by Mel Odom
“I don’t know.”
“Does the demon know you’re there?”
“No,” Emily said. “I don’t think so.”
“You must be aware. Don’t ever lose sight of the demon’s attention. We must always know.”
“All right.”
Rob watched as the lighthouse grew even brighter. The heat reduced the snow around the figurine to a silver puddle. As he watched the smoke, Rob felt himself drawn into it.
Rob guessed that he must have blinked, because when he opened his eyes again, he stood in an underground cavern. When he’d been a child out on his grandparents’ farm, he’d found caves to crawl into. They’d been little holes in hillsides. Formed by shifting rock or from the efforts of other kids in the past, they’d become insect infested and had held curious artifacts from earlier visitations by other children.
He and Emily had joked that they’d been hobbit holes. They’d made up all kinds of delightful adventures of quests and all manner of dangerous foes they encountered. But those holes had only gone back into the hillsides a few feet.
They’d been nothing like the great space he now found himself in. The walls, the floor, and the ceiling thirty or forty feet above him were all solid stone. Rob didn’t know how he was able to see in the darkness, but he could.
It’s a trick, he thought. Orrus has managed to hypnotize me. He tried to rouse himself but couldn’t. He remained stuck in the dream and in the cavern.
“Where are you?” Orrus’s voice seemed to come from the air around Rob.
“I don’t know,” Emily repeated.
Rob turned to his right and found her there. She stood, her scaled skin glowing incandescently in the darkness. He wondered if that was how he could see in the pitch black of the cave, and if that was how he could see. When he looked at his own body, Rob found that he glowed as well.
“Are you alone?” Orrus asked.
“Rob is with me.”
Consternation tightened the cultist’s voice. “He should not be there with you, Emily.”
“I’m scared.”
“You’re above fear.”
“Not now. Now I’m afraid.”
Rob looked around, but Orrus was not there with them.
“Emily, you shouldn’t have him there with you.”
“I want him with me.”
“You shouldn’t—”
“No,” Emily said, shaking her head. “Rob is going to be here.”
“I’m going to be here,” Rob said. At least there, however they had gotten there, he could protect her. “Shove off and leave her alone, old man.”
“You don’t know what you’re doing, or what you’re risking,” Orrus said.
“I know you may be risking my sister’s life, and I may be the only one here who cares about that fact,” Rob growled. “Deal with it.”
“Emily, look around,” Orrus said. “Do you see the demon?”
“No.”
“Look for it. I can pull you back when you need to come out.”
Rob reached for his sister and closed his hand over her cold, scaly flesh. “Em, we shouldn’t be here.”
She looked up at him. Pain and fear were writ upon her features. “I have to find a way to stop this, Rob. The nightmares are growing worse. I…I see what the demon does. I saw it tear a hand from a man’s arm and give it to a woman. I have to know what the demon is and what it wants.” She paused. “Please.”
He relented, hurt to see his sister in such a bad way. The heavy weight of the pistol in his pocket reassured him a little. “All right, Em. We’ll have a go at this.” He drew the pistol.
“Look around,” Orrus said. “The demon has to be there somewhere. We need to know where you are. And we need to know what the demon seeks.”
“All right.” Emily looked around the barren earth, then pointed to the left, up an incline toward another tunnel. “That way.”
Rob trailed his sister through the underground chamber, quickly realizing it was even more vast than he’d first thought. He also understood that they were lost. There were no markings of any kind.
“Now down,” Emily said, turning and jogging to the right.
Rob followed her but lost his footing and skidded down the steep incline the last twenty feet. Bruised and battered, he heaved himself to his feet and struggled to get his breath back.
“Are you all right?” Emily asked.
“I’m fine.” Rob blew out a breath. “It was just steeper than it looked.”
“I know. Everything looks different here.” Emily took off again.
Doggedly, Rob followed. He didn’t know how far they’d come. “I think I know where we are, Em.”
“Where?” She paused and searched in all directions again. She looked frantic.
“If we haven’t left London”—And when did you ever think you’d say something like that? Rob asked himself—“then we have to be under it.”
“So?”
“Londinium. That’s where we have to be.”
Londinium was believed to be the ancient Roman city built on the north side of the River Thames. Rob had been fascinated by the archeological finds during the recent excavations. Just before the demons had arrived, archeologists had found a whole new section of the ancient city beneath the ruins of the aboveground sections.
Emily led the way through a twisting tunnel. This one held writing.
“Em, wait.” Rob turned to the wall, once more amazed at how well he could see.
“I’m letting you borrow my sight,” Emily said as she rejoined him. “That’s how you’re able to see in the dark.”
Rob looked at her. “You can see in the dark?”
“Yes,” she answered as if that were nothing.
Of course, seeing her pull fire from thin air was even more impressive. Rob didn’t pursue that line of thinking because it only made his scientifically trained mind hurt. Then again, the whole idea of demons did as well. Thinking of them as aliens from another dimension was only slightly easier because there were problems with that, too.
“Do you see the writing?” Rob pointed at the wall.
“Can you read it?” she asked.
