Blood for the Dancer

by Dallas Mullican

  You gave me no choice.

  Dustan screamed at the ceiling and at a friend he sent to the Void. His family for a hundred and fifty years would now want him dead. The visages of Geras, Valefar, and Saerna swayed behind his eyes, each accusing him of treachery. Most terrifying of all…Aamon. The Demon Lord would not be happy his gambit had failed, his prized weapon turned.

  Late into the night, he finally fell asleep. Dustan dreamed of the In Between. His father waited at the gate before the blue-white wall. This time he was not alone, Ava stood at his side. Dustan hugged his parents with tears of joy. At last, breaking free of their embraces, he walked the path of bones and over the chasm, neither possessing their former terror. Hadraniel met him in the plaza and ushered him into the central cathedral. Not a place of worship, but of community, a crowd congregated laughing and talking. They wore robes of every imaginable color, drinking and enjoying each other’s company. A calm filled him. Home. He belonged here, with these spirits. Each face felt at once strange and familiar, a look of kinship beyond flesh and blood, allegiance or strife.

  Hadraniel guided him up to the terrace and around an immense dome. On the far side of the city, an ominous black cloud gathered on the distant horizon, not a storm of thunder and lightning, but of steel, fangs, and claws. A vast army, with numbers beyond counting, flooded over the Moat and into this majestic realm. Angels on the backs of gryphons flew side by side with demon steed riders. Wolfdragons slithered along in the wake of great white two-headed bears, destroying everything in their paths. Rank upon rank of infantry slew unaligned by the score. Their screams tore at Dustan’s heart, and his energy burned to join the fight, but Hadraniel held him back.

  The sky opened and revealed millions upon millions of portals. Through each, he witnessed the creatures of myriad realms enslaved or forced to fight for apathetic masters. The human realm lay deserted of people, all its inhabitants now fodder for the spirit war. Pressed into the front lines to diminish their opposite numbers, souls struck down burst into light and jetted toward the Void.

  Dustan shut his eyes tight, creases like fissures streaking his forehead. In the black, bones crunched under hammer and axe, flesh ripped and energy gushed, torn by claw and fang, sword and spear. The heat of countless fires scorched his face as acrid smoke and ash filled his mouth and nose.

  Make it stop. Please.

  Hadraniel laid a hand on his shoulder, a single tear tracing down the tall man’s cheek. “I cannot. This is a portent of things to come. Do not lose heart, the storm has not yet arrived. It lingers on the horizon. Make no mistake, my friend, it will come. This realm has hidden for eons, but it cannot hide much longer. Your destiny lies before you. Not one dictated by any god, but one you must choose. Stand with her.”

  Hadraniel turned and waved his hand over the distant landscape. The Great Tree hovered god-like over the realms. Beyond it, a dark finger pointed at the sky. Dustan ambled down past the edge of the city and came to a path leading to colossal wrought iron gates. As he walked across the bridge and through a great archway, the portcullis slammed shut behind him. He stood upon a narrow cobblestone lane running between thick rock walls three men high. Walking with haste, dread twisting inside him, he wanted free of this place.

  A left turn, then a right, led him to a dead end. Backtracking, he took the opposite direction, hesitating at a place where straight ahead the wall rose, blocking his progress forward. Paths stretched out in both directions at this junction like a headless cross. One way seemed as good as another. As if mentally flipping a coin, he decided on the left this time. The path meandered in a slow arc before leading to numerous random corridors. He chose without any discernible reason other than to keep moving.

  After navigating turn after turn, dead end after dead end, corridor after corridor, he came to the heart of the maze and a garden dead and gray. A statue of a woman and man stood in the center of a stone pool. Water trickled from their eyes, and streamed down their bodies into the pool at their feet. The woman leaned broken, pieces of her lying like fallen leaves floating in the fetid water. The man’s chest bore ragged gouges, as if the chisel dug too deep. The figures seemed locked in struggle and loving embrace—a war only lovers could wage.

