by G Mottram
An air strike shot out and the demon flew back with the crimson fire meant for Marakoff, crackling in a great arc from its finger.
‘Jason,’ Anna yelled, reaching out of the window for him.
Jason ignored her and leapt down, throwing an air-punch over the floor-pinned Marakoff. The glimmerman on top of him, nothing more than a vague shimmer in the gloom, was smashed away and disappeared into shadows.
Marakoff flipped to his feet in an instant but his bad leg almost buckled beneath him.
Nothing moved for a moment. Jason could have sworn he somehow ‘felt’ Dad in the back of his head.
Then the shooting started.
Machine fire from a dozen positions ripped into the hotel and Anna disappeared from the window. Jason swore. Without him being there the Brethren were free to blast the two other students to shreds.
Jason stepped in so close to Marakoff that they were touching, hopefully shielding him from any similar attack. He needn’t have bothered. No gunfire came their way; in fact they were all but ignored. Obviously Jason was to be left untouched.
He snapped his head around to where the demon had landed. It lay back, relaxing against a still smouldering corpse thrown from the helicopter. Slowly, red lips pulled back over dazzling white fangs.
‘Do not look into its eyes. Do not let it touch you.’ Marakoff whispered in Jason’s ear. ‘It is playing with you.’
Marakoff began edging them both back towards the west wall – lined now with the crumpled bodies of the Brethren he’d silently killed. The door to the infirmary corridor was their only way out.
Sporadic gun fire still came from the hotel. Eddie and Anna were still alive and Jason wouldn’t leave without them.
The demon almost floated to its feet, the dark nimbus shimmering tight around its whole body and its red eyes burning brighter than ever.
‘It wants to fight,’ Marakoff whispered as they stepped carefully across the mat, ‘it wants to exhaust you physically and mentally – fear and despair are his key to possessing you.’
Jason flicked his eyes to the gap in the outside wall. The black-clad Brethren lines were holding fast. No rescue was coming any time soon.
‘Our only hope is to reach the door,’ Marakoff said.
Jason stared at the demon. It was waiting for him to decide – fight or flight.
Behind him Anna and Eddie were trapped and fighting for their lives. Somewhere in the shadows a bruised glimmerman was waiting for them and the demon would be on them before they could get within ten metres of the door.
Fight it was then.
Jason pulled away from Marakoff and stepped towards the demon.
‘An unusual choice,’ Marakoff whispered in his ear but followed him anyway.
‘Excellent, boy-child.’ The demon spoke. Its voice was deep, resonating with power and its grin grew to almost split its host’s face. ‘Let me introduce myself before I take your soul. I am Nazahirim.’
Jason centred his gaze on the demon’s chest to avoid its eyes and keep all its limbs in view. He forced down his fluttering stomach and stilled his thoughts to cold, unassailable determination. This was it. He would win here, win or die. He’d never allow himself to be possessed.
The demon took a couple of exaggerated, gunslinger paces forward, obviously revelling in its game.
‘It will stop only if you cut off its head or remove its limbs. Almost everything else it can heal in moments. You may need this.’
His mind now ice cold, Jason’s fingers closed around the warm leather grip of the Katana Marakoff pressed into his right hand. It was weighted perfectly, the blade felt as light as air.
The demon, Nazahirim’s eyes flicked to the blade then it laughed, scorn dripping from the base rumble.
Doubt wormed into Jason’s icy resolve. ‘I’ve hardly used a…’ he began but Marakoff was gone.
Jason took a step forward, then another. He would win here.
Nazahirim shrugged and strode towards him, matching him stride for stride.
At six steps apart Jason suddenly punched out. The demon was like quicksilver. It twisted in a blur and the air strike smashed into the smouldering chopper shell in an explosion of sparks and metal.
The fire-burst lit up the hall for a moment and Jason struck at the demon again and again as he walked - jab, punch, flick kick, faster and faster as the two of them drew closer.
Every strike missed, blasting weapon racks apart and whole chunks out of the walls. Nazahirim’s movements were impossibly slick as it twisted, ducked and span around each attack. Twice it turned aside the shimmering air-strikes with one hand cloaked in that dark nimbus.
