Demon Lord 4: White Jade Reaper

by Morgan Blayde

  Runners streamed right through us, since we really weren’t quite there. Otherwise, we’d have been swept up in the rocking currents of a dying humanity. And they were dying. Here and there, some of the fallen went still and their souls rose screaming, gathered by tentacles they had no trouble seeing. As the glittery coils wrapped around the loose souls, they’re screams could be heard, but not for long. The souls elongated, twisting into blobs of smoky, silvery light that drained into the miasma of the phantasm. Smaller tendrils from the spirit beast swept behind, stirring the corpses, depositing something that sped up the decay, devolving the cells into something very primitive. I supposed it would feed on that as well.

  There were no doors to the “Light” opening, or demon spirits winging in to gather the wicked for hell. Maybe that would come later, if the lost souls were freed from what had eaten them.

  The LEOs—SWAT, federal marshals, and PRT personnel—were doing their job; intercepting the mob and beating some control into it. Our Law Enforcement Officers hadn’t come far enough in to get a good look at what we were fighting. That’s how they were keeping sane and focused. I wondered how Janet and the other magic users were coming along with a trapping barrier to capture this thing—and if they could hold it once they had it.

  Madison took aim with her machine pistol, about to empty a clip.

  “Wait!” I called.

  She glanced at me as I waded through the intangible crowd to reach her and Tukka. “Physical attacks aren’t enough.” I reached out and grabbed her barrel. My hand already blazed with gold from my aura, but that light flared into nova incandescence as I poured raw magic into her weapon and its magazine. I pulled my hand away. “Try it now!”

  She opened up. The muzzle spat red flame. The gun bucked in her hands, but she rode it out, letting the gun do pretty much what it wanted. Aiming was a waste of time when you didn’t know what was vulnerable and what hits were just annoying.

  A quiet voice in my mind said, I know.

  My inner dragon? You do.

  A dragon instinctively knows values. You get that from me. How many times have you looked at a stone and suddenly known it’s caret worth? Or groped a female breast and known the exact measurement? What tells you when a vein of silver or gold lines buried under the ground you walk upon?

  You?

  Me. Give me control of our body.

  You want to go all dragon on it? I don’t know… The thought of losing touch with a battle, of sinking into oblivion,

  having to hope I’ll return and not wake up in hell…

  It worked out against the Green Flame Assassin. What are you afraid of? Think I won’t give you your body back.”

  Thought never crossed my mind.

  Liar.

  Madison’s gun ran dry. She changed clips. I charged her weapon again, looking over to see what everyone else was doing.

  Grace had gone all shadow-fox—a huge, black shadow shaped like a fox, edged with orange flames. Her moth wings no longer small and out of proportion, but beat up a breeze as she soared under the high-vaulted ceiling.

  Cassie remained in human form, a sword of golden, kitsune fire in her hands. She’d moved to the stage’s edge and was hacking the spun-sugar tentacles that bled purple and blue syrup as the sword seared them. Rasputin was behind her. Every time a slather of ghost plasma seemed like it was going to overwhelm her guard, the plasma crinkled and sheared off as a fold in space made the phantasm thumb its own ass.

  The fu dog that Madison rode swung his massive head to include me in on what he was telling her. “Tukka going to hit it. Cover ears.”

  I remembered the little belch he’d used in Texas to destroy the health club windows. It was that much of an attack.

  Madison wasted no time in clamping hands over her ears. Seeing me hesitate, she yelled. “His sonic attack has been known to drive off full-grown dragons. It might work on the monster ghost.”

  Okay, maybe I haven’t yet seen the full force of what Tukka can do.

  I ran in a bouncy sort of way and put some distance between myself and the fu dog. I ran to the back of the theater and crashed out of the doors there. I intended to find the stairs to the upper balcony, and use that vantage point to unleash some dragon flame against the phantasm. Nothing burned hotter, and I wanted my licks in, too. The lobby wasn’t quite cleared out yet. There were still damaged audience members sweeping down the stairs from above, not that they’d bother me in my current immaterial

  form.

