by N. P. Martin
Just then there was a sudden pain in my right leg as I felt his telekinetic power twist around my femur in an attempt to crush the bone. I directed more of my own power into pushing back against his, knowing that if he broke my leg, it was over. There was no way I could heal quickly enough to continue, nor could I carry on if I couldn’t walk.
Way to have your own brilliant idea used against you…
The only edge I had was the Demon Blade, which I still held in my hand. From the distance I was at, I could probably throw it at him with enough force for the blade to penetrate him. But if I did that, I might kill him. I had no idea if the Demon Blade only killed demons, or if it killed everything, including demonized Nephilim.
My resistance against his power was slowly but surely decreasing. The strain started to show in my face as I expected my leg to snap at any second.
I glanced across at Abigor, who was still in the process of opening the Hell Gate. Going by how much red light was bursting up from the ground, it appeared he had nearly completed whatever ritual he was performing.
The world was minutes away from being over, and there was no one around to stop it from happening. None of the other Watchers were approaching Abigor, either because they were engaged in fighting, or because they were too frightened to. In the latter case, I couldn’t blame them. They all knew how futile their ability to engage Abigor would be.
It was up to me to do something.
With my femur about to splinter into a dozen pieces, I suddenly raised the Demon Blade and threw it as hard as I could at Josh. Before I even threw it, I had expected him to stop the sword somehow, either telekinetically, or merely by teleporting out of its flightpath. But such was the speed the sword traveled at, that he wasn’t able to do anything before it speared him through the chest.
His influence over me now severed, Josh stared at me a moment as he wrapped both hands around the leather grip of the sword. My mouth dropped open in horror at what I had done…at what I had to do.
When Josh managed to pull the long sword from his chest with a cry of effort, he dropped it on the ground and feel forward to his knees, his hands and chest covered with blood.
What have I done? I thought as I ran to him, catching him in my arms as he went to fall back. "I’m sorry, Josh," I said as tears streamed from eyes. "I really didn’t want to hurt you…"
He suddenly gripped my wrist in one bloody hand, and a slight smile appeared on his face as he looked up at me. For the first time since he was demonized, I saw the old Josh in his eyes. "How did we get to this?" he now asked me back, as blood spurted from his mouth.
I shook my head as the tears dripped from my face. "I don’t know. I’m so sorry, Josh. I love you…Josh? Josh!"
His eyes were open, but he had stopped breathing.
I was trying to convince myself that he wasn’t really dead when I felt a hand on my shoulder, and I looked up suddenly to see Eva standing there, two bloodstained batons in her hands, crimson streaked across her face and arms. "Leave him," she said urgently. "I’ll take care of him."
"But…" I didn’t want to leave him, even though I knew I had to.
It was Abigor’s raised voice that eventually made me let Josh go and stand up. The Demon General was laughing to himself; a sound that immediately filled me with rage, until all I wanted to do was kill the bastard.
Eva locked stares with me as she handed me the Demon Blade, which was still dripping with Josh’s blood. "Do what you came here to do."
Taking the sword from her, I used my rage to summon every ounce of power I had in me to the surface.
Within me, a now vaguely familiar voice whispered:
Destroy him!
Then I charged at Abigor.
41
A guttural growl escaped from my mouth as I rushed at Abigor, the Demon Blade held high with both hands as I prepared to bring it down on him. In my mind, I pictured his skull cleaving in two after I delivered the death blow, and his stinking evil essence breaking apart and being wiped from existence. Right up until the last second, it seemed like things would go this way, until Abigor, without even looking at me, shot his hand out and redirected some of the power he was using to open the Hell Gate, stopping me dead in my tracks and filling my body with immediate pain.
"Didn’t anyone ever tell you that it is rude to interrupt?"
He stood near the edge of the chasm, rain matting his longish hair to his face. His eyes glowed as he turned around to glare at me.
