleb kept pounding.
Another disembodied noise—chattering teeth—echoed down the hallway. Shivers went up my back as the air around us went wintery cold.
Riken turned a pasty white, pastier than normal. His breath puffed out before his face in the cold.
“God, Caleb, move back,” I said, preparing myself to perform a spell.
The witch stuff had gotten easier and easier to do. All I really had to do was think about what I wanted to happen, and then let my body take over—but not completely or else all Hell broke loose.
I pushed Caleb out of the way and took a big deep breath. I let everything go silent inside of me and focused on one thing: open the door.
One of the zombie bitches leaned in close. I could feel her dead face close to mine as she whispered in my ear, “Destroy it, bust it, shatter it…”
I reached towards the door, letting just the fingertip touch the surface. An audible crack sounded. A split ruptured the wood of the door and crackled its way out from my finger, like lightning had struck the door. Splinters flew in all directions as the door crumbled inward and imploded. Pieces flew into Dati’s bedroom.
The first thing I noticed was the empty black crystalline pod on Dati’s bed.
The second was Hemming lying on the floor, dazed, with a large splinter of wood sticking out of his arm.
“Geez, Jenae!” Caleb elbowed past me and helped Hemming up onto his feet.
The bedroom walls were breathing. Bugs crawled everywhere, and the furniture moved randomly, jerking in every direction.
“You okay?” Caleb asked Hemming.
“Yeah, I’ll be fine.” He gripped the piece of wood and yanked it out of his flesh. Fresh blood welled up from the wound. “That’ll heal. It wasn’t deep.”
“What the Hell is going on? The whole apartment is like this,” Caleb said, indicating the moving furniture.
“Too much of us in one place, too much demonic energy spent in a short period of time,” Hemming explained, leading us out of the room. “Alyx’s pod is empty, and both you and Riken have hatched here, not to mention Jenae’s spell casting.” Hemming cast a dirty glance in my direction. “Dati’s been living here for many years. Anyone of those things could attract this, but all of it together has basically sent up a massive beacon that says Come.”
“What do you mean ‘come’?” Caleb asked.
As I walked into the living room, a gargantuan spider dropped from the ceiling in front of me. I squealed a little girlish freak-out noise.
“That is a bucket full of nope. Get me the fuck out, now!” I could handle blood, dead bodies, and lizards, but bugs pushed me past my limits.
In the middle of the living room, a mass of crawling bugs piled into columns that reached from the floor to the ceiling. They splayed out in all directions, skittering above our heads and down the walls. The entire apartment was covered in crawling things.
In the seconds it took to take in the disgusting scene, I was locked to the floor and unable to move. Another pile of insects had collected at my feet, and they were scurrying up my legs.
“Get me out of this!” I screamed in panic.
“I have no idea what the Hell to do! This is beyond me,” Hemming said. A gargled scream came from directly above us. I peered up to find Riken strapped to the ceiling and covered in the same swarm. A thick stream of the horde poured into his open mouth. His eyes were rolled into the back of his head, showing only the whites.
“Holy shit!” Caleb said as we studied Riken’s body, stuck to the ceiling. “Do something!” Caleb glanced at Hemming, pleading for help, but Hemming appeared lost.
The twisting black cords of creepy-crawlies had wound themselves further up my body, encasing me to the waist.
“Oh my god, get these things off of me!” I swatted and flailed my arms, trying hard to swoosh them away but not crush them. It didn’t work. My hands and arms were covered in smashed bug guts.
Caleb did a double-take between his suspended brother and me. “Caleb, help me!” I begged.
Caleb and Hemming, unsure of how to proceed, tried in vain the brush the swarm off of me. It was a losing battle as the sheer volume of insects slowly took us over.
I screamed.
The room swooned and swirled around me. A familiar sensation began to tingle in my skin, but instead of the sensation coming from my hands and feet, where it usually started, I felt it on my shoulders. Was my magic was taking over?
The tingling turned to burning, and flames of fire erupted out from me and danced around my neck.