  A sound hit like the end of the world. It took me a second realize that a bomb hadn’t gone off inside the auditorium. That’s a hell of a roar. Enough to drive away a dragon? I believe it. Long after the roar died, I still heard a residual sound, shrill and piercing. No, that’s from the parking lot. And it’s mixed with childish laughter. Drekavac. The ghost children. Onyx was supposed to take care of them and Hastings.

  I ran and jumped through the window, knowing I’d simple ghost on through it like a, well, ghost. At the last second, instinct overrode my knowledge. I lifted my arms to protect my face. My control of my aura slipped. Instead of pulling aura in, I let some slip out. The glass shattered in silence around me.

  I dropped into a flowerbed, pitched forward, and rolled, coming back to me feet in time to leap onto the hood of a silver Audi A5. From this vantage point I saw a lump of shadow the size of one of the sixteen-wheelers from in back. It was involved in a running fight, under the protection of Onyx, against the ghost children.

  They hovered in the air above the dark lump, screaming at it, trying to reach those inside. I think they needed to get inside for the screams to work, and Onyx wasn’t giving them the chance. His darkness grew tentacles of shadow with knife-like edges. Onyx had discovered that he could bitch slap the hell out of them when they became solid enough to scream. Only those that had been shadow-slapped silent were having Onyx’s tentacles go through them without effect. Wising up, the silent ones were forgetting about attack, and just concentrating on getting through the protective darkness.

  This had to be the truck where the flute was stored. I think it was also the vehicle the magic-users used when deploying spells. It would be filled with talismans, ancient relics, and grimoires of every arcane branch out there from anti-fey charms to demon lore. Janet’s team having to fend off the

  Drekavac explained why their barrier and offensive magic had not yet come into play in the theater.

  The onyx-shrouded truck rolled on across the parking lot,

  crunching fenders, smashing other vehicles out of the way. It wasn’t going to be too long before some of the ghost did get inside. I was still in the ghost realm, golden fire igniting my ink, making it blaze gold as well. I chose Dragon Roar. The ghosts could still hear, dead or not. My magic ought to be able to temporarily redirect them. Activating the tattoo sent blunt force trauma through every joint, like I was being pulled apart on a rack and body slammed by the Jolly Green Giant.

  Years of such self-abuse helped me focus and keep moving, that and the lighter gravity. I hopped car to car, using the light gravity and incredible jumps to catch up.

  Coming up on the battle, I unleashed my voice of command. “Drekavac, obey me. Go into this music hall and shake hands with the phantasm.” The screams warbled off into uncertain silence. One ghost child flew to the building. Then another. Then they were all going, going, gone. With any luck, they’d get themselves eaten.

  The lump of shadow stopped damaging other vehicles. Onyx washed off of the eighteen-wheeler, revealing its dented sides and bumpers. The darkness congealed, compressing back to human dimension and shape. His features filled in, pale skin, black eyes, an easy grin. He waved. “Hey, Caine, we got you a present inside.”

  The side door of the truck opened. A rather disheveled Janet d’Arc extended a small set of stairs and came on down to the parking lot. Her gaze slid across me without stopping. She turned to Onyx and mouthed words.

  He pointed at me and said. “That was Caine. He drov
e them off.”

  She said something else.

  Onyx answered. “Because he’s in the Ghost realm and you’re not.”

  She didn’t seem to like that answer, asking something else.

  Onyx sighed. “I can see and talk to him because I exist in the human world and the ghost realm at the same time, plus a few more dimensions you’re better off never hearing about. Anyway…” he turned back to me, “Caine, we got Hastings inside, cuffed to a chair. He tried to sneak in wearing a stolen uniform and we caught his punk ass.”

  “Who taught you to say punk ass?” I asked.

  “Madison, she says lots of interesting things. I’ve been writing them down. What do you want me to do now?”

  “It doesn’t look like any of those ghost children will be coming back. Have Janet get on with those binding spells for the phantasm, and you can come join the fun.”