  A large black raven sat perched on the male figure’s head. He stared at the stranger in the garden with knowing eyes, craned down, and struck the male statue’s forehead with its beak. The raven appeared to grin at Dustan, cawed twice, and flew up and over the wall. He watched it fly until it diminished to a speck in the dusky sky. It had taken a piece of the statue. Flakes of stone trailed to the cold hard ground in its wake as it soared into the distance. What the raven stole widened the absence of all the figures had lost over time. Once the stone was chipped away, nothing could make them whole again.

  A horde of fat black beetles crawled from under pentagon-shaped paving stones. They crawled over his feet and up his legs before he brushed them away with the back of his hand. One landed on its dome-shaped back, legs kicking futilely, furiously in the air. Something familiar in the insect’s quandary troubled him. He stepped over the beetle, careful not to crush the helpless thing, and moved on.

  Two gates broke the stone circumference of the garden—the one he came through and another opposite where he now stood. With a last glance at the sculptures, and the insects scurrying to find places to hide within the ruins, he left the garden through the far gate, saddened in some way he did not comprehend.

  The labyrinth became more difficult to navigate on this side. The cobblestone paving gave way to loose gravel and then to dirt. Every inch of his body ached, the soles of his feet worn and bloody. Near to exhaustion, he decided to sit and rest for a bit. The maze had won, and the defeat was not so bitter after all. Sleep beckoned, and maybe, just maybe, he would wake in a better place. As his mind drifted, and dreams of paradise tempted, as if out of thin air an exit appeared up ahead.

  Dustan made his way up the high hill to the open archway. At the top, he gazed out onto the prevailing landscape. From his vantage point inside the gates, walls rose up on either side, and maze after maze after maze, lined one after the other, stretched beyond the scope of vision. He fell to his knees. The task was too much, too great. His strength and will could not manage it. Dustan craned his head to the heavens, begging whatever god might listen to allow this cup to pass from him. A glow, radiant in a violet hue, rose in the distance. A beautiful woman, innocent and pure, stood beckoning him on. At her back, the black cloud of the Horde and the Host descended. He pushed to his feet and stormed into the next labyrinth.

  Dustan snapped awake, sweat drenching his body. Kyra sat at his bedside, holding his hand.

  “I’m sorry, but you needed to see. No words would have made you understand.” An emptiness in her eyes suddenly filled with heartrending vulnerability. “I cannot do it alone, Dustan. I need your help.”

  He did not have to consider it, his mind made up the moment sleep fled. “I’m ready.”

  Kyra smiled and squeezed his hand. “We must make a long journey through the spirit realm. The goal may not be achievable. Death waits at every turn, seeking a single misstep.”

  “It doesn’t matter. If what Hadraniel fears is true, there won’t be any life worth living if we fail, or if I abandon this responsibility.”

  “You are wise for a former demon.” Her smile contained warmth now.

  “What do we have to do?”

  “Long ago, Hadraniel told me one would come to help me accomplish my task. I began to lose faith, so many centuries waiting. But now that you are here, I believe again.” She stood and pulled on her coat. “Get dressed. I need some fresh air.”

  Dustan met Kyra outside the inn. They strolled along a trail winding at the cliffs’ edge. The call of the gulls joined the swelling waves, creating a poignant symphony beneath the gray skies. He smelled rain in the air. A darkness on the horizon tightened his chest, cold dread eating into him.

  Kyra took his hand and led him to a bench
overlooking the Yorkshire coast. “My parents fell in love. A forbidden love. An angel and a demon—an affront to the beliefs of both sides. If discovered, execution awaited them. They ran. Long since fallen into legend was the story of a group of unaligned who escaped the spirit realm and found a new world free from the war.”

  “So that’s why I felt pain when I struck you? You’re part demon?”

  Kyra shook her head. “It’s more complicated than that. Yes, I’m both angel and demon, but I never aligned with either side, so I’m something different. Not exactly unaligned either…I supposed I am a mutt.” She smiled sadly. “A mixture of all three.”

  “Could Shax or…I-I have killed you?”

  “Yes. I can kill any of the three factions, but any of them can kill me as well.”

  “But you seem unaligned. I mean in your beliefs.” Dustan struggled to understand. The mere thought of the conflict that must rage inside her brought on a profound sympathy.

