Kate stepped forward to help the strange man, afraid he would die right in front of them, but then she realized he was actually laughing. At his own joke. Doodie indeed.
Laskaris brought them to the room with the five demons in their cages. He explained briefly what they would be doing and told them to return in three hours, since the creatures had already been fed earlier.
“Most of the cleaning duties”—he giggled again—“are to be done at night, after your training. When you come back, I’ll show ya how to do it all. Fun, fun. Yes, you will enjoy your work. Just don’t listen to them. Oh no, don’t listen to them. They’re bad, they are. Get in your mind. Don’t listen and everything will work out fine.”
Kate shared looks with the rest of her squad. They reflected what she was already thinking. Maybe they would have been better off being kicked out of the Order.
Training that day consisted of combat drills, running with a pack full of rocks strapped to their backs, and lifting everything in sight for strength training. Before Kate knew it, it was time to grab a quick meal and go to Laskaris.
“Did you see all the scars that man has?” Charity said. “I like scars, but his…they look like something tore his skin. No blade made those.”
“Demon claws,” Sampson said. “I asked around. He has been the demon keeper for fifteen years. Sometimes, apparently, he gets too close to them and they take a piece of him.”
“I don’t like it,” Jasper said.
The others nodded but didn’t say anything more.
Laskaris started with the feeding. The food looked like nothing so much as slop scooped out of a midden heap. It was a disgusting black substance that smelled like rotting meat and excrement mixed with urine and wine that had gone bad months ago.
“Everything a growing demon needs,” Laskaris said, smiling. “We make it ourselves. They would rather eat raw flesh, of course, but that makes them more aggressive. They can live on this, and they will eat it, but they’d rather eat you.”
A room just to the side of the demon room was where the food was stored. They had only to scoop it into containers and place them in holders inside the cage. Laskaris showed them how to use the pole tools to replace the empty containers with new, full ones.
Kate wrinkled her nose as the foul odors assailed her. Laskaris made each of them change out the food for one of the demons while he watched. When he was satisfied they could do it without injury, they moved on to the next task.
“Don’t let them get killed,” Laskaris muttered to himself. “Don’t let the demons take their eyes or their arms or their throats, he says. As if Laskaris doesn’t know by now how to keep away from claws. As if he would let helpers die. Pfft.”
Yes, the man was definitely not dealing with his full wits.
The cleaning of the demons’ excrement was even worse than the feeding. Kate’s nose twitched and her stomach roiled as she performed the task the first time. The tool looked like a rake with tines on one side and a solid wedge-like blade on the other. Under the watchful eye of Laskaris, she inserted the implement’s head between the bars into the cage and then pulled to scrape the foul solids and liquids out onto the floor of the chamber.
Charity and Jasper, who were partnered with Kate for the task, used a rake and a shovel to gather the muck and put it into buckets to be left for someone else to take. Laskaris told them the fortress used part of it for lining the outer walls of the fortress to keep pests out and part to make the demons’ food. Kate didn’t want to know any more about the latter.
“Laskaris,” Kate said. “Why do we keep demons at the fortress at all?”
“Why?” he said. “She asks why?” His head shook as he did a double-take. “You’re a girl! Not many of those in the Order.”
“Charity is a woman, too,” Kate pointed out.
The crazed demon keeper eyed Charity and muttered something that Kate figured was just as well not heard by her or by Charity.
“Demons are all kinds of useful,” he finally said. “Their thoughts attack us, get us ready for being on the front lines. Learn to withstand it, everyone does. Better to fail here than when on the shield wall. Sometimes, they let one of them out in the arena so recruits can train. Not often, though. Can’t afford too many dead recruits.”
He cackled at that but continued. “Sometimes, those tan-robed scholars will want to study them without all the distractions of headquarters, so they come here to make their drawings or even to cut into the demons to study their insides. Lots of uses, there are. Lots.
