by Steve Feasey
Shadow Demons move with incredible speed. They are feared throughout the Netherworld as ruthless killers, and very few nether-creatures would choose to go up against one in single combat. This one was almost upon Dreck when the smaller demon opened his mouth and spat a glowing white sphere, about the size of a tennis ball, in its direction. The fireball hit the Shadow Demon and spread across its body like liquid fire. The Shadow Demon screamed as it beat at the conflagration, but only succeeded in spreading the flames until it was a living thing of fire. It fell to the floor, still shrieking and thrashing around, the flames not spreading out to the surrounding ground but remaining on its body.
Eventually the demon’s howls ceased and it lay still.
Dreck walked towards Trey, his skin slowly turning back to a less alarming, dull grey colour. Trey watched the demon approach, unable to believe what he had just witnessed – it had been David and Goliath stuff, and he was filled with a new respect for his guide.
Dreck looked up at Trey and nodded, glancing across at the other demon as he did so. Realizing that he still held his own adversary up in the air by its throat, Trey turned to look at the creature, slowly lowering his arm and releasing his grip.
The demon fell to its knees, clutching at its throat with two hands and sucking in great gulps of air.
The lycanthrope that was Trey Laporte looked around him. In his werewolf form, his senses were far more acute than when he was a human, and he usually relished the wonderful synaesthesia that came with a Change: experiencing smells as layers of colours and shapes that overlaid his wolf vision and built up an incredible picture in his mind’s eye. But the stink of the Netherworld was too much for his heightened olfactory senses. It was a deathly, rotting, putrescent stench that lay upon him like a great black cloud, and he shook his head, fighting the need to gag again. He wondered if his reaction to the smells of this realm would ever abate. If it didn’t, he doubted he would be able to function here.
‘Are you OK?’ Dreck asked.
Trey looked down at his guide, nodding his thanks. He concentrated on a spell that he’d been taught by his sorcerer friend Charles Henstall, forming the ancient words in his head and clearing his mind of everything else except a mental picture of Dreck. When he felt an unpleasant dropping sensation deep within him he knew that the connection had been made.
‘That was very impressive,’ Trey said, projecting the words directly into his guide’s head. ‘Thanks for coming along when you did. I don Ï know what happened back there.’
‘Don’t mention it. Although it was touch and go for a minute. I wasn’t sure that I would be ready in time for that Shadow Demon. They really are very quick.’
‘What are you?’
‘I’m a level-one incendiary Tok djinn.’ He looked at Trey expectantly. After a moment, he shook his head, clearly not getting the reaction that he was expecting. ‘A Fire Imp?’ He sighed, as if he was in the company of a simpleton. ‘We’re very rare, you know.’
There was a cough behind them, and they turned to see the spiky-headed demon getting gingerly to its feet. It held its hands out in front of it and looked at them imploringly.
‘Please, do not kill me,’ Spike said.
‘Not kill you? Like you were not going to kill my friend here?’ Dreck asked.
The demon mumbled something under its breath and looked at the floor.
‘Speak up!’ Dreck demanded in a loud voice.
‘We were not going to kill him. Our orders are to take all humans back to Molok. Alive.’
‘Oh, I see.’ The Fire Imp shook his head. ‘You were “just obeying orders”.’ He spat on the ground. ‘And what do you suppose Molok would do with the human, hmm? By delivering him to Molok, you were effectively condemning him to death … or worse.’
Spike stayed silent.
‘You owe my friend here your life,’ Dreck said, stepping up to the creature and poking it in the stomach. ‘So give it up.’ He stared at the demon, an unfriendly look on his face. ‘Come on – we haven’t got all day.’
‘What on earth are you asking for?’ Trey said.
‘His name,’ Dreck said, without turning away from the demon that towered over his tiny frame. ‘His real demon name. He owes you his life. If you have his name, he is forever in your debt and can never harm you.’ He eyed the demon coldly. After a moment he shrugged his shoulders and held his breath, hunching down with the effort as his skin began to change colour once more.
