by C R Langille
Garrett and Randall slowly moved forward while blasting with their shotguns. What looked like a triumphant push into the ranks of the enemy turned south as Randall pumped the action on the weapon and pulled the trigger. The click of an empty weapon seemed louder to Randall than the destructive blasts he fired only moments before. He engaged the pump again and pulled the trigger, not aiming at anything but more in an attempt to see if his mind was playing tricks. Once again that heart-stopping “click” teased his ears.
He stared at the weapon in his hands, and his face contorted into a look of fear. He looked up just in time to see a Templar missing half of its face swing a rusty sword at his head. Randall brought the shotgun up in an instinctive reaction to the blow, a reaction that saved his life as the creature’s corroded weapon met the steel of the shotgun’s barrel. The thing snarled and grabbed the shotgun, ripping it away from Randall like a parent snatching a toy away from a child.
The creature’s face twisted into a macabre half smile, and it swung the sword again. Randall shut his eyes and brought up his hands to cover his head. He heard another shotgun blast and cracked his eye open in time to see the Templar’s body slump to the ground, the rest of the thing’s face destroyed.
Garrett closed in next to Randall and fired at another oncoming creature.
“I’m about out as well,” Garrett yelled.
Dan pushed his way between the two and jumped back into the fray. Once again, Garrett was mesmerized at the angel’s movements. Dan was a war machine, finely tuned for death and battle.
Rusty came from the side and worked in perfect conjunction with Dan’s strikes and maneuvers. Rusty would be in the right spot for a creature to trip up on his smaller form, giving Dan the opportunity to sever its head.
As Garrett watched the whirlwind of death in front him, Randall searched for his shotgun. Seeing it not too far away, he scurried over and crouched down to pick it up. As he reached for the stock of the weapon, he found a pair of feet standing in front of him. He recognized the shoes; his brother’s shoes.
Randall fell on his ass and scampered back on all fours. Mort stood in front him, his mouth stretched in a wide and bloody grin, his eyes smoldering pits of smoke and ember.
“Mort?”
Mort didn’t say anything but started laughing. He continued laughing while he jumped at Randall and started tearing the flesh from his crying brother’s throat. Randall didn’t even fight back but embraced the thing that was his brother.
***
“No, I don’t think so,” Troy said, grabbing Allison by the hair and yanking her head up to look at the massive pulsating stone in the room. “He needs you coherent for this.”
Allison screamed in pain and tried to get Troy to let her go, which only brought more waves of pain from her injured arm. Troy let out a chuckle and pulled her to the ground. He brought his other hand up, grabbed her by the jaw, and forced her to continue to look towards the stone.
Child of Lilith, your presence surprises me. I haven’t been surprised since the giants were destroyed eons ago.
The voice was clear, no longer a whisper. It sounded like someone stood right beside her speaking. The voice was a knife slowly flaying the skin from her bones.
The most intriguing thing was the word ‘Lilith.’ When the word fell into Allison’s mind, backed by the weight and power of the Dark Tyrant, it was like flipping a switch. Knowledge flooded into her being, and she knew things from when the first man walked the earth. Sights and images crashed into her being causing her to spasm and convulse.
Troy let her go and stepped back a few feet. He watched as she contorted on the rocky ground as if being electrocuted.
I shall ride your vessel, and through you, I will destroy that marker. Then once again I shall walk in the open amongst the pitiful beings that lord over this planet. Once more I shall devour and corrupt. I will bleed this world dry.
Allison rode the waves of history as He intruded her being. The knife that delicately prodded at her psyche turned into a battering ram, bursting through her humanity. He forced her consciousness down into the depths of her soul, pushed out of the way as if it were nothing but a bothersome gnat.
Allison attempted to fight Him, but the distraction of the wave of knowledge was too much. Each time a new bit of information hit her senses, He crashed into her essence, and each time she felt another bit of humanity shatter and fall away.