  “Great!” He turned to Janet.

  I turned back to the theater. I’d been gone from the fight too long and needed to see what was going on. I spun and leaped into the sky like John Carter late for a Martian smorgasbord. Hurtling through the air, rebounding off a couple vehicles, I idly wondered what it would be like to be on Mars and to ball a naked barbarian sword chick. Maybe—if I could talk the Red Lady into a little sexual role-playing game—I’d find out one of these days.

  I went back in through the same window I’d broken. This time I managed to contain all my aura and not pass any to the shattered remnants of jagged glass. I went through without a scratch, immaterial as I wanted to be.

  The lobby was mostly empty. The flow down the stairs had ceased. I ran up to the next floor and burst onto the balcony. There were bodies up here, most heavily near the edge, looking down. Those front seats would have been closest to the surgery tentacles of doom. I stepped on several bodies to get to the rail. Looking out, there was more definition to the phantasm. It had developed a plum colored eye the size of a Volkswagen. That eye shone with baleful intent. The creature’s violet glow had become a kind of semi-clear skin. Inside, the nebulous murk had formed organs of a type that served no purpose I knew of.

  An encouraging sight; its tentacles were nubs. Grace zoomed along the underbelly of the monster ghost, rolling and slashing with Madison’s broadsword—a neat trick for a winged fox. Instead of using the fox paws, the blackness of her shadow body had simply grown a second pair of arms, with hands that possessed opposable thumbs. What Grace lacked in experience, she made up for with off-the-charts imagination. If only she had some of her mom’s insane murderous capacity. That would make Grace truly formidable.

  Well, time to get to work.

  I focused on my Dragon Flame tattoo and the inevitable pain rose up like Godzilla to bite off my head. That’s what it felt like anyway. The sensation faded, and my arms were wreathed in fire. I thrust both palms out and yelled. “Fire in the hole.” Sizzling bolts of dragon fire lanced into the phantasm, blackening its skin, dripping it like candle wax. The eye rolled wildly, snapping open and closed with beats of distress. It rolled belly up, the head sliding out of range. The stubby limbs hollowed in the center. It was like looking at an old-time sailing ship preparing for a broadside of cannon shot. Or grape shot. Or apple shot. Whatever.

  I cut off the fire to check the damage I’d inflicted.

  Grace swooped down onto the balcony. “Watch where you throw that stuff.” The voice didn’t come from her fox face, but from the same darkness that had grown the arms. Funny, it didn’t sound like Grace’s voice. Her darkness grew out and covered her wings. They shrunk in size. Her fox shape huddled and stood, becoming a human female. The darkness seeped back into her skin, revealing the Grace I knew, with mini wings and antennae. Oddly, her breasts were bigger, as if the enhanced insect elements had altered her hormonal balance.

  She leaned on the sword, having grounded its point on the carpet. She panted. Her voice came out, the voice I knew. “Oh, man, that wrings me out. We got that thing on the ropes yet?”

  I turned my attention to the phantasm, only to realize that that monster bulging eye was only a few yards off, glaring at me with unbridled hate. There was a mucus membrane, a coating of crystal-blue that reflected my image back at me. There was also a putrid burnt stench mixed with a cloying sweetness. The air I breathed tasted of it, burning my throat.

  Damn, I need a drink.

  THIRTY-SIX

  “Birth leaves us angry. A slap on the ass doesn’t help.”

  —Caine Deathwalker

  The creature’s “canon” opened fire, but what issued forth was toxic sludge, which told me what at least one of those strange organs was; a mutant form of spleen. The stuff splashed in piss-yellow torrents that hit a spot a few feet away and miraculously curved to funnel into nowhere. Grace shrieked anyway. Women do that a lot when facing death. I was saved the bother of grabbing her and using her as a shield to save myself—which would have been hell explaining to Cassie.

  I knew why we’d been saved; folded space, Rasputin was keeping an eye on Cassie’s daughter. I knew better than to think he was doing me a favor. Vampires always negotiate those very carefully, with an eye to just how they’re going to be repaid, with interest. In many ways, there’s little difference between a vampire and a mob boss.