  “I am in my heart, but for whatever reason my aura remains a mixture. Human souls can change allegiance much more easily than spirits. My parents’ auras did not alter even though they divorced themselves from their angel and demon kin. Perhaps remnants of their old beliefs held on. I do not know. Regardless, I would never test an ability to harm an unaligned, and I doubt any would seek to harm me.”

  Dustan nodded. “So, your parents fled to the In Between?”

  “Yes. In their journey to that land, they encountered many unaligned hiding throughout the realm. These spirits lived in constant fear. If found by either army, they would be forced to pledge or be killed. My parents witnessed their plight and took them under their protection. While working with these unaligned, they had me. How, I do not know, but word spread of my parents’ betrayal, and the abomination they had birthed. They devised a desperate plan and placed me in Hadraniel’s care in the In Between.” Kyra stood and walked to the cliff’s rim, her gaze a million miles away, staring out onto the dark waters. “There is a place where the realms converge. A great Obelisk stands on its rim. Forged from the joint blood of angel and demon, my parents created a knife. A key. They would travel across the Unknown, a land beyond the In Between, and place the knife within the Obelisk.”

  “What does the key do?”

  “In theory, it will create a barrier between the realms. No creature will ever again be able to cross from one to another.”

  Dustan straightened. “So the war would be contained to the spirit realm, the unaligned and human worlds safe?”

  “And every other realm as well.”

  Dustan stepped to her side. When she gazed at him with a heartbreaking sorrow, he longed to hold her, to comfort her from the pain carved onto her face.

  “My parents were discovered. A joint force of demon slayers and angel hunters tracked them down and butchered them.” She hugged herself against the chilly breeze.

  “The angels and demons worked together?”

  “As you know, only a demon can destroy an angel and vice versa. It required both to kill them. Spirits produced offspring rarely. Perhaps some evolutionary device to guard against overpopulation, who knows, but a spirit can become pregnant only once every hundred years or so. What my parents planned would be a devastating blow to both sides. They need new recruits. My mother and father became more threatening enemies than the opposing faction.”

  Dustan’s heart fell into his stomach. He balled his fists in anger and frustration. “I don’t understand. If they failed, what hope remains?”

  “Hadraniel is a former angelic general. He trained me, taught me the skills I would need. He later hid me in the human realm where the spirits could not see me. We communicate as he has with you, in dreams. He told me you would come. I pressed him for more information. I wanted to know who you were, how I would know you. You found me because I retained my link to him for too long. He severed the contact, but I lingered, calling out to him. Some demon must have detected the connection and pinpointed my location.”

  “Hadraniel was an angel? A general?”

  “Yes. Many of the unaligned saw the horror and futility of the war and sought to escape it. Hadraniel, a rare spirit, as you are learning, led the exodus.”

  “Wait. He wants you to take the knife to the Obelisk?”

  She nodded. “Only I can use the blade. I am both angel and demon. I will stand in the place of my parents. But there is a catch.”

  Dustan rolled his eyes. “Of course there is.”

  “The demons and angels, neither trusting the other, divided the knife between them. The blade and hilt are hidden and guarded within their domains.”

  Fear clutched Dustan’s intestines and twisted. What Kyra proposed did not seem possible. Not for an army, let alone two half-breeds. He and Kyra, against Heaven and Hell?

  “It’s a suicide mission,” he said, defeat weighting his words.

  “Possibly. Do you value your life so much? Would you see countless others destroyed or enslaved?” Anger seeped into her tone, her jaw clenched tight. “I have prepared a thousand years for this.” She sighed and her face softened. “I am sorry. It is much to ask of you. Take some time to consider it.”

  “It’s a lot to take in. I’m sorry. I was overwhelmed for a moment, but I understand what is at stake, and I don’t need time to think about it.” Dustan placed his hands on her shoulders, his mouth set in grim determination. “When do we leave?”