Staring back I felt no fear, despite the pain he was pumping into my body. All I felt was the burning desire for violence and bloodshed, as the darkness within all but consumed me…and spoke to me in a seductive voice that was now clearly different to the previous, vaguely familiar one.
Attack him…cut him down…destroy him…now!
Abigor grinned over at me. "This was something I didn’t expect. You willingly gave yourself to the Darkness, child. Perhaps you belong at my side after all, seeing as your brother’s no longer useful to me."
Make him bleed…make him suffer…
"I don’t think so."
Abigor narrowed his eyes at me, and then suddenly teleported closer, landing no more than six feet away. "You are different from your darkness-infected brethren." He shook his head as if he couldn’t put his finger on it. "Your power is different somehow, more evolved it seems, but at the same time…still repulsive."
My mouth curled into a sneer. "Good."
Smiling slightly, Abigor nodded. "Come then, let’s get this over with so I can get on with giving this world what it deserves, which is eternal damnation." He took a defiant step forward. "You want to destroy me with that blade, then come and do it puny hybrid!"
Despite the dark voice within telling me to charge forward and attack, I didn’t do so immediately. I knew the second I charged, Abigor would just teleport and I’d be left attacking thin air again.
"Maybe I don’t want to attack you," I said as I began to move toward him, the Demon Blade now held loosely by my side, like I had no intention of using it anymore. "Maybe you’re right. Maybe the world is going to hell whether I like or not, and I’d rather be on the controlling side."
Abigor stared hard at me as I stopped about three feet away from him. He said nothing for a long moment as he considered me. "You know what, Leia? I think having you at my side would be like having a thorn in my side. To use an expression I’m sure you are familiar with, you’d be a pain in the fucking ass, as you have so far proven to be."
A slight laugh escaped me and I nodded. "That’s true—"
I swung the Demon Blade suddenly, and with as much speed and power as I could muster.
But it wasn’t enough.
The Demon Blade reached Abigor’s neck all right; it even bit flesh, but Abigor teleported before the blade could cut any deeper than a fraction of inch. Then I felt an arm as hard as an iron bar wrap around my neck from behind, followed by another over the top of my sword arm, locking it into place.
"I’m really fucking sick of you," Abigor growled, his voice dropped in pitch. "So I’m going to break you now, and leave you lying like a broken doll as you await eternal damnation like every other wretched being on this cursed planet."
I screamed when he broke my arm, and the Demon Blade was flung from my grip, landing near the edge of the chasm. With my right arm now hanging uselessly by my side, I tried to reach the Watcher Knife with my left hand, but it was no use, I couldn’t reach it.
Abigor then spun me around and held me by the throat. My eyes widened at how different his face now looked, him having dropped his glamour altogether. His demon face had morphed with the face of his human one, to form a monstrous mask with pointed teeth and massive glowing orange eyes. When he punched me in the abdomen, I heard the crack of several ribs breaking. When he punched me again, I felt those jagged ribs slice me internally, perforating my lungs as they sliced sharply through the flesh of my abdominal cavities, likely reaching through the compound fracturing of
my lower ribs into the mortal injury of a punctured spleen; the redundant organ now bleeding so heavily as to be a cause of death in its own accord. His grip around my throat was so tight that I couldn’t even scream with the pain running through me like fire. The dark power in me then took over as it tried to use psychic energy to loosen Abigor’s grip, but to no avail.
Then, over the noise of the storm and the rushing of blood in my ears, I heard someone scream my name.
"LEIA!"
My focus shifted past Abigor, and I saw none other than Frank standing about ten feet away, right in the middle of someone’s grave. Covered in blood and dirt, Frank suddenly shouldered his automatic rifle and began firing rounds into Abigor’s back.
Furious, Abigor let me go and I fell to the ground as he spun around to see who was shooting him. I stayed on my hands and knees for moment as I gasped for air, then looked up to see Abigor running at Frank, who was still shooting.
