Darkness Reigns

by Joseph Nassise

  Gabrielle winced at the sound, startling loud in the stillness of the woods, and glanced around guiltily as if expecting the owner to make a sudden appearance and admonish them for their intrusion.

  Given how things had been going since they'd returned from the Beyond, she'd almost welcome it.

  Cade cleared the windowsill of glass shards and then boosted himself up and in through the opening. Gabrielle could hear him moving about for a moment and then the locks were disengaged and Cade opened the front door from the inside, inviting her in with a sweep of his hand.

  Inside, it was dark, but thankfully the home owners had been safety conscious individuals because they found a flashlight in the drawer of the table right next to the front door. Cade switched it on and shone it about the room.

  Just as they'd hoped, the interior was intact. They found themselves standing in a foyer looking on a living room to the right and a dining area to their left. Ahead of them, the hallway passed a staircase on one side before opening up into a kitchen. Since they only had one light, they decided to stick together and work from the top down.

  Upstairs, they found four bedrooms; a master and three singles. Two of the single rooms were decorated in pink, yellow, and light blue pastels, and given the furniture and decorative touches were clearly for younger girls. The third just as clearly belonged to a teenager, but that was as much as Cade could figure out. Movie posters fought for space with images of bands, but he didn't recognize any of them and couldn't tell if the room belonged to a boy or a girl.

  There was a layer of dust on everything and it was clear that no one had been in any of the rooms for some time.

  Moving back to the ground floor, the duo cleared the living and dining rooms, finding the same level of abandonment and neglect, and then moved into the kitchen.

  Gabrielle's eyes went wide as she opened the nearest cabinet and discovered that it was full of boxed and canned foods, everything from bags of dried beans to cans of corned beef hash and Chef Boyardee. She and Cade began pulling the doors of the other cabinets open, discovering the usual kitchen paraphernalia of pots and pans and various countertop appliances. Other cabinets revealed more of the same, including the discovery of an unopened case of plastic water bottles in the cupboard near the refrigerator.

  Cade stepped out of the room, only to return moment later with a pair of backpacks, the kind kids used to carry their books to and from school.

  "Load this one with the best of the canned goods," he said, handing one to her. "I'll fill this other one with the bottled water."

  We'll probably grow sick of Beefaroni before very long, she thought, as she packed cans into the backpack, but at least we won't starve to death.

  When they were finished, they passed through the door on the far side of the kitchen, which, as it turned out, led to the garage.

  They found two vehicles there but one look was all it took to let Gabrielle know that neither of them were going anywhere in a hurry.

  The first, a decades-old Chevy Blazer, sat with its hood open and an empty space where the battery should have been. The distributor cap and spark plug harness had also been removed, the pair sitting atop the engine block like a dead octopus with its tentacles dangling. It looked like someone had siphoned off the gas, too; a section of garden hose stretched from the mouth of the gas tank to the garage floor where it lay in a limp curl.

  The second vehicle was a much newer model Mercedes sedan. Gabrielle wasn't a car nut but even she could tell this car couldn't be more than two years old, at best. It gleamed in the sunlight, its slick lines making it seem like it was ready to take off at any moment. Unfortunately, it was resting on four flat tires.

  "Damn," she said, shaking her head at the sight.

  Cade, however, wasn't ready to give up that easily. Gabrielle watched as he stepped over to the Mercedes and tried the door. When it opened with issue, he slipped inside, reached up to the visor, and then flashed the car keys he found sitting there out the open door at her.

  "Lot of good that's going to do you," she said dismissively, but he just grinned at her and tried to the start the car.

  It took several tries, but eventually the engine caught and turned over, testament to the superior engineering that was the hallmark of the brand. Cade let it run for a few moments, checked the gas gauge and then turned the car off and got back out, keys in hand.

  "Okay, so the engine works. But we're not going to get far on four flat tires," she said.

  "Good thing we don't have to," Cade replied.

  Taking the flashlight, he moved between the vehicles, located the manual release lever hanging down from the automatic door opener above their heads and gave it a good yank. With the automatic door opener now disconnected, Cade walked over to the garage door and rolled it on up.

  Light flooded the garage, illuminating the shelves along either side and the workbench at the back. A variety of tools were haphazardly strewn across the bench and he poked through them until he found what he needed.

  "Given the conditions we've seen so far, I'm betting the Blazer is the better choice for our needs, so I'm going to take the battery out of that," he said, pointing at the Mercedes, "and put it in that," with a head nod to the Blazer. "Hopefully I can get it up and running without too much effort."

  Gabrielle nodded in agreement. "We're going to need to transfer the gas, too."

  "Right. Look around and see if you can find a bucket so we can do so."

  She could hear him tinkering around under the hood as she searched the shelves. She found a variety of sports equipment, boxes of Christmas decorations, and a collection of kitchen appliances including a blender, a juicer, a bread machine and a Keurig coffeemaker. She found an old garden hose, which she pulled out and set near the Mercedes; it would be useful for siphoning off the gas.

  But, unfortunately, no bucket. Not even an empty container of any kind.

