The Grim Legion

by Kindred Ult

  "I told you Demenn, without these powers, you are nothing. It is only with obedience and devotion to Lucifer that we can gain everything. What I've shown you today are only a fraction of the powers given to us. If you join him now, I will personally take it upon me to teach you everything I know."

  Demenn growled. Blood was flowing all over him, and he growled with pain and helplessness. He could feel that the wound in his neck had reopened, and he could not take it anymore. He felt rage flow over him and, regardless of the consequences, he began to change to his Other form.

  "Yes!" Dimitrious shouted triumphantly and dropped to the ground. "Perfect."

  Instantly, Demenn felt an alien force enter his mind. It overwhelmed him with its power, and in one more second he blacked out.

  One of the vampires walked up to Demenn and placed his hand on his forehead. "What should we do with him?"

  Dimitrious looked down at Demenn and smiled. "Nothing, what needs to be done is already happening."

  - 19 -

  Redemption

  18

  RedemptionDamian felt something soft under him. His hands closed over it, and it felt like grass. Not the grass that populated Darkoven, which was short, brown, and hard, but grass like the type that used to populate the hills where he lived as a boy. He felt the grass for a few more moments before wondering why it was under him and not the cold stone that was the floor of the large chamber he had been in with Dimitrious. Thinking of Dimitrious gave him a start, and he let go of the tuft of grass while sitting up and opening his eyes. The first thing he noticed was that he was near the edge of a cliff. Grass was all around him, and a large, beautiful, tree stood just next to the cliff. When he saw the tree, he noticed that something else was wrong, and one look up confirmed his fears. The sun was high in the sky, blazing down on him like a vengeful angel of death.

  He flung up a hand and bolted for the shade of the tree, even while knowing that he would not make it in time, but he stopped halfway there and looked up again, then at his hands, which he dearly wished were gloved. He was not burning. His flesh was not bubbling before falling off of his bones as they turned into ash, as had the flesh of vampires he had seen in the glare of the sun. He looked up again, and marveled that its intense light did not blind him. He felt puzzled, first by his continued existence, and then also by how cold he felt. From his distant memories, he had remembered the sun being warm; so warm that it had caressed his skin and made him glad to be alive. He wondered how long it had been since he had seen the sun, and could not even remember. His memories of his old life had been getting faded lately. He still felt cold, like he had when he first felt all of his life flow out of him.

  Yes, something was definitely wrong. No vampire was able to walk about in sunlight without death; not even the vampire named Lucifer was capable of that. Even disregarding that, how had he come here from inside that strange domed building? His clothes were still ragged from being bitten by all of the bats, but there was no blood on him or even stains on his clothes. After looking at his clothes, he knelt down and felt the grass again. It felt a little too smooth, and looked far too much like his memories. The shards of grass flowed in a gentle wind, and as they did he realized that they were exactly how he had remembered them. It was almost as if someone had constructed it from his mind.

  "I'm sorry, I really didn't think you'd mind. Usually you guys find it relaxing to be near your fonder memories." A beautiful voice seemed to move around him, until finally stopping directly behind him. Demenn turned around and saw a man standing in front of him. The man wore white, and had a fair complexion with blue eyes. His hair was black, which made his face appear even whiter, although it still did not look as white as a vampire's. He had no weapons, or even a belt or sheath. His sleeves were large, and he was not wearing any shoes. He held his hands with the palms out, and in all, was completely unthreatening.

  Yet Demenn felt threatened, and had no idea why. At that moment he realized that he did not have any weapons either. "Who are you?"

  The man smiled, revealing white teeth, and started walking towards Demenn. "What, you haven't guessed by now? It's me, the proverbial Prince of Darkness, the Roaring Lion, the… Well, I have other names, but those aren't quite as glamorous. I'm Lucifer. I'm the one who gave all free will, who created your entire race, and the one who will eventually destroy all races. I am evil incarnate, and yet I am compassionate to those who serve me. I do not want your soul, since almost all souls belong to me anyway. No, what I want is your devotion and obedience. In return, I can give you what you want. I'm not trying to trick you in any way, Demenn. This is merely an exchange of abilities. I cannot exactly work in the corporal realm, and you are not strong enough to achieve what it is you really want. What do you say?" He stopped a few feet away from him.

  Demenn looked around. "So then this is a dream?"

  Lucifer seemed a little annoyed at the evasion, but not overly much. "Yes, this is one of the few ways I can communicate with vampires, but I can only do it with a few of you. In fact, the ability to speak with me in this manner is one of the things that set you apart from the others, Demenn. Very few can actually pull this off, so I usually have to communicate with them directly, and they usually die when that happens. This is actually rather refreshing, to tell you the truth. Regardless, what do you say, Demenn?"

  "You want my obedience, and in return you will give me what I want?"

  "Yes. I just said that." Lucifer still smiled.