It was only then that I understood. It was still magic, but it was the amber stone necklace, the one that had erupted in fire and smoked the schoolyard bully. Glowing deep red, it shot out flames, which whipped around in a counterspiral to the black mass of pests.
Hemming and Caleb twirled away from me quickly, fearful of being burnt.
A shriek emanated around the room as the colony of pests that had tried to entomb me retreated and concentrated in a far corner. Riken was still being strangled on the ceiling. He was seizing as he hung above us, making very disturbing gurgling noises.
Directly in front of Hemming, the air shimmered, like heat waves rising off the hood of a hot car in summer. An elaborately patterned sleeve reached out of the shimmer. I recognized the gaudy dress immediately.
An arm and a leg followed, and then hips and a torso too until finally a whole body in peculiar dress stood in front of us. The Kasadya had returned.
His shining black gaze darted around the room, taking in the scene, and then glanced quickly at each of us.
“This was not seen,” he grumbled. “We must leave here immediately. Staying does not bode well for any of you, in any timeline.”
“What the Hell is happening?” Caleb asked the Watcher. “And can we please do something about him?” Caleb pointed towards Riken.
“The Disembodied have arrived. There are—and were—too many of us here, and the bodiless demons can taste it, sense it. They live in the shadows—in the lingering energies we create. They seek to be us. They are far more dangerous than we give them credit for.” The Kasadya pointed to the ceiling where Riken’s body was pressed up against the ceiling, his mouth still open with a torrent of critters pouring into his opening. “He is being—will be possessed. He is being taken over by them.”
I clung to Caleb’s side and grabbed his massive hand for comfort. “Well, we need to do something.” I glared at the Kasadya as if all of this was his fault.
The Kasadya stared at me and nodded.
“Yes.” He pointed a long sharp finger at the stone around my neck. “This has and should work. You”—he shifted his digit towards Caleb—“pick her up and thrust her closer to the body there.” He glanced at Riken still pinned and convulsing. Froth was dripping out of his open mouth, the horde pouring in. His belly was inflating as the bugs gorged it full. “Take your amulet and shove it into his mouth. The flames must lash out and burn the insects. You must not let go of it.”
We did as we were told, but I wasn’t particularly happy about getting that close to the insect horde. Gripping the amber stone that dangled from the velvet cord around my neck, I lifted it off of my head, and thrust it upwards towards Riken. Caleb hoisted me close so that I could place the rock where the Watcher had ordered.
The stone was still pulsating and glowing from deep within, but as soon as I shoved it towards Riken’s open maw, the protective flames erupted outwards, charring the insects it touched.
A rain of dead bugs descended onto my head. I screamed and flung my hands, trying to get the burnt corpses off of me. As my hand dropped, the protective fire died.
‘This is just gross.” I made another silly girlish noise, which embarrassed me a little.
“No! Do not stop! Place the amulet back into his mouth now, immediately!” the Watcher said. “Do this now or he’s lost to us. He is needed.”
I was almost ready to say ‘let him die’, but then remembere
d Riken was Caleb’s brother. I flipped my hand upwards as the flames spewed forth and another shower of dead bugs rained down on me.
“Deeper! You must get right into the mouth.”
I scrunched my eyelids tight and forced my hand into Riken’s mouth. I could feel the licks of fire from the protective flames and the skittering of the crawlers. I shivered with disgust but continued to do as I was told, despite the constant barrage of tiny dead bodies falling into my hair.
Flames thrashed around my hand and penetrated Riken’s body through his mouth. Tiny flames came out his nose. A huge spider, cindered and smoking, dropped onto my head. I let out a huge scream, and fire burst forth in a tidal wave, like a backdraft in a house fire.
Riken groaned—which was a new noise. He was regaining consciousness. Without warning, he fell from the ceiling and landed on the fluffy area rug with a dull thud.
Whatever sorts of insects that had escaped the pyre scampered away, in all directions, the room silent but for the clicking of their little legs as they scrambled on the surfaces of the apartment.
