Demon of Darkness

by Andrea Pearson

  Abel and I nodded, and we stepped back as a servant opened the doors.

  I’d been expecting a library of sorts. And yes, it basically fit the bill. At least, there were chairs that looked comfortable and lots of reading material. Instead of shelves, though, the walls were riddled with holes—so close together, I wondered what was keeping them all from collapsing on each other. In all of the holes were scrolls made of—naturally—bones. It didn’t take long for me to notice that the room was color-coordinated. Like the front doors to the castle, the walls around the holes were etched with symbols that had been dyed certain colors. The scrolls matched those colors.

  I wasn’t terribly surprised that the Russells led us past all of the cheerful colors and around a corner into a section where the bones and scrolls had been etched with black.

  Mrs. Russell motioned to the section. “This is where we store information on deadly creatures and people, spells, and magics. Lord Kenan’s information will all be here.”

  Mr. Russell clapped his hands, and servants poured into the room. “Search for anything and everything we have on Lord Kenan. Bring it to the center of the knowledge room.”

  And then Mrs. Russell ushered us back to where all of the chairs surrounded a large table.

  Soon, scrolls were being carefully placed on that table, and the Russells indicated for us to dig in.

  I reached for a scroll and jumped when a man’s voice whispered in my ear, “You won’t be able to read them.”

  Before I could stop myself, I swatted at whoever had whispered. Seriously annoying—they should know better. I turned and wasn’t surprised to find a ghost there.

  “I didn’t think I’d be able to.”

  “You may as well tell them,” he said.

  I rolled my eyes, but glanced at the Russells, who were watching me with amused expressions. “A ghost just informed me that I won’t be able to read the scrolls since they’ll be in a different language.”

  “A lot of them will be in English,” Mrs. Russell said. “Lord Kenan has spent the majority of his life on earth. Earlier times will be in different languages, but later years will be in English.”

  “And what was Lord Kenan doing during later years?” the ghost asked.

  I blinked. Good point. “He was imprisoned during later years.”

  The Russells glanced at each other, obviously not having thought of that before.

  “Well, we’ll do the best we can,” Mr. Russell said. “Perhaps you could take notes on what we learn while we search the scrolls?”

  “Yes, I’ll do that.” I glared at the ghost. “Instead of looking so smug, why don’t you help out?”

  The ghost backed away. “No, thank you. I have better things to do than research.”

  “Well, shoo, then.” I didn’t want him reading over my shoulder, and the guy was seriously annoying.

  “Good luck,” he said before disappearing.

  “Human or other?” Mr. Russell asked.

  “Human.”

  “He might have followed us here—we don’t have a lot of human ghosts on our planet.”

  “Could he have hidden his true form, the way your servants have been doing?”

  Mr. Russell shook his head. “No. At least, I’ve never heard of a ghost being able to do that.”

  “Should I be able to see non-human ghosts?”

  He gave me a smile. “Theoretically, yes, since the Shade Amulet isn’t called the Human-Only Shade Amulet.”

  I laughed with him and his wife. I sure loved my neighbors.

  And then we got to work. The only sound in the room for the first while was the shuffling of scrolls. Soon, though, the Russells murmured to each other or had me write something down. The information they gave started coming so quickly that Abel and I both ended up taking notes on our phones.

  Hours after we started—only broken up once for a quick snack—the Russells finished scouring the scrolls that contained even a tiny bit of information on Lord Kenan.

  We were ready to see everything we’d learned about him.

  33

  Mrs. Russell clapped her hands, asking a servant to bring paper and pens. And then we got started. We divided up the time since Lord Kenan’s birth into four sections, with each of us taking a different one and studying the information we’d gleaned for that time. I ended up with the first section, and once everyone was ready, I began relaying what I’d learned.

  “Lord Kenan has been around since practically the dawn of earth. As we learned, he’d formerly been known as Cain, brother of Abel.”

