by Greg Dragon
“Where did you get this gun?” he asked.
She opened her mouth in response but no words came out.
One of the men in black tried to raise his gun to catch James off guard, but a gunshot rang out from one of the windows and struck him in the head, killing him instantly.
“I SAID STAND DOWN!” the woman lashed out, and then raised her hands to urge James to loosen his grip on her.
“I-I’m your little soldier, remember?” she whispered to him and James released his grip.
~ * ~ * ~
Alysia stood amidst a trio of fallen palm trees staring out at the brute as it walked along the shores of the emerald beach, bordered on all sides by tall, black demons. It was an odd mix, this company of twisted, dark, creatures and the beautiful backdrop of the tropical Haitian beach in the twilight. She watched him intently, paying close attention to his movements, his gait, and the large spear that he held in his fist as he barked commands at his army.
He reminded her of a large cat, a black lion or panther, standing on its hind legs, walking around as if it wanted to emulate a human being. His skin was blackish blue with boney spikes jutting from his extremities. He was definitely the stuff of nightmares—they all were—but fear was not a luxury that Alysia could afford, so she replaced her horror with anger and anticipation.
She looked down at the sword that the knight had given her. It still felt foreign and stolen in her hands, unlike the Twilight Sword, which had felt very much like a part of her. She gripped the handle and held it in front of her, then closed her eyes to recall the words that Lancert, her supposed father, had said to her when he shattered the Twilight Sword. “A weapon that Chaos cannot corrupt.” She sheathed it and inhaled as she thought about her next move, and then stepped out onto the sand and bellowed out a battle cry.
“Aargh!” she screamed, letting it bolster her courage.
“ALYSIA KNIGHT!” the big demon bellowed, and he pointed at her as his horde of followers ran in her direction.
She gripped the hilt of the sword as they came at her and as the first one reached her, she pulled it out with deadly results. Her arms were a weaving propeller of death as she moved into the midst of them, cutting deeply wherever she connected. When the blade’s strike was fatal, it caused the demons to explode into ashes. Her strikes began to increase in their effectiveness, and before long she was walking through hills of ashes as she cut into the demons that ran at her.
When the last of their number had run to its death, she began to feel the effects of her new sword. Unlike the Twilight Sword that would pulse with the hunger of killing demons, this new blade transferred their life into energy. She felt stronger and more agile in her movements, the sword having leeched their life force to empower its master. She stopped amidst the ashes and held her arms out to either side. She slowly brought them together to grip the hilt, and then lifted the sword to hover over her head as she focused her eyes on the giant cat-like demon.
He was onto her before she could manage a reaction, snatching her waist with his giant paw and spinning to throw her into the wake. Alysia flew through the air towards the dark waters but twisted herself so she would land on her feet. She splashed down but kept her sword high, and then walked back out onto the shore where the demon was sprinting to catch her again. This time he didn’t grab her but slid on the sand in an attempt to knock her down. Alysia jumped and spun with the blade, but her attack missed the giant beast as he nimbly sprang up and landed in the water, facing her.
She was liking the energizing feeling of the new sword, and as she stared out at the demon that was calculating its next move, she realized that Lancert had not given it a name. The cat demon tore through the sand to gain momentum in his charge towards her, and threw a punch that was meant to remove her head. Alysia dodged his fist with a spin and thrust the blade to her rear, feeling it strike home as she expected. The creature screamed in agony as it entered his body, and when he spun to backhand her away from him, she dropped to her knees and lay back on the sand, bringing the sword up to protect her body.
The demon scrambled away from her, wracked by the pain that her sword had wrought. His eyes were so red that she thought he would cry blood, and it was then that she knew that something bad was about to happen. He bellowed a deep, guttural roar that shook the earth, and it was so loud and deafening that she was forced to cover her ears. He grabbed a canoe that had been left discarded on the beach and hurled it into her body, causing it to shatter and leaving her bloodied on the sand.