“We must leave now,” said the Kasadya, while waving sigils into the air with a knife. In a flash movement, he sliced his arm open, coating the blade with his blood, and continued drawing symbols in the air. The shapes dripped in red and shimmered like the air had before. “Everyone must hold on to me as we walk through.”
“Wait,” I shouted, “I can’t leave the dogs.” I bent over and scooped up the first Shishi. “Caleb, can you grab the other?”
Caleb bent over and grabbed the guardian beast. It snarled and clamped its square jaw onto his arm. Caleb growled at the Shishi in warning, but he continued to hold onto the guardian. I bit my tongue but was giggling a little. Blood ran down his forearm.
The Shishi jumped out of his arms and ran far enough away to be out of Caleb’s reach. It turned, opened its mouth full of pointed teeth and barked a sharp shrill command.
The Shishi in my arms whined, imploring me to stay behind. It did a quick double-take, then jumped out of my arms, running over to its mate and sitting in perfect unison with the other.
“We must go now,” said the Kasadya.
“Just get us out of here,” Caleb grumbled, as he grabbed my arm and pulled me towards the Kasadya’s magical rift.
The Kasadya stepped through the shimmering air, and we were pulled forward. It felt hot, but it was quick. Instantly we were somewhere else. Hemming let out an “Oh!” as we spotted Dati sitting at a desk with his head in his hands.
“A little warning on how that was gonna feel would have been nice,” I spit out, as I grabbed the wall for support.
There was a fainting couch covered in a soft velvety material and a desk with all kinds of things on it. Several filing cabinets lined one wall of the room and an assortment of jars contained interesting ingredients. It reminded me a little of Mirabelle’s place.
Riken dropped to his knees and threw up a pile of bugs.
“Dati, where are we?” I asked, fighting a sudden and unexpected wave of nausea.
Dati glanced up to see our little mob, smoking from my flash fire and looking a little cindered and spent.
“Alyx’s mother’s shop.” He was as spent as we were. Actually, he looked like shit.
“It’s been a long and strange night, Dati,” Hemming said.
“This is not—was not—what should have happened! If it was going to happen, it should occur much later. The timing is wrong,” the Kasadya yammered, spewing his unusual speech while pointing at the Succubus pod.
“What the Hell is that?” Hemming blurted out.
“Alyx,” Dati said, deflated.
Dati pointed upwards with a bloody hand. We all noticed that Dati cocked his head strangely. His movement was stiff, like when someone favours one leg because he’s twisted an ankle. He was injured. But worse was where he pointed to. Alyx wasn’t present, but a pure white pod had spun delicate threads high up on the wall, right at the juncture of the ceiling. It appeared silky and was bioluminescent, the gleaming threads cutting through the darkness of the shop at night.
The Kasadya studied the pod and shook his head.
“I have not seen this either. But now that I have, it explains,” he said, shaking his head. “This makes all the timelines more perilous. This is one step closer to the end of the world.”
Lineage
SILENUS
I stared intently at the wall before me, plotting my script as I examined the cracks in the concrete. I had chosen a home located in an original neighbourhood of the city, as it had once housed a family of witches. The whole structure creaked with age—over a hundred years’ worth—and where I was wise and ripened in age, this house had rotted into a decrepit shack.
My human disguise wavered slightly, but I concentrated hard on my dwindling energy reserves and managed to adjust the glamour. I did a cursory glance to see if my devoted Vampyre servant had noticed. He hadn’t.
As my plans slowly weaved themselves together, I discovered the effort to pull my lord into the human realm expended far more energy than I had originally expected. But then it would all be so Hellishly wonderful when I achieved my outcome.
Garbled moans from Ivan’s captives distracted me from my current machinations. I tried in vain to ignore the sobbing and instead focused on restructuring the sigils I would need to draw on the wall.
“Yes. Yes, this is where that will go,” I said to myself. Turning towards the darker half of the room, I instructed the Vampyre, “Ivan, now, as I asked you.”
