Destroying the Fallen

by Rebecca Bosevski

  “Okay, now that’s cool,” one of the elves said from behind me.

  “Here,” Hedger said, holding out a handful of purple beads.

  “What are they?” I asked.

  “If you get possessed, one of these can hopefully evacuate the demon, maybe even kill it on its way out.”

  “Why haven’t you given these to the fey?” Jax asked, taking a pill for himself and sliding it into his back pocket.

  Hedger shrugged. “We did, the elves have been sending whatever we can.”

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean...”

  “It’s okay, it is hard on all sides,” Hedger said as he passed me my pill.

  I took it and placed it inside the top edge of my boot.

  “Are you ready?” I asked as I slipped the key into the hold and slowly turned it. When the last click sounded, Hedger turned the handle and stormed into the room, sword drawn.

  We barreled in after him, but the room was empty.

  We circled around in the middle of the room. “I thought you said it was in here?” I asked, lowering the sword to press the tip into my hall rug and leaning on its hilt.

  The bathroom door swung open and out ran a businessman with black eyes.

  He thrashed at the nearest elf, but was brought down before he could land a blow. Two fey, both younger than should be allowed to be demon hunting, grabbed the man by the arms and held him still while Hedger pulled a purple bead from his jacket pocket. He placed a hand on the man’s forehead and muttered something. The man’s mouth opened, and Hedger shoved the bead inside, then held his hand over the man’s mouth. A moment later, black mist spewed forth from under Hedger’s fingers.

  I jumped back onto the couch. The others copied, scrambling onto chairs and tables.

  The mist snaked its way forwards then turned towards me. I lifted the sword and swung it down over the back of the lounge towards the mist. It curled away, avoiding my strike. I hopped to the chair opposite me as a nearby elf swung his blade at it.

  The mist avoided his swing too. I spotted a small opening of carpet and jumped. I landed just as the mist began to close in and I thrust the sword down into it. It vibrated and shot glistening black shards of varying lengths up towards the ceiling. The spikes solidified around the sword and my leg. I went to move, but I was stuck in the solid mass.

  “I got ya,” Jax called and he landed beside me, the solid spikes shattering under his feet. He punched the mass around my leg, freeing it in one swoop.

  The solid mass disintegrated into nothing before our eyes.

  “Well that was easier than I thought it would be,” Hedger exclaimed as he helped the businessman stand. “Come on, you will be okay, up you get.”

  “LOOK OUT!” one of the elves called, a second too late. The businessman pushed off the blonde fey who had been holding him, twisting to slip the blade from the other fey’s sheath. He plunged it into Hedger’s side.

  I leapt the distance between us and swung my sword. The man blocked my attack, as well as the blows of Jax and two other elves. He twisted and dipped, tumbled and turned to avoid our advances. One of the elves tripped over the side table and fell backwards.

  The man didn’t go for him though. He turned and came at me. Jax tried to get between us but when the man charged, he ducked under Jax’s arm and catapulted him into the wall. It was then that it clicked.

  “I thought the gateway got you all,” I spat, holding the sword out so the tip was a breath from the man’s face.

  “We in the coven are many,” he replied, sliding his pointer finger across the edge of my blade, hard enough to draw blood. A chill ran up my spine. “He will make me more again.”

  My eyes flicked around the room as another black-eyed man emerged from the bathroom, followed by another, and another. In the main entry to my apartment stood a woman and two more men.

  Crap, I left the key in the door.

  I stood at the ready, swords drawn by the elves around me, the possessed coven members hunched like animals about to attack.

  “Remember, if the mist enters you, take the purple pill,” Hedger yelled then he swung at the coven of souls man before him. The fight was on. I lunged but the man side-stepped and I stumbled forwards from the momentum.

  “Des!” Jax called, and I spun just in time to miss the grasp of the woman. I steadied my feet and slammed the hilt of the sword into her chest. She fell back and cried out with a sickening moan, before falling unconscious to the floor. I grabbed her by the hair. Lifting her head, I shoved the pill from my boot into her mouth, but before it could do anything, she awoke, pushed me off her and spat the pill to the ground, crushing it under her shoe.

