Dead Demon Walking

by Linda Welch

  Anything could be hiding in here.

  Royal flicked switches and naked bulbs in metal baskets on the walls shone dull yellow light.

  The Gelpha moved so they did not stand in shafts of pale sunlight spackled with glittering dust. I walked beside the wall away from the doors and stopped next the staircase, peering at the dark opening above my head.

  The doors, which we left ajar, exploded inward, and I couldn’t see because something wet spattered my face, getting in my eyes. In the seconds I took to frantically wipe them, I heard screams and grunts and the sickening thwack of flesh hitting a hard surface.

  Blood was everywhere, including on me, gumming my lashes, dribbling down my face. Demons lay on the floor among their standing companions. I had never seen naked shock on a demon’s face; I saw it now.

  The doors closed with an echoing clang. A strong, brief gale battered me, making me stagger. A demon groaned, then silence.

  Royal and three other demons stood like statues. Then Royal made a small motion with his hand as he looked at me from the corner of his eyes, his fingers twitching at the doors: get out of here, Tiff. But I couldn’t move. Horror rooted my feet to the floor. Blood and gobbets of bloody flesh coated me! I wanted to thrash and scream, claw at my skin and hair, but I was in shock. I remained motionless, hiccupping out tiny sobs.

  I heard a muttering from above. I craned my head and saw Dagka Shan crouched on a girder, bare chest, blue jeans and sneakers, long raven-black hair pouring over his shoulders.

  We were a frozen tableau.

  He leaped outward, spreading his arms, sailing down like a bird, and landed lightly on his feet. Then he was among them.

  It happened too fast to see more than a body flying, hear a gurgling scream. Blood fountained in all directions. And when all motion ceased, I stood in the middle of the warehouse with more blood my face, smearing my torso, dripping from my hair, with bodies on the ground. Royal lay with them, spread-eagled on his back, arms akimbo.

  I came back to life. “Royal!” and stepped toward him, but a whoosh of air and Dagka Shan stood between us.

  He was as Victorian Elizabeth Hulme and his victims described him. Long blacker-than-black hair, brown skin, broad cheekbones and long-lashed black eyes. I would have thought him beautiful if not for the carmine on his skin and the long, thick fingernails like the horny talons of a huge carrion bird.

  I shrank inside - strands of flesh hung from his fingers.

  He came toward me, slowly, peering intently, his head jogging from side to side.

  I lifted my gun and fired, but my target disappeared. My bullet ricocheted, pinging once, twice, three times in rapid succession.

  I waited, skin and clothes tacky with blood, hair stuck to my face. My gasping breaths felt like they would tear my throat apart if Dagka Shan didn’t do it first. I wanted to scream at the silence.

  And Royal sprawled on the floor, so still.

  I felt movement, the displacement of air, heard a muffled noise. I swung and fired a second later.

  He crashed into sight, hit the floor and slid on his side across the room, came up against a boiler and lay still.

  Shaking, teeth chattering, I griped my Ruger in hands going numb from the desperate hold I had on the weapon.

  Dagka Shan rolled on his side, on his knees and stood. Blood oozed sluggishly from a bullet wound in his right shoulder.

  He stepped closer. “What are you? I have never seen your like before.”

  He left me till last to take a better look at me?

  His gaze flicked down to my hand as I squeezed the trigger. I’m not sure whereabouts I hit him, but I know the bullet penetrated flesh. He staggered; in a split second, he came at me. His hand lashed out. The Ruger flew across the room. The tips of his nails stung my throat.

  He hissed as he inspected his hand where the spiked collar beneath my turtle-neck tore his fingers, the collar which stopped him ripping out my throat.

  He snarled, curled his hand into a fist and punched me in the chest.

  ***

  I danced in the kitchen like Lily Tomlin in Nine To Five, minus the birds and butterflies. Jack and Mel regarded me from where they stood against the east wall.

  I held my hands out. “Come on! It’s time to go!”

  Mel sank into the wall. “Are you sure about this?”