Troy tasted the blood as it gushed from his nose. Warm streams told him he bled from his ears and eyes as well. For the first time since entering the mountain, he was lightheaded, and the pain returned to his body. He let out a cry of anguish and fell to his knees, clutching his head.
The orange lights in the room shimmered and stuttered in a frenzy as the transition took place, until in one bright flash the room lit up like an exploding pumpkin on Halloween and then went dark. Troy sobbed and lay on his side. He looked up and saw that Allison no longer convulsed on the ground but stood next to him.
She looked at her hands as if they were foreign objects. She ran those hands through her hair and down her shoulders. As she stretched, testing her body’s limit, something moved beneath her skin. Allison finished the stretch and snapped her head toward Troy with a smile.
“We can use the child of Lilith, for now,” Allison purred. The voice that spewed from her lips was a contradiction. It was feminine and masculine. It was sweet and soiled, colored with carnal hints and painful promises.
She shot Troy a look and then turned away. Immediately Troy’s pain faded, and his vision cleared. Euphoria entered his body and took him higher than he ever imagined possible.
“You have done well for being such a pitiful creature,” Allison said, her voice dripping with contempt as she ended the sentence. “But curiosity runs freely with this one. I feel the latent energies of Lilith running through this vessel. They cry for your punishment.”
“I don’t understand. I’ve done everything you’ve asked,” Troy stammered, getting to his feet.
“Did I say you could rise?” Allison asked.
Troy stopped moving immediately. “I beg your forg—”
“We do not deal in forgiveness.”
Her eyes flared a bright orange, and she smiled a sultry, dangerous smile. She waved her hand toward Troy. Her skin rippled as something moved underneath the surface, then Troy’s world turned to pain.
His scream echoed through the tunnels and he was forced back to the ground. His insides burned and boiled as his bones shattered into thousands of pieces. Splinters of bone fused with ligaments and tendons and burst from his skin sending a shower of blood to the ground. The ligaments tightened, wrapping around his appendages. The sharp points dug in, rending what little flesh remained. Soon, wrapped about his body was a bloody bone and ligament rendition of briar thorns. The tendons tightened, and his body moved of its own accord. Even through his own screams and pain, Allison’s laughter echoed through his head.
“Come puppet. It’s past time that I deal with this Spirit and Star myself. It will be fun to see their chaos when they gaze upon my new vessel.”
***
Garrett fired his last round, blowing Mort’s head apart. He dropped the gun and rushed to Randall’s side. He knew before he got there that it was too late. Blood pooled all around Randall’s inert form, and lifeless eyes met Garrett’s gaze.
He used his fingers and closed Randall’s eyes. Dan and Rusty finished the last of the horde. Cuts and scrapes decorated both Rusty and Dan, and they all were breathing heavy with exertion.
Rusty shifted back to his human form and whisked his hand across his shoulder, wiping away some dirt in a sarcastic fashion. Dan cleaned the dark ichor-like blood from Ishiel and inspected the dead creatures, ensuring that they stayed dead this time.
A soft laugh menaced the group from further down the tunnel. Dan and Rusty crouched into a defe
nsive posture, Rusty clutching a newly acquired dagger he’d salvaged from a dead Templar.
Garrett padded up behind the two and whispered.
“Trisha.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
November 7, 1180
I have seen it, the very being that set this quest in motion. I have stood in its presence, and now I know that we cannot destroy it. It is mighty. It is ancient. It is not of this Earthly realm.
Our party came upon it in the middle of a large chamber, its heart of fiery stone exposed for all to see. The village elder stopped us and led us out of the cavern in haste. He explained that He who dwells under the mountain had been here, waiting, sleeping, and biding its time since before the creation of man. The elder has started some ritual, a ritual that may help in the thing’s destruction.
My biggest worry is the doubt. Since stepping foot into its chamber, I have started to doubt the veracity of our quest. I doubt my will to move forward. I even doubt the strength of our Lord and Savior. This thing feeds me lies and poisonous whispers, destroying the body of my faith with its venom.
