Resort

by Louise Manson

  The swirling water got faster and faster, until it was a vast spinning whirlpool, so strong that the demon began to be swayed by it, and gripped the cliff with his claws to stop himself being swept away. Suddenly, he lost his hold and was caught up in the moving water, waving his claws and thrashing his tail helplessly as he was dragged under.

  Khaos did not breathe a sigh of relief. She knew from past experience that the demon was far from destroyed.

  A dark shape billowed under the water, and a huge claw reached out from some deep dark place, grabbed Khaos’ ankles, and dragged her bodily into the water. Khaos lashed out, trying to reach for her sword, but another claw was there and clamped itself round her arms and chest, pinning them to her sides. It plunged her below the surface, and Khaos was dragged down, surrounded by black silence, before all else went dark.

  Her eyes opened again to white water all around her. She was being pushed to shore by the current, sand once more beneath her. She took an enormous breath.

  Did I not promise you that I would not let you die? Now you must fight for me, Khaos!

  Khaos groaned, rolled over, and managed to get on her hands and knees, coughing up seawater. The last thing she felt like doing right now was to try and fight the demon again!

  By now he must have already consumed dozens of human souls. What she would do to have Nyx by her side right now; she could be back out there in seconds, attacking the demon head on. Without him, she was useless.

  You are not useless, Khaos. You must find a way.

  ‘But how can I get out there? Wait… ’ She spotted a boat by the shore. Not a speedboat, unfortunately: a wooden boat with oars, painted green, rust marks staining the paintwork orange. It looked old but it would do.

  She ran to it, stumbling in the sand, and shunted it with all her strength to the shoreline and into the water. It got easier when it was fully in the water. She pushed it out until she was waist deep, then climbed in, slipping on the wet wood as she went.

  Just then a cry of another victim rang out, and Khaos scanned the cliff edge. There the demon was again, clinging to the rocks with his enormous bulk, his vile mouth open and waiting beneath many claws. In one claw, Khaos saw another man. Her heart shuddered as she realised it was Barden.

  The demon had Barden by his feet and raised him up above his mouth.

  ‘No!’ Khaos cried, grabbing the oars. They slapped off the water as she forced the boat forward, as fast as she could power her arms. She gritted her teeth, rowing as if it was her life that depended on it, fighting the exhaustion that overcame her. Barden’s cries assailed her ears, and she shouted out: ‘I’m coming! I’m coming!’

  After what had only been seconds, but had seemed an age to Khaos, she stopped and turned around to see how close she was. To her despair, the demon seemed just as far away, and the current began to drag her back to the shore.

  She grabbed the oars again and put all her might into paddling. She had no plan of what she would do when she got there; she just had to get there somehow. Barden’s cries suddenly stopped. Khaos craned her neck round again. She was a little closer to the cliff. Close enough to see the faces of the hapless victims still waiting for their death there; apart from the people immediately by the cliff, who were now trying to scramble away from the demon’s evil claws, the rest of them were oblivious to the danger ahead of them. They were probably still expecting their dessert.

  Idiots, Khaos thought to herself.

  And there was Georgi; Khaos spotted her right by the cliff edge, screaming as Barden’s limp body was cast into the water. The demon’s greedy claws then began to reach toward her…

  ‘I’m never going to get there in time!’

  You will find the strength, Khaos. Focus.

  ‘I’m useless without Nyx! I can’t get anywhere without him!’ Khaos said, fighting back tears.

  Are you not Khaos, slayer of demons? Can you not control water?

  ‘Yes but… ’

  Don’t waste time thinking, hesitating. Just be!

  Khaos had a sudden flash of inspiration. She stopped rowing, stood up in the boat, and stared down at the water, trying to make a quick judgment. She put one foot over the side of the boat and tentatively rested it on the surface of the water, concentrating. To her amazement, the water seemed sort of solid. She took a deep breath and stepped out, completely trusting in the water. She wobbled slightly and then righted herself. She drew her sword and then looked up, her eyeballs the colour of granite again.

  She charged forward toward the demon, gripping the flaming blade with both hands.

  Georgi was in the demon’s claws, being lifted up to his mouth, but she was still screaming, so she had to still be alive.

  ‘Oi! You! Big guy!’ Khaos shouted, to get the demon’s attention. Her voice was deep and strange to her, as if something else spoke through her.

