Damoren

by Seth Skorkowsky

Matt gnawed his lip, his hands pulling against the hard cuffs. “Wait for an opening.”

  Allan snorted. “Oh, yeah, of course. We’re fucking dead.”

  “Shh,” Luiza hissed. “I’m not.”

  Once the prisoners had been tied down, the cultists and demons enclosed the ring around them. They chanted something, low and impossible for Matt to hear clearly as the drum thumped in a slow, methodical rhythm. He licked his lips, trying to see through the wall of bodies. Wisps of smoke rose above the crowd and Matt managed to make out the incense carrier slowly circling the ring, circling the pendulum-like censer over each of the bound prisoners.

  The incense carrier completed the ring and the drum sounded three quick times.

  Agostino stood at the center and raised his staff high. “Bring forth the forsaken. Let them bear witness to the Great Mother’s rebirth and suffer her judgment for their sins.”

  “We’re up,” Matt said.

  “What?” Allan asked. His eyes widened as a robed figure and a pair of vampires peeled from the congregation and strode purposefully toward the cell. The drum pounded slowly as they approached.

  The guard withdrew the keys from her robe and handed them to the cultist. She aimed her gun at the door. “Step back.”

  The hunters backed away as the cultist unlocked the cell. The pale-skinned demons stood behind him side-by-side. One a male with wavy brown hair, the other a bald female, her pointed ears almost transparently thin. Her spider-like hand hung at her side. Each finger a digit longer than a human’s and tipped with a yellowish claw. Matt searched her red-ringed eyes, wondering if she had been the one that killed Clay.

  The door squeaked open. “Out,” ordered the cultist.

  The hunters all shared a look, then Malcolm, his face bruised and gritty with dried blood, gave a resigned nod and stepped out. Matt followed, then by Luiza and the others. The slow drum beat mocked his racing heart.

  Malcolm stood tall, his shoulders back, as they walked, giving Matt the courage to do the same. Defiantly Matt met the eyes of their captors as the vampires led them around to the far side of the courtyard. Firelight from the metal basins lit the ring of terrified tourists bound to the ground, arms and legs spread, their touching feet formed a giant star. At its center, Agostino watched them with hateful, victorious eyes.

  The female vampire stopped. She stabbed a clawed finger downward. “Kneel.”

  Matt grunted as his knees met the hard flagstone. One of the basins burned behind them. His eyes watered from the smoke. Thirty feet ahead, the oni stood beside the raised anvil. The red-shrouded plank rested beside it. Above, a dark shadow swallowed the moon, only a quarter of it still visible.

  The vampires returned to their ranks leaving the two cultists to guard the prisoners. The woman with the gun stood a few feet off to Malcolm’s right. The other, far to the left, beside Luc.

  Agostino returned his attention to the congregation. “Now that the time is upon us, I call forth our beloved sister, Anya, whose sacrifice and devotion has earned her the honor of becoming one with our mother.” He raised a hand, palm up, to one of the hooded figures.

  The bell rang.

  The cultist stepped over the staked prisoners into the ring and stopped before Agostino.

  “Do you accept this honor?” Agostino asked.

  “I do,” she said.

  The bell chimed twice more and a pair of cultists entered the ring from either side. Anya extended her arms outward and they removed her robe with delicate reverence. They removed her hood and unclasped her two pendants, one brass, the other Feinluna’s broken shard, leaving her naked. Her clothing folded in their arms, the two attendants bowed to Agostino, then to her and quietly retreated back into the ranks.

  The bell rang three times and the incense carrier stepped into the ring and circled Anya. She stood still, allowing the smoke to waft over her pale, glistening skin.

  Matt glanced up at the moon. It was just a sliver, slightly orange at its edge.

  Finished with his work, the carrier stepped back into the circled ranks, leaving only Agostino and Anya inside the ring. Agostino turned and began walking around the circle, bringing the base of his staff down between each of the bound prisoners’ feet, a hard drum strike with each tap.

  Malcolm coughed.

  The moon’s tiny sliver of white was almost gone. The reddish orange hue had spread more across its once black face.

  Malcolm coughed again. “Matt.”

  Matt glanced over at him. Malcolm bobbed his nose toward the ground ahead. Matt followed his gaze but saw nothing.

  “The wire,” Malcolm said. No, he didn’t say it. Not exactly. He spoke nonsense, just a light grunt and cough, but Matt understood his meaning.