  Everyone glanced at my boyfriend when I mentioned his name. He met our gazes.

  “What?” he said. “I’m not that Abel, and I sure as heck am not related to Lord Kenan.”

  “He’s right,” Mr. Russell said. “He’d be a fire vampire otherwise, not an Arete.”

  “But Kenan didn’t start out as a vampire,” I said. “He was changed at some point after murdering his brother.”

  “Murdering his brother might have been required in order to become a vampire,” Abel said. “And didn’t he become a regular vampire first, and then a fire one?”

  “Yes, good point,” Mrs. Russell said. “That happened around three thousand BC—during my section of time.”

  “Why did he want to become a vampire, though?” I asked. “Why not something else, like an Arete?”

  Mr. Russell glanced at me. “Because even though the transition from human to vampire is a difficult one, it’s still much easier than human to another kind of creature.”

  “Aretes are humans,” I said.

  “Indeed,” Mrs. Russell said. “But you’re mortal. And your powers aren’t technically a curse or a punishment, as vampire abilities are. We already know he did try to become an Arete later in life, but he wasn’t successful.”

  I frowned. “Are you sure? Didn’t they say he wasn’t ever able to test it out?”

  We all looked at Abel, who had been assigned everything from about 500 AD to the present time.

  “He needed help from a more-powerful being,” Abel said, “and he wasn’t granted that help.”

  Mr. Russell shook his head. “Nor would he ever be. They don’t care about him or any of us.”

  Abel nodded. “When he was turned away, he tried it on his own, but he wasn’t successful.”

  I remembered hearing that. Still, though, I couldn’t help but continue my argument. “I can’t remember who told it to me, but they were positive he’d been able to pull it off.”

  “They were wrong,” Abel said, his tone of voice final. “There is absolutely nothing that shows he did it. The only thing that resulted from his tests were a bunch of dead Fire Aretes and him throwing an epic fit that included destroying an entire ancient temple.”

  “Thank goodness he wasn’t successful,” Mrs. Russell said. “He’s powerful enough without being able to manipulate flames too.” She glanced down at the papers in her lap. “Let’s keep going. Lizzie, is that all?”

  I shook my head. “I’ve got more. Sometime around four thousand BC—the same time he became a vampire—Cain changed his name to Kenan.”

  Mr. Russell nodded. “We couldn’t ever find out why.”

  “I have a theory about it,” I said. “Maybe it was close enough to his real name for it to be familiar while still distancing himself from the reputation his real name had gained.”

  The others didn’t seem to think that was a bad theory, so I glanced down at my notes and continued. “This is the first time someone tried destroying him. It obviously didn’t work.”

  Abel leaned forward. “What did they do to stop him?”

  “They stabbed him twenty times.”

  Everyone cringed.

  “And it stopped his heart?” Abel asked.

  “Oh, yes, of course.”

  “Well, we know why it didn’t kill him permanently,” Abel said. “He was already a vampire by that point. Just stabbing a vampire doesn’t kill them.”

  “No, it d
oesn’t. Not without the right instrument and in the right spot, anyway. Before they tried to stop him, they were killing all his minions, not knowing the people were working for someone else.”

  A sad expression crossed Mrs. Russell’s face. “A very difficult time, I’m sure. All those poor people. Too weak-minded to withstand his control.”

  “When did he learn to control others, anyway?” Abel asked.

  “It’s part of being a vampire,” I said. I knew firsthand about the sort of control a vampire could have over a victim. “Anyway, yes, he had quite a trail of bodies that surrounded him. Soon, people in high places started noticing the pattern, and that’s when assassins were first hired to kill him. Obviously, none were successful.”

  “What were all the ways they tried to murder him?” Abel asked. “We might as well start a list now.”

  “Drowning, stabbing, being dragged to death, having his internal organs removed while he was alive, trampling by rhinoceros and other large animals, poison, beheading . . . pretty much everything you can think of, apart from guns, since they weren’t around yet. And that was just during my time period.”

