by Hunter Blain
Taking advantage of my remaining time, I used my new sandwich holder to form a small hook and bloodthread, and quickly moved to stitch one section of flesh to the other. I cinched the wound closed to prevent further blood loss. A quick rotation showed me I still had control over my chest and arm, but with limited range of motion above my head. My fingers grazed over my skin, then I realized that I was directly touching my skin.
“My fucking coat!” I yelled out in anger, only to realize that I hadn’t put it on. “Oh, right—my fucking hoodie!”
I turned, willing a bloodwhip out of each of my hands, and threw them around the remaining demon’s throat as he fully stood up to face me. I sent razors down their lengths before willing the two ropes to merge into one that connected at my hands, and began sawing his head off. Still holding the shield, I pulled one arm back while the other shifted forward, and then reversed the motion. He bellowed in rage and fear as the razors cut through flesh and veins before inching their way to his vertebrae. His hands were shredded while his base instinct to survive overrode the pain as his fingers were sheared off. His arms dropped to his side as the razors finished sawing through bone and his head toppled to the ground, black blood erupting like a demonic volcano.
I stood, watching the bodies with a sense of pride and satisfaction, and waited for them to melt into ectoplasm. My ribs started popping back into place as my sternum healed itself, filling the cave-in that was my chest. Once completed, my head tilted and an eyebrow went up when the three bodies lying in front of me began shuddering and convulsing.
“Um…what?” I asked out loud as the three demons started rolling and crawling to one another like jerky puppets on invisible strings. As they came together, their armors popped off, allowing for more flesh on flesh contact as their eyes began to blaze to life again. The three melted into one another; the ax demon with the mace still in his head formed the bottom portion, with his arms and legs acting as four feet for the forming monstrosity; the headless demon was in the middle, his arms and legs melting into the back of his brother, while the mace demon climbed onto the highest point, his legs merging into the forming mass just as his brother’s had done. The beast before me had four arms and four legs and stood over thirty feet high. It bent over, picking up the decapitated head, and placed it on its shoulders right next to his brother. The heads merged, their touching eyes forming into one larger, glowing orb while the jaws also came together to make one giant, fanged mouth. It smiled at me with its three eyes and enormous maw.
“I don’t have time for this,” I said as I willed the bloodsaws into one hand, until just enough stayed out to form a spartan spear. I positioned one foot behind me and crouched with my lead leg as I set the weapon on top of my shield and aimed.
The horrifying monster in front of me bellowed a roar that shook the ground beneath my feet and covered me in warm strands of saliva. I screamed back at it as it began to charge.
I created a notch in the shield where the spear touched it, allowing it to sink just enough to act as a guide. Aiming with my shield arm, I let the beast approach before attacking. I didn’t thrust the spear like any enemy would. Instead, I willed more of my blood into it and elongated it in the blink of an eye until the beast’s middle eye was punctured. This only pissed the monster off as he grabbed me with his four arms and lifted me up, positioning each of its hands to grab a limb. Realizing my predicament while my mind raced to formulate a plan, I pulled my blood back, confident I was going to need every drop.
The deformed hellion began pulling my limbs in different directions as its massive jaws began taking chunks out of my exposed stomach just below my armor. Ribs were crunched like sticks of celery while intestines were slurped like spaghetti. I refused to scream as my mind tried to focus through the pain, desperately trying to figure a way out of this. My friends were counting on me, just as the rest of the world was.
My head cleared at this thought. This wasn’t about me but the fate of everyone that had ever lived up to this point.
Blood oozed down my legs, and I focused on the gaping wounds. My limbs began to tear and I quickly forced my blood to flow from them and into my chest. My arm was ripped off along with one of my legs, sending agony through every nerve in my body. I didn’t let it stop my unstoppable train of focus. The blood gushing from my stomach began to decrease, and it stopped its descent as a pained smile crested my face.