Alysia’s ears were ringing and her bones felt weak. The impact of the boat had knocked the wind out of her, and from what she could see through the blurred daze of her vision, the demon was bearing down on her to finish the job. She climbed to her feet and jumped out of the way, causing him to whiff his grab as he threw his body at her. When he scrambled to get back to his feet she struck, swinging the sword upwards, then spinning and swinging it upwards again. Her two slashes cut into the haunches of the demon and it screamed, but this time she placed her foot in his side and climbed him, thrusting the blade into his neck when she gained his shoulders.
The demon spun, trying in vain to tear her off as she continued to hack away at his vulnerable neck. When he spun violently in a last desperate move, he finally managed to throw her off and then took off running before she could recover.
“Why do you guys always have to run?” she muttered under her breath as she stood up with her hand on her sore ribs.
She ran after him, blinking away the pain and she remembered a story that her father, James Knight, had told her. It was one of the few times he had talked about his time as a Navy Seal. She was complaining that he had her doing too many pushups and he recounted a story about how his superiors would make them run for miles through wet sand. She thought of her dad having to run through sand like she was doing now.
I’m definitely my dad’s daughter, she thought to herself and it made her smile when she thought about what he would say when she told him.
“Oh, you got a little wet and you’re running comparisons?” he would say, and she would reply, “No, Dad, but you had to see the size of the thing that I was fighting!”
The demon made a dash for the trees that stood inland, forcing Alysia to chase him through a dense thicket and up into the mountains. The blood on the sword was dry from the cuts she had dealt it, and as the blade took this in, Alysia felt stronger and her pace quickened. She could barely feel the ground under her feet as she whisked by ruined homes and downed power lines. The demon was intent on getting away from her, but he was losing ground as she healed and grew faster.
Suddenly a massive giant jumped down from one of the tallest hills and landed in front of her. She cut off the path that Alysia was following to get to the demon. She drew her sword and stopped to face it. The giant was nude, ugly, and its skin shone slick and wet beneath the moonlight. Alysia waited for it to make a move but kept her eye on the general direction that the demon had fled. The giant reached for her and she jumped past her grasp to run up her arm. When she reached the top of the forearm near the elbow, she drove the sword under her bicep.
Anticipating the sudden movement that would come from her thrust, she pulled the blade out and somersaulted backwards, running between the screaming giant’s legs to catch up with the fleeing demon.
It took an hour to catch up with him, but when she did he was on a bed of grass, lying on his stomach to let the night air touch his wounds as he healed. Alysia issued no warning when she found him, and ran onto his back to pin him down as she drove her blade into the base of his neck. The demon didn’t even have a chance to scream when she stabbed him, and as the life poured from his body, he exploded into ashes and Alysia was struck with a new sensation.
It felt as if she had stuck a knife into an electrical socket; the world grew black and her limbs grew numb. The overload of energy that came from the demon’s passing found its way into her, and she floated over the ashes with her limbs outst
retched as it took her through a transformation she couldn’t explain.
When it was all over and she could open her eyes, she looked down at her arms and saw that she had grown stronger. There was a sinewy look to her limbs that had not been there before, and the sword felt lighter and more in tune with her blood. As she felt her heart beating, too loudly to ignore, she saw that the blade pulsed in tune with it. The demon’s blood had sealed her to the sword, and she lifted it above her head and grinned despite herself because it felt so good.
“Euphoria!” She yelled the blade’s new name as if she commanded the world to recognize it for the first time. “Euphoria, the Soul Eater!” She finished its name, and the blade took on a new brilliance as if it accepted its moniker.
Once back on the ground, Alysia sheathed the sword and then inhaled the night air. She was happy with herself for a successful hunt. She walked down from the mountain to the beach and then sat on the sand to enjoy the moonlight. She couldn’t recall the last time she had allowed herself to sit, and to just simply enjoy life.