  Fuck.

  She lunged towards me and I swung my blade up, slicing through the flesh of her arm. Red blood and black mist spewed from the wound. The mist twisted its way in the air towards me like a floating snake. I slashed at the air, but it avoided my attacks. My hands tightened around the hilt, sliding a little as I tried to grip firmer.

  The mist kept coming, twisting in the air, avoiding my swings until a clang against my sword sent it falling from my hand and then arms were on me.

  Two of the possessed gripped each of my arms. Their cold fingers digging into the shield that sat like a second skin over my body. I tried to shove them off, to push the shield out to force them to release me, but it wavered and then fell.

  Fuck!

  The mist was coming. It grew darker the closer it became. Then all of a sudden, the encroaching mist squealed and went solid. Cracks burst across the shiny surface before it exploded, the specks disintegrating as they fell, revealing my rescuer

  “Thought you could use a hand,” King Blake said from beside the falling mist.

  The possessed holding my right arm pulled at me, but Blake swung his sword and to avoid his blow the possessed let go. Using my free arm, I grabbed the collar of the possessed man on my other side. His hands gripped tighter into the flesh of my arm and without my shield, his nails dug deep enough to draw blood.

  “Des, here,” Blake called as he wrestled with the other possessed. He had my sword by his feet, and with a twist of his foot, he slipped the toe of his shoe under the blade near the top., then kicked it up towards me.

  If it had been anything but an elfish sword, it would have been crazy, but the sword was made for me. It wanted to be in my hands. I released the collar of the possessed and gripped the hilt before bringing it up into the side of the possessed. He moaned, releasing my other arm as he fell to the ground, black mist spewing from the open wound. I plunged the sword into the curling demon mist, and it went solid in spikes that shot through the possessed body making him jerk and cry out again. Yanking the sword free, the mist cracked and exploded, leaving the possessed lifeless on the floor.

  “Perfect timing, thanks,” I said to Blake as he pulled his sword out of another solidified demon energy.

  “Happy to be of assistance. Shall we?” he asked, tilting his head towards the others still fighting.

  “After you,” I replied, rolling my hand as regally as I could manage towards the battle.

  Blake was as skilled a fighter as I had ever seen. He avoided their advances as if dancing through my apartment, over upturned chairs, and around swirling mist on the tips of his toes.

  Jax had a coven member pinned against a wall, his blade at the man’s throat. But the man was trying to push forwards, trying to force Jax to slice his neck.

  The blade pierced the man’s skin, and red trickled down his neck, followed by black smoke. There wasn’t time for Jax to do anything. It went straight into his mouth, his nose, his eyes. Jax screamed.

  I ran to him, slicing through a snake of mist approaching me as I leapt over it. I landed beside him, plunged the sword into the coven member’s chest, and slid my hand into Jax’s back pocket. But it came away wet and covered in purple goo. “Hedger, a pill!” I called, and a bead of shimmery purple came flying towards me. I clutched it from the air just as the last of the smoke pas
sed his lips. Shoving the purple pill into Jax’s open mouth, I waited. I prayed. The mist tried to push the pill out, but my hand held over Jax’s mouth was fixed firm.

  “Break the pill!” Hedger yelled out.

  “Jax, bite down!” I begged and I felt his mouth close beneath my hand. The crack of the pill sent a burst of purple goo seeping from between his lips and between my fingers like liquid metal. I pulled my hand away and Jax fell to the ground. Yanking the sword out of the coven member’s chest, I knelt beside Jax as he spewed up a mixture of purple and black.

  “Hedger, this doesn’t look right. What’s happening?” I called out across the room as they others continued to fight.

  “It’s working, he will be okay, the potion is killing the demon from the inside out,” he called back. I could hear the others still fighting over Jax’s heaving. But they petered out until the only sounds were coming from Jax. I looked around and all the coven members were dead. Hedger was attending to a fallen fey in the doorway to my bedroom as another tried to patch Hedger’s wound. The others were piling up the bodies on the rug in my loungeroom.

