by Greg Dragon
He pulled out his gun, looking frantically to the left and right as he marched ahead. He could feel the blood pumping into his ears; it was loud, too loud for him to hear the demons or whatever it was that were there. How does Maria walk through this every day? he thought. If she can do it, I can do it, too. He pushed on with more determination, knowing that at any moment he would break through the trees and stumble upon her encampment.
When he pushed into the darkest part of the woods where the voice was cautioning him to stop, he realized his mistake. He had his eyes wide open and was ready for anything, but he had not been thinking clearly. Koko, his beautiful young warrior, and her tiny frame had occupied every inch of his mind. The cold was what hit him first, and then the pain, as several black figures slammed into him from every angle, bruising him and cutting him until all he knew was pain. He saw the mangled body of Koko, inverted and tied to a tree limb, swaying in the near blackness of the clearing. He felt his life passing, and he knew he was in trouble when the love of his life, this young, brave, warrior of the Garot, screamed his name with a blood curdling finality.
~ * ~ * ~
A kick in the gut. That was what it felt like to Alysia Knight as she faced down a tall thin man in the ruins of a castle of what used to be Ireland. The man was a zombie if appearances said anything. His skin barely stretched across his big bones, and the tattered clothing he wore would have been an expensive suit, treasured by a businessperson, back in the days before supernatural creatures ransacked their world.
She slipped behind a pillar of stone as his bullet rang out, and then used her thumb to open the blade from its scabbard the way she always did. She felt the kick again, this time stronger, and she knew instinctively that one of the girls was in trouble. They needed to end this fight, so that she could get back to Isobel, Koko, and Jasmine. She peeked her head out to see what the old redheaded corpse was planning to do, and he fired another shot, barely missing her face as the bullet lodged itself within the rock.
Alysia squeezed the hilt and allowed herself a moment of panic, causing the armor to react and encase her body in its silvery steel. The demon wasn’t expecting this when she popped back out and he began firing immediately. The bullets from his small handgun merely bounced off the armor as Alysia closed in on him. She took his hand off with the swing of her sword as she sped past him, turning as she did to see what kind of damage the cut had done.
He held the bloody stump, smiling in the way a skeleton does out of no fault of its own. The skin that would have covered his mouth was long gone, and the jagged row of teeth that ran from ear to ear chattered as he looked down at his wound and then back up at her. She waited for him to speak. She was expecting a threat, some kind of warning, or perhaps a loud boast, telling her which friend or family member she had lost in the last few hours.
He did neither. Instead, he showed her the stump of his hand, which oozed a disgustingly thick, yellow substance that plopped out as if something from within the wound was pushing it out. She watched the ooze as it solidified and reformed into a hand to replace the former one. That’s different, she thought. This one has some sort of accelerated healing power and is able to shoot guns. He leaned down to recover the fallen pistol and Alysia dashed forward and took his head off, screaming, “KIYAH!” loudly, catching herself as she did this because the noise had come from out of nowhere.
She bounced back and lifted Euphoria above her head to see if the demon would explode into ashes. The headless corpse fell to the ground, not far from the area where the head had rolled and it lay there twitching as Alysia Knight looked to make sure no other creatures were sneaking up on her. She wished t she could still hear them; it was the one gift of Chaos’s that she would have kept if given a choice.
The yellow goop dripped from out of his neck just like the arm had done before it and sure enough, a head grew from out of it to replace the former. Alysia rolled her eyes and looked down at the blade. There was no trace of blood, pus or slime from the cuts she had made, and she surmised that the creature in front of her was not a demon like the rest. It was an elite, that was for sure, and her fifth mark for Chaos that would supposedly save the world—though she wasn’t convinced this was true.
She wondered why this demon was so different from the rest, having no shadowy, monstrous body, or misty cold blackness to terrorize its enemies with. It was slimy and zombie-like, though zombies of lore would die once you sever the spine or pierce the brain, she thought. Pierce the brain. She ran in and thrust the tip of the sword into the soft, developing head of the downed demon and pulled it out, hoping to see it explode or give some sort of sign that her hunch was correct. He merely looked up at her and stood, bringing the gun up with him, ready to resume firing.
Think, CeeCee, think! Looking around for something that could clue her in on how to defeat her opponent, she focused her eyes on the figure of the demon and it’s sickly, taut skin that barely covered the bones. He had an awkward anatomy that betrayed his attempt at appearing human to her. The midsection was too round for the skeletal arms and legs, and he could barely move due to it, outside of standing and aiming the weapon.
She timed the bullet, letting the speed of her newfound powers spin her past it. But instead of chopping at the neck like she wanted to do, she disemboweled the demon and then brought the blade back around to cut through his legs. The sound that she had wanted to come from him when she struck his head now emitted from his abdominal as he was split open, revealing a miniature demon on the inside. It looked like a cross between a vampire bat and a large serpent, and it uncoiled itself and took to the air to get away from her as she raised the blade for a killing strike.