  I spun a circle, my skirt swirling out. “Look!” I gazed dreamily at the shining, door-sized square of silver light. “It’s beautiful.”

  “Sure, from this side,” Jack said.

  I flapped my hands at him. “Silly! It’ll be wonderful on the other side. Trust me.”

  Jack folded his arms, an obstinate set to his shoulders. “You go ahead. I’m staying.”

  “But Jack, it won’t be the same without you.” I pouted at him. “Come on, Jackie, just for me. . . .”

  “What is wrong with you?” Mel exclaimed.

  “I’m dead, like you.” I smiled hugely. “I’m going to the other side. Don’t you want to come with me? I know you stayed so you could be with me, but I’m leaving. You don’t want to be alone again, do you?”

  Jack looked at Mel. “She is out of her mind.”

  He walked up to me. “Hey, lady, wake up!” And he punched me in the stomach.

  ***

  My eyelids came apart as I took in a whoop of air. I thought I’d died. Then I wished I had died. As I lay on my back on the cold, hard floor, I hurt so bad as each breath passed over razor blades to reach my lungs. I fumbled my hand to my chest. A fist-sized section of armor was dented inward, digging in me, crushing my ribs. My broken ribs by the feel of them. The constriction refused to ease. I tried taking tiny breaths but that didn’t help. Perhaps I bled under the armor; I felt nothing but the pain.

  I saw legs in bloodstained blue jeans, then Shan crouched over me. He ran a fingernail caked with blood along the edge of my turtleneck, feeling the metal collar. He made a noise in his throat and smiled to show his pointed teeth.

  Then he was on me.

  He lay atop me, chest crushing my breasts, hip to hip, belly to belly, his legs along mine. He held his face away from me, but close enough I smelled rancid breath. His hair slithered over his shoulders to pool on my neck.

  I thought I hurt before, but this felt far, far worse. I thought the armor would press my ribs through my back to the floor. I thought my spine would break. My insides felt like they had no option but to rupture.

  “Fight back,” he said. “I want you to squirm.”

  I lifted my hands to scrabble uselessly at his arms. I couldn’t raise them higher to go for his eyes. I dropped them at my sides. I wheezed frantically. I couldn’t breathe.

  He eased up from me a fraction. “No, not yet. Stay a little longer.”

  The pressure of his body was still too great. A roaring in my head as I tried to blink away the black spots which raced across my vision. I closed my eyes and concentrated every atom of my being, the tiny reserve of strength and lucidity left to me on my right hand, a hand I barely felt anymore, inching it over my hip. My fingertips brushed the ridge sewn on the edge of my pocket.

  “Where is my daughter?”

  “Your . . . she isn’t your daughter,” I rasped.

  “She is all that is left of Elizabeth.”

  I couldn’t tell him Maureen was dead, she killed herself because of him. He would go berserk - berserker - and I needed more time. I turned my wrist so I could slip my fingers inside my pocket.

  “I protected Elizabeth with my body when the temple came down upon us. I waited for my strength to return so I could free her. When her father came I crawled away. They did not see me. But their excavations brought what remained of the temple down. A mountain of masonry crushed me. Do you know what it is to lie entombed as your body heals, but lack the strength to free yourself? Do you know what it is to starve for a century? No, how could you?”

  Fingers. Hand. Sleek metal.

  “My people left me there to die, even my son Teo-Pa
pek. When I am finished here, I will find every one and kill them.”

  Teo-Papek - Jacob - must have known Shan lay beneath the ruined temple. They can sense one another. Why did he leave his father there?

  Black behind my eyelids now. I couldn’t breathe at all. I felt myself slipping free of my body.

  The terrible pressure eased as he sat up to straddle my waist. I felt his nails on my neck just under my chin. I fought to breathe, just one breath. I put everything into sucking air the weight and texture of blancmange.

  “Open your eyes,” he said.

  I forced my lids apart to see his face above me, as if hovering in a dark miasma. “Please,” I whispered. “Please.”

  Curl fingers on grip.

  “I loved her,” he said as I brought my hand up, put the barrel under his chin and fired both chambers.

  Shan fell away.