The demon took notice that something was happening and paused briefly enough for me to say, “Fuck you,” before sending greedy tendrils of blood shooting out from my gaping wound. They grabbed the beast’s upper and lower jaws like an octopus, prying them open as more blood slithered its way down the fucker’s throat and into its center mass. I sent so much that I could feel my face begin to become sunken at the cheeks—it was an odd feeling being aware of each individual tooth touching the inside of my cheek, as if my skin were made of cellophane.
Once enough blood was filling its cavernous stomach, I weakly manifested jagged spikes to form in all directions, piercing every important, blood-soaked organ in the massive body.
I willed the huge monstrosity’s blood to flow through my manifestation and into my body, refilling my reserves. The blood felt like sludge in my veins, but I didn’t have a choice. I needed to filter the energy and repair the damage that had been done. I kept sucking as the beast’s two remaining eyes began to flicker out as its body started to turn translucent and melt into ectoplasm. Once the blood was no longer tangible, I pulled my tentacles back into my chest, willing the gaping wound to close. I fell through the amalgamation’s weakening grasp and collapsed on the ground while ribs grew around exposed organs and blackened skin healed. Staring at the stars while on my back, I stuck out my nubs as black sludge grew from my body until it grasped the fallen limbs, pulling them back to me and reconnecting them where they had been torn. Those too turned black where the blood healed my body. I was vaguely aware that my cheeks weren’t wrapped around my teeth anymore.
“Gross!” I cried out as I realized the tainted blood had stained my healed skin. Once the limbs were back in place, I bent over and hurled up the filtered demon blood. Black oil exploded from my mouth and out of my nose, coating the grass in front of me in vile that immediately turned the grass brown, decaying it in an instant. It was like a year’s worth of dog pee on the grass you spent several thousand dollars on because the salesman said it would survive your puppies peeing in the same damn spot. Liar.
I posted myself up on my arms and legs as I watched the rest of my enemy melt into ectoplasm before it evaporated into nothing. The monster had enough blood energy to get me back to normal, but man, was it disgusting. I was going to have heartburn for sure.
My beard was dyed black where the toxic waste touched, which meant that smell was not going to leave anytime soon. Being right under my nostrils, it reminded me of a mountain of tires that had been coated in cat piss and then set on fire. I was still hunched over, spitting intermittently in a futile attempt to get the last remains of demon blood out of my mouth. I covered one nostril and blew out black chunks of snot and hell-slime before doing the same to the other.
I looked up to see Ulric, who proceeded to golf clap in his arrogant way as he walked to inspect the plank that was holding my friends. His message was clear.
“Give yourself up and I will make your death a swift one, John,” Ulric said. Confidence exuded off him. It felt like he’d sprayed an entire can of Axe body spray on him, to the point where even cocky frat boys in salmon-colored shorts and Sperrys would wrinkle their noses in disgust.
“Ulric,” I started, taking in a deep breath, knowing what I was about to say would do nothing to change the events that had been set in motion, “you don’t have to do this.”
“Why do they always say that?” Ulric asked, shaking his head as his mind played the footage of all the people he had murdered over the centuries.
“Bitch, you are not about to quote No Country for Old Men at me.” His face ans
wered for him as confusion crossed his expression. I opened my hand and waved it in a quick circle, signaling that the fine details were irrelevant but that I would explain anyway. “It’s a movie where the bad guy asks why people say, ‘you don’t have to do this,’ before he kills them.” Frustration set in that I had actually explained the quote to him. “Look, it doesn’t matter. What does matter is that if one of us dies, then Armageddon will start.”
“And why should I believe you, child? You would say anything to stop the inevitable.”
“I’m giving you a chance, Ulric,” I pleaded.
“Boy, I am two centuries older than you. I will cut you down like any mortal before me.”
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you, dick.”