  Jax was on all fours, his back rising like a cat stretching, before sharply sinking as each eruption of the mixture flowed from his mouth.

  “It will be okay, Jax. Get it all out, you will be okay,” I whispered into his ear as the liquid kept coming.

  I rubbed my hand over his back, not that it ever helped anyone throw up, but I wanted him to know that I was there, that I was with him. I rested my head against his shoulder and closed my eyes, repeating the words over and over to him. Then his back stopped lurching and sinking.

  “Des?” Jax croaked out.

  “Jax, thank the fey you’re okay,” I said as he rose onto his knees and I wrapped my arms around him.

  “The others?”

  “They are okay, we are all okay.”

  “Man, that sucked,” he said with a pained chuckle.

  King Blake held out a hand to Jax. “You will be needing a drink after all of that. Come on, I have just the thing.”

  Jax took his help to stand and we made our way to the kitchen. Some of the cupboard doors were open, some were broken, and many of the crockery was in cracked pieces on the floor, but I managed to find my set of tick-tack-toe shot glasses. I pulled them out, swept the debris from the counter with one arm, and lined them up.

  “I hope whatever you have is strong,” I said to King Blake as he pulled a small copper flask from his back somewhere.

  “Oh, this is exactly what we all need after that.” The top popped off the flask with a snap of his fingers. He poured almost an inch of fluro yellow liquid into each shot glass.

  “Come now, everyone, share a drink with your team.”

  Hedger nodded to the others before lifting a glass from the bench and holding it out in front of him. “To drink with our king is the greatest of honors. Thank you.”

  The others in Hedgers team followed his lead, lifting up a glass and waiting until each of us had also done the same.

  “To you all, may you be well.”

  “To the king,” Hedger replied. His fellow elves followed his toast. The fey beside me lifted her glass high. “To Desmoree, leader of the fey.”

  My cheeks warmed and grew hotter as the other fey copied her toast.

  Jax lifted his glass. “To all those who fight beside us.”

  I lifted my glass. “To all of you, to bringing down the demons and ending this battle with the darkness.”

  King Blake nodded then downed his drink. We all followed. It was warm and thick and tasted like honey, ginger, and something else I couldn’t place. It went down easy too, spreading a warmth through my body as if travelling in my blood. I watched it flow through them.

  Their energy illuminated and grew, until each of them shone brightly.

  “Wow, that stuff really hits the spot,” Jax said, slamming his glass down on the bench. Any chance for another?”

  “Ha, one isn’t enough for you?”

  Jax shrugged.

  I looked over at the pile of bodies in my loungeroom. “What are we going to do with them?”

  “We have something for that too,” Blake said and he nodded to Hedger, who walked over to the pile and began sprinkling something onto it. The bodies glowed red then dissolved away to nothing.

  “Where did they go?”

  “We sent them into the earth.”

  “Where are we off to now?” Jax asked and Hedger slapped him on the shoulder. “You haven’t had enough demon hunting for one day?”

  “Hardly. Give me a few of those pills and a bottle of that yellow stuff, and I’ll be all set for a week of demon hunting.”

  “Well we were due to check in after this one,” Hedger explained, nodding to his fellow hunters. “Been out here for nine days now.”

  “You haven’t been home in nine days?” Jax asked.

  “No,” Blake replied. “The teams are sent for ten human light cycles at a time. Lessens the risk of something getting through the portals we create.”

  “We are heading back already?” I asked, my disappointment surprising even me.

  “Won’t you be happy to see Ava?” King Blake asked. “Will she not be missing you already?”

  “Do you think she will be home yet?” I asked, turning from the others to Jax. I always forgot how the whole time thing works between here and there.

  “Where did she go? Is she okay?” King Blake asked before Jax could answer me. The king was fiddling with his fingers in front of him and his cheeks were turning a faint shade of pink.