  Rasputin popped in from one of those distortions of his, lunging with vampire speed. I barely had time to shake off my flame as he swept into Grace and me, and we were across the hall, on the ground floor stage, sprawling among the wreckage of several musical instruments. I pulled a broken violin bridge out from under my right kidney. Rasputin was on hands and knees, looking up at Cassie. I think that’s how she prefers her men.

  Cassie voice came sharp and fast, “Grace, are you okay.”

  “Ye-yes, Momma. Not a chemical burn anywhere.”

  Cassie’s gaze softened and swung to Raspy. “Thank you.”

  “It is nothing,” Rasputin said. “Allies must watch out for one another.”

  I picked myself up and looked at the phantasm. “Is it my imagination, or is it trying to force its way across the threshold into life.”

  “It’s trying to give birth to itself?” Grace stared up at the floating monstrosity. “How weirdly awful.”

  “Certainly unique,” I eyed the sludge that had dripped down from the upper balcony. The stuff had dissolved a lot of the seating, thickening the air with acrid fumes. Much more of that, and breathing in here would become impossible. “Its desire to live however saves us the necessity of keeping it here by spell circle. The more alive it gets, the less able it is to flee into the realm of the dead. The world that spawned it will reject it.

  Movement drew my attention to Madison. She waved and yelled from Tukka’s broad back, “I’m outta ammo. I’m going to go see if I can get some grenades off of Virgil. Someone bring me back here when I get back.” She rose in the saddle and stood on it. A small leap moved her clear of Tukka. As she landed, her human aura became invisible. Running toward the front of the building, it was obvious she was under the effect of full gravity once more, and no longer in the ghost realm.

  The doors swung in on her as she reached them. She skidded to a stop, face-to-muzzle with armed gunmen.

  “Oh, crap, the glory boys are here,” I said.

  SWAT type commandoes in body armor, with automatic weapons hugged close to their bodies were slinking in. A brief, mutual ID was made. Madison was waved on by. The SWAT team came down the aisle, another group entering by the second group. Communicating with hand gestures and radio headsets, they didn’t bother checking the bodies to see if they could save anyone; after all, this was about getting trophies and headlines.

  Tukka’s aura flickered out. He turned to face the oncoming gunmen. The motion caught the attention of the SWAT guys before they had a chance to look up to notice the real threat. Assault rifles were lined up on the fu dog. He’d crossed back to the mortal side of the veil, waiting for Madison’s return.

  Stupid, big guy. Real stupid. They’re he
re looking for a dangerous monster and you pop up. Might as well be holding a

  protest sign saying please shoot me.

  Tukka leaped away, trailing silent gunshots. If it weren’t for the muzzle flashes and the damage to the theater, I wouldn’t even have known he was being shot at.

  His aura’s teal-blue flare signaled his return to the ghost realm.

  The shooting cut off as the target vanished to the perspective of the SWAT teams.

  “Son of a bitch!” Tukka said.

  “You certainly are,” I agreed.

  Grace said, “It occurs to me that if that monster does get born—and gets loose—we could see the end of the world, especially if it can fertile itself, laying eggs or something. A zombie apocalypse would be as nothing.”

  “Here it comes again,” I said.

  The thing had turned, scanning the hall with that cyclops eye. I knew it wanted me, but seeing the men below, it moved to hover over one group, the response of a hungry predator that needs to feed to heal. The cannon ports remained, but under them, a new generation of sparkly blue and purple tendrils were growing in, weaving themselves thicker and thicker as they lowed. Ten limbs formed and split to make twenty. The tentacles writhed, curling at the tips to form nooses.

  Stubborn bastard is really in need of an abortion. If only he weren’t so resistant to my dragon flame. Maybe an inside attack…

  Cassie launched herself into the air, bounding toward the men under the tentacles. Her sword of golden flame rippled, flapping with her motion. She landed among the men and warded off the tentacles, slicing through those that tried to grab a quick snack.