“You don’t have to worry about the reasons, though. Worry about feeding the demons and cleaning up. Now, to work.”
Laskaris told them the schedule they would be keeping and left the room. They would be required to feed the demons three times a day and to clean the cages and the room every night. The total amount of time was only a few hours a day, but along with their normal rigorous training schedule, it would be a rough two weeks.
As soon as the door closed, Kate’s brain felt like it was being squeezed.
Let us out. Help and you will be rewarded. You cannot win. Join us and be a queen.
The thoughts poured into her head. They were different than the normal type she had grown used to. These didn’t focus on killing and dying. They seemed more personalized. And stronger.
The others in the squad squinted as if in pain.
“Are you hearing the voices, too?” she asked.
Four nods confirmed it.
“Yes,” Sampson said. “The voice is different. Targeted. I can almost sense which one the thoughts come from.”
That was strange. Kate could swear that hers came from more than one. She wondered how many people a demon could send thoughts to at one time.
“Don’t listen to them,” she said. “Block them out. This work is bad enough without being attacked in our minds.”
Charity glared at Kate. She looked like she was going to say something, probably something about how Kate had no right or authority to tell them what to do. But Charity stayed silent, rubbing her temples and closing her eyes.
The next day wasn’t any easier. In fact, it was harder than the previous day. They did an entire day of combat drills, with Phileas arranging it so Kate’s squad ran loops of the obstacles course between fights. They shoveled food into their mouths quickly so they could make it to the demon room to feed the monsters on time.
“At least we are able to eat before feeding them,” Sampson said. “I do not think I could eat after.”
Jasper blanched and shuddered a little, looking like he might retch, but didn’t say anything.
“Ew,” Kate said. “I agree.”
The stench of the demons—and their food and excrement, which smelled almost the same—stayed on their clothes and hair. Despite getting finished late, Kate took the time to have a bath every night before going to bed, sacrificing some of her precious sleep. She tried to skip it one night and couldn’t sleep because of the odor wafting from her. Her bunkmates didn’t appreciate it, either. Charity didn’t care if she stank.
Throughout the day, the demons seemed to throw more thoughts into her head than they had before. It was as if they had targeted her now—as Sampson had said—and were focused on breaking her.
Awake, when sleeping, at nearly all times, demon thoughts battered her mind. They alternated between the previous one- or two-word commands dealing with death, killing, and destroying, and the newer, more intelligent thoughts. At times, she thought she was going to go insane.
“They are always in my mind, the God-forsaken monsters,” Arronax said six days into their detail, as they were eating breakfast.
Breakfast was the most leisurely of their meals, if that word could even be used. The squad, without verbally agreeing to do so, met to eat earlier than everyone else so they could feed the demons before the day’s training. They didn’t have to wolf down their food as they did with the other meals. Kate enjoyed breakfast, if she could say she enjoyed anything in the hell she was liv
ing.
“Me too,” she said. “They switch the things they say. The anticipation is almost worse than the actual thoughts.”
“Exactly.” Arronax looked at Kate, his eyes going wide. She thought it was because he had just realized, as she did, that they were actually having a conversation. Without threats or insults. And agreeing.
She tried to hide the small smile forcing its way onto her face. Her heart leapt when she saw it mirrored on Arronax’s face. Maybe he wasn’t such a total ass after all.
As time went on and they were coming up on the end of their duties, Kate found that her squad mates were not insulting her constantly anymore. In fact, it had been days since anyone had said anything derogatory toward her at all. The filthy tasks they were performing, and the way they had to cooperate to do them without the demons attacking them, had brought them closer. She hoped it lasted.
Finally, they reached their last day of demon duty.
“I can’t wait to be done with this,” Charity said. “I’m so sick and tired of being tired all the time.”
“I’m going to sleep for a full night, for once,” Jasper said, a rare smile lighting up his face.
They all looked haggard and exhausted. Charity especially looked like she had been struck repeatedly under the eyes. Kate thought the bags there might take years to disappear.