Alysia jumped and slashed at the creature as it beat wet wings to escape her deadly stroke, and she barely missed as it got higher and higher. She scooped up the pistol from the discarded corpse and began to fire at it. Her aim was terrible and the weapon was heavy but she kept on firing until it was overheated.
One of the bullets caught the wing of the creature and it crashed into the woods beyond the ruins. Alysia sheathed her sword and chanced a glance at the corpse. It was quickly decaying as it lay without its host and she wondered how long it had been used for it to be in the useless state that it now was. She took to her heels and ran to where the creature had fallen.
There were bushes all over, and the late hour made it hard to see, but she knew it was still in the vicinity, that telltale pulse coming back to her. She stopped and held her breath to listen to her surroundings. There was an eerie silence that made the air seem thick, but she stood like a statue in anticipation of the wounded creature trying to flee.
When the large wolf came crashing through the woods at her, she wasn’t quite ready for it, as she expected it to be the demon. It was massive, and when it crashed into her she thought that perhaps it was a bear. She placed her armored hand up around its maw to stop the gnashing teeth from finding her face as it brought her to the ground. As she lay beneath its heavy body, she could feel its enormous gut pushing down on her painfully, making it hard to breathe.
He was like a big, shaggy dog with the exception of his eyes. Where there was once the sad, curious life of a wild animal within those sockets, there now was deep blackness. The demon was within it and Alysia knew. She struggled to get from beneath it and close a good grip around Euphoria, but the way the wolf lie, gnashing and gnashing at her exposed face, she was not able to feel her sword.
After a time she gave up on the sword and closed both gauntleted hands around its muzzle, squeezing it shut and digging her fingers into its flesh. The wolf felt the pain and backed up off of her, shaking its head to free its mouth from her grip.
Once her hands were free she found her sword and then thrust it through the stomach of the creature. That audible scream that had come out when the bat flew now came from the mouth of the gigantic wolf. She scrambled to her knees and stabbed it again, stabbing and stabbing in hopes of killing the demon. It was after the fifth st
ab that the blade struck home, and the wolf’s body tore open as the demon climbed out to try and escape.
“No, you don’t!” Alysia screamed and then cut it in half as it took to the air. The creature became like oil, splashing thickly from her cut, and then the familiar rush of its life energy took her over. There was nothing special about this rush like the one she experienced with the Chinese demon. She wasn’t lifted into the air, and her body didn’t damage itself in order to grow back stronger. What she felt instead was a feeling of release, as if a great weight had finally been lifted.
What was that gift? she wondered to herself as she walked over to the large wolf’s corpse and sat down next to its massive head.
“I wish he hadn’t corrupted you, you majestic creature.” She spoke to it, stroking its fur and feeling remorseful. “They take, and take, and take. That is all that they do; they corrupt our kind, ruin the land, and force us to join their number. Do not hold it against me that I had to run you through. Understand my intent and know that I would never had done that if you were you.”
She stood up and whispered a prayer for the animal, and then jogged back into the ruins of the castle. She climbed the fallen stones to the top of the highest remaining tower, and once there sat down and waited for the moon to rise.
~ * ~ * ~
“JAIME!” Tracy yelled as she walked behind James, who was using Jaime’s tracks to try and find him. Isobel and Jasmine hung back behind them, saddened and sickly in some strange new state that had come over them since Koko had disappeared. They pushed into the dark woods, the trail telling a tale of Jaime’s quest a few days before when he had disappeared.
“Have we considered that he and the girl may have eloped?” Tracy asked, glancing back at Isobel to see what she had to say.
“I can no longer feel Koko,” the tiny girl said, and wiped a tear.
Tracy looked away quickly, knowing it meant bad things for Jaime’s fate.
“Jimmy, stop,” Tracy announced suddenly. “I’m not safe here. None of us are, and we need to turn back.”
“What about Jaime? We can’t leave him behind,” the big man said, but the three girls didn’t look as enthused as he was to find their friend. “Izzy, Jazz?” he called at them, using the pet names he knew they liked. The two girls looked up with tear-streaked eyes and stared at him as if awaiting instruction. “Take Tracy back to the barracks and wait for me,” he said. “Try to contact CeeCee. Let her know that we’re in a lot of trouble.”
“Jimmy, you can’t—” Tracy began, but he touched her face reassuringly and kissed her lips. “I can’t leave our people behind, Trace. It’s not right. I know how to find them, trust me on that, but I need you to be safe, so you can’t come with me.”
Tracy wanted to object and argue to go with him, but she knew it wouldn’t work and would only delay him further. She held the kiss for a long time, and then when she was certain she could handle the separation, she broke away and jogged behind the two girls.
James Knight held his pistol up and pushed forward through the woods. He glanced back to see the last of the girls as they exited the woods and he pushed on into the area that seemed as if it shunned sunlight. When he got to the shadows, he stopped and closed his eyes, letting them adjust so that he could make out the trees and anything strange that might pop out of them. He twisted his watch one click to the right, forcing it to emit a fluorescent light in hopes of picking up on Jaime’s clothes if he was lying nearby.