Coming here was a mistake. Our presence gives the thing strength. I know because I feel its power grow the longer we stay near its lair. Soon it will consume us, and we will be no more. Heaven save our souls if it isn’t too late.
-Sir William Brock
Deep Under the Mountain
“Come on, Bee, come and give me a hug. Let me feel your flesh,” Trisha slurred from the dark.
Garrett shuddered and shrank away from the voice of his dead wife. The sound of her still took him away to other places and better times. It was what was underneath the voice that brought him back to the nightmare. It was the dead rasp hidden under the sweet song.
“Come out and meet your destruction,” Dan commanded.
A laugh answered his command, a laugh that bounced off the stone walls and seemed to surround the small group. Rusty passed the beaten dagger from hand to hand. He stopped and twirled the blade around until he gripped it like an icepick. With a coyote battle yip, he rushed into the darkness.
Dan took three steps after him but stopped. Garrett rushed forward but found Dan’s hand holding him back. Dan shook his head and pushed Garrett behind him.
From down the tunnel, the sound of a struggle rushed to their ears. Rusty growled followed by the shuffling of feet. Dan took another step forward, unsure of what he should do next when, the hideous laughter crept into the air again. A moment later, Rusty’s limp form flew from the darkened tunnel and slammed into the wall next to Garrett.
Garrett knelt down next to Rusty and checked for a pulse. It was faint but stable. Rusty’s chest rhythmically moved up in down as his lungs functioned the air through its proper course.
“He’s alive,” Garrett said.
Dan stepped forward and brought Ishiel up to bear. He held the blade before him, and a moment later his great black and white wings burst from his back.
“And the light shineth in the darkness; and the darkness comprehendeth it not!” Dan yelled.
From the white feathers of his wings, a soft light glowed. It bathed the small room they were in with a white comforting blanket. The light grew in intensity, and Garrett shielded his eyes from its burning luminescence. From his black feathers, an angry red energy crackled, blasting the room with a wave of heat. The energy pulsed outward behind the white light. The rotten smell of sulfur filled the room, causing Garrett to gag involuntarily.
The intensity continued to rise, and the light penetrated the darkness of the tunnel. Within seconds, it revealed the thing that was Trisha. Hanging from the ceiling of the tunnel, Trisha laughed, grinning at them; however, when the red energy hit her deformed body, the laughter stopped, and she fell to the ground in a shriek of pain.
The energy flowed around Trisha as if she were a magnet. The crackling fire wrapped itself around her again and again like a scorching serpent, constricting around its prey. The thing’s skin blistered and seared away as the fire and light beat down on its form.
Somehow, it found the strength to stand and charged forward, its arms outstretched like some zombie from a Romero movie. When it was a mere foot away, Dan fully extended his wings, and the light and fire burst brighter than anything Garrett had ever seen. He had to turn away and shield his eyes.
It took almost a full minute before his eyesight returned, but when it did, the charred skeletal form of what had been Trisha stood motionless mere inches from Dan, its claws extended. He relaxed his wings, and it caused a gust of wind to buffet toward the remains, knocking them onto the ground where they shattered and broke to pieces.
He dropped to one knee, breathing heavily. When he stood, he had to lean against the tunnel wall for support. Garrett stood to help him, but Dan waved him away.
“It’s okay. I need a moment. It has been a long time since I did that, and it will be a long time before I will do it again.”
Garrett turned his attention back to Rusty when a new voice echoed through the darkness.
“A Fallen, here to welcome me back to this reality.”
The voice stopped Dan’s movement, and the light dimmed from his wings.
“Garrett, run!” Dan yelled.
“I can’t!”
Garrett tried to move, but all of his joints refused to cooperate with his commands. He strained against the invisible force holding him still, but it was of no use.
“Too late, little bird,” Allison said, stepping over the skull of Trisha.
