The Champions

by Jeremy Laszlo

  “Returning you to your mortal flesh would do you little good, tiny mage. Your body lays destroyed, useless. There is no vessel to return your soul to,” she lied to her servant.

  “You could fix it,” he replied, trying to keep his voice in check.

  “Your beloved princess is a captive of the enemy. He plans to torture her for all eternity,” she lied again, playing to his fears.

  “Why if you plan to keep me here do you not just end me and absorb my power?” Seth asked in anguish.

  Ishanya pondered the question. If she could do as he said, she would have done so already. Alas, she was unable, and as such she was forced to let him return. Time was running short; a bargain would have to be struck and quickly.

  “If I were to send you back, we would have to agree on some new terms.” Ishanya gave him a hint of hope.

  “Anything you desire of me, my goddess,” Seth offered, the words feeling like death as they parted his lips. Seth of all people understood that striking a bargain with a god was ill-advised.

  “I can send you back but every moment you will abide by my rules. If not I will see to it that everything you love is destroyed.”

  “Yes, mighty Ishanya.”

  “If I send you back you will no longer be fully human. Like your beloved princess you will become a creature of the night. If this becomes a limitation to your ability to serve me I suggest you fix it!”

  “Yes, my goddess.”

  Ishanya needed to hurry.

  “A plague has been unleashed into the men of the world. You must quickly end the war and diminish its spread.”

  “Yes Ishanya, anything you wish.”

  “If I decide to send you back, as soon as your puny war is done, you will leave your kingdom and travel the world gathering me followers by any means necessary.”

  “Yes, as you wish.”

  Ishanya had him where she wanted him. He would return to the realm of the living whether she liked it or not. Now, however, he had sworn to do all she demanded. She would keep close tabs upon him to be sure he did. So long as he thought that she would hurt those he loved or again remove him from the living, so long as he feared her, he would do as she said. Ishanya waited and watched the flow of time. The moment arrived so she again spoke to her servant.

  “So be it then, return to your corpse and serve me once more. I warn you slave…Fail me again and everything you cherish will burn before your eyes. Your father’s death will be a celebration compared to what I will do to those you have left.”

  “I will not fail you again.”

  Seth felt something tug at his consciousness. It pulled again. At first it was just a small thing, and then it yanked him like nothing he had ever felt before.

  *****

  Posted on the wall, Valdadore’s soldiers stood looking down upon a small congregation of troops that had approached from Sigrant’s camp. It was obvious that they studied the giant gate and the city’s fortifications. An archer loosed an arrow into the group of enemy soldiers below. Meeting its mark, a soldier slumped in his saddle before leaning to the side and tumbling to the ground.

  All their eyes turned up to the top of the wall, and from one on the ground a fireball lanced towards the defenders. Another of Seth’s werewolves fell.

  Miles away, unnoticed by anyone, Seth’s corpse did something unexpected. With a twitch of his neck his heart fluttered, as again the synapses in his brain began to fire. Coughing, the death mage rose from the dead.

  I will get the next book out to you as soon as I am able, but…

  If you have enjoyed this book you have to check out:

  Beyond the Mask

  It is a new Co-Authored series that I am writing with Aubrianna Hunter. It has the same dark and descriptive flavor as my Young Adult, Blood and Brotherhood Saga, but is intended for a more mature audience. Leaning more towards the urban side of fantasy, Beyond the Mask is set in Detroit with a paranormal tale unlike you have ever read before. Below is the Prologue and the first chapter, I hope you enjoy it.

  Prologue

  Lucifer was once the greatest of the archangels, taking up his place beside the Creator of all life. From nearly the beginning of time, he served at the Creator’s side, doing whatever the Lord willed. But slowly something began to change in Lucifer, and inevitably he sought the source of the change.

  Over the eons he became jealous, envious of the love that was had for God. Perhaps his inner light darkened. Perhaps being the hand of God had been too much for him. Perhaps the seed of evil that had come from free will had taken root in heaven as well as earth. For whatever reason, Lucifer sought to place himself above God.

  So it was that Lucifer stood within the heavens, staring at the vast kingdom of beauty. Envious of his master, he lusted to have it for himself to rule. Knowing alone he could not defeat God, he plotted and subverted other angels to his cause. Gaining momentum he raised an army and in the heavens a war was fought over not only the kingdom, but the domain of man as well.

  So it was that many immortals were slain, but in the end the Creator and those loyal to Him were victorious. To teach Lucifer a lesson and create a safe domain for all He loved, God saw fit not to slay the archangel that once stood beside Him. Instead, He cast Lucifer down to forever inhabit hell, a fiery abyss where he would spend eternity in damnation.

  “How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!”

  Isaiah 14:12

  Defeated, Lucifer was cast from heaven into the only portal between the immortal planes of heaven and hell…Earth. Though most envision this as an instantaneous process, it is not. For any soul, mortal or immortal, to pass between heaven and hell, they must first cross through the domain of man, in mortal flesh, over the expanse of a human life.