Without further preamble, Ulric charged forward, manifesting a rapier, his weapon of choice. I willed my own personal favorite—a gladius—as I shifted into a fencing position. With my body turned sideways, I snaked a bloodwhip out of my hidden hand and let it curl on the ground at my feet. Ulric didn’t notice as his eyes stayed intent on the sword in front of him. He landed in front of me and immediately began his attack, thrusting and parrying with an expertise that was both preternatural and honed from years of practice. I stood my ground, deflecting his attacks while feigning my own. Ulric’s face melted from an evil, gleeful smile glowing with confidence to intense concentration as he realized I was just as skilled as he was.
After a three-step barrage of strikes that I easily deflected, he leaped back a few feet before trying on a familiar strategy for him. “How does it feel to know you will never get the revenge you sought on Commander Godwin? Hmm?”
I laughed and his brow furrowed deeply. I stepped forward with my hidden foot at impossible speeds and whipped my bloodrope around Ulric’s feet before manifesting long, gruesome hooks. They pierced through his flesh as I pulled, yanking him off his feet. I willed Ulric’s blood into my body as he realized what was happening with wide-eyed horror. He grew his rapier into a broadsword and began chopping at my thin rope. My laugh began to rise in pitch and volume until it was a maniacal bellow of hysteria—which prompted my prey to lose his well-maintained control as he threw an insane amount of energy into his bloodbroadsword, intent on freeing himself from the parasite wrapped around his legs. Oh, his blood was delicious and powerful—the perfect palate cleanser after the demon’s vile juices.
As he began his downward swing, I pulled on the rope, hard. His swing missed as his body rocketed to where I stood. I let the bloodrope melt around his legs and retreat into my hand as he tumbled toward where I stood. A strong wind tore at my coat and the hair that stuck out from my beanie as my laugh filled the night. Just as he was about to crash into me, he adjusted his sword again and swung at my throat. The blade stopped just at my neck. Ulric’s eyes widened in horror as he saw why. I had stopped the blade by grabbing his wrist with one hand. He mouthed the word “No” before I stopped my creepy laughter and my face went stone-cold. Without uttering a word, I ripped his arm off at the elbow, breaking the energy he had poured into the sword. Stunned, Ulric dropped to his knees, grabbing at the gushing nub with his remaining hand. He didn’t speak, didn’t cry. Ulric only shook in indescribable pain and loss of massive energy as his eyes managed to climb my body to lock gazes with me, struggling to form words.
“How…” was all he could manage.
“How?” I asked with a frigid tone of finality. “What, you think you are stronger because you are two hundred years older than me?”
He looked at me with his mouth agape and his nub still pouring blood, and I said, “You may be older than me, dick, but you slept for over three hundred years, didn’t you? Not to mention however long you slept before you and I first met. I remember your clothes and how old they looked. But you know what? I haven’t slept, Ulric. I’ve been awake, feeding and growing stronger with each drop of blood. You may be technically older than me, but I am over one hundred years stronger than you, child.” I finalized my point by picking my maker up by the neck, who struggled to get away. His eyes flicked frantically around him, searching for something, anything, to help him—but there was no gas lamp here. After a few pathetic moments, he stopped fighting and looked me in the eyes. His face was calm but his gaze was filled with rage, and doubt began to creep into my mind. His hand had crept behind him and pointed at the bench where my friends stood.
“Um, dude?” Joey said while Dawson stood in stunned silence and Depweg set his jaw, preparing himself.
As I realized what was happening, I grabbed Ulric by the collar just as he shot out a bowling ball of blood that solidified and rocketed toward the bench. I saw it fly from his palm in slow motion, unable to stop it. It slammed through the middle of the thin wood, and the remaining sections crumbled, just as they were meant to do. All three dropped down only to hang a few inches off the ground, the nooses around their necks having tightened. Joey and Dawson’s eyes bulged from their heads, and their mouths gaped like fish out of water. Depweg’s body hung loose, eyes closed tight and face turning bright red. He wasn’t going to give Ulric the satisfaction of a dramatic death.
“Now you have a choice; kill me, or save your friends,” Ulric managed to get out. The bowling ball took a lot of his remaining energy out of him, and he hung limply from where I grasped him.