  21

  Loved and Lost

  They decided to depart the next morning. Kyra made another quick leap using the portals and procured outfits suited to their journey. After the story of her parents, neither spoke for a time. A thousand concerns whirled in Dustan’s thoughts, but words seemed a paltry way to express them. Shax floated across his mind constantly. The dwarf’s smirk and hilarious antics contrasted against the beast he had destroyed. Why? The question echoed off the interior of his skull, never fading and never answered. He wept for his friend and for his own loss.

  Dustan lay in bed afraid to sleep, fearing to suffer another nightmare. Nothing could prepare him for what lay ahead; and yet, he could not keep from imagining a plethora of dangers and terrors. Branches bent like clawed hands scraped at the windowpanes, sending a chill through his body. A howling wind whipped through the town, stirred by the approaching storm. The world seemed haunted by what was to come. The lives of all those living and all those yet unborn depended on him whether aware of it or not. The weight crushed down. He was Atlas without the strength.

  The door creaked, a sliver of light from the hall crept across the room. Dustan reached over and flicked on the bedside lamp. Kyra’s long hair hung loose and flowed down her back and chest as she glided into the room. Wearing a tight, peach tank top and silk pajama pants, she sat at his side. Her soft hands went to his chest, caressing his skin with deft fingertips. He laced his own behind her head, weaving them through her hair, and pulled her down. Her lips were soft, her mouth wet and hungry. She slid onto the bed and worked her legs to straddle him, knees pressing against his ribs. She smelled of fresh flowers and heady spices. Kyra tugged her shirt over her head and let it drop onto the floor. As Dustan raked nails down her back, she craned her head toward the ceiling and gave a soft moan. Her hands moved across his body, stroking him erect.

  He closed his eyes and lost himself in the feel of her skin against him. The sound of their breathing merged with pounding heartbeats to create a simpatico rhythm, violet energy joined with sapphire. Dustan tugged at her pants, the downy material enveloping his hands. She pressed her knees hard into his sides, denying his attempt to unclothe her. When he opened his eyes and gazed up, seeking to ascertain the reason for her sudden reluctance, long curved blades hovered over his chest, aimed for a downward thrust.

  A blast of brilliant amethyst radiance hit her between the shoulder blades and blossomed in a halo. She screamed and bolted from the bed. Dustan’s eyes adjusted as the room’s light switched on overhead. Kyra stood in the doorway, an orb blazing in each h
and. Saerna glowered at her a few strides away. His head darted from one to the other. In spite of all his experiences with the demon master of deception, he still required a moment to comprehend what had happened.

  “Think you can match me?” Saerna hissed the words through grinding teeth.

  “I can try.” Kyra hurled the orbs in quick succession. The first missed, but the second caught the demon assassin flush in the sternum. Saerna sailed backward, crashing into the wall. Portraits of people long dead shattered and showered onto the floor.

  Dustan flipped off the opposite side of the bed, grabbed Blood Dancer, and summoned his energy. “Saerna, don’t do this.”

  She ignored him and vaulted toward Kyra wearing gloves with long blades fitted over the fingers. Saerna slashed in alternating strikes as Kyra bobbed and weaved, evading the flurry. Dustan moved to her left and rammed the hilt of the sword into the demon’s side as she swiped at his head. Their assaults had slowed her movements, but she still posed a deadly threat. Saerna paused, eyes burning with vehemence.

  “We were friends once. I believe we still are. I loved you, Saerna.” Dustan stared at her, his countenance begging her to stop this.

  The honest affection in his voice hit her with more force than any of the blows. Tears gathered in the corners of her eyes. She slapped her chest and shook his words away before springing forward. Kyra’s hands glowed as she met the demon’s leap and pressed her palms against Saerna’s face. The assassin’s blades punctured Kyra’s abdomen as she sent a massive pulse into the demon’s head. Both women stumbled and fell.

  Dustan knelt beside Kyra, shielding her from another attack. He glanced to Saerna, blood and energy leaking from her eyes, nose, and mouth. Kyra placed a hand on his arm and nodded. Dustan moved to Saerna, made certain she would not lash out, lifted her, and laid her on the bed.

  Her eyes dulled as she gazed up at him. “I’m sorry, Dustan. I do love you. My brother, my friend. Please forgive me.”