by J. R. Rain
Which meant I had to get my act together and fast.
I glanced over at the statue once more, and I could have sworn I saw the bitch twitch.
Has to be the moon, bouncing off Mount Shasta and playing tricks with the shadows.
Hell, I believed in vampires and I believed in demons, so an animated statue wasn’t much of a leap. A few shrieks, screams and whimpers arose from below, as more of the robed females came to their senses enough to understand the Cloudland scene had taken a bad turn.
And it was then that my head, which was already feeling foggy, seemed to get even lighter. The statue turned toward me with a rumbling and grinding, but I also realized I was turning to look at it at the same time.
Holy shit.
As an experiment, I slowly lifted my head and looked up at the moon, and the statue did the same, a few bits of gravel tumbling twenty feet down to the ground during the motion.
I raised one hand, which was made more of vapor than flesh. The statue trembled and then the arm moved away from the body, and the tree shook with the vibration that rippled across the compound like an earthquake.
By then, almost all the Cloudland disciples had been scared straight, and they fled along with the security guards. But Erasmus still held his ground, making me wonder if he’d seen the stone beast move before.
Probably. After all, he’d set up this sacrifice for a reason.
Parker was glaring as she scuttled up the tree trunk, and now she was only fifteen feet below me, meaning I had to make a decision soon. I was still groggy and weak, and I couldn’t hold myself together as a mist much longer. And that meant I’d become solid again while I was at my most vulnerable, probably about the same time Parker reached me with her evil little stake.
I figured you only got to play Barbie Doll with a twenty-five-foot statue once every blue moon, so I stretched my arm up and watched the statue lift its crude, stubby arm. I reached straight out away from me and clutched at the air as if I were trying to snag a mosquito and steal its stolen blood.
The statue repeated my motion with its blunt stone hand.
I focused and visualized Parker scrambling up the tree below me, and I edged my hand forward to snatch her up in my imagination.
I felt the tree shake and looked down, expecting a piece of the stone to have broken free and plummeted to the ground. Instead, the big gray hand held Parker pinned against the rough bark. She hissed and cursed, stabbing at the stone with her stake.
I felt tiny little pinpricks against the back of my hand.
“I hate you, Spider,” she grunted.
“Bet you say that to all the vampires,” I said, but my voice was kind of weak. My snappy comeback was a little lame, too.
I blamed it on being spiked with garlic and holy water. And I blamed it on Parker.
But mostly I blamed it on myself, and my desire to play hero.
Who is the sucker now, Spider?
I was balanced in the crook of the tree between three fat branches, and I was now solid enough that I could feel my skin reforming and growing whole again. I tried to push harder with my hand, to make the statue smash Parker like a bug, but apparently my brief power of transference was gone. The effort had drained what last little bit of reserves I had.
Now I was helpless again, intoxicated with garlic, and feeling limp and heavy. And the statue sagged a little and returned to its former position, once again stiff and cold and dumb.
Sort of like me.
Below me came the scruffing sound as Parker resumed her climb, and I didn’t even have enough strength to tell her to go to hell.
I had a feeling I might get there first.
Chapter Twenty-five
Who knew demons could climb so well?
As she sped swiftly up the pine tree, using branches like ladder rungs, I weighed my options. At full strength, I liked my chances against her, even if she was wielding a stake. I’ve fought worse, truth be known, and I’ve had decades to perfect my fighting technique.
As it stood, I realized I had one option. And only one option.
When she was about ten feet below me, I positioned myself directly over her. My plan was simple: I was going to drop down on her like a vampiric A-bomb. We would crash through the trees together, and if I was lucky—very, very lucky—I might seriously hurt her. If my guess was right, Parker—or whatever the demon’s real name was—was using a young woman’s body as its host. Whether or not this young woman had permitted the demon in, I didn’t know. But if her host was indeed human, well, human bodies can break.
And a broken human body didn’t do a demon much good.
If I happened to kill an innocent person in the process, well, it wouldn’t be the first time.
I was just preparing myself for what I expected to be one hell of a shitty fall when Parker looked up. Her eyes were completely black and filled with hate. She must have suspected what I was up to, because she held up her hand.
“Wait, you fool,” she said, speaking around the stake in her mouth.
I couldn’t do much in my present poisoned state, but one thing I could do was let go of a tree and let gravity take over. Also, I didn’t take orders from demon-possessed girls wielding stakes.
I shook my head and very nearly eased from my precarious perch on a branch that was already sagging mightily.
Holding on to a tree limb with one hand, she removed the stake from her mouth. “Wait, dammit. All I really need is your blood. The ceremony was just for show, just for that idiot Erasmus.”
I wanted to say something clever and snappy, to show that I was ready for action. Except I was too weak to even talk. Hell, I was almost too weak to keep myself from falling on top of her anyway.
She anxiously looked up at the moon shining in sections through the tangled tree branches. “Time is literally running out. And vampires take much too long to die. All that screaming and writhing and hissing. All I need is your blood. A drop. And I’ll be on my way.”