  Demenn stared at the man—or maybe he was not a man—in front of him. He tried to understand him, to understand himself, but his mind could little grasp either of them. "What makes you think that you know what it is I want?"

  Lucifer laughed. It would have sounded like a sneer, save for the fact that it was

  Lucifer who laughed. "Please, Demenn. I can understand what humans want even before they do, and I've been inside you ever since you became one of mine. You want revenge. You've wanted it ever since you saw your parents killed and your sister ravaged."

  Somehow, the environment around them morphed and twisted until Demenn and Lucifer stood in the middle of the field his father had plowed. Before them were Wulf and his brother, who was in his human form with Demenn's sister under him. Wulf was in his werewolf form and still ripping away the flesh from his mother. His father was already lying in the field, his flesh missing chunks from where they had been bitten off. Lastly, he saw his own childish face, watching from afar, safe from all harms. Lucifer's smile widened when he beheld the scene.

  "You see, Demenn. You were too weak to save them then, were you not? And now you think that you have achieved vengeance, but you have not. What are those two save puppets of the werewolf race. It was all of them that did that to your family and inside you the desire for revenge still burns. I can give you that revenge. I can make you more powerful than any vampire or werewolf alive. In time, you will be stronger than even the first vampire, whom I allowed to bear my name."

  Demenn could not deny his feelings. He knew that he blamed all werewolves for what had happened to his family, and that he had stayed with the vampires even after swearing to his master that he would quit them once he had achieved his revenge. Now his master was dead, and Demenn was still with the vampires. He had said to himself, over and over, that all werewolves must pay for what happened. But what about Brand? Why had he let him live?

  "What would I do, if I devoted myself to you and obeyed you?"

  "Basically the same thing you've been doing all of this time, except now you'd finish your jobs, and you would not be a hypocrite. First you'd lead the vampire army to the destruction of the werewolves, and then, later on, you would send me countless souls."

  "You mean you want me to kill innocent humans for you?"

  Lucifer chuckled, then continued as if explaining something to a child. "My dear Demenn, you've been killing innocent humans for years. I was there for most of it, and the rest I remember, just like you do. After your family was kille
d, you were forced to leave Darkoven and go to a major city, where you became a miscreant, an urchin. First you would steal food to stay alive, then you stole money, and then you were robbing people. By the time you were in your teens you were murdering. Remember the first woman you killed, Demenn?"

  Demenn did remember, but it turned out that he had no reason to, since in seconds he was watching it again. She was walking home after having given him some money for a menial task. One look at her money purse had persuaded him to follow her, and when she passed an alleyway, he reached out, pulled her in, and put his hand over her mouth. She had tried to struggle, but he had a knife, and eventually she settled down. He took her money, but when he let his hand off of her mouth she screamed out.

  He kept telling himself afterwards that it was a reflex, but regardless his knife shot out, and blood spat over him. She stared into his eyes with a look of sadness that he had never forgotten, and then she fell forwards, onto him. He staggered back, and then pushed her off of him. As she fell to the cobblestone ground, he fled into the night. He ran right through Demenn, who turned and followed him with his eyes.

  He turned back to see Lucifer beaming. "And that's not all. You were soon killing people all over the province. So much so that you were forced to flee from city to city." As he spoke, images of people Demenn had murdered flashed around them. Many he remembered, but others he had no recollection of. "And that's not the best of it. Of course, it wasn't until you were in your early twenties, after you had joined a gang of some sort, that you aspired to your first rape. The funniest thing is that by now you thought you had forgotten about the werewolves, although in truth you were doing all of this to try to forget that you were doing nothing to avenge your family like you had said you would. But you never forgot, did you? Even when you tried to rape the barmaid." As if on cue, the scene changed to the bar, so long ago. It was one memory Demenn had tried to forget, but one he never could. He had learned how to fight by then, and was considered the best in the gang. It was a privileged position, but also one that meant he had to be their champion against other gangs.

  He and the leader of another gang were battling, and they circled each other with knives, since that was the custom. They both had cuts, but Demenn's were on his arms, while his opponent's were on his torso. The other was breathing heavily, and his knife was shaking in his hand. Demenn stopped and stood without a stance, with his knife by his side. He was daring the other to attack him, and both of them knew it. Finally, the other gave in and lunged forward in a desperate move that relied upon his speed, but it was futile. Demenn easily stepped to the side and stabbed the man in his ribs.

  The man fell to the ground, and never stood up. As the members of his gang congratulated him, the barmaid ran to the other man, crying as she turned him over. The members of the other gang slowly and discreetly found ways to exit the tavern. He was dead, obviously, and she kneeled over him, her tears hitting his tunic. Demenn saw her, and for a moment his heart went out to her. He had just killed her lover. Then, however, the leader of his gang, a man whose brutality was the thing of legend, stepped up to Demenn and put his hand on his shoulder. Demenn looked at him and his leader swept his other hand towards the woman.

  "To the victor go the spoils."