“It’s Latin. Of course I can read it.” Rob studied the words. “This is called the Passage to the Land of the Dead.”
“Not exactly cheery, is it?”
Rob was sorry he’d drawn her attention to it. “No, it isn’t.”
“At least we won’t find Gollum down here,” she said brightly, and for a moment she was like the old Emily that Rob remembered. “Let’s hurry on, then. The sooner we’re done with this, the sooner we can be home.” She gave his hand a squeeze, then continued in the direction she was headed.
Only a few moments later, Rob discovered why the tunnel had been called the Passage to the Land of the Dead. Once they left the tunnel, they came out into a cavern filled with crypts. A small lake filled the center of it.
Gaping holes covered the surrounding walls. All of them held moldering skeletons. Some of the skeletons wore textile clothing, but others wore primitive armor. Many of them had bronze shields and weapons lying next to them.
“This place is an archeologist’s dream.” Rob walked over to one of the crypts, knelt down, and studied the skeleton and the weapons he found there.
“I don’t like it here.”
Hearing the anxiety in his sister’s voice, Rob looked up. “It’s all right, Em. These blokes are all done for.”
“They say the dead walk in London these days.” Emily wrapped her arms around herself as if she were suddenly chilled.
Rob had heard those stories, too. They’d been told by those who had fled from the city later: that the demons, at least some of them, had the power to draw the dead from the graves and even reanimate those that had fallen in combat. He didn’t know if it was true, but he had no reason to disbelieve it.
He stood and went to his sister. “We’re all right.” He embraced her briefly, but it was awkward because he felt the streng
th of her. Since she’d started changing, she’d also gotten a lot stronger than he was.
She looked at him. “I had to do this, Rob. I had to.”
He knew then that she must have read his thought, or maybe only guessed at them. “Shhhhh. Don’t. There’s no need to talk about this now.”
“You wouldn’t change,” she told him. “Even after the Cabalists told us about the power that was out there we could use. You didn’t believe them. I had to. One of us had to change so we would be safe.”
Rob didn’t know what to say.
“Even if you had changed,” she said, and stroked his cheek with her rough hand, “you wouldn’t have been as strong as me.” She smiled a little. “This is what I was born for, Rob. I can master the demons’ power. And I will.”
With a shiver, Rob stepped back from her. He couldn’t help feeling that he wished he could leave her. No matter what, he felt certain she would never again be the sister he’d known.
A hurt look filled her face.
Rob cursed himself for a fool, knowing if she could have read the other thoughts, she could have read that as well. He tried to think of something to say, but the words didn’t come quickly enough. She turned and was gone.
He followed her around the lake in the center of the cavern. Only then did he realize why the archeologists hadn’t found the chamber. Once the Burn had started, it had affected the River Thames as well. The river was down a lot from its normal depth. In fact, it was down so much that instead of emptying out into the North Sea, it was now often fed by that great body of water. The resulting mix of salt and fresh water had rendered the river water undrinkable most of the time. The survivors in London were dependent on wells and rainwater.
But the drain on the river had also uncovered the cavern. The lake wasn’t a lake. It was merely the residue of what had once filled the cavern.
Emily stopped abruptly and allowed Rob to catch up to her. A light glowed in the distance and reflected from the lake. The incandescent glow floated in the air and revealed two improbable figures.
Rob had never before seen a demon in the flesh. During the mad rush from London, he’d headed straightaway to his grandparents’ farm with Emily in tow. Later, while purchasing petrol for his car, he’d seen television footage of the monsters rampaging round St. Paul and Central London.
The demon had to have stood at least eight feet tall, and that was before the two horns on his savage forehead added another foot in height. Scars mottled his face, making his features even harsher. He was as muscled as a power-lifter, but his body was covered in red scales that looked as if they were on fire. Blue-green armor made of what looked like some kind of giant lizard scales covered his chest, arms, and thighs. He carried a huge obsidian trident in one hand and a sword scabbarded on his hip.
The woman with him was another cultist. She wore horns as well, and some kind of chitinous armor that covered her breasts and hips. Dark canvas trousers covered her lower body. Four horns jutted from her head, curling around from the back of her skull to almost make a protective cage for her face. She’d defiled her body, filling all of her skin that Rob could see with tattoos. Curved bone stuck out from her right forearm. The right hand was different than the left. It looked silvery-gray as it flashed in the incandescent light.
The woman prowled through the crypts, making short work of them as she reached in and dumped bones and rotting cloth or armor to the ground. Metal clanked as it struck the stone.
“That’s the demon I keep seeing in my dreams,” Emily whispered.
Those aren’t dreams, Rob told himself. Those are nightmares. He knew from the news footage he had scene, as well as the live reports from reporters in the streets, that the demon wasn’t as big as many of them were. But there was something inherently evil about this one.
“Show him to me,” Orrus ordered.
The cultist kept searching through the crypts.
“Find it,” the demon growled. “It has to be there somewhere. The Romans brought it here, then abandoned it because they thought it was cursed.”
The cultist suddenly froze, then withdrew with a gladius in her hand. “This?” she asked, holding the short sword out to the demon. “Is this it?”