  Gabrielle wandered back over to where Cade had his head inside the hood of the Mercedes. "Nothing on the shelves," she told him, "but I spotted a shed in back so I'm going to go check that out. Bound to be a gas can in there."

  "Good idea," he told her, without looking back.

  Gabrielle turned and left the garage.

  5

  Cade was neck deep in the truck's engine bay when a piercing cry split the air. He jerked upright, barely noticing as he slammed his head on the underside of the hood, then turned, his hands already going for the sword sheathed across his back.

  Belatedly, he realized that Gabrielle had been gone longer than she should have and he cursed himself for not keeping better track of the time.

  If something happened to her because of my lack of attention...

  Cade rushed out the garage door, sword in hand, and raced around the corner of the house toward the backyard and the shed that she'd gone to explore. The shriek sounded a second time as he did so and this time the cry was even more powerful than the last. It was like a machete to the skull, cutting through his senses and sending fire flaring along his neurons, disrupting his thoughts and nearly bringing him to a stuttering halt as his body came close to forgetting what his brain had told it to do just seconds before.

  He stumbled, falling to one knee, then gritted his teeth and forced the mental disruption back through sheer force of will, determined not to let it come between him and his companion. He pushed himself back to his feet, rounding the final corner of the house just as the cry sounded a third time.

  Cade took in the tableau before him even as he continued charging forward.

  Gabrielle stood in the middle of the backyard, frozen in place by the same power that had just tried to take control of Cade. Her right hand was hanging in the air, caught halfway to the hilt of her own sword when the creature's paralyzing cry had split the air, and Cade could see the tremble racing through her limb as she fought to free herself.

  Stalking toward her from the open mouth of the shed at the edge of the yard was a cat-like creature straight out of
a nightmare. It was shaped like a panther, all black fur and sinuous motion, but it was twice the size of a regular big cat, with three legs on either side, a long tail that flattened on the end into a paddle-like weapon, and two heads instead of one.

  It was from that second head that the eerie cry came a fourth time, splitting the air like a knife.

  Cade recognized the creature immediately.

  Howler Demon, he thought, and then he was racing forward to put himself between it and its intended prey, knowing that there was no way for Gabrielle to free herself now that she'd fallen victim to the demon's mesmerizing cry. He'd faced such creatures before, albeit with the help of custom ear plugs, and by all rights he should have been in the same situation as his companion, but after that first jolting cry the creature's scream had no effect on him. He didn't know why, but he wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth. As long as he could move, he could act.

  He was going to have to dispatch it on his own.

  The creature had been slowly advancing on Gabrielle, taking its time, enjoying the look of fear in its prey's eyes, but as it caught sight of Cade it turned toward him instead. Both heads opened their mouths at the same time, the right head hissing in the manner of big cats the world over while the left let loose another bone-chilling shriek designed to stop Cade in his tracks.

  The look that crossed both the creature's faces when it didn't was almost priceless.

  Cade used the demon's momentary confusion to his advantage, rushing forward and lashing out with his sword before it could recover from its surprise, carving a deep furrow across the demon's chest as he hurried past.

  The demon reared up on its hind legs, screamed in anger, and then bounded after him.

  Which was exactly what Cade wanted.

  Howler demons were dangerously strong, but they weren't particularly bright. This one could have ignored him and gone after Gabrielle, who was still trapped by the magic of the demon's cry; she, at least, would have been easy prey. But Cade's blow had angered it and that anger was all that was needed to distract it from its intended prey.

  Cade put what he thought was a fair distance between himself and the demon, then spun about, sword at the ready, only to find the hellish beast nearly on top of him.

  Damn, it's fast! he thought as it charged forward, its six legs a blur of movement as it tore up the ground beneath it in its eagerness to reach him.

  Cade braced himself for the beast's rush and in that second something clicked in the back of his mind. One second his heart was beating a hundred miles an hour, his thoughts awhirl, and in the next an icy calm settled over him. The adrenaline-fueled pounding in his ears went away, replaced by a calm, calculating inner sense that analyzed the situation in the blink of an eye, measuring angles of attack and relative velocities, the possible height of the creature's leap based on the way the muscles in its hindquarters bunched with each stride.

  Time slowed, or maybe he speeded up, he wasn't quite sure which, but the end result was that he seemed to be moving outside the normal sequence of events and had all the time in the world to prepare for what was to come.

  He watched the beast's haunches tense, preparing to spring, and he knew before the creature even left the ground that it intended to leap over him, intended to use that flat, bony blade at the end of its tail like a sledgehammer as it passed overhead. He had little doubt that it would crush his head like an eggshell if it connected as planned.

  Cade willed himself not to move as those bunched muscles pushed the beast into the air, knowing that doing so now would all but seal his death warrant. The demon's bulky form was far more graceful that he expected, the coiled strength in its hindquarters giving it more than enough momentum to carry it in an arc over his head. He could feel his heart pounding in his chest, could hear his breath filling his ears as the demon sailed over him and, at the apex of its leap, lashed downward with that cudgel-like tail, just as he'd expected.