I stared at her in disbelief. As if to prove her point, she opened her hand and the stake dropped, crashing lightly through the pine needles below. She cocked an eyebrow as it to say, “See,” and then moved the last couple of feet up toward me.
I was now sitting on the far edge of the branch. If I shifted my weight just a little, I would drop. Directly onto her. I was dense enough to do real damage, and the two of us would drop like a rock. I would survive, but I doubted her human host would.
She took another step, and another.
I wondered if she had another stake concealed somewhere. What she would do with my blood was anybody’s guess, but I suspected it had something to do with the stone giant nearby. After all, I had just felt its power, although limited. And one thing I knew about demons was this: they were always looking for a host. A way to escape the confines of hell, where they damn well belonged.
And a massive stone body, full of unlimited power, would no doubt fit the bill nicely.
It was now or never, I thought. If I was going to do this, I needed to do it right away...and then what? Although a fall through the trees wouldn’t kill me, I wasn’t immune to broken bones. Yes, I healed quickly, but not in my current poisoned state, where everything was sluggish, where I felt less than human.
I waited, debating. Parker took another step up and positioned herself under me.
She reached up...
Her fingers, I saw, were clawed. Although her host was human, the demon inside would eventually take over the body and reveal its true nature.
With one hand holding onto a sagging branch, she used the other to reach under the hem of my jeans. It could have been a cold snake working its way up through my pants. Despite myself, I shivered.
Do it now. Do it.
Except I didn’t do it. I was suddenly unsure if dropping down was the best answer. Maybe it was the holy water and garlic in my system that made me doubt myself. And so I watched and waited, virtually helpless.
“Is this some kinky sex thing?” I
asked, trying to be glib, using the last of my strength to utter those silly words.
With her hand groping me under the bottom hem of my pants, she suddenly slashed hard across my ankle, using her sharp nail to open my skin. A furious burning raged through me and I winced.
“Now, that wasn’t so bad was it?” she asked, drawing her hand out. I saw that her index finger dripped blood—my blood.
She brought her glistening finger to her mouth, grinned wildly, and then popped it in like a bloody lollipop.
I waited. She waited.
She gasped and her body contorted wildly. She kept contorting until she was left sagging on the branch.
The demon, I knew, was gone.
And now the blonde girl, whoever she was, began a slow slide off the branch. I should have let her drop. No doubt she had asked the demon to posses her, because demons need an opening, a weakness, an invitation. Somehow she’d summoned it. No doubt she deserved whatever was coming next.
But, dammit, if I was going to play hero, I had to do it all the way. I didn’t let her drop alone.
Too weak to do much else, I slid off the branch I had been perched on, took hold of the young girl, and together we crashed down through the tree. I did my best to protect her, taking the brunt of the breaking limbs, some of which tore through me.
Luckily, none of the shattered branches pierced my chest, or I’d have been hanging there like a vampire shis kabob.
Near the base of the tree, the branches thinned out and we dropped freely. I turned slightly in mid-air and made sure she landed on top of me.
Which she did.
Mercifully, the branches, although tearing through my skin, had slowed the fall. And even more mercifully, we had landed on a thick pile of moss and ferns. No real harm, perhaps the first good news I’d had in a few days.
The girl also seemed mostly unharmed.
She was also fully human, and I knew there was only one way to purge the poison from my system.
I needed a fresh feeding.
And as I lay with the girl in my arms, I drew just enough blood from her neck to return my strength, but not enough to cause any real harm to her.
As I stood, leaving her curled within the moss and ferns, the wound on her neck already healing, I felt stronger than I had felt in quite some time. The girl would awaken soon, no doubt confused and weak as hell. But at least she was alive. Whoever she was.
Now, where had the demoness gone with my blood?
I had no sooner thought the question when the earth beneath me shook and a great roar filled the sky. I think I had my answer.
I dashed through the woods and, at the edge of the clearing, I pulled up short. On the raised dirt platform, the stone statue was moving. As it rose from its crouched position, it threw back its head and let loose with another terrifying roar.
I really shouldn’t have been surprised to see the statue moving. After all, I myself had recently inhabited it. But what did surprise me was that as the statue stepped away, it revealed what appeared to be a hole. A very deep hole.
So deep that I suspected it went straight to hell.
After all, pouring free from it were shadowy, winged figures. Demons.
Dozens of them.
Chapter Twenty-six
In my limited experience, demons tend to inhabit hosts, usually flawed people who leave themselves vulnerable to invasion and possession.
And although I had encountered a few lesser demons in my day, I’d never seen such a horde all at once. And never had I seen them in their true forms—if indeed that’s what these badassed winged creatures were.
They swarmed around the statue like hummingbirds around a sugar jar. They were the size of monkeys, although they had leathery, bat-like wings and hooked claws.
After a moment, they began swooping from the air toward the slowest of the fleeing security guards. Screams ripped the night as several of them were seized and dragged into the air. The demons were small and had trouble gaining altitude with the extra weight.
I was still looking around for the demoness, but I was getting a bad, bad feeling. A feeling that she had tricked me yet again, and now it was Parker in the statue, getting ready to party.