He followed the path for the better part of an hour until he came to a clearing that was so alien in its appearance that he lowered his gun. It looked as if a bomb had exploded in the woods and left a perfect circle of flattened trees where he stood. It was empty but stunk of rotted flesh, and as he walked out toward the flattened branches, the ground felt soft and made a whistling sound with every step he made.
“What in the hell?” he said out loud, and then glanced around to see if there was an answer to his question.
A number of black figures began to step out of the woods from the far side and he realized it was Maria’s team of men. He eyed them curiously, wondering why it was that they wore masks even though everyone knew that the chemicals that permeated the air were meant to hurt demons and not human beings. Next came Maria; her hair was out and it draped loosely over her shoulders. She was still in the clothes she wore on the first day and every day afterwards, and he wondered where it was that she had her camp.
“Hey, Hope,” he announced as she walked into the clearing.
“Hey, Mr. Knight,” she replied, showing her fanged teeth in a sort of smile.
He could feel the presence of more of her soldiers walking up from behind him. They seemed to be coming from everywhere, pouring out of the woods like freshly strained coffee through a filter. He didn’t bother to look at them, knowing they were there, and he felt a familiar calm come over him.
“Have you seen Jaime?” he asked her, pretending that the numerous masked men that surrounded him threateningly were not there.
“Jaime? Is that the young guy with the Asian girlfriend?” Maria asked, pretending to think about it as she played along with James’s aloofness.
“Yea, that would be him. He came in here looking for her a while ago, but we haven’t seen him and I know that he came in this direction,” James said.
Maria licked her forefinger and kept her smile as she did it. “Mhm, he may have come this way. But as you know, Mr. Knight, these woods are very dangerous. With all the demons running around and whatever else, I think he may not have reached our camp.”
“Where is your camp?” James asked, keeping his eyes locked on hers and refusing to move a muscle.
“We’re set up back here,” she said, indicating with her thumb the area behind her.
“Nice sword,” James said finally, looking at the decorative scabbard that hung at her waist and recognizing it as Koko’s, a weapon she would never willingly separate herself from.
Maria looked down at the sword as if it was the first time she had noticed it. She cocked her head and looked at James Knight as if she was sizing him up.
“One last question,” James said as he kept on staring at Maria with the masked men looming ever closer to where he stood.
“What?” Maria asked, her patience seemingly gone, along with her smile.
“Was that sweet, innocent girl whose name you claim ever inside that wicked body I’m about to burn?”
He didn’t wait for her to answer as he raised the pistol and shot her between the eyes. The men hesitated for a second when it happened and it was all the time he needed to jump, roll, and rob Maria’s fallen body of the sword.
The men came in at him, unable to open fire due to their proximity with one another, and James Knight used the opportunity to cut them down one after another with Kenjutsu muscle memory that, unlike his daughter, was not the product of organized tournaments. James had been in a situation like this before, but he had been a lot younger and the weapon he had at the time had been a knife.
He caught the first man rushing in by the throat and shifted his leg to go between his as he pulled him violently forward, snapping his leg across his own and then thrusting him backwards into two more. He spun and swung the sword down in an arc, cutting into the hand of one man reaching for him, and catching the face of another who had gotten in too close from the side. He was a maelstrom of fury, and while his moves were not as crisp and impressive as his disciplined daughter, they were strong and effective, and his attackers fell in droves.
The masked men rushed in from all corners, threatening to swarm him, but Koko’s sword was of Yalem and its edge stayed true, helping James Knight keep them off him. While the fighting went on, the form of Maria climbed to her feet and retreated back into the woods. There were tears of pain pouring from her eyes as the bullet pushed further and further into her head. The wound would heal; it always did, but it didn’t make the pain any easier to deal with.
She beat a path through t
he trees to get to the area of the clearing James Knight had come through. She found the trail and walked its length, heading towards the barracks and away from the dangerous warrior and the demons that were under her control. The bullet had stopped its burying and the healing was pushing it out, so she quickened her pace to reach the outside of the woods, hoping she would be there before her demons finished off James Knight.
~ * ~ * ~
The moon was large, full, and bright amidst the blackish blue of the night above the tower. Alysia Knight crossed her legs, closed her eyes, and clasped her hands, letting her mind go through the ritual that would bring her into the realm of Yalem. The familiar blackness took her over and the feeling of weariness and ultimately sleep made her drift within her own thoughts.
She thought back to a time when her mother was with her. They were in a kitchen, and from her tiny hands she could tell that she was about fifteen. It was Thanksgiving, and she was seasoning the turkey. Her mother, ever the professional, was near the sink, cutting up vegetables and talking to her about doing better in school.
“You will want to transcend me and your father,” she was saying, and Alysia recognized the lecture as the reoccurring one that she would hear whenever she got a grade that was lower than a B.
“Okay, Mom,” she replied, and as she reached for the turkey, it grew translucent. Her hand passed through it and she was back in the blackness, feeling around for something solid. This was the part of the travel between realms that she hated most. When she prodded the air with her hands, there was nothing there, and when she stomped down to feel the ground, there was nothing there, either. It was just the darkness and it would stay for a time before making her unconscious.
