by Erik Lynd
"I forget nothing. You are nothing. I have dealt with a thousand of your kind, and none have ever gotten the best of me. Normally I wouldn't even bother with something as pitiful as you. I came to this village expecting a greater prize for my collection. I’m doing this because I simply have nothing else to do and I am bored. You are hardly more than a snack."
Antonio felt the shock of the demon. Shock that was slowly turning to something resembling fear. Antonio had no clue what was going on, but he took a simple joy in the demon's fear.
"You are the one? The one they call The Collector?" the demon asked through Antonio's lips.
"I am," the man said and stepped into the circle of death around the bed. The demon growled and leapt at the priest. The priest didn't try to defend himself, he didn't even flinch; he simply closed his eyes and opened his hands, palms up. The demon's hands had just touched the priest's throat when they stopped. Power surged from the priest’s hand, and the demon was stopped.
Powerful hands of light and smoke wrapped around Antonio's arms. The amorphous clouds attached to those smoky hands coalesced instantly into two hideously demonic shapes on either side of Antonio. They were the incarnation of the demon Antonio sensed inside his body.
They were two huge creatures of twisted sinew and flesh as though parts of their vaguely humanoid shape had been turned inside out and made into skin. Exoskeleton parts of the outside punctured their skin, seamlessly melding with the bone inside. Their skulls were elongated, and horns like twisted dreadlocks sprouted from their heads, twining together and coming to an uneven point at the back. Their jaws were large and distended as though they regularly took large bites from their prey. Wicked, sharp looking teeth, curved backwards like a shark, lined their mouths.
This was a visual of the demon within him, Antonio knew. One of these things was what had taken him, dominated him completely.
They dragged Antonio's body back onto the bed. The demon within screamed and kicked, but it couldn't overcome two of its own kind. The room had erupted into chaos as soon as the other monsters had appeared. A few caught on that the priest was no priest. They came forward, perhaps thinking they could take him down and avoid the devil’s pets in the process. They were wrong.
The man faced Antonio's family and friends and once more closed his eyes and turned his palms upward. Two more demons, smaller than the others, leapt from his hands and into the crowd. These were different, all teeth and claws. They cut into the villagers like a scythe through grass.
Blood flew and bones snapped. The screams of his family and friends ripped through what was left of Antonio. He tried to hide, to pull himself back from the scene, but the demon within kept his eyes open and Antonio couldn't look away.
Some of them tried to escape, but the pews, which had been moved to make room for the bed, were now pressed so closely together they were practically a jumble. Only a small aisle down the center was open; most tried to make it out that way, but there were too many bodies jammed together. The demon fell into them. Others tried to climb over the pews, but most of them tripped or fell and were easily victims of the other demon.
While his pet demons slaughtered the villagers, the priest that was not a priest pulled off his jacket, calmly folded it, and placed it on a chair near the bed. Then he rolled up his sleeves as though he was about to engage in messy work.
The demon inside Antonio tried to escape. It was trying to leave his body and return to hell. Antonio could feel it. But it couldn't run, apparently un-possessing a person is not a spur of the moment thing. The demons holding Antonio's body must have felt it too. They tensed and bore down on his arms, snapping the bone. Antonio felt the pain and would have screamed if he could have.
"You are his slaves, his little pets," the demon inside Antonio said. "You are pathetic and weak."
One of the demons responded in a language that should have been meaningless to Antonio, but with the demon inside him he could understand the words, "As you will be. We have no choice and neither do you. So swallow that pride, it has no place here."
"No, I will not be his," the Antonio demon said.
"Yes, yes you will, you will all be mine eventually," the no-priest said. He had moved the small table close to the bed and opened his bag. He pulled out several quasi-surgical instruments and lined them up neatly. "Shall we begin?"
He held up a knife with a wicked looking blade that turned inward like a butcher’s hook and let some of the faint light glint off it. He examined it as though he could measure the blade’s sharpness simply by looking at it.
The Antonio demon twisted and turned violently despite the broken bones, but The Collector's assistant demons held on. The man with the sunken eyes leaned over the writhing body and looked directly at Antonio. "Whoever is inside there. This will be painful. I'm sorry about this, but not too sorry. To be honest, I kind of like this part. On the bright side, it will all be over soon."
The man with the sunken eyes held the knife aloft, facing downward in his palm. Then he plunged it into Antonio's chest, just below his heart. The demon inside let out a scream and struggled even harder, the last throes of a doomed creature. Antonio also cried out, albeit silently. He cried because of the pain, but mostly because the blade missed his heart. On purpose, the man was keeping him alive. The man sliced downward on Antonio's torso, splitting him open in a clumsy evisceration.
Once the blade reached Antonio's groin, the man, although Antonio no longer thought he was truly a man, went to work more carefully on his chest, cutting through the rib cage, but not damaging his heart.
The Antonio demon spit blood at The Collector. It splattered against his face, but he didn't seem to mind or even notice. Pain, beyond what even the last few days had brought, washed over Antonio.
He just wanted it to be over.