  Matt peered harder, trying to see what Malcolm did. There, nestled in the gap between two of the paving stones five feet away, the bent end of a wire protruded above the surface. It was short, maybe four inches. Probably some relic from the construction, fallen between the narrow channel where the sweeper’s broom had missed it. Matt swallowed, excitement rising. It looked thin enough to work. He gave Malcolm a nod.

  “I’ll cause a distraction,” Malcolm grunted in his non-language. “Get it.”

  Matt nodded again.

  A small grin tugged the corner of Malcolm’s lips. “I knew I shouldn’t have trusted you,” he spat, his voice clear. “This is your fault!”

  The shotgun woman’s head snapped from the ceremony to Malcolm. “Quiet!”

  Malcolm stared hatefully at Matt. His eyes darted quickly toward the wire. “I’ll fucking kill you!” he screamed, lunging.

  Matt tried to move out of the way, but the bound wrists made it awkward. Malcolm’s shoulder clipped him, sending him falling to the hard stones.

  “You fucking fuck!” Malcolm yelled, kicking as he struggled up.

  Matt rolled, but taking one solid strike to the thigh before he escaped Malcolm’s range. He scrambled across the ground, scraping his back, desperately feeling for the wire with his bound hands.

  The guards rushed Malcolm, the woman jamming her shotgun into his ribs as the man drove his heel into his back.

  “I’ll kill you!” Malcolm howled.

  Something sharp jabbed Matt’s bicep. The wire! He scooted higher, his fingers desperately searching the narrow gaps between stones.

  The male guard yanked Malcolm up and forced him back in line.

  The woman aimed her shotgun at Matt. “Stop.”

  Matt inched himself a bit further. He felt the tiny wire and scooped it up as the woman took a step toward him.

  “Up!” she ordered.

  Lowering his eyes submissively from her and her gun, Matt palmed the wire and forced himself up. He winced, realizing he’d scraped a knee. Head down, he moved back into the row of hunters.

  Malcolm watched him through the corner of his eye, hopeful.

  Matt glanced back at the woman standing a few feet beside them. She snapped a finger, telling him ‘eyes front.’

  Malcolm’s plan had worked, but the guards were watching them close now. He couldn’t risk any move yet. Matt turned back to the ceremony, giving Malcolm a quick smile as he did.

  Agostino had finished his circuit, and now stood outside the ring on the far side. He raised his arms. “The time has come to call our Great Mother back into this world!”

  The drum sounded.

  A pair of robed cultists approached the covered plank and carefully removed the red shroud. Nine weapons lay spread out across the polished wood. Dämoren rested in the very middle. One of the cultists took Anya’s sword, Baroovda, from the end and placed it on the anvil, its curved blade resting across the open v-slot.

  The drum thumped again. All white from the moon was gone. It glowed red.

  The robed figures began to chant. “Take the flesh. Taste the Flesh. Rise and Destroy. Rise and Rule. Icthwyn. Icthwyn. Your children call. Your subjects call. Rise and destroy. Rise and rule.”

  The drum thumped. At the
same time, the oni raised her giant, pointed hammer and smashed it down into the anvil, shattering Baroovda’s blade.

  Shrieks erupted from the bound prisoners. They shook, fighting against their bonds as they all howled and screamed. Anya stood calmly in the center of the hysteria, her arms raised, head back.

  The weapon killers picked the adze from the museum up and set it on the anvil as the congregation continued their chant.

  “Take the flesh. Taste the Flesh. Rise and Destroy. Rise and Rule. Icthwyn. Icthwyn. Your children call. Your subjects call. Rise and destroy. Rise and rule.”

  The drum thumped as the oni smashed the adze with a loud clang.

  Blisters rose on the prisoners’ feet and inner legs, boiling and bubbling. Skin split open. It peeled away in strips, exposing pink muscle beneath. Flesh and blood coursed through the air as if trapped in a cyclone within the ring.

  Matt glanced back. The black ceremony held the guards’ attention. Carefully, he took the wire in his right hand and felt for the cuff’s tiny keyhole.

  “Take the flesh. Taste the Flesh.”

  Matt slid the wire’s tip into the narrow hole and pressed it to the side, bending a little finger at the end.

  “Rise and Destroy. Rise and Rule. Icthwyn. Icthwyn.”

