The Daemon Within

by Jeremy Croston

  I could never stay mad at him for long. During my exile, he was the one who helped me return to my strength and begin to plan for my uprising. Even now, after threatening his life, the Dark God was still as loyal as ever. “I accept your apology. How could I not?” I asked hypothetically. “You’ve done a masterful job creating a legend of terror amongst the wolves in the area. Without you, my wretched daughter would never have come.”

  “My pleasure, Lady. Does anyone suspect my involvement in your end game?”

  That was the best part. No one, not even my old friend Dmitri, had any clue that the Chernybog was acting under my orders. “They are all in the dark. We just need to continue this charade for just a little bit longer and you’ll be free and my ascension will be complete.”

  His drifted back into his shadow embodiment, chuckling in a way that shook the Wormwood. Everyone within the exclusion zone would hear the Chernybog’s laugh and sleep just a little bit more afraid this evening. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

  **Liz**

  “We’ve lost Gregory and now Anna is dead. We’re screwed.”

  Leave it to Reno to put things in a perspective that could not be argued. The words of the Beta wolf and the way Anna was so easily slain, it was surreal. When I asked for more information on the mystery vampire, all he said was she carried no scent, yet there was a very real aura of power encircling her. When I asked Reno for his opinion, all he came back with was, “We’re missing something right in front of us.”

  “Thank you for that wise retort. What ever would I do without your brilliance?” I pondered aloud.

  “I ask myself that every day,” he tried to joke. I just was not in the mood. “Boss lady, we’ll figure this out.”

  I was not as confident as he was. “I just do not know how many more betrayals I can handle. Victor’s defiance came out of left field, but Gregory’s? Perhaps we are the ones on the wrong side of the line, Reno.”

  “Hey now, we’re just here doing a job,” he replied. “Cristof vouched for these wolves and from the reports, the wolves in that exclusion zone are a danger to everyone.”

  “Are they?” I was asking myself more than him. “Would Victor side with wolves that truly pose a threat to the world?”

  “I don’t know.” That made two of us. “All I know is an elder was killed and we’re still on the clock. Whatever you decide, boss lady, I’m with you.”

  He was right. We had been commissioned to do a job and had no proof so far that the Silvers were acting out of anything less than concern for their home territory. “In that case, find Anatoli. It is time we finish this job and allow this area to return to a semblance of normalcy.”

  Chapter 11

  “Let me get this straight – the two of you are going into one of the reactors to get some mystical crystal for the Chernybog?” Even as Gregory summed up what we just told him, he was in stunned disbelief. “To top this whole thing off, by getting the crystal from the reactor, the Chernybog goes free?”

  “Yeah,” I summed up nicely.

  “Are – you – insane?!”

  I enjoyed his use of dramatic pausing after each word. It was very Gregory. “Like I said, we got no choice.” I’d told him all about the daemon’s threat to wipe out all the wolves. “We came here to save these wolves, not let them be killed off by another pack or a rogue Dark God,” I told him.

  It was easy to see how flustered he was. “You are right; we cannot allow harm to fall on these wolves, if we can help it.” His eyes roamed and found Isa over in the corner. “You have a plan, do you not?”

  She pushed off the wall and joined us. “Not quite, but I’m not going to allow the crystal to fall into his hands.” Putting an arm around me, “The good thing is we have time to form something while we’re in the reactor.”

  Don’t count me amongst the camp of ‘happy to be going into a reactor.’ There wasn’t much of a choice, though. Since running into the beast, I’d been concerned that devil would show up and slaughter wolves because we hadn’t been moving fast enough. As much as I wasn’t looking forward to going into the actual power plant, I was glad we were getting this over with.

  “Gregory, while we are gone-” I tried to start, before he cut me off.

  Waving his hand in my face, “You two are going by yourselves? Taking me along would be the smart play.”

  “No,” I countered. “Taking you along leaves the pack here unprotected. Someone needs to stay behind and help Dmitri in case of another attack.”

