The Demon

by Rick Bonogofsky

  Dante felt a twinge of anger, beyond that of the irritation Alighier had instilled in him so far, at the mention of the angel and his failings. “Who was this angel?” he asked, trying to gain any information that could lead to why he felt the anger in the first place.

  “I dunno…” Alighier shrugged. “Th’ emissary ne’er said… Just said the angel saw ever’thing and was forbidden to do anything…”

  Dante mulled this new information over for a while, trying to extract everything he could from it. Once again his mind’s eye went to the burning ruins of other towns, every time seeming more and more familiar. He could almost feel the heat of the flames on his face. So there was an angel who witnessed all of it. Maybe the angel, whoever he was, could give him the answers. Somehow, though, the angel seemed almost intimately familiar to Dante. Did he know this angel before he lost his memory? Why was the angel forbidden from helping those in need? These questions swirled through his mind without any clear answers.

  “Ye alright?” Alighier asked. His tone made Dante realize he’d asked the question several times, with no reply. Dante shook himself out of his thoughts and realized his hands were clenched into tight fists. His knuckles had turned white and his nails dug uncomfortably into his palms.

  “I’m… I don’t know…” Dante responded, confused. He opened his hands and saw a faint trickle of blood. He wiped it away and expected to see the nail marks. The small wounds were gone, simply faded away as if they’d never been there. Curious, Dante drew the knife on his belt. Gently, he slid the razor edge across his palm. Alighier gasped, thinking the man had gone insane, but quieted as he and Dante watched the wound close almost as quickly as the blade had left it.

  “I can heal rather quickly,” Dante gasped. “That… is sure to come in handy.”

  Alighier grinned and produced a smaller knife. Before Dante could ask him of his intent, the old man plunged the knife blade into his side, piercing a kidney. Dante cried out in pain and fell to his knees. As Alighier withdrew the blade, Dante felt the pain subside, replaced by a slight warming sensation. He lifted his tunic and watched his skin knit itself back together.

  “Amazing,” he breathed. Alighier chuckled and hiccupped again. He opened his mouth to say something, but a gout of vomit flew forth, narrowly missing Dante. The old man retched and fell to his knees. He heaved and spewed his stomach’s contents all over the ground.

  Dante backed away and let the old man get it all out, preferring to keep his distance. After several minutes had passed, Alighier stood on shaking legs and spat one last wad of bile onto the ground. He offered no apology and motioned to keep going.

  They reached a lone hill late the next day that overlooked the destroyed city on the coast. Dante and Alighier, now sober, looked on in solemn silence. The burned city was still black as coal, with some areas collecting sand. It was as if nature was unable to heal from such a wound. The black spot sat like a scar at the edge of the land where it met the sea. Light breezes kicked up flakes of ash and dust, swirling them around in a sad dance. The stench of death reached the two men, even though they stood nearly half a mile away.

  “How long ago was this?” Dante asked quietly. Even his hushed tone sounded like a trumpet blast in his own ears. The stillness was overpowering.

  “Over forty years,” Alighier replied. He sniffled, causing Dante to look at him. Tears streamed the old man’s face, running off of his quivering chin. He reached up and grasped a pendant on a thin string around his neck. Dante had never noticed the item.

  “He did this…” Alighier whispered. “That demon destroyed this once beautiful city. He destroyed my whole life there. In only an hour during a single night, he set fire to this place and slaughtered all those innocent people.”

  Dante faced Alighier fully and watched the old man kiss the pendant of a snake entwined around a staff. “What is that pendant?” Dante asked gently.

  “It was a symbol of my calling,” Alighier stated, never taking his bloodshot eyes from the burned city. “This is the staff of Hermes, a symbol of healing among the followers of the local gods. It was presented to me when I became the healer here.”

  “It looks old.”

  Alighier nodded. “I was so young then… So full of life. I was happy… I was…” He trailed off.

  “Please, Alighier, I need any information you can give me if I am to hunt this demon.”