  Some religions believe this to be purgatory, a place for souls to absolve all their sins. Regardless of its name, however, those souls cast down from heaven live yet again, usually as tortured beings whose inner turmoil allows them little of the fulfillment and happiness a mortal life can provide. It is conquering this torment and following the path of light that grants these souls eternity at God’s side. Most are incapable.

  Knowing this, and knowing that for him there was no redemption, Lucifer came upon the world in mortal flesh. Tormented were his heart and soul, to the very point of no return. But refusing to show his weakness to those in heaven, and as defiance to his lord and creator, he spread his seed within mankind.

  Taking a mortal lover, as angels were forbidden to do, Lucifer spawned a demon, which was not too different from the demigods of legend. Seeking escape from its fleshy womb, the child cursed by God, tore free from its mother in labor, and instead of seeking her tit, it fed upon her blood, killing her.

  A creature cursed by God, Lucifer taught the demonic beast dressed in human flesh how to survive as a creature banished from the light. It was doomed to walk the world without a soul, without chance of redemption, for all of eternity. Never would his child be permitted to heaven nor hell, never would it be permitted to die.

  For Lucifer’s own vanity and greed, God made the child more beautiful than its father and made it lustful, as well. Soulless and unliving, the only blood that would flow within it was the blood of those it fed upon.

  His lifetime spent, Lucifer passed from this realm to the next to inhabit hell for all eternity, to be held by chains and tortured by flame. His son, the first to ever be called a vampire, was cursed to walk the world in darkness for all eternity, alone.

  It was centuries before the child discovered he could create more like himself out of those tortured souls in purgatory. Among mankind they were considered weak of mind, often diagnosed with mental illness. So it was that he began to seek those who were shunned by society, and by heaven, to create for himself those who would share his fate.

  “Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone
to devour.”

  1 Peter 5:8

  Chapter One

  A fresh blast of synthetic fog filled the giant chamber as lasers in a multitude of colors sliced the air into thousands of smaller pieces. A deep thrumming sound began to grow louder and louder from the relative darkness as an eerie calm fell over the room. A single note from a deeply tuned bass drum reverberated off the crowd, the walls, and following it, a flash from hundreds of strobe lights.

  The feeling was surreal in that moment, as over a thousand sweat covered bodies were instantly etched into everyone’s memories. A single flash. A single image. Yet to decipher what it contained was impossible. A roar was building within the crowd and again came the deep resounding reply from the center stage. Again the strobes flashed and another image replaced the first. Derek wondered how much the walls of the old industrial building could take.

  Standing in the darkness, he could feel the energy in the room around him like an electric charge, building to the point of explosion. The bass drum began to lay out a steady rhythm that echoed across the vast chamber. Strobes began to flash opposite the drumbeats, illuminating thousands of raised hands as most in the room bounced upon their toes, their palms lifted to the heavens and heads thrown back in benevolent bliss. A bass guitar lent itself to the beat and the crowd began to scream in expectation as the center stage was finally illuminated and upon it, the main act of the night stood in all of their glory.

  From head to toe the entire band was dressed in professional zombie makeup and looked more like a movie production than a musical group. Here in the run down industrial section of Detroit, however, the heavy metal zombie band called Desolate Perversion had brought life to an otherwise lifeless portion of the city. Nothing lived here but addicts and bums.

  As the lead guitar disrupted the almost intoxicating thrumming from its deeper counterparts, the band’s lead singer split the air with a hair-raising scream that sent the crowd into a frenzy. Bodies began to bounce off one another like a flipbook, their movements broken between the flashing of the strobe lights. Screams arose and fell and the scent of many freshly lit joints lent themselves to the banana-scented fog the stage crew was using.

  Between the flashes, he watched as a girl not ten feet away stripped off her shirt, twirling it above her head as she danced slowly, unnaturally, her movements disjointed, like a horror flick, between the bursts of light. He grinned.

  In a surging sea of drug and alcohol fueled bodies, where ears rang from the music, and conversations were lost in mere inches, Derek was an island of isolation. Not in the sense that he was alone, but in the sense that he did not move as one with the tide surging around him. Truth was, he was not here for the music. He was here for the inspiration.

  Over a thousand glistening bodies inhabited the floor of the underground concert that had only been announced an hour before, and more poured in by the second. Derek was lost to the commotion around him. He did not listen to the music though it reverberated through his very bones. He did not watch the ever-growing crowd, nor hear their screams. Hell, He hadn’t even made the walk here entirely for himself; it was for her, for she was the key.

  Petite fingers arose before Derek’s face as a crooked grin parted his lips. She had gotten his attention, at least for a moment. The tips of her fingers touched his forehead lightly as she nuzzled her face into his chest a moment before leaning back to trail her hand down his face. Derek reveled in the sensation. Here he was an island and she his mesmerizing mermaid. Here she was free to move, and dance, and lose herself to the electricity that invaded everything in the building.

  The strobes flashed and Derek saw her face, milky white with a tiny smattering of freckles across her nose. Framing her imperfect perfection, long, heavy brown hair cascaded around her face to tumble over her shoulders in earthy tones of red and gold. Her emerald eyes flashed and then were gone as she twirled slowly, removing her hand from his chest. Between the flashes, Derek watched as she reached behind her, grasped his hands and pulled them to her waist.