Still, it was the last day. Only three more demon meals, one more round of cleaning up demon shit, and they would be done. If any one of the others did anything remotely like what Arronax did to get them this duty, Kate resolved herself to kill them on the spot, with whatever she had available or even with her bare hands. She just wanted to sleep without the smell of demon in her nostrils all the time.
Training and the feedings flew by, and it was time for the last cleaning.
“The last one!” Kate said, pumping her fist in the air.
Arronax grinned. Sampson smiled. Jasper threw both arms up in the air. Charity stared blankly ahead. It was a good thing they were just about done. The other woman looked like she had finally succumbed to exhaustion. Kate would pick up the slack and let Charity rest in the corner if need be. One more task, and they’d be free to be like the rest of the recruits. Miserable, but less so than currently.
Charity mechanically picked up one of the rakes and moved toward the demon cage farthest from the supply closet. Sampson and Jasper followed her while Kate and Arronax retrieved the buckets and their own rakes.
“Last night,” Arronax said, wearing one of the few genuine smiles Kate had ever received from him. “I simply cannot wait to be done with all…this.” He waved his rake at the room and the cages. “I plan on burning these clothes and never setting foot in this room again.”
“I agree completely,” Kate said, balancing several buckets and her rake. “Let’s get this over with.”
A loud thwak sounded in the room, followed by another that ended in a dull cracking sound. Kate dropped the buckets and turned toward the sound just as Charity launched herself at Sampson.
The former soldier didn’t react in time, and Charity punched the jagged edge of part of her rake’s shaft into his neck. His eyes went wide and his mouth moved silently at her, but then he dropped to the floor, blood pulsing out of his wound.
Charity casually stepped over to one of the demon cages and put the key in the lock. She turned it with a click and swung the door open.
Kate was trying to process what was happening. Sampson was lying on the floor, unmoving, blood still pooling under him. Charity attacked him, killed him? It didn’t make sense.
The second click as Charity unlocked the next demon cage finally snapped Kate back to reality. “What are you doing, Charity?”
The woman met Kate’s eyes, and the temperature in the cold chamber dropped thirty degrees. There was a kind of eerie glow behind Charity’s eyes, and a subtle smile played across her face.
“Jasper, get out of there,” Kate yelled, but it was too late. The first demon leapt from its cage and caught the farmer in its claws. The flesh on Jasper’s arms peeled open as the claws dug deep, and then the demon leaned its head down and tore the muscular young man’s throat out with its teeth. Kate’s stomach turned when a loud sucking sound reached her ears.
“Come on, Arronax,” she said. “We have to stop them before they all get out.”
The sound of footsteps and of the door opening were her only answer. She shifted her body to keep the demons in her peripheral vision while she sought out Arronax. His broad back disappeared through the door, and it slammed closed behind him.
The lock clicked. She was trapped with Charity, five demons, and two corpses.
14
All Kate could find to defend herself was the rake she held in her hand. She had delayed long enough that the other woman had opened all the cages. Four demons trained their baleful gazes on Kate. The fifth was finishing up its meal, draining the last of the blood from Jasper.
Charity knelt on the floor in front of the last cage she had opened and tilted her head back to bare her throat. She was offering it to the demons so they could make a meal of her as they did with Jasper.
That final act broke something loose in Kate. Anger at the betrayal and the death of her friends flashed hot in her belly, and her fingers started twitching. She clamped her grip down on the shaft of her rake with her left hand, causing the wood to creak, took a moment to sight her target, and threw a bucket as hard as she could with her other hand.
The demon over Charity took the bucket in the face as it leaned down to feed. The sickening crunch told Kate she had probably broken that hooked nose in the middle of the creature’s face. She threw two more buckets, one hitting another demon in the side of the head, but the other passing harmlessly by another monster that seemed to have better reflexes.