Ivan dragged his body out from deep within the shadows, his head listing. I found it hard to believe that he could have lived as long as he had with the small amount of blood that I allowed him to consume. Apparently, Ivan had the propensity for extreme violence, more so than others of his kind. I didn’t see it. He complied better to my commands, better than any others within my horde, yet as a Vampyre—a dirty breed—he could not to be trusted. Vampyres only thought of their next meal.
I beckoned him forward, pointing to the chair next to the large bureau, a desk I had used extensively over the last few years. The surface was littered with notes and parchments, old plans that meant little to me now. One item in particular, though, gave me great satisfaction: a glass jar containing one crushed monarch butterfly. A reminder of Alyx, the leftover token laid upside down, a dried-out exoskeleton with crispy wings. Alyx, my son, displayed aptitudes beyond even what I thought could be possible. He held so much promise.
Ivan slinked across the cold stone basement. His milky orbs glowed with hunger.
I tapped the chair. “Remove your shirt.”
Ivan did as I commanded. The dank and shadowy room reminded me more of a crypt than the basement of someone’s house, and Ivan’s skin gleamed in the darkness. His starvation had emaciated the undead body. I had forbade his feeding until he accomplished my tasks. Vampyres required the right guidance in order to be useful.
The skin sunk in between each of his ribs, and his vertebrae ran down his back so prominently it reminded me of a mountain range separating his body into two equal halves.
He had completed his last task for me, however, and Ivan’s reward meant the removal of the last parasite from his torso. After this, Ivan could go free. Our bargain would be complete.
Bending over, I removed a cylindrical glass tube from the bottom drawer. The container held a handful of silvery parasites, which had been removed from Ivan. Like fat little ticks after a bite, they wrestled in their confinement, engorged with the blood from the Vampyre’s body.
That might have accounted for his current listlessness. The minions drained more blood from him than I had allowed Ivan to have—a fact I used to my advantage. As long as I dangled the possibility of food in front of him, he obeyed my every word.
Along with the glass tube of scuttling parasites, I pulled out a long length of rope and, of course, my favourite serrated knife.
I placed all the items on the desk in a perfect line. Ivan sat
bare-chested in the wooden chair, his torso marred with fresh wounds just below the ribcage. The wounds stretched lengthwise and ran deep. I could only imagine the pain each had caused. Ivan rapped his fingers on the arm of the chair in anticipation.
“Hmmm, no, this isn’t right,” I mused, studying Ivan, his irises empty of colour. “We should have an audience. After all, it’s the last one, isn’t it? Bring my latest request in here, along with the trough.” Prolonging the procedure and making him wait, even if just for a few more minutes, pleased me. The added tension the wait created, the expectancy of being free of my parasites, electrified the air with black energy. That sensation invigorated my old Satyr body.
Ivan rose from the chair and walked back into the shadows from where he had come. He made several trips, dragging the trough out first, followed by four very large burlap sacks, each of which wriggled violently as they dropped onto the cold floor.
“Ivan, I do say, you’ve done excellently. Let’s see, shall we?” I stepped over to the four squirming bags and hoisted up the first one, dangling it over the trough.
I ripped the burlap apart with my free hand, exposing a human head, female, with long hair, streaks of grey throughout. The rest of the body I left wrapped, her mouth gagged, but with the utmost care, I pulled the tousled hair out of the woman’s face, pushing it behind her ears. Her teary eyes and cheeks smeared with mascara.
“Well, Susan, it has been a very long time. Do you remember? We had so much fun together.” I could feel myself becoming aroused, thinking of times Susan and I had spent alone together. I placed her down carefully, so that she knelt close to the large metal trough.
Moving on to the remaining sacks, I uncovered each one in the same way, revealing Bob, the useless husband who couldn’t satiate his wife’s sexual needs, and two teenagers, one male, one female.
The teenaged boy surprised me by glaring with an intense ferocity.
“Well my, my… now, we have a warrior here. Tell me, son, if you were free right now, would you attempt to fight to save your family?” I cocked an eyebrow.
Daimonion (The Apocalypse Book 1) Page 20