Dan extended his wings once again and the two lights coalesced once more. The lights were nowhere near as strong as before, and Dan’s face twisted as he strained to gather the energy. Allison brought a hand up and clenched it into a fist, drawing all the light from Dan’s avian appendages. Inky blackness swam beneath Allison’s skin as she drew the lights into her being. A slight grimace on her face turned into a hateful smile as she swallowed the rest of the energy. As the last bit faded from Dan’s wings, he fell to the ground. He tried to push up, but his strength failed him, and he fell back to the dirt.
“Too difficult,” she said to herself, anger dripping from each word. She stumbled once then regained her footing. Sweat beaded on her forehead.
She walked past Dan and stepped closer to the onyx monolith. The sigils and runes flared against her presence, and she stopped as if she had walked into a wall, inches away from the monolith.
“This lock has become tiresome. With this pitiful vessel’s power combined with my own, it will not take long before it succumbs to my energy.”
“You’re too weak,” Dan said, propping himself up on his knees.
“For now, yes. But once I consume you, I think I’ll have all the power I need, winged one.”
“Allison, fight it!” Garrett yelled.
Allison turned her head and shot Garrett a smile that reminded him of a crocodile. She took a couple of steps toward him and then somehow closed the distance and ended up behind him without the movement registering in Garrett’s mind. Allison wrapped an arm around his body, filling his being with an unnatural warmth. Her touch burned, and he would have shied away from her if he could move.
“So much potential with this one,” she said, running a finger down his cheek. The movement started soft but quickly turned violent as she gouged flesh with a fingernail, causing blood to spring forth. Garrett yelled in agony but couldn’t get away from the pain.
Allison brought a bloody finger to her mouth and ran a tongue over it. Whatever swam underneath her skin shuddered with pleasure. For half a moment, orange light flashed from her veins and her eyes flared with a burning ember.
“Yes, so much potential.”
“What do you want?” Garrett asked.
“Don’t engage it,” Dan said, standing up.
“That’s enough out of you, bird,” Allison said with a nod to the tunnel.
>
An inhuman scream, a scream of pain and madness shrieked from the dark. The scream got louder as Troy ran from the darkness in jerky movements, his entire body covered in bloody thorns of blood and ligament that shifted and coiled in response to his every movement. He ran straight for Dan, and it was all Dan could do to jump out of the way. He wasn’t quite fast enough, and some of the bony thorns from Troy’s arm brushed past Dan’s forearm. Within seconds the thorny vines wrapped around Dan’s arm and constricted. Garrett watched in horror as it began to saw through Dan’s flesh.
“I want to fill this sorry excuse of a planet with chaos. I want family to turn on each other, blood to run in the rivers, and the world to second-guess itself.”
“There’s no way. There’s just no way,” Garrett said.
“No way? Who do you think whispered in Lucifer’s ear and caused the doubt? All the wars, the poverty, the strife. If you were able to comprehend the web of lies and Chaos I’ve constructed, you would find that all strands lead to me in some form or another. You humans are too easy to manipulate. Just a poke or a prod in the right direction, and you take off running. If your minds weren’t so weak, you could be useful.”
Garrett’s eyes shifted as he tried to comprehend the news that had landed on his lap. His face screwed up in confusion, and the Allison-thing continued.
“For countless millennia I’ve been trapped here, trapped in other locations, waiting for the moment that I could break free and continue my path of corruption through the stars,” Allison said, her voice wavering in tone and pitch, its tenor bouncing all throughout the room until it threatened to deafen Garrett. “I’ve fished and lured your kind and others to me in hopes that I could find one strong enough to contain me—at least long enough to gather my pieces up so that I can devour this planet and move on.”
Garrett’s mind raced. For some reason, whatever had a hold of Allison was in a talkative mood. He needed to keep it talking to give Dan the time to defeat Troy and help him.
“I don’t think you are telling the truth,” Garrett said.