  Alighier sighed and nodded. “I had a wife, you know. And children. Two daughters. Those three beauties were my life. One night, after I had helped a friendly young man with a nasty wound, I began my walk home.” He pointed to a tiny ruin about thirty feet away from where they stood. Dante could see a sun-bleached white skeleton among the rubble. “He lived just there. I was headed home when the first scream rang out, echoing in the night sky. I thought little of it at the time. Crimes were committed on occasion. It was a human city, after all… But there came another, this one louder. It was cut off rather suddenly, silenced by the demon. I froze. I was overcome by shock and fear. The second voice belonged to one of my patients.” Alighier’s leg buckled and he sank to his knees.

  “The first of the many fires started then,” he continued. “It seemed like eons to me, but in truth, it was merely seconds before more fires erupted. I started running, fearing the worst. I was only halfway home when the conflagration was at its height. No normal flames could burn that quickly, with that much hatred. The heat was unbearable. I fell to my knees and wept like a babe. There was no way my beloved girls survived. The night echoed with their screams. When I sleep, I can still hear them. When I wake, it is as if I can smell the burning bodies of my friends still. To this day, I am haunted by what the demon did, what he took from me. I swore vengeance, but time tempered my hate into reason. I am a human. What can I possibly do to a demon? I wandered for months, drunk when possible to avoid the pain that always caught up with me. I found myself in a temple, cursing the gods who could have prevented it. They were silent, as always. But then, one night while I was in a drunken stupor, he visited me. The archangel came to me and branded me with this ankh symbol.” His shaking fingers caressed the mark on his chest.

  “He gave me new purpose. After some time passed, I was officially made the liaison between Heaven, Hell, and Earth. The pain never went away, but with this new purpose, I could at least do what I could to make things better.” Alighier sat on the ground, legs giving out under him, and began staring at the sky. “But the demon struck again, this time murdering a small village with no name… I received the news and knew that the world was in danger. I called out to the archangel and begged for an audience. When he came I told him of the demon’s attack. He said he already knew. He said he would send an angel to watch the demon. I was comforted by that and slept peacefully that night. But the demon attacked again. Again I called for the archangel. Again he knew and comforted my aching heart. I lost count of how many times I repeated the process, only for it to happen again. There was no pattern, no telling where the demon would strike next. Tiny hamlets, huge cities, and everything in between was painted as a target for the demon. Why was the angel watching the demon and doing nothing? When I asked the archangel, he told me about a law forbidding any action against the demon as long as he was on Earth. What nonsense! Then, twenty years ago, I was told another angel was watching over us humans. He, at least, seemed to do some good. I heard of him through stories and legends. He’d help humans whenever he could. But for another twenty years, nothing was done against the demon. Not until Coitat…”

  Dante sat in silence, absorbing the story. Small details would call to him and offer up images from his memories, though nothing caused him to recall who he was. He did feel, however that he had been present at most of the attacks. Was he one of those sent to watch the demon? If so, why was he only to watch? In his memories, he always felt the heat of the fires as if he was in the midst of the flames. He knew he was getting closer.

  Alighier sat, sobbing into his hands, already regretting
reliving his worst memory.

  “We will find this demon,” Dante said, kneeling next to the weeping man and placing a comforting hand on his shoulder. “And I will kill it. There is no more need to fear new attacks from him.”

  Alighier looked up at Dante forlornly. “You had better live up to your promise, lad. Otherwise that demon may drag you to Hell for his masters.”

  Dante nodded and looked back toward the ruins of the city. “I’ll need to search the ruins for clues. I need to see if anything can trigger more memories of mine.”

  Alighier looked at the sky once more. “It’s getting dark. We should wait for morning when the light is better.”

  Dante shook his head. “No. You rest here. I’ll check out the ruins and be back here as soon as I am able. Besides, I see better in the dark.” He stood and walked off down the hill toward the ruins.