  The demon did not turn around. When Khaos was close enough, she leapt bodily into the air, the sword trained on the demon, its will dragging her forward. She landed on a fold of the demon’s rubbery side, and with a swift swing of the blade, she rent one of the demon’s fins clean off. The wound bubbled and scorched from the flame. The demon roared with rage, spinning his vast form round to eyeball Khaos angrily.

  Khaos wasted no time; she clambered up his soft slimy body, gripping handfuls of his flesh to ease her way up. A claw reached out to get her and she jumped out to meet it, landing astride it and clamping the claw closed with her legs. She used it to ride back to the demon’s mouth, gripping the nobbles to steady herself. She passed Georgi, who was lying motionless in another claw, and swung the sword, slicing the claw from its long arm, freeing Georgi.

  Enraged even further, the demon reached out another, stronger claw and pried Khaos off of the claw she was riding, then lowered her hastily to its mouth, where it waited for a moment.

  Bewildered by the demon’s seeming indecision as to whether to eat her or not, Khaos struggled to free herself, but her arms were pinned. She tried to slice at the demon further, but her hands were trapped by her sides. The demon seemed confused, as if he had expected something that had not happened. Then Khaos remembered the way the demon ate the souls of his victims. Perhaps she had no soul? Perhaps that was why the demon had little interest in her.

  The demon appeared to change his mind, as if he might cast her back into the sea. Then, suddenly, his tooth-lined mouth opened, his foul breath filling Khaos’ nose and mouth, making her retch. The mouth stretched to its full capacity, revealing rows and rows of evil teeth and a dank red gut deep within. He raised Khaos over his mouth and, with an easy movement, dropped her right inside. Hot, foul darkness closed in around Khaos on all sides.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Melody could hide no longer. Despite all Khaos' warnings to stay hidden no matter what, she could not shake this guilt she felt for not being by Khaos’ side. What sort of disciple was she? What would John the Baptist have said?

  'I'm just like Saint Peter, when he denied Christ. This is exactly how he must have felt,' she muttered to herself.

  The sounds coming up from the beach distressed her also; the screaming of several people in danger, crying out for help. Melody thought of all those people they had seen going through the tunnel. It must be their cries she could hear. Then there were Khaos' muffled shouts and a grunting, roaring sound: the demon most likely. The roaring of the sea and then Khaos’ shouts stopped. Had the demon overcome Khaos? Was she drowned?

  Melody got shakily to her feet. Danger or not, she had to go and see if she could help. Melody would not be able to live with herself if the demon succeeded and Khaos lost when she could have done something. Besides, if Khaos was lost, all else would be also, so it would not matter if she hid; the demon would find her eventually.

  All this passed through Melody’s mind as she hurried down the stone steps. As she rounded the corner, she got a full view of the water for the first time and was just in time to see Khaos step out of the boat and onto the wa
ter, flaming sword in hand. Melody's mouth fell open. If she had ever had even the tiniest doubt in her mind that Khaos truly was the second coming of Christ, they were chased away now.

  Melody had had plans of helping Khaos in some way, but now she stood stupidly on the shore, watching the scene. She watched as Khaos fought the demon, then got caught up in his claws. Melody waited with bated breath as Khaos and the demon struggled; momentarily, Khaos seemed to be getting free of the claws.

  Then the demon had the upper hand and lifted Khaos to his mouth.

  'Stop! Let her go!' Melody shouted, but her voice did not carry far, and her words were lost to the sea wind. She could only watch helplessly as Khaos was consumed before her very eyes.

  The demon rolled over. His eyes were above water again, a satisfied glint in them, though they still had that hungry look. Then he spotted Melody, and his eyes became malevolent. He rushed toward her, all eight claws protruding, preparing to snap her up. Melody did not care, and simply stood, awaiting her fate. Her saviour was gone, what did it matter what happened now?

  Then an odd look came over the demon's face. His eyes had a look of discomfort in them that had not been there before. He stopped and hunched suddenly, tightening into a vast blubbery ball, almost as if he had a stomach ache. Black smoke began to leak from his mouth, which opened and closed over and over, gulping for air. Then the smoke began emitting from his ears, then eyes, until finally, he seemed to be leaking thin, black smoke from every pore. The demon lurched upright, his mouth and claws in the middle of his belly, his eyes at the top of his shapeless form, which were now colourless, and if it was possible for the creature to be any more pale, then he was.