Jason redoubled his efforts, effortlessly drawing energy in and sending it searing back out through each attacking limb in shimmering blows almost too fast to see.
Nazahirim was forced to block more and more. Jason pressed forward.
When they were just three steps apart, a blow landed.
The demon flew backwards, doubling up in mid-air. It smashed into the flaming chopper and its nimbus dissolved.
Jason sprinted forward raising his Katana but something swept his legs from under him.
His blade went flying as he fought to break his fall but he managed to twist back onto his knees. The barely visible outline of a man, nothing more than a heat-haze, kicked him down again.
Jason rolled passed a lump of fuselage. The glimmerman ran for him but suddenly Marakoff was there, leaping out of the wreckage and slicing with another Katana.
He took off the glimmerman’s head with one cut. The body fazed back into sight even as it dropped down in a spray of blood with the head rolling away over the matting.
Marakoff reached down to pull Jason up but flame licked over his outstretched hand and seared across his chest. Nazahirim was back in action.
Marakoff stumbled backwards ripping off his burning top. The demon leapt right over Jason and slapped Marakoff away with one hand. Marakoff flew up off the mat and smacked into the wall. He slid down and lay still, the remnants of his sweater still smouldering around him.
Jason leapt for his fallen Katana and rolled to his feet. His legs almost buckled from the glimmerman’s earlier attack but he leapt towards Nazahirim and sliced at its neck.
Like a striking cobra, the demon snapped back to avoid the blade and then whipped forward. Its hand licked out and caught Jason’s sword-wrist in a grip of searing hot agony.
Jason cried out. Nazahirim’s fingers were burning into his skin. He desperately twisted against the demon’s thumb and lashed out with his free hand. The demon caught his blow easily and with unbelievable strength, forced Jason down to his knees, its fingers blackening his flesh. Jason could smell his own skin burning.
He was trapped. He couldn’t punch, kick or twist away. The demon had the strength of five men, ten even. It brought its face inches in front of his. This close, its skin seemed alive with pulsing red veins and its breath was a harsh rattle that stank of decay.
Jason slammed his head forward, smashing the demon’s nose.
The grin curled back even further and it started to get inside his head.
Jason twisted his head from side to side but it clamped both his wrists in one huge hand and grabbed his chin with the other. Jason squeezed his eyes shut but Nazahirim’s blazing crimson slits still filled his vision. A red mist began to lace through his mind, cloying his thoughts, sapping his will.
No.
Jason focussed on the word, imagined it frosting over in the centre of his mind, pushing tendrils of ice out through his brain and freezing the red mist, destroying it.
The contact broke. Jason’s vision began to clear. The demon stared at him, its eyes burning still. Suddenly it snapped its head to one side.
Marakoff was pulling himself towards them, his face drenched in sweat and his bad leg dragging behind him.
Nazahirim’s eyes narrowed to slits. ‘Your resistance forces me to harm your devoted protector.’
The demon
snapped Jason down flat on the floor and pinned him down with one hand burning at the back of his neck. Jason’s mind was still numb. He couldn’t think clearly, only stare at Marakoff and stare into his eyes.
The demon pointed one finger at Marakoff and a ribbon of fire leapt out. Marakoff screamed as the flame laced itself all around him, crackling across his body as he wrenched himself back up to his knees. It wrapped around his legs, head and arms in searing coils as he tried desperately to roll back into the shadows. His flesh smoked and blackened everywhere the fire touched him.
‘Nooooo,’ Jason screamed, writhing and twisting to break the hot iron grip on his neck. The demon pinned him down harder with one knee on his back and continued to burn the screaming Marakoff.
Despair flooded through Jason and instantly the red mist streamed deep into his mind.
An ice-white image suddenly blazed through the swirling mist in Jason’s head - Dad.
The infirmary door exploded into the room. The demon whipped its fire-hand around even as Jason’s eyes found his father stepping into the light.
Red fire crackled out at Dad but he had already begun. A scalpel-sharp air-disk silently sliced away the arm holding Jason’s neck an instant before the demon was blasted across the room, its fire lashing harmlessly over what was left of the ceiling and into the night sky.