  Calmly, ever so calmly, Cade took a single step to the side, watching as the bony mass at the end of the demon's tail soared in slow motion through the space where he'd been standing a split second before. As it slid past, he whipped his sword around like a batter swinging for the fences while facing a 3-2 count at the bottom of the ninth.

  Blade met demon flesh and slashed through it effortlessly, severing the bony pad from the end of the tail and sending it tumbling away from them, blood splashing along in its wake.

  The demon let out a ferocious shriek as it came down from its leap and Cade smiled at the sound, a hard, cruel smile that few who knew him in the days before the Adversary's attack on his family would have recognized. Years of battling the supernatural had brought out certain aspects of his personality that he might have preferred stay hidden and now, in the wake of the changes the world had undergone since he'd exiled himself to the Beyond, those underlying traits were surfacing with surprising rapidity, but he barely noticed; his focus was on the demon before him and not on the changes to his personality.

  He expected the beast to be a bit more wary in its approach now that he'd drawn first blood, but no sooner had the creature's paws returned to earth that it whipped around with surprising speed and rushed right back at him. He thought it was going to try to use its bulk in an effort to knock him aside and so he wasn't prepared when it suddenly stopped on a dime just mere feet away and lashed out with one of its paws, aiming to take his head off with a single blow.

  Cade jerked his upper body back, just barely ducking beneath the strike, the demon's claws passing so close that he felt the wind of them across his face. Even as he straightened back up the demon was lashing out again, this time from the opposite direction with its other paw, and Cade barely got his weapon up in time to deflect the strike. The strength of the demon's blow knocked him off balance and he stumbled backward a few steps as a result.

  The move probably saved his life, as what was left of the demon's bony tail lashed through the space he'd been standing in a moment before with enough force to crush bone on contact.

  Even wounded, this thing had far more strength than he did. If he wanted to survive, he was going to have to end the fight quickly.

  But how?

  He glanced frantically about even as he continued to keep the creature at bay with the sharp edge of his sword. For now the demon wasn't willing to risk getting injured by rushing him again, but Cade knew it would eventually figure out that its size and bulk gave it a considerable advantage. It might take some injury, yes, but it would certainly be able to overwhelm him before he could get in the killing blow if it chose to accept some injury in order to finish the confrontation.

  That's when his gaze fell on the pair of double-paned windows ready for installation that were leaning against the side of the house, the weak sunlight reflecting off the glass and creating a mirror-like effect.

  Before he could give it much thought, Cade turned and raced for the glass.

  Behind him, the howler demon stood surprised for a few precious seconds, as its small brain worked to figure out what had just happened, and then, with another shriek from that second head, it gave chase.

  Faster, Williams, faster, he mentally shouted at himself as he heard the demon's big paws thud against the ground behind him.

  As the demon opened it mouth to seize him in its jaws, Cade threw himself forward those final couple of feet and slammed into the window glass, passed through it in the blink of an eye as if its surface were made of liquid rather than solid glass.

  Unable to stop, the demon slammed into the side of the house with tremendous force, shattering the glass, too stunned by the collision to even shriek its frustration.

  Above its head, Cade reemerged into this world via the reflection on the surface of a second story window and dropped the fifteen feet toward the demon's unprotected back, his sword held steady in both first, the blade pointed downward.

  The Templar's aim was true; he landed directly on the demon's back, legs sliding down on either side of it
s neck as his blade bit deep into the larger of the creature's two skulls, sinking nearly to the hilt.

  The demon's second head let out a long, shrill scream and the beast collapsed beneath him, unmoving and still at last.

  He was still poking at the carcass with his sword when Gabrielle jerked, wavered, and finally regained control of her body. Her hand completed its upward motion, grabbing the hilt of her sword and drawing it, despite the fact that the danger had already passed.

  Cade didn't blame her; he'd be just as spooked if their positions were reversed.

  She made her way toward him, her gaze locked firmly on the dead thing at his feet.

  "What is it?" she asked, her eyes narrowing in disgust.

  "A howler demon."

  "Right. A howler demon. Of course, it is," she replied, in a tone that made him wonder whether her distaste was for the thing itself or the Templar habit of naming things in the simplest way possible. It was a demon, it howled, hence howler demon. Made perfectly good sense to Cade, but he was used to the way the Order liked to put everything into a nice little box all its own. His job was to hunt them down and kill them; he didn't really care what they were called.

  Her next question was more interesting to him, though.

  "Where did it come from?" And right on the heels of that, "And what's it doing here?"

  "Good question."

  He considered his answer for a moment, trying to work it out in his own head before giving voice to his thoughts, but there were just too many unknowns.

  "Howlers are low level, class three demons. Good for guard duty, perimeter security, that kind of thing. They're cunning and have a keen intelligence, but their tendency to reject authority makes them a bit difficult to control. Add to that the fact that all they need to do is have a literal screaming fit to freeze your ass where you stand and turn you into a ready-to-eat frozen dinner and you can see why most mages avoid summoning them unless absolutely necessary."

  "So, it's not here by accident?"