  Blindly he fiddled around the side, trying to reach the double lock’s catch. Brushing away bits of splintered adze, the weapon killers placed Colin’s thick-bladed sword on the block.

  “Rise and Destroy. Rise and Rule. Icthwyn. Icthwyn.”

  Matt felt the catch, he pressed against it, but the flimsy wire bent under the strain. Shit!

  “Your children call. Your subjects call. Rise and destroy. Rise and rule.”

  The maul came down, shattering the blade.

  Anya screamed, shrill and inhuman. She fell to her knees. The skin along her spine swelled and split open, revealing a nest of finger-length cilia, writhing like pale maggots. The prisoners’ howls had ceased. Tendons and muscles unraveled from their bones, swept up into the red maelstrom.

  Matt’s fingers trembled. Fighting the fear and adrenaline he re-bent the wire and worked it back toward the catch.

  “Take the flesh. Taste the Flesh.”

  The hooded figures placed Ibenus on the anvil.

  “Rise and Destroy.”

  Matt felt the tiny lever. Holding the wire as close to the keyhole as he could he pressed against it. He felt it click.

  “Rise and Rule.”

  Sweat ran down Matt’s face as he moved the wire around to the other side of the catch.

  “Icthwyn.”

  The catch gave and the cuff popped open.

  “Icthwyn!”

  Matt jumped up, tossing the bent wire at Malcolm’s feet and charged the woman guard. She turned in surprise just as Matt punched her in the jaw. He grabbed the shotgun, yanking it from her grip as she fell backward.

  “Your children call.”

  Matt raised the gun at Anya, now convulsing on the ground, her legs fused into a gruesome tail. He fired. The blast caught one of the hooded cultists in the back, knocking him forward into the ring. His body blew apart as if caught in a wood chipper, joining in the bloody cyclone.

  Cultists screamed, and closed in the gap, forming a human wall between the gun and their goddess. Others broke ranks and charged.

  “Your subjects call.”

  Racking another shell, Matt ran toward Dämoren. He fired at the oni about to destroy Allan’s sword. The beast jolted but the buckshot had no effect.

  “Rise and destroy.”

  Matt was almost there. He shot one of the hooded weapon killers racing toward him. The oni raised its hammer.

  “Rise and rule.”

  Twisting its body, the oni brought the hammer down to the side, missing the anvil and smashing it down onto the plank. Onto Dämoren. The wood buckled, splitting in two as the holy revolver crushed and shattered under the maul’s power.

  Matt froze, his eyes wide. Bits of metal and ivory spun through the air, tinkling to the ground. Gone.

  A dark blur flew in from the side. It slammed into him, knocking Matt to the hard stones. The shotgun fell from his hand. His arm cracked and broke, but he didn’t feel it.

  The bald vampire stood above him, enraged. Her long fingers wrapped around his neck and she dragged him across the unforgiving stones away from the ceremony. Matt didn’t fight. He only stared at Dämoren’s broken remains. She was dead.

  The vampire threw him against the castle’s wall. He slumped to the ground. The demon crouched over him, her fanged mouth inches from his face. “You failed, killer.”

  A roar came from the ring. Matt couldn’t see what was happening inside it. He didn’t care. He felt numb. A soothing wave rolled up him, like slipping into a warm bath. Blackness closed inward.

  “No one will save you,” the vampire cooed. “You’re going to die.”

  Dämoren was dead. Clay’s gun. The sword of Victor Kluge. Eight hundred years and now gone. He wanted to die. Deserved it. He felt helpless as he had all those years ago. Arm broken, his family dying. A monster glowering above him. Fitting.

  “I’m going to drink you dry and feed your corpse to the ghouls,” the vampire said. “Then your friends. They’ll die screaming.”

  A searing pain stabbed into Matt’s chest, hot and twisting. He gasped, trying to draw breath, but couldn’t. The burning spread like molten steel through his veins. Tears welled in his eyes. He’d felt this before. Dämoren’s slug.

  The vampire laughed, her putrid breath cold against his cheek.

  The fiery blood coursed into Matt’s brain and something erupted inside him. Awakened.

  The vampire’s eyes widened, glee melting into confusion.

  A clawed hand sprung up into Matt’s vision, grasping the vampire by the throat. Muscles bulged and swelled beneath its icy blue skin, shimmering in the firelight. Silver nails dug into the vampire’s neck. She screamed but the sound was squelched off as her throat crunched. Green flames erupted from the demon’s mouth as the strange claw tore out the vampire’s neck.