  He folded his arms over his chest and pouted. I swear, vampires were glorified children. “Fine, but I do so in protest.”

  “Your disgust for this plan is noted.” I slapped him on the back. “Cheer up, old boy! I’m probably the one that’ll die from radiation poisoning, not you.”

  He cracked the slightest of smiles. “You are too annoying to die, Vic,” he joked. “Besides, I think all the lead laced clothing you are wearing is probably protecting you.”

  “I hope so.”

  As the sun cracked over the horizon, it was time to head out. Dmitri was the only other person to know the true purpose of our mission and he was waiting for us at the edge of the town. “You valk into that place, chances are you not come back.”

  “I know, Dmitri,” Isa said. “If we don’t do this, the Chernybog will wipe out your pack. I can’t allow that.”

  He didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to. The looks Gregory and Dmitri were giving us as we left the relative safety of Pripyat and we ventured into the area around the power plant said it all. Instead of heading off towards the cooling ponds as we did the first time, Isa and I ventured towards the ominous structure that loomed over the area. We were headed straight to the home of the worst nuclear disaster ever.

  By the time we reached the metal doors that separated us from the interior of the plant, I was starting to have some major doubts. “This place has been abandoned for years. We have no clue what we’re going to be dealing with.”

  “It’s okay to be scared, Vic.” She touched the metal door. “I’m pretty worried myself, and I’ve seen quite a few things over the course of my life.” Giving the metal a push, the door groaned as it struggled to open wide enough to allow us entry. “It’s now or never.”

  My senses of obligation and decency reminded me that this was all for a very good cause. “Let’s get this over with.”

  As we entered, the large room we walked into was in rough shape. The metal forming the building was rusted, the catwalks hanging above us looked to either be close to falling, or already on the ground in a heap of scrap metal. Broken glass littered the floor, and there was this overpowering smell that must’ve been from the fallout so many years ago. My nose tingled, as if thousands of tiny ants were crawling around inside. It was freaky.

  Isa took a moment to survey the situation. “My guess is we need to go straight ahead, through the control area and to the containment area.”

  “That sounds solid to me.”

  “Once we get to the second reactor, I have no idea what’ll be waiting for us.”

  The blue orb that I’d kept close at all times began to vibrate ever so softly against my chest. I reached up and grabbed it, only for my hand to fly off of it. The orb was freezing cold to the touch. Why in blue blazes would it be so cold to my hand?

  As soon as I let go, the vibrating subsided. “Is everything okay, Vic?” Isa questioned.

  “Yeah, the orb was doing some wonky things for a moment. It stopped,” I added.

  She looked like she had something to say, but then thought better of it. Instead, “Artifacts like that orb, there’s really no rhyme or reason to when they decide to become active.” She wasn’t telling me everything she knew. I could tell.

  I let it go, for now. “It seems idle, so maybe we should just forget about it.”

  That’s exactly what she’d been hoping I’d say. “Yes – we’ll keep an eye on things, in case it decides it wants to reactivate again.”


  We went further into the plant, slow and cautious. The only sounds besides our walking I heard were the scattering of rats. I couldn’t see them, but I heard them and picked up random scents underneath the radiation that covered the area. I had no problems with the rodents staying in the shadows; who knows how living in these conditions would change them?

  At the end of the first building, we came to another door. Isa pushed this one open a bit easier than the entrance. Behind door number two, we had a pretty long hallway that used to be stark white. Now it was a dingy shade of green, not looking like a very healthy place to go. Isa gave me no choice, it was either follow her or get left behind in this cozy little corner of the world.

  As we ventured further down the hallway, we passed various doors that were marked in Russian. My tour guide could read the inscriptions, stopping at each one and mumbling something before moving on. After four or five doors, I’d lost count, she smiled. “Reactor number two.”