  All of the others stopped their congratulations, and looked at Demenn. They were silent for a moment before they started cheering. Demenn later wanted to say that he was forced to do it, that he had been caught up in the moment, but he knew that excuses did not take away from the fact that he walked up to her, picked her up, and carried her, quite literally kicking and screaming, out the door into the street. He heard them cheer, but he did not notice the man who had been watching the entire exchange and slipped out the back door as soon as Demenn exited the front.

  The moon was too bright for anything in the open, so Demenn walked into the alley at the side of the tavern and threw the woman to the ground. He was pleased to see that she was actually rather beautiful. She hit the ground, and tried to get away, but he grabbed her again and threw her against the wall. She was screaming, but nobody in this neighborhood would help her, and he had ripped open her shirt when he felt a hand on his shoulder.

  He turned around in time to be punched in the face. The strength was unlike anything he had ever felt, and he fell away from the woman, who ran away as soon as Demenn left her. Demenn stood and faced the person before him, who he could not quite make out. The man had no weapons, so Demenn charged him without any. He punched out with his right hand in a straight line, like he had been taught, but the blow was turned aside by the stranger's left hand and his right came around to smash into Demenn's ribs. He felt pain flare into him, but he fought past it, punching out with his left. The stranger did the same attack, and Demenn felt as if he had been hit with a club.

  Every move he tried was countered and a much more devastating one was returned with minimal effort, until eventually Demenn fell to his knees and coughed up blood. He put his hand to his mouth, and the sight of his blood enraged him. He pulled out his sword and charged the stranger, but in a flash a spear was in the other's hand. His blade was turned aside. Then the butt of the spear slammed into his ribs again, but this time, instead of stopping, like he had done when fighting with bare fists, the man spun his spear around and cut a line into Demenn's chest.

  Red entered his vision, and Demenn howled as he launched into a barrage of attacks, He threw everything he had ever been taught, all of the strongest, fastest, most technical attacks he had learned, along with many tricks, but anything he tried was turned away by the spear. The man seemed to have no trouble evading anything that came towards him, and eventually he seemed to tire of fighting and spun under an attack to slam the shaft of his spear into the back of Demenn's legs, Then he spun back, slammed it into Demenn's side, and finally spun one more time to slam it into Demenn's head.

  Demenn would have fallen, but the man held him up and smashed him into the wall of the tavern. He looked Demenn in the face, and for the first time Demenn saw that he was elderly. "What is your name?"

  "Doesn't really matter now, does it?" Demenn said, blood pouring from his mouth.

  "It does, but it will not in a few hours. Any last words, scum?"

  Demenn saw himself look down at the man and respond. "Just kill me quickly old man." He closed his eyes.

  The old man slapped him in the face so that he opened his eyes again. "Not so fast, son. You have not paid for your crimes yet. I will make sure that you pay in full, though." Demenn saw the man's red eyes and his canines as he bit him in the neck.

  The scene shifted to when Demenn awoke, now actually calling himself Demenn, rather than his old name. The old man was sitting on a log, and they were now in the forest of Darkoven. A deer was lying near him, and he gestured for Demenn to drink his fill. When it was over the old man had Demenn sit across from him on a log.

  "What is your name?"

  "My name is Demenn."

  "What was your old name?"

  Demenn cocked his head. "My old name?"

  "I see you forgot who you are. Well, I cannot let that go on. You have not paid for anything yet. Without knowing your old name, there is only one way to discover your old life." He reached over and transferred his memory of Demenn's death back into his mind, and that acted as a catalyst. Instantly, the memories flooded through him, and he stared at the old man.

  "Who are you?"

  "My name is Preatias, but that is unimportant. I am a vampire, and so are you now. I must ask you, Demenn, what is it you desire most in life?"

  Demenn did not hesitate. "Revenge."

  "Against whom?"

  "The werewolves who killed my family."

  Preatias shook his head. "Well, that explains a lot, but it does not exempt you from anything. Very well, Demenn, I am now your master, and I will teach you everything I know. In exchange, you must promise to do three things. One, you must fight those you wish to kill honorably."

  "Which you didn't" L
ucifer couldn't help but remark.

  "Two, you must promise to leave vampire society once your revenge is carried out."

  "Which you haven't." Lucifer sneered.

  "And third, you must either find a way to redeem yourself for all that you have done or live the rest of your life free from carnal pleasures."

  "Which you definitely haven't."

  The next image was of a group of werewolves lounging about. Demenn knew that one of them was Wulf's brother. They were speaking about something inconsequential, some sort of local politics, when suddenly a figure burst out of the bushes behind Wulf's brother. None of them saw him until he was too late, and Wulf's brother was dead before he knew why they were looking astonished. The others fought for their lives, but they were not premium warriors, and only one even had a weapon with him. They died swiftly, most before they could find something to fight with, and Demenn took their hearts before running into the forest once again.