  Alighier sighed, shaking his head at the eagerness of youth. Then, a thought occurred to him; was Dante even young anymore? There was so much wisdom in his eyes, mixed with something akin to the memory of intense emotional pain. It was hard to tell with someone who was supposed to be sent by the angels to kill a demon. Dante could have been one of the angels watching the demon’s attacks for all Alighier knew. That thought unsettled him. He had hated the angels who had watched the demon and did nothing to stop him. But if Dante was one of those angels before he’d lost his memory, maybe the demon could be stopped.

  What had happened to the other angel, though? Was that angel still watching the demon? Or had that angel lost its memory too? Was that man back in Massalia the other angel? Alighier’s mind spun with the implications of what he had possibly ruined. If he could get Dante and this other man working together, the demon wouldn’t stand a chance. Excited, he peeked over the hill to see Dante reaching the ruins of the city. Assured that Dante wouldn’t be back anytime soon, Alighier stood and concentrated hard. Within seconds, Alighier once again stood outside his home in Sparta.

  Dante entered the ruined city, amazed at the level of destruction. What he found most interesting was that the place was completely and utterly devoid of life. Usually small rodents or birds would inhabit a place abandoned by humans. Plant life, too, was entirely absent. After forty years, not even a stubborn weed grew through the cracks in the ground. All throughout the area he could feel… something. It was familiar, but all he could think of was an image of the city burning. The feeling nagged at him, calling to him as if from thousands of miles away. It felt like a sense of emptiness, of a void left where life should have been. Yet, somehow, it felt almost normal to Dante. As he walked through the burned streets, he wondered why that was. His foot caught on something, almost making him stumble. He looked down at the object and saw the shriveled remains of a charred corpse. It was little more than charcoal at this point, but Dante recognized a man. One hand was gone, either severed or simply fallen off after years in the open air after the fire, Dante knew not which. Looking around, he could see many more bodies scattered about, all of them very similar to the rest. Dante knew he would not gather much from the victims after such a long time. Instead, his attention went to the buildings themselves. Many of them used to be wood with thatched roofs as far as Dante could tell. The more important buildings were made from stone, although many of those buildings were destroyed by time after the flames reaped the initial destruction.

  Dante wandered further into the city, past charcoal corpses, ruined buildings, and blast marks on the ground. He wandered until he came to the most important building to the humans in the city: the temple. Here the flames did the same amount of damage, but the stone itself was different. Where the buildings before were made from limestone, the temple was made from marble and therefore not as susceptible to the heat of the flames. However, even here, the fire did great damage. The temple still stood in most places, but many supporting pillars were crumbling from age and disuse. Dante examined the scorch marks, noting that in some places the stone had apparently liquefied and rehardened after the fires had gone out. He reached up to touch a bubbled dripping on one pillar and was amazed to find it was as smooth as polished marble. As he felt the damage, his hand began to feel warm. He quickly took his hand away, staring at it in disbelief. Seeing no damage, he looked again at the damaged pillar. Nothing had changed. Curious, Dante touched it again. Once again, his hand felt warmer. As he held his hand there, it began to heat up. The heat wasn’t painful or uncomfortable, but neither was it soothing. It reminded Dante of something from his past.

  In his mind he saw fires raging across a great landscape. Angels and demons fought one another in a desperate battle that Dante recognized as a great war between Heaven and Hell. He was there, witnessing a terrible battle with no clear victor. Angel blood mixed with demon blood on the battlefield. At his feet were the bodies of a human woman and a demon male. The woman was crouched over the man, protecting him, but a sword was run through both of them. Their blood stained Dante’s hands.

  Then, a tall, imposing figure dropped to the ground in front of where Dante viewed the battle. This figure was clad in black plate armor, wielding a giant demonic sword. His midnight colored wings folded at his back and he looked right at Dante with sorrow in his glowing blue eyes. He approached Dante slowly, trying to find the words to comfort him. The figure spoke, but Dante heard nothing. There was just a profound sadness welling up inside of him. It felt as if his chest had been ripped open and stuffed with lead. The archangel approached, bringing a hand up to place on Dante’s shoulder.