  A dark line appeared and gradually began to grow across his pale flabby middle, and as Melody watched, a blade sliced out, burning the flesh as it went. The demon screamed, a deep sickening wail, and his claws lashed around, grabbing at his own stomach, desperate to stop this pain. More lines appeared, and the blade flashed back and forth again, protruding out of the demon’s flesh, a brilliant orange.

  One more slice and the demon’s gut burst open; blackened slime, flabby skin, and fragments of his organs exploded everywhere, filling the water with his foul mess. In the middle of it all, emerging from the dark cavern of his gut, and covered head to toe in dark slime, was a black horse, flying to freedom on feathered wings. Riding on its back, raising the flaming sword to the sky, was an exhausted but triumphant Khaos.

  Behind her, the vast demon slumped into the sea, a huge sagging pile of bloated skin. Black smoke billowed freely from his open wound. The smoke whirled, becoming a tiny spinning black tornado, which snaked out toward Khaos. Her arm lifted up to meet the smoke, almost of its own accord. The smoke spiralled and swirled around Khaos’ arm, strangely drawn to it. Then it stopped, and the mound that had once been the demon Gluttony was nothing more than pale mud, which sank slowly back into the sea.

  Melody dropped to her knees as Khaos reached the shore and dismounted the black horse, stepping lightly onto the shallow surface of the water. She sheathed her sword, then noticed Melody and smiled.

  ‘You don’t have to do that. Get up.’

  ‘But saviour… ’

  ‘I know what it looks like, the walking on water and everything. But I am not your saviour. I’m not here to save your soul.’

  ‘But you have!’ Melody beamed. ‘You defeated the demon, didn’t you?’

  Khaos narrowed her eyes, then turned back to the water, shielding her eyes from the sun. As she turned back, she noticed the bodies washed up on shore and went to them. Melody stood and followed, noticing that Khaos now bore an additional black tattoo on the wrist of her left arm, lined up neatly with the others.

  ‘Can I assist you, Khaos?’ Melody quavered, but Khaos waved her hand to silence her, concentrating on the corpses along the shore. She lifted each one by the shoulders, checking their faces. Then she let out a cry as she discovered a woman she seemed to recognise and choked back a sob as she cradled the dead woman’s head.

  ‘Who is it?’

  ‘Georgi,’ Khaos whispered.

  ‘The one that hit you with the tray?’

  ‘Yes. She was not herself then. I thought I had got there in time… ’

  ‘Can’t you bring her back?’

  ‘I don’t have that power.’ Khaos touched the woman’s cheek, then lightly pulled her eyelids down. She laid her gently back down on the sand and got to her feet. ‘They need a proper burial. All these people. And there are more, on the other beach, on the other side of the cliff. You must do this for me, disciple.’

  Melody nodded.

  ‘Are you leaving?’

  ‘I must move on. There are other demons out there… ’

  Melody nodded, choking back the lump in her throat, but she understood.

  ‘Make them help you.’ Khaos indicated the bewildered crowd still standing stupidly on the cliff.

  ‘And my sister. She will help me.’

  Khaos gripped Melody’s shoulders.

  ‘You must not try and find me.’

  ‘What if I need your guidance?’

  ‘You don’t need it. You will know what to do.’

  ‘But–’

  ‘What?’

  ‘But what shall I do? How am I to live, in order to gain eternal life? What must I do? What must we all do?’

  ‘I can’t answer that. It’s not for me to tell you how to live, Melody.’

  ‘But–’

  ‘Here’s an idea. Don’t look to others to tell you how to be. Don’t be led. Just be yourself. Live your life. Fall in love and all that other stuff.’

  ‘That’s it?’

  ‘Keep it simple. And don’t listen to other people’s lies. That’s the best advice I can give you.’ She made to leave, then seemed to remember something else. ‘And Melody?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Don’t tell anyone about me, ok?’

  ‘But how can… ’

  ‘You just can’t, ok? I’m not someone who should be followed, or worshipped, or revered in any way. I’m just doing a job I have to do. No one needs to know about it. Got it?’

  Reluctantly, Melody nodded.

  ‘Goodbye then,’ said Khaos, as she mounted Nyx again.

  ‘Farewell,’ Melody murmured, as Nyx set off along the beach at a trot, then a canter, then was airborne, flapping his enormous wings, carrying Khaos away towards the setting sun. Melody watched until they were gone from sight, holding her breath, and as she exhaled, she breathed: ‘Saviour.’

  END OF VOLUME TWO