Nazahirim bounced over the mat and tried to roll to its feet but Dad sent it smashing into the wall with a mighty double push. Marble and bones cracked with the impact and Nazahirim slid to the ground.
The dozen or so Brethren agents scattered around the room who had been watching Jason’s struggle realized what was happening and turned their weapons on Dad. Ilena Russof stepped out from behind him with a Kalashnikov in each hand and gunned down half of them as Dad threw out his fingers to send a storm of nail-thin shafts of solid air piercing through the rest.
Ten metres away, Nazahirim jerked up from the floor and roared with a multi-voiced scream of tormented souls as its bones crunched and snapped back into line
It was the last sound that body ever made.
Dad literally flew at it, launching himself over half the burning helicopter with one hand snapping forward. This time, the demon slammed so hard against the wall that its spine burst apart and ribs splintered through its skin. As he landed, Dad whipped out a Katana strapped to his back and in the same motion, sliced off Nazahirim’s head.
Even as the body dropped away from blood spattered wall, a black mist hissed out from the headless neck.
The Katana already sheathed, Dad’s flashed his hands around in a gesture like smoothing wrapping paper around a large football. Instantly the demon spirit was trapped in a shimmering sphere of solid air, supported by a pencil thin shaft.
The gunfire outside faltered and moments later, began to draw away in sporadic bursts. A Brethren retreat?
Ilena dashed over to Marakoff and Jason stumbled towards his father. ‘Dad, I…’
Schmidt burst in through the hole in the wall with a score of security guards leaping in after him. He sent half of them to check the dead Brethren while the other half joined him to form a wide circle around Dad, Jason, Ilena and Marakoff.
‘Please – no one move.’ Schmidt said. For some reason they held their weapons trained on the four of them.
Dad ignored Schmidt’s team. He kept his hands cupped, a double, shimmering stream drawing in energy from the sphere to keep the air solid. Inside, Nazahirim’s demon spirit was roiling black mist, vaguely human shaped and still with those red eye-slits burning in the darkness.
Dad backed over to Jason, ‘Are you hurt, son?’ His voice cracked a little as he glanced at him but his face was calm, composed. His eyes darted around the silent room.
‘I’m okay but Marakoff…’ Jason stopped talking and glanced over at the fallen ghost. Ilena crouched over him now, her eyes and guns covering Brash’s men. He was still alive… somehow.
‘We have to get him some help,’ Jason said, staring down, not knowing what to do with his hands.
‘I will live.’ Marakoff opened his eyes, took in a deep breath and struggled to sit up. ‘The demon was planning to play with me for quite some time to break your will, I think. He did not want me to die too quickly.’
A door creaked open at one end of the halls. Ilena whipped one Kalashnikov over to the hotel and a dozen more flicked around as half of Schmidt’s men followed Ilena’s lead.
‘Don’t shoot.’ Anna’s voice came out of the darkened lobby and a moment later she and Eddie stepped outside with their hands up.
They both had pistols pressed against the back of their heads.
Four Brethren men held them captive. Instantly, Jason knew they were all Touched. They didn’t have the wild look of the super-strong beast in the cloister but their eyes burned with fierce life and each one carried itself as if it could rule the world. Two held the guns to Anna and Eddie’s head and the other two swung wide bladed swords and had bandanas of glinting shurikens strapped across their chests.
Six black robed Brethren appeared at the hotel windows, each snapping a rifle out. The instant the rifles appeared, Dad flipped up an air shield between them and the hotel with one hand while the other hand maintained the demon cage. Schmidt and his men all dived for cover and snapped up their weapons.
A half dozen more security appeared at the hole in the wall. Schmidt flashed a hand signal and they sank down into the rubble.
Stalemate.
The Touched pointing a gun at Anna’s head smiled. He was tall and thin with long blonde hair tied back in a ponytail.
‘This will happen quickly or not at all,’ he said, his baritone voice rich with confidence. ‘These two will walk five paces towards you and stop. Then you release our glorious master, Nazahirim. If you do not, we kill them and then you.’