The demon stretched forth his hand. Whirling purple embers leaped from the sword before he touched it. “Yes.”
Rob recognized the sword immediately. It was only two feet in length, but Roman soldiers had used the gladius to bring the world to its knees during their heyday. The capulus, the hilt of the gladius, was ornate, a mixture of inlaid ivory, lapis lazuli, and obsidian. Whoever had carried it had to have been an officer or a personage of importance.
Emily put her two forefingers and thumbs together to form a triangle. She peered through it at the two creatures—Rob didn’t want to call the woman human—in front of them.
The demon turned with the quickness of a cat. Its malevolent gaze came to a rest on Emily.
“Who are you?” the demon demanded.
For just a moment, Rob froze. Then he grabbed Emily’s arm and dragged her into motion. “Run! Now! Run!” He pulled her along beside him as he headed back the way they’d come.
They were never going to make it, though. The demon swirled his obsidian trident in the air and pointed it at them. Immediately a wavering blur took shape between them and quickly caught up to Rob and Emily. Rob saw it coming and didn’t know what to do.
Then the force hit them and it felt like every bone in Rob’s body shattered. He tried to scream, but there wasn’t enough breath left in his lungs for that.
Just as everything was about to go black, the world suddenly turned white again. Rob spun head over heels and smashed to the snow-covered ground. He rolled uncontrollably, then fetched up against a pine tree. Dazed, he watched Emily appear from nowhere right after him.
The lighthouse sat in the pool of melted snow and continued shining like a beacon. The green light strobed the black night.
Rob gasped for breath and pushed himself to his feet. Body filled with aches and pains, he lurched toward Emily. He felt frozen where the snow caked to his body.
“What have you done?” Orrus climbed his staff and stood on his two bad legs.
“We didn’t do anything, you stupid git,” Rob snarled. “The demon saw us and hit us with some kind of energy.” He couldn’t bring himself to say “magical spell.”
Emily rolled easily to her feet, as if she hadn’t been blown across twenty yards of landscape. She shook herself, and the snow fell away as if it had somehow been statically discharged.
“The demon saw you?” Orrus demanded.
Rob whirled on the man, intending to curse him out. But Emily answered in a calm tone before he could get started.
“Yes,” she said. “The demon saw us.”
“Who was it?” Orrus asked.
“It wasn’t handing out bloody introductions,” Rob said. He turned to Emily. “It’s time we got out of this. We’ve overstayed whatever safety margin we had.” They were lucky to get four good years out of the old farm.
“I don’t know who it was,” Emily said. “He wasn’t in any of the books of demons I’m familiar with.”
“This is bad.” Orrus shook his head. “Did the demon mark you?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Em,” Rob pleaded. “We don’t have time to stand here playing Twenty Questions with this sod.”
Emily glanced at him. “Everything we learn about the demons matters, Rob. We can control them. We can harness the powers they wield and make this world a better place. We can fight back and triumph over them. If only we learn what they know.”
“No,” Rob said. “They’ve got you believing this, but it’s not true. You can’t possibly learn to do the things those creatures can do. You saw the police and the military get torn to shreds on the day the demons invaded.”
“They weren’t prepared,” Emily said calmly. “We will be.”
“You can’t prepare for something like
this. It’s not possible.”
“It is possible—”
A keening shrill occupied the forest without warning. Rob clamped his hands over his ears and tried to track the sound. It hurt so badly that his ears pulsed. Finally he realized that the sound came from the jade lighthouse.
Orrus noticed it too and stepped back with a wary look. He mouthed some words and threw a hand out at the lighthouse. A shimmering burst of energy skated over the lighthouse, but it shook even harder and finally exploded in a pistol crack. Jade fragments ricocheted off the trees and branches.
Suddenly, in the next moment, the demon they’d seen down in the cavern was among them. It snarled in rage, something undoubtedly in its own tongue.
The other cultists turned and fled back into the trees. Orrus tried to flee as well, but the demon pierced the old man’s chest with the thrown trident. Orrus kicked and flailed, but the trident kept him pinned to the snow-covered ground. Then he was still, facedown for all to see. Blood leaked from his body and spread across the snow.
Rob grabbed Emily again. The demon turned toward her and threw out its hand. A wave of shimmering force spread outward and overtook Emily.
Emily suddenly locked up as though seized. She jerked in an invisible grip. Rob felt the tingle of electricity shudder through his hand. Then his grip on her was forced off and he was thrown to the ground. He tried to recover, but his muscles wouldn’t respond.
Helplessly, Rob watched as Emily stood straight and tall. Then she floated a few inches off the ground. She stood as still and as frozen as a statue, clearly held by some force. Her eyes wept crimson tears. It took Rob a moment to realize that that liquid was blood.
Then Emily’s head exploded.
Almost out of his mind with fright, Rob pushed himself up and ran for the brush. He didn’t know if he was going to make it.
ONE
S hadows meant safety. At least, shadows meant safety most of the time. They didn’t offer shelter or a defensive position if those shadows were trying to eat someone hiding within them. And when someone hiding within them attacked, the shadows lost all effect.