  A surge of power, ecstasy and exhilaration shot through Matt’s body. Fiery blood poured down the strange arm. Confused, Matt looked down to see where it had come from. Then, to his horror, he realized the clawed hand was his own.

  Chapter Twenty

  Blue-green fire dripped down Matt’s monstrous arm as the vampire’s burning corpse fell. His bones crunched, body swelling with power. The handcuff, still locked around his left wrist, tightened against his expanding arm. The shackle popped and clinked to the ground.

  A supernova of foreign memories exploded inside his head. Thoughts and emotions, a seemingly endless history unfolded before his mind’s eye.

  Standing, though not of his own will, he looked around, seeing everything with more clarity and detail than he’d ever imagined, as if his whole life he’d only seen the world through a dusty window, now smashed away. Flecks and colored veins adorned each of the gray flagstones. The crimson moon above burned bright as any sun, rendering shadows meaningless. Seething lights of souls swirled in the cyclone of Icthwyn’s invocation. The brown eyes of the hooded cultist aiming her shotgun at him were ringed prisms of color.

  The blast knocked Matt’s head back, lead shot shredding his skin and shattering bone. The wounds closed as fast as they opened, leaving but a tingling memory. As if watching it, not in control of his own body, Matt closed the distance between him and the shooter before she had time to rack another shell. He knocked the gun aside, grabbed the woman and threw her to the ground. Bones cracked as easily as if they were made of dried spaghetti. A greenish wisp of light fluttered from her corpse as her soul retreated this world.

  Matt noticed the children, their hands still bound behind them. The eldest soul, Malcolm, whose gold-tinged purple essence reminds him so much of his own lost child, Clay, scooted across the stones toward the dead female.

  What is happening? Matt wondered, realizing his own consciousness
was nothing more than a shrinking island within an ever-growing sea.

  Malcolm dug in the corpse’s pocket.

  Fighting the invader, Matt tried to tell Malcolm to get the keys and save the weapons, but his tongue wouldn’t move.

  Matt turned to face the blue-skinned oni. It was old, a general in the Legion. He knew its name once. It stood still, its hammer raised above Matt’s brother. The oni stared at him, her mouth open in a dumfounded O.

  A drum thumped. A wave of power sucked inward then exploded out from the ring at Icthwyn’s returning. Now was the time to kill her, while she was weak, disoriented, unused to the flesh. But he couldn’t. He had to save his brethren, those who shunned him for breaking the oath. He couldn’t let them die. Just as he couldn’t let the boy Spencer die. The boy’s death would have destroyed the child, Clay. Love made him break his most sacred vow. Not greed. Not power. Love.

  Now Matt is charging. The oni readied to meet him, its iron hammer whooshed through the air at his approach. Ducking the swing, Matt crouched below it and then sprang upward, his hand a flat blade, driving his silver-clawed fingers up beneath the demon’s ribs. His arm slid deeper into the sticky wound, finding the oni’s beating heart. Sweet fire erupted as he tore the demon’s heart free. The dead general fell and Matt held the flaming heart high.

  Humans and demons alike turned in horror, seeing Matt above the fallen oni. A great shape loomed behind them. Icthwyn had become flesh, become Tiamat. Matt opened his mouth, his jaw stretching wider than he could have ever imagined, and swallowed the oni’s heart. The demon’s soul tasted sweet.

  A werewolf roared and charged from the ranks. It lunged, hooked claws extended. Matt twisted to the side, grabbing the werewolf as it passed. Swinging his body, he yanked and slammed the demon into the ground. Stunned, the beast looked up as Matt’s foot stomped down, crushing its head like a pumpkin. Scarlet flames splattered across the ground.

  Matt struggled, fighting to regain some control of his body and mind. The lines between his being and the invader’s blurred and melted. He knew its name. His name. Urakael.

  The blood within his veins pulled to one side, warning of a demon’s coming. Spinning, he caught a ghoul’s arm as its filthy claws ripped into Matt’s shoulder. The pathetic creature howled and writhed, snapping at him with jagged teeth. Matt’s grip tightened and the ghoul’s arm broke. His other hand grabbed it by the neck and crushed it. He slung the sinewy body to the feet of its closing brethren, yellow fire igniting across its leathery skin. The cowardly ghouls scattered, their pack leader dead.