In Yalem, she would always look up at the mustard sky to admire its negative mirroring of her own world. While on earth, in her own world, she had never taken the time to appreciate the beauty of her surroundings. She sat there for hours, feeling the pulse of the sword’s energy and letting her mind roam to happy memories: when her mother was alive, and her father was filled with stories.
No demons came out to harass her as she sat, and when the dawn finally broke and the memories faded, she stood up, clasped her hands together, and slipped into a meditative state. The world grew dark around her form, and she appeared in a bizarre field of orange grass, blue flowers, and a bright yellow sky where two suns hovered brilliantly above. She walked through the tall grass, letting her hands touch the tops of their long, fuzzy stalks.
She always liked it here, the setting being a peaceful escape from her deadly world and the things that invaded. Her walk took her onto a golden highway that cut through the grass and flowed endlessly into the horizon. As her bare feet touched its metallic surface, she closed her eyes, imagining Asia, the Great Wall of China, and the trees that surrounded it. She kept on walking, letting her toes enjoy the coolness of the road, until she no longer felt anything and her world was dark once again.
~ * ~ * ~
“Maria, little Maria?” Jaime asked as they sat around the table inside of the barracks talking. “You were going to kill me! How do you recognize Mr. Knight and not the rest of us?”
“It’s been a long time since I saw you. The only faces I could remember were James and Tracy’s. I thought you were a team of looters that stole one of my guns a few months ago,” Maria said as she kept her eyes on Tracy. “Hi, Auntie,” she said suddenly, as if she had just noticed Tracy for the first time. “You haven’t said one word to me since I came in. You, more than anyone else, should have something to say. Are you okay?”
Tracy walked forward and sat next to her, touching her hair and brushing it back to look at the lines of age and struggle that ran the length of her face. “Maria,” she said finally. “I missed your entire life. It makes me sad; it really does. Where’s your mom? Angelica?”
“Mom died not too long after you all left to find whatever fountain of youth you did to stay so soft and good-looking. Really, what’s with that, anyway? Why do you look so young? Tell me your secret, Auntie. Why are you so young?” Maria asked as she leaned in and touched Tracy’s face.
“Just go on ahead and tell her,” James said when Tracy flashed him a look of desperation. “It’s bad enough that we have all sorts of craziness killing people all over. Adding in our own brand of crazy to Maria’s reality shouldn’t be anything to worry about.”
“No doubt,” Maria said. “Just tell me. I assure you, I’ve seen it all.”
“After we left the bunker, Maria—which we did to keep the demons hunting Alysia away from the rest of you,” Tracy explained, trying to gather her thoughts and make sense of what she was about to say. “We went into the city, found ourselves lost and missing Alysia. Then we found her and sort of went forward in time. Wait, that doesn’t make any sense. Yeah, we went down into an old subway tunnel where an explosion happened and we all passed out and woke up thirty years later.”
Maria looked as if she was in deep thought. She had put her shades back on, and was leaning back in her chair as if she were the coolest person alive. “Well there WAS a bomb,” she said in response. “One of our so-called allies overseas thought they would do us all a favor and drop a bomb on us to kill the demons. It was supposed to have chemicals that would only hurt them, but a lot of people got messed up from the payload. Buildings fell, cars exploded … yeah, the bomb itself was cool, but it was a bad idea. Plus, the demons merely went underground when it hit. You’ve seen them, I’m sure. The chemical is still in the air so they don’t hang out aboveground anymore, but they’re still here.”
“Where are all the humans?” James asked as he eyed the dark figures that stood at attention near the door. He noticed that they kept Maria in their masked sights at all times.
“Scattered about. There are still plenty of people alive, don’t get me wrong, but the thirty years you missed were survival of the fittest. Robbing, killing, raping, you name it. Whatever a human being could do to another to get over, he did it. Some of us just turned out to be a lot stronger than others … I guess I can thank you two for that” Maria said, with a sad smile. “Mom was a domesticated kitten from the old world, and without Auntie there to protect her, or a big bad soldier like you, Mr. Knight, well, they did her something dirty and left us for dead. The queen demon down there turned her, and I just ran my young ass up to the surface and never stopped running.”