  I dropped the Derringer, dimly heard it clatter over the floor. I pulled in a breath which filled my lungs. The pain made me want to scream. Thank God I couldn’t, I would have strangled on it. I sucked in a microbe of air. Another.

  I tried to rise and agony pierced my chest. I whimpered - it hurt so much. Gritting my teeth, I got over on my hands and knees. I forced my knees to lock and take me up. Sweat poured down my face.

  I couldn’t see my Ruger. I inched over the floor to where Royal’s Glock lay. I refused to look at him. If I did, I would crumple and wait there for Shan to recover and finish me. I couldn’t bend to get the pistol. I sank to my knees, trying to keep my upper body erect.

  As I picked up the Glock, I saw Royal’s boots. Don’t look.

  Getting to my feet was harder this time. Three steps and I stood over Shan. He lay on his face and I thought the hole in his head would keep him down, but I emptied the chamber into what was left of the back of his skull anyway.

  Spattered with blood and matter, I stood over him swaying. Then I went to Royal.

  I sank to my knees, and realized they were sodden. In a daze, I saw I knelt in a puddle of blood. I watched with horrified fascination as the edges creep over the floor in an expanding pool from beneath Royal’s back.

  He was conscious. He watched me with eyes like fractured glass. His lips were gray. “I cannot move, Tiff.”

  “Don’t try.”

  His voice a mere wisp: “If I could hold you. . . .”

  So hard to stop my voice trembling. “Don’t try that either.”

  “You are a mess.”

  I sat back on my heels. “Didn’t you know? - all the rage in Bel-Athaer these days. As much as I’d enjoy chatting about my latest fashion statement, I have to get someone in here.” I didn’t want to leave him, but I must. “I won’t be long. I promise.”

  But I stayed there. I couldn’t look away from his dull brown eyes, no shine or sparkle as they stared in mine.

  I roused, tearing my gaze from his. I had to get help. And after that I would find something I could use to cut off Dagka Shan’s head.

  The doors opened with a bang as they hammered into the wall.

  “Miss Banks, let us take him,” Gareth said.

  Demons pushing and pulling gurneys swarmed into the factory. They removed the thin, inflexible tops of each gurney and slid them beneath the fallen demons. From my knees, I watched anxiously, afraid they would jostle Royal, but he barely moved.

  “Come,” Gareth said, extending his hand.

  I moaned when he pulled me up, as the crumpled metal dug deeper in my gut. I teetered on my feet. Gareth went to put his arm around me, but I fended him off with my hands.

  I spared a quick glance at Shan, torn between following Royal and fear the monster would rouse. Three Gelpha stood over him with their pistols trained on his head. “What about him?”

  “We called his brethren. They will. . . .” He twisted on his heels. “They are here.”

  Five Dark Cousins glided through the door, their movement so smooth they seemed to flow rather than walk. Gia Sabato in figure-hugging black leather pants and short-waisted jacket over a blood-red blouse, midnight hair in a topknot, her pale face ghostly with those big, black eyes. Daven Clare, as always dapper, wore matching mustard-colored jacket, pants and waistcoat over a snowy-white shirt. I didn’t spare the other three a glance, my gaze going back to Royal’s face.

  Gia stood by as Daven and the other Cousins walked past to where Shan lay and surrounded him. I could not see what they did, but when a Cousin in garb similar to a military flight suit hoisted Shan on his shoulder, they had bound him neck to ankles in heavy, copper-colored chain. A corner of my mind vaguely wondered what could effectively shackle one of his strength and viciousness.

  The Cousins were gone with their burden. A demon wheeled Royal’s gurney through the door. I took two paces after him before Gareth got in front of me. “Wait here. Someone will be back for you.”

  I scrabbled at my sides. “I think it’s my ribs. If this damn armor wasn’t digging into me. . . .”

  Gareth’s hands slid beneath my sweater, one side then the other as he undid the clasps. I gasped as the armor loosened. He slipped his fingers inside the neck of my sweater and unclasped the shoulder buckles. The armor plates clanged as they hit the floor.