"Frank!" I tried to shout, but my throat was so damaged that only a hoarse sort of whisper came out.
Just before Abigor reached him, Frank tossed his gun and pulled out his Watcher Knife, which didn’t seem to bother Abigor, as he caught Frank’s wrist on the first attack.
That’s when I knew Abigor was going to kill Frank if I didn’t do something. Frantically, I looked around for the Demon Blade, spotting it a few feet to the right. I scrambled across the ground and grabbed the sword, still half choking as I struggled to my feet, screaming at the pain in my abdomen, which felt like razors cutting me from the inside.
Gritting my teeth at the pain, I ran toward Abigor with the Demon Blade, this time in my left hand. As I ran as best I could, I had to watch Abigor hit Frank with punch after punch. In no time, Frank was limp and dripping blood as Abigor held him up by the hair.
No…
I raised the sword and swung it hard when I was within striking distance, but at the last second, Abigor did something I couldn’t have predicted.
Pivoting suddenly, Abigor put Frank in the path of the Demon Blade, dangling Frank’s limp form by the hair. By the time I realized what Abigor had done, it was too late for me to stop or alter the trajectory of the sword as it impacted with Frank’s ribcage.
The sword didn’t slice him in half as I expected, though. Instead, the blade seemed to bounce off him as if something had stopped it. At first, I thought it was some kind of magic. But as I looked at where the sword had cut into Frank’s clothes, I noticed something underneath. Something brown in color, like leather.
My mouth dropped open in amazement. He was wearing leather body armor.
You sneaky son of a bitch, Frank.
Once Abigor realized the sword didn’t cut as expected, he simply tossed Frank aside like a broken doll. Then it was just me and him again.
Obviously, I didn’t hesitate, and I swung the Demon Blade at him, but he ducked underneath my blow, grabbing my arm and breaking it.
I screamed.
Then the real blows started. Punch after punch all over my body, ending with a final one to the top of my skull as I lay on the ground, barely conscious.
Then that low, demonic voice seeped into my ears like the darkness itself.
"I’ll see you in Hell, Leia…the new Hell, that is."
42
I was dying.
My body was so broken, my insides so torn to shreds, that there was no way I could heal myself on my own—the damage was just too severe. I also couldn’t move my legs, thanks to Abigor stamping on my spine, probably severing it. My arms were broken, all of my ribs, and my face felt pulverized. If I could’ve seen myself in a mirror, I reckoned I would have looked like roadkill, with my face like a lump of ground beef.
The two powers in me, my grace and the darkness, struggled to fix me, but the damage was too extensive. What I needed was someone else’s grace to heal me, but as there was no one around, I had no choice but to lie there in the pounding rain while I listened to Abigor not far away, as he completed the rest of the ritual that would completely open the Hell Gate. When I heard him shout, "Rise, my spawn, rise!" I knew it was over.
For me and the world.
Well, I thought, my mind now strangely serene, I tried.
I tried to save my brother, to save the world. I gave it my best, and my best wasn’t good enough. If I could have shaken my head, I would have. Who was I to think I could ever succeed anyway? Especially against ancient forces whose power I couldn’t even begin to understand, never mind fight.
I don’t know why, but I whispered, "Sorry, mom. I’ll be seeing you soon…"
That was all that was left for me, I realized. My soul belonged to a demon, and soon I would be in Hell, under his command no doubt. The fact that the rest of the world would be in Hell as well (just a different Hell), didn’t make me feel any better.
A calmness washed over me as I stared, half conscious, at the dark sky above.
My eyes closed for a moment as I waited on death to take me.
Then something in me told me to open them again, and when I did, I found myself in my bedroom back at the cabin. I was standing up in this hallucination, my body perfectly fine. What else could it be if not an hallucination brought on by dying?
Then I realized Lucas was in the room as well. He came walking out of the shadows in the corner, immaculately dressed in a light gray suit, looking as perfect as he did the day I first met him.