  “Again, none of that would kill a vampire,” Abel said.

  Mrs. Russell agreed. “It bears repeating: not unless it was done with the correct weapon.”

  “When did he become a fire vampire?” Mr. Russell asked.

  “During my period of time,” Mrs. Russell said. “Which starts where Lizzie left off.” She looked at me. “Are you ready for my turn?”

  I nodded. “That’s pretty much everything from my notes.”

  “Around this period of time,” Mrs. Russell started, “the people of earth were figuring out just exactly what a vampire was and how difficult they were to kill. But when they finally figured out how to kill them, he learned about fire vampires. And as we already know, fire vampires come with a whole host of other powers.”

  Abel leaned forward. “I should probably know all of this, seeing as how I work closely with demons on a regular basis, but I was gone when Lizzie gained most of her knowledge on fire vampires. What makes them special?”

  Mrs. Russell and Mr. Russell glanced at each other before Mrs. Russell said, “Oh, quite a bit.”

  34

  My elderly neighbors looked at me, motioning for me to explain. And so I did. “They drain their victims of blood, then start them on fire and consume the resulting smoke. Doing so grants them the ability to walk in broad daylight. The sun is technically a big ball of fire, as you know. But consuming the smoke also magnifies all of their regular abilities. Which include speed, strength, deception and control, et cetera.”

  Abel nodded. “Do we know what can kill a fire vampire?”

  “Basically the same stuff,” Mr. Russell said. “Apart from the sun, of course. It’s important to note that once they become a fire vampire, they need to drain victims and burn them to survive.”

  “Not only that,” I said, “but if you extinguish their flame, they don’t go back to being regular vampires. They slowly starve. Like Rauel while he was in the hospital.”

  “Okay, good to know.” Abel glanced at Mrs. Russell. “What else do you have on him from your period of time?”

  “Not a lot. He spent the years studying how to become an Arete and gathering supporters only to have them killed when he pushed them too far into other rulers’ lands, forcing him to move on. But he was also mastering his own natural abilities—which included growing the powers of those around him.”

  “Where did he get that ability from?” Abel asked.

  We all glanced down at our papers, but no one had the answer.

  “I hate that our library isn’t complete,” Mrs. Russell said.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Abel said. “I don’t think it’s necessary information. Simply knowing he has the ability should be enough.”

  “Continuing,” Mrs. Russell said. “As I mentioned, he spent a lot of this time studying. He traveled to other dimensions, meeting powerful and important people. Learning from them. Killing them when they didn’t help. Gaining powerful enemies everywhere.” She looked up at us. “Not many people who know him actually like him.”

  I’d been starting to get that idea, judging by how many times people had tried to kill him.

  “And that’s pretty much everything I’ve got on him,” she said before glancing at her husband. “Your turn.”

  Mr. Russell cleared his throat. “I cover one thousand BC through five hundred AD. During this time, the people of earth and other dimensions and planets became desperate to destroy him. Rather than losing their best people, they spent their time researching and gathering knowledge on him.”

  “That insinuates there are a lot of libraries out there full of info on him,” I said.

  Abel shook his head. “No, there aren’t, unfortunately. I’ll explain more when it’s my turn.”

  Mr. Russell continued. “People began teaming up and sharing their knowledge. They learned that the Hounds of Tindolas seemed to favor him, but no one had the ability to destroy those demons, and anyone who had that knowledge was devoured by the hounds themselves. And so it became a dead end for them.”

  He glanced at his papers. “Also, they finally figured out how to kill fire vampires, but none of that worked on him.”

  I blinked. “Are you serious? So, what is going to work on him?”

  “It wasn’t ever discovered,” he said. “Unfortunately.”

  Seriously unfortunate. How was I supposed to stop him if there wasn’t a way to kill him?

  “That’s not actually accurate,” Abel said. “At least, not entirely. I have more information on the killing-him aspect.”