  With those three little words, my casual disinterest was wiped away, replaced with looming, impending doom. The same feeling I had when we first walked into the power plant. “Here we are,” was all I could add.

  When she reached for the door handle, the blue orb went nuts. The vibrating that it did before was nothing compared to what was going on currently. I had to reach up and unhook the chain it was attached to just to get it off of me. Hanging at the end of the silver chain, it was glowing and hopping all around, like it’d come to life. There was no way in hell I was reaching out to touch it this time.

  “So it’s true,” Isa offered.

  “What’s true?”

  “Don’t you remember what the Chernybog told us?” He’d said a lot and quite frankly, he scared the crap outta me. I remember that more than anything. Seeing I was in the dark, “He said we’d need that crystal to gain access. You know what this means then?”

  Nope. I was a giant disappointment all around.

  Shaking her head, “It means that this reactor is a portal to holy ground.”

  “Say what?”

  “Oh Victor,” she tried to say without laughing. “After all the trouble you went to, finding that orb, you truly forgot what it could do?”

  It wasn’t that. I knew that it was supposed to be a powerful holy artifact that could do bad things in the wrong hands. I just wasn’t one hundred percent sure anymore what those bad things were. What I did know was that I was the guardian of it. That’s why I kept it so close.

  The orb started bouncing towards the door, as if it wanted to be reunited with the metal surface. I took a few steps forward and the orb jumped out of my hand, chain and all, and inserted itself in a carved out area just under the door handle. A ghostly blue cross appeared to burn itself into the metal, right before the door clicked and opened just barely. The orb stopped glowing and let me pull it out, placing it around my neck once more.

  The cross stayed there, glowing like it may have been on fire once. “I think we can go in,” I suggested.

  “I think we can, too.” Isa placed her hand in mine and together we crossed over from the power plant to someplace entirely different.

  Chapter 12

  “I don’t think we’re in Chernobyl anymore, Toto.”

  “Thank you for that astute observation, Vic.”

  Lightning was flashing all around us and it looked like the sky could open up at any moment and bring Noah’s Ark proportions of rain. Behind us, the door was shut. The only difference was on this side, it was surrounded by stone, not metal. The path we were standing on was very rocky, as well. Another flash of lightning brightened the sky, illuminating some of the terrain around us. We were on the side of a mountain.

  That begged one question. “How does a mountain find its way into a nuclear reactor?”

  Isa kneeled down and grabbed a few of the stones on the path. It was weird watching her sniff one of them and then lick it. It gave her an answer, apparently. “We’re on Mount Sinai.”

  Being the good Christian boy I was, “The mountain where Moses got the Ten Commandments? Shouldn’t that be in Israel or someplace?”

  “Egypt to be exact,” she corrected me. “I told you, your orb gives access to holy portals and it appears the second reactor was one such portal.” She seemed on edge. “I shouldn’t be here.”

  “Why? Is something wrong?”

  She started looking all over the place, as if she expected to see someone. As far as I could tell, it was just the two of us. “Isa,” I tried to calm her. “We’re okay, I promise.”

  My voice broke her out of her paranoid schizophrenia. “I apologize, Vic.” Her eyes wanted to dart around again, but I placed my hands on the sides of her head and kept them focused on me. “Thank you.”

  When I felt it was safe to let go, I did. “What was that all about?” I asked.

  “I thought for a moment He was here.” She shivered a bit. “Let’s not talk about this out in the open. We should find a place to settle before moving on.”

  As much as I wanted answers, I’d go along with her suggestion. We started moving up the path, a winding one that seemed to be taking the scenic route around the very wide mountain. It was pretty narrow too, meaning we could only go single file. With Isa shaken up, I took the lead and hoped for the best.

  As more lightning that lit up the sky, more features of the mountain began to reveal themselves. At various points along the path, stone statues of angels holding flaming swords stood guard. At other spots, detailed murals had been chiseled into the stone; scenes depicting Heaven and the Garden of Eden were there to be taken in with awe.