  I bit back a smile before answering. “Ava is well. She is on a school trip. Though there was...”

  “There was what?” he pressed and I glanced to the others at the counter.

  Jax nudged Hedger. “Hedger, tell me about the other demons you have found out here.”

  Hedger slapped Jax on the shoulder. “Well friend, let me tell you, there was this one demon...”

  I nodded over to the loungeroom and Blake followed me to where I picked up a book from the floor beside the lounge. Pretending to be interested in my find, Blake leaned in close, our backs to the others as Hedger regaled Jax with his demon hunting stories.

  “Is Ava okay?”

  “She came back from the banshees the other day and I swear I felt a huge power in her, like the one I felt in Traflier. Jax says it wasn’t him trying to get to her but...” King Blake laid his hand over mine on the cover of the book and a calming warmth went through me. “I’m worried, that’s all.”

  “Well, Ava is a powerful being, she is unique. But, if you are worried we could look into it for you?”

  I nodded. “That would be great, thanks.”

  “YOUR HIGHNESS!” one of the guards called, and we spun to see a black mist snaking its way out of the bathroom doorway and along the carpet.

  Blake threw his knife, impaling it. The mass went solid, but when the fey nearest drove his sword in, it didn’t crack and disintegrate. It went thick, like black tar, and slivered away at lightning speed; across the room, up the wall, and out the window.

  “What the hell was that?” Hedger asked, rushing to the window.

  “Whatever it was,” King Blake began as he slipped the bottle somewhere at his back, then moving to pick up the knife he had thrown. “That demon survived an elf blade. We need to get back, make stronger weapons.”

  “We will come too,” I said, just as the purple smoke appeared on the counter before me. A fey went to stab it with his blade, but I threw up my hands. “Wait, it’s a message,” I said, leaning closer to see. It was Max. No surprise. He must have gone and collected some new things from the elf’s apothecary.

  “You are needed at the council, Desmoree. We have a tied vote that cannot wait to be resolved. Come immediately.”

  “I’ll be there as soon as I can,” I replied and the smoke disappeared. “Your Highness, can you portal us to Sayeesies?”

  King Blake tilted his head and frowned. “You ca
n’t portal yourself?”

  Jax giggled beside me.

  “Shut up, you,” I said to him as I poked him in the ribs. “You can’t do it either.” I looked back to Blake. “I can create one, but it isn’t stable. I used the last of those orb thingies to get us here.”

  He nodded. “I’ll get you home. Maybe one day you will take me up on the offer to host you and your family at the kingdom. Perhaps when all this is over. It would be nice to show you what our lands, our realm, really has to offer.”

  “Thanks. Hedger, we will catch up with you after the council meeting, can the fey go with you to get those new weapons?”

  “We will take care of it. See you soon,” he replied then began rattling off commands to the others in his team.

  Blake gestured for us to follow him and we went into my bedroom. The room was a mess, the fight having spread to all inches of my apartment. I picked up a silver slip on shoe from the floor.

  “Don’t worry,” Blake began. “We have a team on their way, they will return this place to as it was.”

  I sighed, placing the shoe down on the end of the bed. “Well, Jax, let’s go see what this vote is about, huh?”

  “Let’s,” he said as he wrapped his arm around my waist, his hand slipping down to my hip. Blake smirked, then swung his arm, uttered some words, and a gleaming golden portal stood before us.

  “Your path, as requested. Until we meet again.” He bowed his head.

  “Thanks,” I said and we both stepped through.

  “What the Fey?” Grace said from behind me as the portal closed. King Blake had sent us right into the council’s meeting. I stifled my laugh as I climbed down off the table and took my seat.

  “Sorry for the dramatic entrance, so what is this tied vote?”

  Jax jumped down and took his seat beside me. Grace’s eyes moved from one council member to the next before landing on me.

  “The yowies have kidnapped a group of fey.”

  “Hold on!” Max began as he stood and slammed his hands down on the table. “They didn’t kidnap anyone. You sent them in, and they got caught.”

  “Wait, you sent fey into the caves?”