  “Wonderful,” Mr. Russell said. “Let’s hear it.”

  “I’ll get there in a bit—first, I’ll start where your time period left off.”

  Everyone was okay with that, so Abel started. “Sometime in the medieval ages, he killed a lord and officially assumed his current title. They’d been calling him ‘Lord’ for a long time, but apparently, he likes doing things the right way.”

  “You mean, in a legitimate way,” I said. “Killing someone has never been the ‘right way.’”

  “True,” Abel said. “Regardless, no one confronted him or tried to stop him, and he was able to take over the land and servants of that previous lord.”

  “Do those still exist?” I asked.

  “I’m not sure. I’m positive they have record of his ownership having existed somewhere, but I highly doubt it’s still his, given the fact that he was imprisoned for hundreds of years.”

  “Quite correct,” Mr. Russell said. “As part of imprisoning him, we returned his lands to the previous lord’s closest relation.”

  I found myself sort of sad about that. It would have been cool if one of us permanently killed Lord Kenan and gained his lands in exchange. Oh, well.

  “Anyway, as I hinted at earlier,” Abel said, “he destroyed every single library and base of knowledge he knew of that existed about him.”

  “Except this one,” Mrs. Russell said, beaming. “We went to great lengths to prevent him from learning about it.”

  “I’m glad you did,” I said.

  “As part of his studies,” Abel said, “he learned about Lizzie.” He glanced at me, a sad expression on his face. “And of the prophecies surrounding you. He knew you would be the only person ever to destroy a hound. And so, he spent years and years figuring out a way to tie his existence to theirs, making it so only one person on earth would ever have the power to fully destroy him, thereby protecting him from death.”

  “And that person is me?” I asked. An odd floating sensation hit me. I couldn’t feel my limbs anymore. How was any of this possible? Could it be true? Was I the only one who could kill Lord Kenan?

  “Yes,” Abel said.

  I stared at the wall opposite me, having a hard time believing this. It seemed I’d been mixed up with Lord Kenan for a lot longer than any of us realized. “What did he do to m
ake it so he was tied to their existence?”

  “He infused a part of himself in them. While they’re near him, they can’t be destroyed, even if you attempt to snuff their flames.”

  “That would explain why I couldn’t kill Conor when I tried,” I said.

  Abel nodded. “And it would also explain why Governor Boggs did die.”

  I frowned. “What do you mean?” I hadn’t told him about the sharp bits I’d felt on the governor’s hound body. Not only had it initially slipped my mind, but when I did remember it again, I wasn’t even sure if I’d been correct. For all I knew, the scraping had been from the dog’s teeth or claws.

  Something told me that wasn’t true, though.

  “There was something different about him, wasn’t there?” Abel asked. “You haven’t said anything, but the way you fought him was different from the hundreds of other hounds I’ve witnessed you killing.”

  I fell silent for a moment. “Yes, there was. He scraped me with something. I don’t know what.”

  “We’ll get to that in a minute, but Lord Kenan changed Governor Boggs. However, because the governor wasn’t around Kenan as much as Conor, he didn’t have the same protections. You were able to destroy him just like the other hounds you’d come across.”

  It was a good theory. When I made that comment, Abel shook his head.

  “It’s not a theory. It follows the rules outlined here.” He motioned to the pages in his lap. “And once he learned Lizzie was a woman, he figured his future was secure since he so easily controlled women. He would destroy her easily, ensuring he would never be killed. As long as she was dead, no one would ever be able to stop him.”

  35

  “So, I can’t kill them without killing him . . . and I can’t kill him without killing them. How am I supposed to accomplish anything?”

  “Here, let me show you what you were dealing with where Governor Boggs was concerned.” Abel turned a piece of paper toward me, showing a grotesque illustration of a beast that sort of looked like a hound. All over its blood-red body were sharp spikes that looked like bone. They stood out on the beast’s head, shoulders, and joints. “This is what he turned Conor and Governor Boggs into.”