Dad, his outstretched hands imprisoning a demon in one and a wall of shimmering air in the other, glanced at Jason.
‘We can’t let them die, Dad,’ Jason said, ‘– they’ve kept me alive all through this.’
Dad hesitated for only a moment then turned to the Touched. ‘Fine – start them walking. Slowly.’
Schmidt glanced across at Dad but didn’t countermand his orders. Alan Brash’s daughter had a gun to her head.
The pony tailed Touched smiled wider and pushed Anna forward. Eddie followed her.
One step.
‘You know they will kill them anyway?’ Marakoff whispered to Dad.
Three steps.
Dad nodded. ‘I’m on it.’
Four steps.
Almost faster than Jason could see, Dad released the demon and the wall and swung both hands over to slam down a massive air-shield just beyond Anna, Eddie – shielding them all from the Brethren.
Instantly the demon spirit whipped through the air and flowed down the throat of the pony-tailed Touched. Both sides opened fire and Anna and Eddie sprinted towards Jason protected by Dad’s wall.
‘Fool!’ cried Nazahirim, the human voice magnified a hundred times. Fire arced around the room and half of Schmidt’s men burst into flame.
Suddenly a second, much larger air-wall crystallised into existence across the whole hall from floor to ceiling and sealed off the demon and Brethren. Bullets ricocheted off the solid air and Nazahirim’s fire writhed along its length but nothing got through. The fighting stopped as quickly as it had begun.
Willow followed the narrow stream of air shimmering back from the new barrier to its source.
Alan Brash stood in the broken outer wall, a searchlight flaring into life behind him to light the hall but throw his shadow across the walls.
Brash drew energy from the immense wall with one finger, while the other hand smoothed back his golden hair.
‘Heavens, what a mess,’ he said, surveying the burned and twisted chopper, the rubble from roof and walls and the bullet-ripped hotel beyond his barrier.
And then Violet Gray moved slowly out from behind him, her shadow creeping out towar
ds Jason.
Her eyes burned demon red.
Chapter 25
‘Go get the nasty demon, sweetie.’ Brash said and dropped his wall.
Violet flew straight for Nazahirim. Fire burst from her outstretched fingers and incinerated two of the Touched beside him an instant before she closed with the other demon.
With the wall gone, the hall burst into gunfire again. Alicia Sirensong appeared next to Brash with bullets already blazing from a machine-pistol in each hand. Thirty or forty Brash security stormed in around her to join Schmidt and what was left of his men in a devastating crossfire against the Brethren attempting to shoot from the hotel windows.
As the hotel was ripped apart in a hailstorm of bullets, Dad whipped up a shield wall again to protect his little group of Marakoff, Jason, Ilena, Eddie and Anna.
‘What the hell has he done?’ Dad hissed. ‘We need to get out of here - now.’
Jason couldn’t answer. His friend Violet and Nazahirim were wrapped in flame and ripping at each other with teeth and claws. Brash had somehow let a demon possess his ward.
‘The door,’ Marakoff said. He was using his Katana to take the weight off his bad leg but before anyone moved, a bazooka rocket streaked towards the hotel and blew half of it to smithereens.
The shooting died out – there wasn’t a Brethren left alive. The battle outside seemed over as well. A dozen more Brash security ran in through the blasted wall, mouths opening silently as they followed everybody else’s gazes to the one remaining fight.
Violet broke Nazahirim’s grip and threw him from her. Even as he span through the air, she pummelled him with air punches.
‘The girl is Gifted.’ Marakoff hissed. ‘This is madness.’
Nazahirim crashed through the charred skeleton of the hotel and smashed into the wall beyond. Violet sent an inferno to engulf him and the flesh charred instantly from the ponytailed host’s body. Violet fed the inferno with both hands and her face contorted in manic laugher from a dozen discordant voices screaming from her mouth.
Nazahirim’s blackened-husk of a body sank to its knees. Violet cut the fire and leapt on him. Her mouth frothing with red-flecked foam she tore the head from its shoulders with one sickening yank. The body spasmed and Nazahirim’s black spirit burst out through the neck and streamed for the broken wall, gathering the darkness to it.