Sure enough, the winged demons carried their human Kibbles n’ Bits straight back to the statue, which hadn’t moved much. The first demon flung its limp cargo into the statue’s stone jaws, and the mouth opened with a rumble. Then the jaws clamped closed, and I heard the distinct crunching of bone amid the shriek of pain. Blood squirted out like black rain.
The statue grew a little more flexible with the feeding, and the next few demons circled in a holding pattern around the statue’s head, no doubt waiting for the next special delivery.
I didn’t care about Erasmus, who was on his knees in awe before the giant statue, not realizing he’d been tricked just like I had.
The security guards were probably in on the sacrifice, so maybe this one had it coming. But it was probably just another asshole wanting a paycheck. To watch an innocent person die was too much to take. Despite all the atrocities I’d committed in my past, I still knew good from evil. And that stone, cold-hearted bitch was definitely evil.
She spat out the sodden uniform and a couple of bones, and the waste spun to the ground around Erasmus. By now the compound was empty, and a couple of gunshots rang out as other security guards tried to save themselves from the flying critters.
I was fully recovered by then, the young woman’s blood coursing through my system and energizing me. A vampire buzz is unlike anything I’d ever experienced in my human life. My senses were heightened and my skin seemed electrified, and the fluttering of the demon’s wings was like a mighty wind against me. The trembling of the ground rolled up through my feet and the moist aroma of the mountain air was rich in my nostrils, as was the tempting smell of the blood dripping down the demoness’s chin.
In a weird way, I felt fully alive—or at least in the full mockery of life that only the undead can feel.
But all I could think about was rescuing the people that had been snatched by demons. Not all of them were security guards, as I saw fluttering robes and blonde hair dangling beneath some of the flying creatures. Apparently the demons had invaded the grounds and found fresh prey.
Parker had gotten what she wanted from me—a feeding.
And I’d gotten what I wanted from her—a feeding in return, from the abandoned host she’d granted me.
I could have called it even and left Cloudland forever, granting Parker all the power she’d ever craved and letting her have dominion over her flock of demons and Erasmus Cole, the man she’d pretended was her father.
But my blood—such as it was—still boiled from her previous trickery, and the way she’d played the innocent victim and deceived me into helping her.
And despite not having been human for so many, many years, and despite the cold spot in my chest where a heart once raged with passion, I had a burning desire for revenge.
With no weapons at hand to take down a twenty-five-foot statue, I figured that instead of bringing the battle to Parker, I’d have the battle carry me to her.
I burst out of my concealment and ran toward one of the buildings, flailing my arms like I was one of Erasmus Cole’s Cloudland disciples. Even though I was no longer wearing a robe, I figured a winged demon fresh from the bowels of hell pretty much perceived that one fleeing person was as good as another.
I ducked my head as if I was scared, but in truth, I didn’t want any of those claws to puncture my neck. I hadn’t seen any of the demons feed, and they seemed intent on serving their newfound goddess, but the sight and smell of blood makes monsters of so many of us.
The only difference was, instead of heading for the safety of the buildings, I bolted straight toward the dirt platform.
It took only moments before I heard the flapping of wings and one swooped down behind me. I braced and then felt the claws dig into my shoulders, hard enough to get a solid grip but not tea
ring through my shirt and piercing the skin.
Just before I was borne aloft, I reached down and grabbed the item I’d been seeking: the ceremonial stake that Parker had dropped.
As I was lifted into the air, someone screamed, and I thought it was one of the teen blonde runaways, it was so high and girlish. Instead, it was The Answer, Erasmus Cole, wriggling beneath one of the demons. So much for personal growth through self-empowerment...
The stake in hand, I relaxed and let the demon carry me into the chilly night. Up high, without the branches of the tree to shield the view, I caught the full glory of the glistening Mount Shasta and could understand why humans fell under its mystical spell.
But at the moment, I had a different type of spell to worry about, and I thought I’d be next on Parker’s menu.
Instead, the demon that had snatched Erasmus Cole made a beeline for the stone bitch’s mouth, obviously an overachiever that hoped to get a right-hand seat at the throne.
I recognized the irony of Erasmus finally learning the true meaning of sacrifice, but I doubt he appreciated the lesson. Because the demon laid him squarely between the statue’s creaking basalt lips, and they came together with a loud clatter.
I was close enough to see Erasmus’s eyes widen in shock and pain. In his last moment, he stared at me, and I could have sworn he smirked a little bit, as if secretly pleased that at least he wasn’t the only one to serve as Parker’s late-night snack.
But the smirk died away with a final scream, and Parker slurped and sucked, draining his vital sauces into whatever passed for the belly of the beast. The statue was invigorated by the fresh feeding, and she threw open her mouth to roar, letting Erasmus’s crushed corpse fall to the ground while dark, glistening blood streamed down Parker’s chin.
She raised her arms into the night, as if acknowledging the mist-shrouded mountain, and she took a couple of lurching steps toward it. I wondered if the statue had some innate connection with the mountain, born from its stone and harboring its power. She was moving much better now, more strong and fluidly, and I knew the feeling, because I was also rejuvenated from my recent feeding.