Once the rib cage was cut through, the man put the knife down and picked up an object that look like a vice. He placed the device between the cracked ribs and started cranking, pulling Antonio's ribs apart.
Any normal man in this situation would have been dead, but the demon inside kept Antonio's body alive. With a crack, his chest popped open and the back of the rib cage cracked near the spine.
"There we go," said The Collector.
Antonio could not pass out to escape the pain, so his mind did the next best thing. He went insane. The strain of the last few days, the conscious defilement of his body, it was all too much. Reality slipped from him.
Once the ribs snapped the man removed the vice from the chest cavity. Then after a quick survey of the open body, and an assurance that the heart was still beating, he plunged his hands into the organs. Using just his fingers at first, he sifted through the large and small intestine, searching and feeling his way through. He pulled chunks out once he had searched through it, tossing the still warm tubing over the side of the chest, where it fell to the floor, still attached. The man began chanting. It was a deep, droning sound, so different than his speaking voice. It rumbled and growled and bit. He chanted ancient words of power in a language long forgotten. This Antonio knew through the demon inside.
Not finding what he was looking for, he moved his way up, ripping up kidneys, the liver, and any other organ that did not have whatever treasure he was looking for. It was just after he reached the diaphragm that he seemed to find it. All the while he chanted.
Through crazed eyes, his and the demon's, Antonio could see some sort of glowing object reflected in the glasses framing those sunken eyes. Antonio thought the lights were pretty, the way they danced and swirled in that reflection. He knew intuitively that was the demon inside him. It was so beautiful. Then it winked out.
"Oh no you don't, you little bastard," the man said, breaking his chant briefly before resuming.
He dug into Antonio's body with a passion. Ripping though his innards, chasing after that little bit of glowing. Flesh and organs flews as the man ripped through his body. Blood from the man’s frantic digging covered the walls and dripped d
own the large crucifix above the bed.
"Gotcha," said the man, once more breaking his rhythmic chant.
With a final yank the man pulled free the glowing form. The Collector cupped it in his hand. Wispy mist and cloud-like energy swirled around a glowing center. The clouds of power wrapped around the Collector's hand.
Antonio saw this in his last moment through dying eyes. There was a certain mercy in this. Despite what the man had done, he had granted Antonio the one thing his family never would have. His broken mind couldn't handle the details of what had just happened or what they meant, and he no longer cared what or who this man was. He had been granted release and he took it. In the end he was once again only Antonio. That was his last thought as the light left his eyes.
The man known as the Collector slurped up the demon's essence like it was an oyster. It tried to pull away, to fight him, but the man had control. The essence was formless, stolen from its vessel. There was nothing it could do.
A slurp and then it was gone.
The man turned his head up and basked as the demon was absorbed into his collection. He felt power and vitality flow through his body. It was nice, this treat, but it was no meal. He would need to collect another one soon; he was never truly satiated.
He looked at his hands dripping with blood. His shirt and pants were also splattered with the stuff. He could feel it drying in his hair and on his face. He supposed there wasn't an acceptable restroom around here to clean up in. He shook his arms a couple of times to get off the worst of it and then picked up his tools and put them in his bag. He could clean them later.
When he was done he turned to the two demons standing in the middle of the room. He knew they hated him, and he didn't care. They were his. He walked over to them, carefully stepping over the bodies and trying not to slip in the wet blood pooling on the floor. When he reached them, he thrust his hand into one chest. Its form sunk in as though the demon was a hologram. The man clutched at the throbbing ball of source inside and squeezed. The demon looked up and bellowed, then dissolved into the same wispy, smoky shape he had pulled out of the boy. He slurped it up.
He repeated the same process with the other demon; this one uttered a high screech of pain as it collapsed in on itself. That taken care of he made his way to the door, once again doing his best not to step in pools of blood or trip on a severed arm.
At the door he noticed one of the congregation was still alive. It was a woman; she was covered in blood, but alive. For the moment. Then he noticed it was the boy’s mother. Her eyes were wide and her lips opened and closed soundlessly as though she was talking on mute.
"You see? I did remove the demon from his body. He is free now, I have brought him peace," The Collector said. He patted her cheek softly, leaving a smear of her son's blood across her face. Her lips just kept moving. "What’s that? I can't hear you. I believe I deserve a thank you? What? None? You are a rude people."
He turned and stepped out of the front door. The sun was down, which was for the best; he wasn't really a fan. With the sun down the air had grown cooler, definitely better than the sauna like heat that had been inside the church.
He was about to step off the raised porch of the church when he saw the man. Although mountain might be a better name for the huge thing that stood quietly across the rocky church yard. He was a giant in height and was even more massive in breadth, the size of two large basketball players standing sided by side. He wore a pale suit, an expensive one that fit him perfectly, but just barely. The Collector could tell most of that mass was muscle, not fat.
And the big man was like him. The Collector could tell. They had both escaped the same eternal prison. They were brothers in a way. The Collector wondered briefly if he should kill him.
"Are you the one they call the Collector?" The big man asked.
"Yes. What are you doing here?"
"My name is Golyat and I am recruiting."