“Why not both?” I asked as I pulled the silver kukri from its sheath at the small of my back. The blade hummed with power, and Ulric’s eyes widened slightly, even in his exhaustion.
“You would let them die?” he panted. “You are not the man I found in that prison cell.”
I leaped to the tree in one bound, bringing Ulric with me, who was rocked by the unexpected momentum. I slammed him into the tree where the silver nooses were tied and dropped him on his ass in front of the trunk. I took the blade, remembering what Gabriel had said about consequences, and stabbed Ulric right through his stomach, severing the ropes tied around the tree. The tight ropes snapped loudly as they were cut and rushed away from the blade.
Depweg, Joey, and Dawson all dropped to the ground, gasping violently. I stood and strode over to each of them, in turn removing their nooses and unbinding their hands with a blooddagger I manifested. They were being held tight by the thick zip ties you saw cops use on TV. I turned to see Ulric sitting at the base of the tree, pawing at the blade with his remaining hand and unable to remove the silver from his body. He had lost too much of his precious energy and was verging on unconsciousness.
After I made sure my friends were alright, I embraced Depweg, who squeezed me back. I tried my best not to cry from relief, but a tear or ten snuck out.
“Dude,” Depweg said, nodding his head toward where Ulric lay, bleeding out.
“He’ll live,” I responded in my Arnold voice. I wiped my face as we broke our embrace and sniffed some fleeing snot back home. Depweg just stood, looking at me. “Alright, go. Save his life like the good guy you are.”
Depweg jogged into the house while I crouched next to where the twins were still panting on the ground.
“Thought we were goners, man,” Dawson said.
“Yeah, dude. I thought Ulric was like, way stronger than you or something,” Joey said.
“Well, my naked friends, he was—at one point. But he slept for a long time. Hell, the second time he slept I thought he was dead. He probably used every bit of energy he had ever stored to keep from fully dying.”
“That’s a crazy plot twist, bro,” Dawson said as he stood up, one hand caressing his throat.
“Think I could sell the story to Netflix yet?”
“I’d watch it,” Joey said, rubbing his neck, which I noted had violently bruised in the few moments they’d been hanging.
Joey saw me looking, glanced at his brother’s perfectly matched neck bruise, then said, “Don’t you dare make a leash joke.”
“Damn! Beat me to it.”
Depweg came out of the house carrying an armful of supplies that he dropped where Ulric lay unconscious. He wrapp
ed a hand towel around the stump that had slowed its bleeding but still leaked life fluid, securing it in place, ironically, with a zip tie. He reached for the silver blade jutting out of Ulric’s stomach, prompting me to call out, “Wait!”
Depweg did as asked, watching me pick up a silver noose off the ground and jog over to the tree, where I placed the rope around Ulric’s neck. I tightened it before nodding to Depweg, who pulled the blade out. Ulric didn’t move, which was kind of worrisome.
“Lilith damn it,” I said as my mind began to race with solutions to the major problem in front of me. An idea struck me that was so poetic that it was delicious. I put my hand over Ulric’s slack-jawed mouth and willed blood to flow from my palm and down his throat. I was going to give Ulric a second chance, just as he had done for me all those years ago. Well, this was like his third chance or something—but who’s counting? Me.
As I fed Ulric some of my life energy, which I had stolen from him in our fight, Depweg worked to burn the wound on his stomach and back closed by lighting another dish towel, which he held with a pair of tongs. Ulric’s face barely contorted in response, signaling that I had provided enough blood to keep him from dying. I willed my palm closed and held the rope close to the knot, just in case. Depweg handed the blade back to me and I cut several feet of the rope off before sliding it in its sheath at the small of my back; but not before first wiping it on Ulric’s clothes to clean off the blood.
Ulric’s eyes fluttered, and a moan escaped his lips.
“Stand back,” I told Depweg. “Take the twins and go see if there’s anything of value in the home, like clothes, and then burn it down. I’ll deal with him.”