"Lucas?" I said. "What’s going on?"
Lucas stopped in front of me and gave me a grave look. "You’re dying, Leia."
"I…know….I think. What is this?"
"I’m still here recovering." He gestured to the bed, and sure enough, there he was lying there, his eyes closed. "This is all in your mind. I felt your distress, so I used our shared blood to create this connection with you."
"So…you’re not really here?" I reached out and took his hand. "You feel real."
"I am real, in your mind, but that doesn’t matter. You need to do something."
I shook my head as I moved in to hug him. "Do what? I’m screwed. I’m never going to see you again."
Lucas grabbed my shoulders and firmly pushed me back. "Listen to me, Leia." His eyes were deeply serious. "You have the power to come back from this, I can feel it in you. It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen before. Can’t you feel it?"
I nodded, suddenly grasping what he was talking about. "Yes Lucas, but it’s the Darkness, and just one more of its manipulations designed to get me to accept its place within my soul."
"No! This is different, Leia, I can feel it. You need to connect with that entity to draw it out, and then use its power to take down Abigor."
I snorted slightly. "Abigor made fucking mincemeat of me and everyone else. How am I supposed to defeat him?"
Lucas put his hands gently on the side of my face as he stared deep into my eyes. "Trust the power in you, Leia. Let it come through. Let it out."
He kissed me then, and for a brief moment, everything felt fine with the world. There was no death or destruction, nothing but the sweet bliss of being with the person that completed me.
But that soon changed when I opened my eyes and found myself back at the cemetery. Then the pain came rushing back in like a torrent of pure fire.
It felt different this time, though. It may have been like fire, but it now felt more like a baptism instead of a roasting, as strange as that may sound. Somewhere deep inside me, something was growing, something that had been awakened in me the second I did the demonizing ritual.
"Sister," a voice suddenly said deep within me, a voice that sounded like my own, only gruffer. I knew then it was the same voice I’d heard in the cave, and earlier in Frank’s cellar. "If you want to live, sister, you will give yourself over to me."
"What? Who are you?"
"I am you. I am what you need to become. I am your dark passenger, and you must set me free."
"Set you free?"
"Yes, release me," she said. "You must understand, Sister, that I have been
a seed in you since your birth, and while I am partly of the darkness, I am not the Darkness. I hack the darkness as I hack your grace, forming a power that is of both, that is neither good nor bad, depending on how you choose to use it. I am asking you to have faith, Sister, faith in me, in our combined powers, but most of all, in yourself and your Divine destiny."
Divine destiny? What the hell was this? Was I going mad in the last moments of my life?
It didn’t feel like that. The entity in me, the dark passenger, I knew it was real. Knew she was real. She had been whispering to me all this time, directing me, when all along I thought it was the darkness, when really, she had just been using the darkness to form herself, though into what exactly, I didn’t know. Whatever this entity was, I felt like I could trust her completely, and that she would never try to harm me. That was the only absolute I was sure of, oh... and the fact that I and humanity would shortly perish, and thus I had nothing else to lose.
"You are released," I said out loud. "My body is yours."
For a second, I got the impression my dark passenger was somehow smiling.
Then the pain started.
My back arched off the ground as I screamed. Bones were shifting and breaking in me, coming together to form different structures than before. My muscles strained and bulged as they grew around the new bone structure. When I looked at my hand, I saw my fingers stretching as thick claws burst through the skin.
What is happening to me?
Panic began to set in as my body continued to grow and stretch into something else entirely. My teeth elongated into points, and then I heard a sickening crunch as something burst through my scalp and grew upwards. When I looked at my skin, it had become thick and leathery, turning a weird blue color. Small spurs of bone began to break out all over me, especially around my chest and arms, covering me like armor.
As I flipped over onto my hands and knees, a guttural growl left my mouth just as an extreme itching sensation started between my shoulder blades, at which point my shoulder blades burst through my back, elongating and growing into something else entirely.