4
Christopher stumbled as he entered the Library. The transition from the real world to this extra dimensional pocket was never a smooth one. In fact, it usually felt violent, as though he was being ripped out of one world and shoved into another. It was disorienting and slightly nauseating and despite the improvement in his landings, it was still a pain in the ass. Although it was never as life changing as that first trip.
This time, as the Library took form around him he stumbled forward, searching for support with his hands out. They found cloth and he clutched at it even before the shelves and books around him came into focus. He thought the cloth was draped over some sort of pillar or a curtain perhaps, and he was certain he would have fallen to his knees, perhaps even his face, if not for the thick material.
The Library solidified and Christopher looked up. They weren't curtains at all; he was clutching the robes of the very tall Librarian. Christopher couldn't tell if the Librarian was looking down at him—his cowl hid his face in deep shadow—but he was pretty sure there was a glare in there somewhere.
"Oh great, a hugger," The Librarian said.
Christopher pulled away as though the Librarian was on fire. "To what do I owe this touchy feely visit?" asked the Librarian.
"I fell," Christopher said.
"Ah, a clumsy hugger, the girls must love you."
Christopher held his tongue, knowing that whatever he said would only dig the sarcasm hole deeper. Besides, if he was stuck all alone in a never-ending library, Christopher suspected he'd be an asshole too.
And the Library was vast, infinite from what Christopher could tell. Huge stone rooms and passageways lined with shelves, each loaded with books, scrolls, and in some cases, stone tablets. Row upon row the book shelves stretched to a ceiling so high it was often obscured in darkness. He had walked the halls several times, examining the odds and ends. It wasn't just books there were objects as well, objects that must have imparted some sort of information. Some had engravings and were obvious, but once he had found a skull, only vaguely human shaped.
It also had a comfortable study area with desks and soft reading chairs. Perhaps it was more than one, Christopher wasn't sure, but the study always seemed to be close by when he needed it, no matter which room he was in at the time.
It was frustrating, having all this information around him, but only being able to access a small part of it, one drip at a time, usually filtered through the Librarian's research. But with a non-existent—or at least one he was not aware of—indexing system, and books written in multiple ancient, dead languages, it was impossible for Christopher to use it effectively. The Librarian said it was because of his limited human mind and that his successor had much more efficient access.
But he suspected that was just the Librarian being an asshole again.
The Librarian himself—at least Christopher was working under the assumption that it was a he—was even more of an enigma. Merely an extension of the Library and shaped to some extent by Christopher's subconscious, the Librarian technically didn't even exist.
And perhaps he really didn't.
Christopher had never seen his skin or any clothes beneath those long robes. Where his face should be there was nothing but shadow. The same with the ends of his sleeves; where his hand should be just dark holes.
"You look...off," said the Librarian.
"Why thank you. That might have been the nicest thing you have ever said to me."
"You seem weaker, thinner than last time," the Librarian said.
"Yeah, I've been off lately. Maybe it's just a flu bug or something."
But they both knew it wasn't a bug. It had something to do with his fight with the werehellhound a few months ago. Specifically, its bite and what it had taken from him.
"Come," the Librarian said and turned abruptly before gliding down the aisle. He didn't really walk as far as Christopher could tell; he floated on whatever legs he had beneath the thick robes. Christopher followed after, still a little dizzy from the trip.
They turned at the end of the ai
sle, and there was the comfortable sitting area: a desk, a couple of chairs and a coffee table. Christopher collapsed into one of the chairs. He always felt slightly drained when he came to the Library, as though the journey took something out of him, but this time it felt stronger, as if it was getting harder to make the transition. Or perhaps he was catching something. Or perhaps it was all in his head. It was all still so new he didn't know what he was supposed to feel.
"Again I ask, to what do I owe the pleasure?"
"Something we talked about before. I need some help," Christopher began. And then winced and waited for the stinging insult.
"Don't worry, that one was too easy. I'll let it go," the Librarian said.
"I mean with training."
"Ah, did you encounter some baddie that you couldn't just beat into submission with your sword? Need something more in your repertoire than a wood cutting ax-chop? You must have pulled it off somehow being that you are here and not lying shredded to pieces in the gutter."
"Hey, I'm not that useless. I have hunted down several dark souls and returned them to Hell. And don't forget I dammed Rath. And he was able to kill my predecessor, so I can't be all that bad," Christopher said. And it was true, he had a lot to learn, but he had overcome a lot too. He was doing a job never intended for a mortal. He deserved some kind of acknowledgment.
The Librarian was quiet for a moment, his expression invisible, then he said, "Perhaps."
"Perhaps? Perhaps what?"
"Perhaps Rath killed the Beast and perhaps not," the Librarian said.
"What are you talking about? Of course he died. That’s why I’m here, isn't it?" Christopher said.
"Yes, well, of course he died and you mistakenly inherited his power, but what proof do you have that Rath was the one that killed him?"
Christopher opened his mouth to respond then paused and closed it. Rath had been his first real test when he took the job of the Hunter. But his only proof was that Rath had told him he had killed the beast. He had just believed him.