  “This is a scary, yet beautiful place,” I remarked.

  Isa disagreed. “How can you say that? Are you missing all the horrible gargoyles around here?”

  “Gargoyles? You mean the angels? No I see them,” I said. “And look, there’s a perfectly chiseled out representation of Heaven.”

  “Victor,” she said curiously. “That’s not what I see.”

  “Well what do you see?”

  Slowly, “I see daemons,” and then her voice dropped to barely a whisper, “and Hell.”

  I couldn’t even wrap my head around it that we were seeing two different things. Thankfully, the path began to open up and led us to a landing. On the far side of the flat space, I could see the path continued. I grabbed Isa and pulled her up. “I think this will have to do for the time.”

  She pointed behind me; there was a fissure in the side of the mountain, large enough for both of us to fit in. “Let’s take shelter. Maybe we’ll find something to make a fire with.” I almost brought up the burning bush but that was on another mountain I think. Moses traveled a lot.

  Up close, the fissure was quite a bit larger than I assumed originally. Isa snuck in first, with me right behind her. The moment we were tucked inside, the sky opened up and torrents of rain drops began to pound the rock all around us. There was something very unique about this mountain.

  Isa slid down the side of the cave we were in. “I think I’m going to take a nap, Vic.”

  Before I could argue that this was a bad idea, she was out. I’d never seen her look so worn out and tired. It was quite worrying. I reached down and placed two fingers on her neck. Wait a minute, that wouldn’t work. She was a vampire for crying out loud! The rise and fall of her chest, plus she started to snore – those were my clues she was still alive.

  With nothing else to do, I sat down beside her listened to the sounds of the rain. It was actually quite peaceful.

  “The sounds of rain bring me joy, too.”

  My eyes had closed unexpectedly, so the random voice brought me out of my slumber. I was tempted to keep them shut, as if we wouldn’t be in trouble if I couldn’t see who was here. “Victor, you’re not in trouble.”

  “How do you know my name?” I asked with my eyes still closed.

  “Open your eyes and address me properly.”

  I did as I was told. There was a man sitting across from me. He was wearing a light
brown jacket and hiking pants. He had light brown hair that looked to be tied in a ponytail. There was something oddly familiar about him, but I know for one hundred percent certainty that we never met. “Who are you?”

  “Names carry power, as you were once told.” An angel named Jack told me that once. He’s also the one who helped me get the orb around my neck. “I believe a companion of yours once called me The Teacher.”

  He was referring to the Sphinx. “Whoa, you’re-”

  “Don’t say it. Just stick to The Teacher, please.”

  My new friend was kind with his admonishment. He gave me a wide smile and gestured for me to join him on the other side of the cave. It was still raining really hard outside and Isa was out of it. With little else to do, I got up and moved over. Sitting down, “I’m guessing you’re not here just for the sights and sounds, huh?”

  He laughed and pulled out the band holding his ponytail in place. His brown hair fell loose to the sides. “I’m here for the company, Victor.” He nodded over to the sleeping vampire. “Interesting company you keep, speaking of.”

  “You’re not the first person to say something like that.” Gregory, Dmitri, even the Chernybog seemed confused that Isa and I were a team. More than a team, actually. “Not every day a three thousand year old vampire and a werewolf walk into a mountainside cave, I reckon.”

  “Not just any three thousand year old vampire,” he stated. “Izabella, a child of the vampire equivalent to the Holy Roman Empire. She is a very interesting case.”

  Did he know her? “What do you know about her?”

  “She’s been present at a great many historical events. Did you know she was even present at the Crucifixion?”

  There was a lot about her past I didn’t know. Her present, that I knew a lot about. “Call me naïve, but I’ve learned it’s not good to pry into a vampire’s past.” I’d never forget the time I learned Liz actually was the legend Elizabeth Bathory. It nearly got me killed. “If ordinary, short lived people can change over the years, I can only imagine how vampires change over their long life.”