She laughed and then leaned down and knocked a tuft of grass out of her boot.
“How did you come by the doom squad?” Jaime asked, and she looked him up and down before answering.
“You first,” she said. “Where did you get the sword wielding brat pack? They look like they could be little demons, or half-breeds or something. The way that little one keeps looking at me, I’m beginning to wonder about them.”
“Be nice,” Tracy said. “They’re Alysia’s friends and a part of our team. They’re human enough and they aren’t things, so you could ask them yourself if you’re that wary.”
Maria looked down at her hands and shook her head. “Nah, no need. As for the team back there, they’re mine. That’s all you need to know – for now.” She stood up and spoke to the masked men in Spanish, telling them to go back into the woods and wait for her. They marched outside of the door and she sat down and yawned, looking at each of them with a slight smile on her face. “It’s good to be with you all again … with family, y’know? Just when I thought that every human being was a piece of crap, here you are. Maybe there is a God.”
As Tracy began to talk to Maria, Koko touched Jaime on the hand and pulled him back into the next room.
“Hey, Koko, you okay?” he said when they got inside. Jasmine and Isobel slipped in behind him to face her.
“I can’t be the only one who feels frightened by that woman,” Koko said suddenly. “Without CeeCee here, I feel so vulnerable in this world, but there is something about that woman that makes me uneasy.”
Isobel spoke up. “She has the glow of a huntress, but no huntress can go undetected by us. Maybe it’s because she’s killed so many of the lost that the stink is on her.” She shrugged her tiny shoulders and looked at Jasmine for answers.
“It’s all so frightening,” the tall girl said, as she wrung her hands and unconsciously touched the hilt of her sword. “I wish CeeCee was here; she would know what to do.”
“I miss her too,” Jaime said. “Maybe Maria’s blatant meanness to you guys is what is setting off your demon radars. She hasn’t really been nice to anybody outside of Tracy and Mr. Knight, so I definitely understand. She was a little cute thing the last time I saw her, riding on Mr. Knight’s shoulders and trying har
d to be like CeeCee. Now she’s Sarah Connor, the Terminator’s mother...”
“The who?” Koko asked.
“Never mind. It’s an old movie—I mean, story—that I liked as a kid. Come on girls, she’s cool; just a little, hard, you know? She’s been through a lot; a whole lot, you can tell. When she brought up her mom turning, she didn’t even flinch. So you just got to, like, understand where she’s coming from, okay?”
They all nodded with the exception of Koko, who looked at the doorway uneasily. “Whatever you say, Jaime, but I have to trust my instincts. As long as that woman is around here, I will not be sleeping.”
Chapter Two
Alysia knelt down and touched the ground. The slight tremors told her that a giant was close, but experience told her that it could very well be the demon himself. She missed the powers from Chaos that Lancert had cleansed. With his blood she could feel the lost, hear their whisperings, and track them easily. Now she was limited in her reach. She knew which countries and areas held the V’Kosha that she was meant to kill, but she had no idea what to expect when she encountered them.
Chaos had told her that with every killing would come a change, something added to her physiology or mental capacity to prepare her for the Great War. The first demon had hurt Jasmine, and when she finally killed it, she was granted the ability to travel great distances through meditation. The gift from the second had taken some time for her to figure out. It was a defensive gift: armor would shoot up her arms from the sword, wrapping them in a decorative silver metal. It only went up to her biceps, but danger triggered it, and when she felt the tremors the silver cobwebs climbed her dark arms and wrapped them securely in ethereal gauntlets and vambraces.
She stood on the outside of the Great Wall of China, or what was the Great Wall, and looked around for the source. A few people had seen her walk out from the woods with her sword at the ready, and had run from her as if she were a demon herself. She paid them no mind when she approached the wall, keeping her senses sharp for the thing that she hunted.
