She gets to her desk, forcing open the drawer with a strength that bypasses its locked state. She rips through the contents, opening the false bottom to retrieve the H&K USP45CT, the handgun loaded with eight rounds of the specially treated bullets. She racks the slide, taking careful aim at the shape of the Demon, and she feels that power welling within herself. She fires, and not only is there the twinge of outré light that follows the bullet, belying its state, but another surge of magick erupts from her core, enveloping her arms and adding to the round.
The first hits the Demon in the temple, and though one might not expect the force of such a gun to so strongly impact a thing of this size, its momentum is completely redirected as it falls to the side. She moves over in a rapid, steady walk, maintaining aim with both hands, firing bullet after bullet. Each hits its target, each flies out with that extra power that comes from within herself. She feels it now, pushing with it, as though she held a small cannon. When she is done, the Demon lies in a heap, collapsed in on itself, fluids leaking profusely, holes torn in its massive body, cavities revealing the ruined shine of organ and blood.
She stands close to it, gun still pointed, though she is out of bullets. She feels that power still coursing within her. It struggles to raise its head. The motion is jerky and quivering, the thing obviously on its last threads. It tries to focus its eyes, ooze gurgling from its mouth. Perhaps it is trying to speak, to taunt further.
With a fluid motion, Lilja draws her sword, swinging out as she goes down with bent knee, and she shears the Demon’s head from its body. The sharp rise of colored light is quite visible when the metal connects with its target, a focused explosion of power. She flicks the blade, sending the clinging vitae flying away in a rain of black droplets. Quickly sliding the weapon back in its scabbard and dropping the pistol, she goes to Skot.
“Skot? Skot?” she calls, “Are you okay?” Her hands move to check for wounds.
“I’m fine.”
She goes in, wrapping her arms about him tightly, and he returns the hug just as intensely.
He then looks over at the dead beast, then eyes back to her. “That … was amazing.”
She cannot stifle the curl that takes her lips, and the two share the moment, giving forth to a short series of light laughter as the tension leaks away.
*****
They are back in their home, sitting comfortably on the couch, enjoying some hot tea. She snuggles in close to him, nestled in his embrace. He has one arm about her, the other free to touch of her gently or take hold of his mug. They sit there for a time, just enjoying the feel of peacefulness, being close. She looks up after she has more of her drink.
“So, Volkov was with them the whole time?”
Skot nods, thoughtfully. “So it seems. He was a dark magician, a warlock, if you will, though we don’t generally like that term. He possessed the Hunter genes .., and they found him first.”
“Who did?”
He emits a weighty sigh, and Lilja looks more up at him. She then scoots back to better see as they talk.
“The Infernal. They … coerced him, seduced him, made some sort of deal, and he dedicated himself to them.”
“People really do that?” she asks, her brow wrinkling, “Sell their souls to the Devil?”
“Sometimes, and I hate to sound trite, but they know not what they do.”
She sips more of her tea, knees tucked in close to herself, both hands holding the mug. Her eyes peer at him as she does, piercing the rising the steam from the hot brew.
“The Infernal, as best we can tell, are not interested in human souls or servants. They use humans as they are able, of course, but mainly, they just seem to see us as enemies, ripe for slaughter. They don’t appear to want any resources from us, as one might see in conventional wars. This is more about a total conquering, a complete eradication of a species.
“Of course, as I have mentioned, most people are unable to perceive the Infernal, or when thrust into a situation where they can, that generally results in death. But they sensed the ability in him, and they used him. His actions here allowed them to launch that attack on the Book.”
She still says nothing, just drinking and listening.
“The Malkuths also found him.” Skot emits another sigh, obviously displeased with this. “And they decided to watch him to see what he, what they, were up to.”
“He was bait. Like Ernst,” she ponders, “Risky.”
He shows his own agreement.
“I don’t like how they do that,” she adds, eyes having drifted away into her thoughts.
“Me, neither.”
He then sets his eyes on her, and she looks back. She smiles lightly, but his expression is different. She blinks, moving her face forward and to the side, eyes narrowing in a silent inquiry.
“I almost lost you, Lily,” he says, “I owe the Malkuths for saving your life. Even if we disagree with their methods and end goal, if Anika had not been there …”
“If the Malkuths had done something about Volkov when they found him, none of it would have happened. None of the children being prostituted and murdered. You don’t owe them anything.”
He senses the underlying fierceness in her tone, and he nods, slowly. He understands and agrees with her point, but the truth is that she was saved by Anika. He feels the debt.
“She also helped at the library,” he mentions, and he wonders why he would be taking such a tact, namely looking for the positive in the woman who saved Lilja’s life.
“The Malkuths want to stop the Infernal,” Lilja replies, her calmly uttered words like a shrug.
“Yes, of course. I spoke further with Anika and even Asenath, and they were surprisingly forthcoming, which makes me suspicious,” he adds as an aside, “They had infiltrated Volkov’s inner circle, putting Anika in the forefront, of course, but they had some others inside prior to that, probably evaluating the man and seeing the best way to get their claws in. Asenath admitted to at least two other women who acted like Anika’s friends. It seems that once Anika was ‘in’, she brought more as a part of some entourage.”
“Is Denman back in the City?”
“She would not say.”
“It upsets me a lot that they let it happen. Volkov was torturing and killing those children to harvest their ‘power’, and it was all for the Infernal and to launch this attack for the Book. They let it happen.”
“It’s horrible,” he agrees, “and it also upsets me that again we failed to notice it. It turns out that in your role as the vigilante, you were closer to the actions of the Infernal than we were.”