  While everyone else in the room screamed, jumped, and frantically smashed into one another, she slowly, mercilessly rocked and shook her hips, pressing her firm ass into his lap. Derek grinned again as she tilted her head back upon his shoulder to look up at him. Then, again, Derek was lost to the room, to the crowd, even to her.

  Here she could let go of whatever troubled her, and when she was free, in that very moment, her energy unlocked something within him. Sometimes it was a smile that set him off, others it was her touch, but it was always when she let go of the world around her. Now amidst a sea of raging metal heads, she worked to grind her lithe body against his, while his mind opened up for a moment, her magic setting his brain into overdrive.

  These were the only moments of late when Derek could find that which he desperately needed.

  In those moments, when she made the world go away, he could see clearly. Stories unfolded before him and characters paraded where moments ago only a dark abyss had been. He watched them within his mind as they interacted and spoke amongst themselves. He learned their mannerisms, the way they spoke, and even their accents. In those moments of mental liberation he could see an entire world play out before him, before once again it would vanish and nothing but empty anguish would remain. When it was all lost he raced to mentally catalog that which he had learned. Sometimes these moments lasted for mere seconds, other times it could last for an hour or more. Tonight three such moments had come and gone already, and he knew that this would be the last.

  He pulled hard upon her hips, driving his now rigid cock firmly into her, yet still she continued swaying her hips, listening to a beat no one else in the giant chamber could hear. She knew all too well what she was doing, and Derek knew she enjoyed arousing him in public. Hell, he enjoyed it more; only he would never admit it to her. Oh how he loved it when she played dirty.

  * * * * *

  Jade felt his eyes on her and knew that, for the moment at least, his attention was hers. Realizing that it could last hours or mere moments, she decided to take advantage of it while she had it. Glancing back over her shoulder, she watched his eyes glaze over again, lost unto himself.

  Some would find it peculiar, his ability to simply fade in and out of reality; even now he was lost in his own world once more. It was a world that only he could see. A world he created. Though most people lived in reality, Derek lived between this world and a fantasy world of his own making. And she had the blessing and the curse of being his inspiration. His muse.

  Smiling to herself, she settled in to enjoy the music. Derek was here with her, at least physically, but only because she had wanted to come. This was her world, her scene, and she thrived in the chaos.

  The press of bodies, the music so loud it actually ricocheted off your ear drums. You never heard music like this; you felt it through every cell of your body.

  A quick glance around the room told Jade all she needed to know. Everyone here was hiding from something. Some were too young to know what they were hiding from, and others were too old to change their ways. You never came to a place like this unless you were running from something. This was raw, pure... real. Unlike so many places, the kind of places where the shiny platinum exterior hid the decaying, rotting core, this was just pure grit.

  And she loved it.

  When she felt his attention return to her, she grinned over her shoulder, before tilting her head back to rest on his chest.

  She felt his erection pressing into her ass and added a little extra twist to her hips.

  The crowd parted, giving her a tiny window of opportunity. She took a small step away from him, swaying to the beat of the music. She rolled forward at the waist, offering a teasing glimpse of her ass in the tight leather skirt. His hand landed, hot and heavy, against one cheek, bringing a full laugh bubbling up. Biting her cheek to stifle the laugh, she straightened back up.

  Spinning quickly, she turned to face him, gently wagging one finger in front of his fac
e as she shook her head. When his eyes squinted, his mouth forming into a firm line, she threw her head back and let the laughter come.

  Derek pulled her close, pressing her body full length against his. The added height from her four-inch heels brought them almost to eye level.

  She allowed the kiss she knew was coming, let him show her with his mouth what his body craved. When he pulled back to suck in air, she nibbled his chin, nipping his neck with her teeth. The little bit of pain gave her a chance to extricate herself from his embrace.

  She turned on her heel and headed to the makeshift bar in the back corner, leaving him to follow her or not. His choice.

  She knew he'd follow.

  A couple of teasing, tormenting hours later, and Jade could see Derek losing his patience. If she'd done her job right, she had kept him in a constant state of arousal, heavily sprinkled with a little denial, for the last few hours.

  Her frustrated, tortured artist had just about reached his limit. Figuring it was time to offer him reprieve, Jade grabbed his hand and pulled him toward the exit.

  As they tumbled out the side door, the pounding bass seemed to follow them, pouring into the alley like a tidal wave of sound. The heavy steel door slowly closed behind them, the sudden silence almost deafening in its intensity.

  Her eardrums ringing within her head, Jade turned to look at Derek, grinning stupidly as his face screwed up in a scowl.

  "Tell me why we do this, again?" he asked, his mock displeasure more than evident in his tone.

  She laughed, the sound echoing off the brick buildings around her. "Me, because I love it. You... 'cuz you're hoping to get laid."

  His eyes squinted shut a little more before a wry grin settled across his lips, easing the fierce look he previously wore. "Oh. Yeah."