All five now stalked toward her, realizing that she was not an easy target as the others had been. As they moved, they flooded her mind with thoughts, commands, and random senselessness.
They had made a mistake, though. The sheer volume of invasions into her mind overwhelmed her ability to comprehend them. The psychic assault ended up being so much gibberish, making it all easier to ignore. Kate vowed she would not fall prey to their devices as Charity had.
The closest demon lunged, claws extended and mouth wide open with its sharp teeth gleaming. Kate cracked it over the head with her rake, breaking half the head off the tool. Dazed, the demon flailed on the floor, shaking its head in pain.
Two more came in, one from each side. Kate thrust the end of the rake into the face of the demon on the left, crushing its eye, and then reversed the shaft to swing it around in a short arc, slamming it down on top of the claw of the demon on the right. She spun in a complete circle for momentum and then struck the right-side demon on its lower legs. The bones in the demon’s legs emitted a sharp crack, and it fell hard. Its head struck the stone floor and bounced back up a foot before settling down again and staying still.
Knowing strikes to the claws, and even to the eye, were not going to win the fight, Kate stepped back to gain some distance from the remaining demons. The one she struck in the eye wiped green blood from its socket but was still moving around to surround her. The others were already in place.
All four jumped at her at the same time. Her world consisted of nothing but claws and teeth coming at her. She dove at the ground, rolled under one demon’s high attack, and came up onto her feet. Without pausing, she hooked the half rake head that still remained and pulled one of the demons back toward her by its throat. As it moved, she swung the rake around and used both hands to smash the shaft into its head. The combination of the strength of her strike and the momentum of the beast shattered its skull and flung it away.
Two down.
The others circled her more warily. Charity, thankfully, did not engage Kate, but was still kneeling, waiting for her life to be ended by demon fangs. That fate was too good for the bitch, Kate thought.
Not waiting for the next attack, Kat
e lunged at one of the demons with the head of the rake. It brought its claws up to bat the weapon away, but the attack was no longer where the demon thought it was. Kate rotated, swirled the rake around in a tight arc, and punched the short tines into the creature’s skull. There was a sound like when she had punctured a melon with an arrow in archery practice. She pulled as hard as she could and tore the top half of the demon’s skull out. It dropped in front of her, and she stomped down on what was left of its brain as she moved into position to fight the other two.
One of the two remaining demons was unnaturally fast. It grabbed the rake when Kate swung at it and held on tight. The other demon was positioning itself to slash at Kate from behind. Yanking on her weapon did no good. It was like it was cast in stone.
Kate made a snap decision and rotated counter-clockwise, toward the demon. When she had gathered enough momentum, she struck at the shaft of her weapon with the heel of her palm, thrusting and rotating with her hips as Dante had taught her. The shaft snapped.
Continuing her spin while bringing her newly shortened pole up to block the attacks from the demon behind her, she moved around the demon still holding her rake head and thrust the jagged, broken end of the pole. It skewered the demon through the upper back, forcing its way all the way through and tearing out of the front of the monster.
She had studied demon anatomy a little in the books at the fortress library when no one was talking to her and knew she had hit vital organs. She put her foot on the demon’s back and pulled her weapon back out. The demon slumped to the ground, already dead.
The final demon frantically called to her in her mind, trying to get her to stop, to cooperate. It issued feeble commands to get her to drop her guard and let it kill her. Frankly, Kate found the attempt pathetic. It was obvious from the tension of the thoughts that the thing was terrified. She could almost taste it, a bitter tang in her mind that made her want to spit.
“Not today.” She charged.
It was no match for her skills. She struck it repeatedly, battering its guard down and opening wounds from the blunt trauma she dished out. She finally tired of the punishment and batted its arms aside, spun inside its guard, and punched the jagged end of the staff through its throat. She locked her eyes on its own and watched as they glazed over and the life went out of them. She kicked its body off the weapon and turned toward Charity.
Call of Fire Page 11