  A small, childlike hand came up and batted the armored glove away. Dante was remembering something from his childhood. He watched as his small hand conjured a ball of blue-white fire charged with silver lightning. The spell formed quickly and raw energy flowed along his arm. It coalesced into a single blast that erupted from the palm of his hand and shot toward the archangel’s face. The armored figure staggered backward and looked forlornly at Dante, sorrow still in his eyes. The spell had done little more that leave a blackened smudge on the archangel’s cheek, but Dante didn’t care. His sadness had turned to anger, and he turned and ran away from the scene.

  Dante gasped and ripped his hand away from the marble pillar, staring at the appendage with wide eyes. He started to shake, and his head pounded so hard he fell to his knees and clutched his temples in agony. A pained scream erupted from his lips and split the quiet night air. The whole city seemed to shudder from the sound. After several agonizing minutes, the pain cleared from Dante’s head. He stood up slowly and felt as if the world looked new. Or perhaps it took on a quality he’d forgotten about. Both seemed just as likely.

  “What in the name of…” he gasped. “I…” He held up his hands and felt newfound, yet previously dormant, power flowing through him. His fingertips crackled with blue-white energy, leaving silver trails in its wake. “I can use my magic again!” He spun in place, throwing his head back and laughing in glee. The returned power felt wonderful as it flowed through his body. As he spun, he released bolts of lighting, balls of fire, and lances of ice from his palms, rending great gashes in the marble around him. Marble bubbled from the intense heat and silver sparks flew about. Frost from the ice spells gathered in nooks and crannies where the fire and lightning didn’t go.

  Dante stopped his spin a few moments later, still laughing. Killing his target would be much easier now that he had his magic back.

  Alighier stepped into the nearby tavern, needing another bottle of cheap wine after telling his tale to Dante. He walked up to the bar and laid down his coppers. The fat barkeep glanced at him once and slid the bottle and a mug to him. Looking around, Alighier noticed a few errant glances in his direction. He knew it had been only been a couple of days since he’d left with Dante, but surely these men knew him. He’d been a regular at the tavern for close to five years before the archangel emissary called him to Massalia a month ago.

  “Why are they looking at me like that?” Alighier asked the barkeep when the fat man came nearer. “Don’t t
hey know me anymore, Thetis?”

  The barkeep shrugged, making a show of not knowing anything.

  “Right, I almost forgot,” Alighier sighed. He produced a few more coins and slid them to Thetis.

  The fat man scooped them off the bar in his pudgy hands and stowed them in a pocket. The jingling of other coins caught Alighier’s ear, telling the old man someone else had been there seeking information recently.

  “A man was lookin’ fer ye,” Thetis whispered. “Was in here just a couple hours after ye left.”

  “Did you get a name? What did he look like?”

  Thetis shook his head gently, likely so his jowls wouldn’t move as much as they already did. “No name. He was young, though, like the one ye were with. Wanted to know where ye’d gone. Paid good fer someone on a hunt.”

  Alighier went pale. “And did you tell him where I was going?”

  Thetis nodded. “Paid good, like I said. Didn’t seem like ye were ’is mark, so I figured no harm’d come to ye.”

  Alighier shook his head, annoyed and a little afraid for Dante’s safety. “Have one of your boys fetch me a horse,” he sighed, sliding four silver coins to the barkeep.

  Thetis nodded, called for one of his sons, and relayed the instructions.

  Before long, Alighier was uncomfortably riding fast along the trail he and Dante had used. Unmistakable tracks followed the others, confirming Alighier’s hunch that he was on the right path. Within only two hours, he spotted a figure on the horizon. After approaching the figure, Alighier knew he’d found the man he met in Massalia.

  Azrael turned at the sound of hooves on the cobbled road behind him. A rider approached. Once the rider was nearer, Azrael realized it was Alighier.