  Tears of relief dribbled over my lower lashes. I smiled at him. “Can we go now?”

  ***

  Walking was painful, but bearable now the dented armor no longer put pressure on my abused ribs. I felt as if I’d been kicked in the gut. By an ox.

  Reaching the ground floor took less time than descending; we must have taken a more direct route. I have a vague memory of a cavernous chamber, corridors and stairs. I concentrated on putting one foot before the other and taking in shallow breaths. I almost bit through my lip pretending the steps were not troublesome. No sirree. I’m fine. Just look at me go.

  The blood on my legs kept drawing my eyes down. Royal’s blood glued my jeans to my knees and shins like paste.

  The House buzzed, all who left now returned. Demons lined the corridors we walked, pressed to the walls to allow us space in which to move.

  Two demons with a gurney between them sped toward us, but Gareth waved them away. “We are almost there,” he told me.

  An odor similar to camphor; the low moan of an injured demon. The infirmary held ten beds, five on either side of the room. Bright white recessed ceiling lights dazzled my eyes when I looked at them directly and made stainless-steel surfaces glow. Glass fronted cabinets, trolleys, surgical instruments on trays, but not the life-support equipment one sees in a hospital emergency unit. The smallness of the place didn’t surprise me. How often would demons need medical care?

  Three demons on three beds and Royal on the fourth. The other beds were empty. The other demons in our small party were dead. A leaden numbness which had nothing to do with my injury crept through my limbs. That anything could hurt Royal never occurred to me.

  A split second later, I didn’t know why I leaned against the wall or how I got there. I think I blinked in and out of consciousness, or reality.

  “Miss Banks?” I heard Gareth say.

  Blink. Gia sat on a chair beside a hospital bed where an intravenous blood drip fed into one of the injured demons, but not from a blood bag hung from a hook; it came directly from the crook of her arm.

  She lofted one eyebrow at my expression. “The least I could do.”

  Gareth pushed a chair to me. I shook my head. Standing was less painful.

  “Why you?”

  “Our blood is powerful.”

  About to ask for a better explanation, I let the words die on my tongue. Powerful, indeed. Her blood saved Rio Borrego, why he could walk away from Clarion General three days after admission as a broken young man with a long road to recovery ahead.

  At the time, I told myself his wounds and debilitation had not been life-threatening, I mistook his condition when we found him in Vance’s rental. I tried very hard to believe that.

  My mind and heart fought. I didn’t want her to touch Royal
, but if she could save him. . . .

  Blink. Royal lay on his stomach. They had stripped off his shirt and a white sheet covered him to the shoulders. A demon in white scrubs straightened up on the other side of the bed. He’d put something beneath the sheet to hold it away from Royal’s back.

  “Why aren’t you doing anything for him?” I asked Gareth.

  “We can do little for such a wound, but she. . . .”

  Can heal broken bones, repair ruptured organs, mend torn tissue.

  I went to Royal. His head lay to one side, his eyes closed. I took hold of the sheet.

  Gareth’s hand came down on mine, holding it in place. “No, you do not want to do that.”

  I swallowed. No, I didn’t want to see, but I had to see.

  I pulled my hand free and lifted the sheet. I wanted to scream, but the inhalation expanded my chest and my sight dimmed from the pain.

  Blink. Gareth pressed me down in the chair at the end of Royal’s bed. Gia was hooking herself to a catheter attached to Royal’s inner wrist. Our blood is powerful. Could she make new flesh and muscle fill the hole in Royal’s back below his shoulder blade? Could she repair a shattered spine?

  “Can you help him?”

  “He will be good as new.”

  I watched her as she watched me, a smile on her lips but not in her eyes. So many questions swam in my head. Would she tell me? I wouldn’t know unless I asked.

  I took a mental deep breath. “Jacob told you about Shan, so you went to Nagka to find him. I thought he’d been happily living in Myanmar till you brought him here. I couldn’t figure out why he suddenly decided to search for Elizabeth’s ancestors. It couldn’t be as simple as you bringing him to the States. He could have come looking at any time.”