She looks up at him, and he returns the gaze. He lets a curl touch the edges of his lips, and she eventually returns it, even slighter than his own. She wants to be a part of that ‘we’, but she yet hesitates. She knows he is fully committed to their relationship, but she still has her reservations.
Silence descends for a moment, the two of them lost in their own mental meanderings.
“What are we going to do about the library thing, anyway?” she pitches, eyes on him as she samples more of her tea.
“Well, it’s a bit tricky, but it could seem that the library was hacked, passcodes compromised, leading to attempted entry, triggering of alarms, and it may have all been an unfortunate student prank, what with the gas they leaked inside the front door. Who would have known that an employee and some security guards were just inside?”
“A student prank?” she counters after her own moment of pontification, but he lets it simmer, watching her. She slowly nods. “I guess that works. I mean, you have more experience in this sort of thing than I do, but how does a student prank explain what the guards saw? I even had to choke two out.”
“That is a concern, but it was dark, confusing, and there is the gas. It won’t be perfectly clean, but it can be explained. Memory is fallible and may be manipulated. I don’t like doing it, but the alternative is worse.”
She nods slowly to this, hardly moving her head, as
if accepting holds a weight.
“I don’t really like any of this.”
“What do you mean?” he asks.
“I don’t know,” she finally admits after some time of thinking, “I feel tired. We spend so much energy, your family fighting the demons, me fighting the criminals, and we fail.”
“We haven’t failed, Lily,” he tries, moving a hand to touch of her forearm. He hopes she will reciprocate, but she just sits there.
“Skot, you have mentioned how Infernals can sometimes use your fears and emotions, even memories, against you, right?”
“Yes.” He nods carefully, wondering where she is going with this. “That’s correct.”
“That Demon attacking me in my apartment just got me thinking of something …”
He looks at her, waiting for more, but she remains quiet, so he gently presses, “What is it?”
She moves her eyes up to his. “I need to book a ticket to Finland.”
“Why?”
“I have some demons inside myself I have to face.”
EPILOGUE
She exists in a miasma, a whirling dreamscape, though it is filled with darkness, confusion, a nightmare of the mind. There is pain, a torture of it, but it is not like normal pain. She does not even remember who she is or why she is here or what this even is, but she feels the maelstrom. It has gone on for so long now, this dark, misty embrace, that she has accepted it, being borne upon its course like a mote adrift in a black, endless sea.
She is kept in this quasi-living state, this always-dreaming womb, by her captors, so they might use her as they wish. She is a rare gift, indeed, and once found, they’d not let her free. She is used as they desire, for she did agree to such, though she knew not what she did. She has already produced at least one viable result for them, though the ultimate end to that was not as they intended. Still, there is time, and she shall be kept enslaved through drugs, alchemy, and other torturous magicks, prolonging her life unnaturally, using her and using her until she is withered, then they shall dispose of what remains.
Or so they had planned.
The two men found her, taking advantage of the Infernal’s focus on things happening in the City in effort to take the Book. They had followed clues and trails and breadcrumbs so small they almost turned to dust in the fog, but they have found her. It was not easy, and in truth, one of them did much more than the other.
As the two gaze upon the poor woman, the form of her so wane and nigh colorless, as though she has been bleached of vibrancy, one of them hands a wrought stiletto to the other. The blade winds as the body of a snake, artful, the handle ornate, though without any bejeweling, merely bearing of designs carved into the dark metal. It is called “The Weeping Dagger”, and it proved a rare and treasured find of theirs some generations back, one they have kept in secrecy until its particular service is needed.
Duilio takes the weapon from David, looking at the man. “You want me to kill her?”
David nods solemnly. “It’s a kindness,” he says, though he notes the other man’s hesitation. “Surely you’ve killed someone before?”
“Well, yes,” he responds, somewhat sheepishly, “Haven’t you?”
“No.” David slowly shakes his head, as though they are having a casual conversation. “I’ve never killed a human. So, you see,” he adds, a strange curl to his lips, “you’re the more experienced here for this.”
Duilio perks his thick eyebrows. “Perhaps it is time you learned …?”
“It’s better for it to be you,” the Hunter responds.
And Duilio wonders if this is because he works for the Malkuths, so the dirty work is left to him, or if it is because he has really done so little to contribute to their task up to this point. He is not sure, but as he gazes at the young woman, seeing how she is contained, her exposed body riddled with scars and wounds, her vacant eyes milky with lost sight, he knows the man who has become something of a partner of his is right – this will be a kindness.
The Interpol agent has seen many things, many things he’d rather not have ever known, but now it is too late. He will resign his position at the internal law enforcement organization, for he now has a new purpose. He gives a short, almost jerky nod, closing his eyes into it. When he reopens them, they gaze at the bound woman, and he is now filled with a calm, steely sense of what he must do.
The blade entering her is a kindness, one she does not even feel. Her consciousness slips away, followed by her life, and she is finally free.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Born in Houston, Texas into the temporary care of a bevy of nuns before being delivered to his adopted parents, Scott discovered creative writing at a very young age when asked to write a newspaper from another planet. This exercise awakened a seeming endless drive, and now, many short stories, poems, plays, and novels (both finished and unfinished) later, his first book, Dance of the Butterfly, is being published.
The seeds for this tale began with dreams, as many often do, before being fine-tuned with a whimsical notion and the very serious input of a dear friend. Before long, the story took on life of its own and has now become the first book in a planned series.
Having lived his whole life in the same state, Scott attended the University of Texas at Austin, achieving a degree in philosophy before returning to the Houston area to be closer to family and friends. During this time, he wrote more and even branched out into directing and performance art, though creative writing remains his love.
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