‘All right, all right!’ the demon shouted. It stared at Trey, its lip rising up on one side in a sneer that revealed rows of razor-sharp teeth. It leaned forward so that its mouth was close to the werewolf’s ear and whispered barely audibly, ‘My name is Graglor-An-Shashlok and I owe you a life.’ It stepped back again, its shoulders slumped in a gesture of utter defeat.
‘How do I know he hasn’t just made that up?’ Trey said, looking at Dreck.
‘He can’t. If he did he’d be double-doomed. And he, like every other nether-creature, knows it.’ He waved a hand in the air dismissively, ‘It’s all complicated Netherworld stuff; don’t worry your furry head about it.’ He turned and looked at the defeated demon again.
‘We’re going this way,’ he said with a gesture of his thumb over his shoulder. ‘That means that you –’ he poked the demon again – ‘are going that way.’ He nodded in the opposite direction.
‘That way. Right.’
‘And if we see you again during our travels in this realm, we will assume that you have broken your promise of fealty to my friend here and invoke the first covenant of the Netherworld. We will call upon Helzog and have him collect you. Either that, or my werewolf friend here will simply rip that ugly, spiky head of yours off its shoulders.’
And with that, Dreck turned his back on the demon and walked off.
Trey fell in behind the Fire Imp. Great, he thought to himself. Just what I need as a guide: a demon with a Napoleon complex.
After gathering up the ruined mess of Trey’s clothes, they walked away from the hell-hole, back in the direction that the Fire Imp had first come from. After a short distance Dreck stopped, bending down to retrieve a canvas sack that he’d clearly left there earlier. Fishing around inside the large bag, the demon emerged holding a set of new clothes.
‘I need you to change back into your human form and get dressed,’ the Fire Imp said, tossing the clothing at the werewolf.
The lycanthrope looked down at the garments, raising his head again to stare at the demon.
‘Are you mad? You want me to change back into my human form? Here? In the Netherworld? You heard what Tom said. He specifically— ’
‘I know what the human said,’ Dreck said in a loud voice.
Trey didn’t like the way that the Fire Imp had referred to Tom, and it must have shown in his face or body language because Dreck quickly held his hands out. When he spoke again his tone was more deferential. ‘With all due respect, Tom is not your guide here in the Netherworld; I am.’
The lycanthrope remained silent, waiting.
Dreck puffed out his cheeks and regarded the huge beast towering over him. ‘You are unique, Trey. There isn’t another werewolf– a bimorph – like you either here or in the human world. And there’s only one of these in existence,’ he went on, reaching up and pointing to the amulet hanging from the heavy chain around the great beast’s neck. ‘Everyone and everything in the Netherworld knows who wears it. You’re the kid who bit Caliban’s hand off. You’re the kid that walked into Leroth and stole Mynor’s Globe from under the vampire’s nose, right after you’d fought and killed his sorceress, Gwendolin. You’re the kid who, rightly or wrongly –’ the demon held his hands up in front of him – ‘Caliban believes is the biggest threat to whatever sick plans for world domination he might have. There’s a bounty on your head, Trey, and just about every nether– creature we might encounter will be happy to cash you in.’
If that’s the case, then surely I’m safer like this? Better able to de
fend myself?’
‘Quite the opposite. You’re a walking advertisement of your presence here. You might as well have a neon sign on your head that reads: “Trey Laporte: Caliban’s nemesis. Come and get me.” But if you’re a human, I stand a chance of getting us both to where we need to be. Especially as we are currently inside Molok’s fiefdom.’
‘How’s that?’
‘Molok’s a collector. Everyone knows about his predilection for human specimens. If I can pass you off as Molok’s latest acquisition that I have been entrusted to deliver, I think we could avoid any tragedies. Molok is one of the Netherworld’s most powerful commanders, and I’m betting on our being able to use that power and authority to our advantage.’
A low growl came from the werewolf as Trey considered this. The Fire Imp looked down at his feet for a moment, and when he looked back up again the werewolf was gone – replaced by the naked figure of a teenage boy who turned his back and quickly pulled on the underwear and jeans that Dreck had given him.
‘I don’t like this.’ Trey pulled the T-shirt over his head. ‘Everything you just said makes sense, but I’m scared out of my wits being in this place like this.’ He pointed down at himself. ‘Who knows what might be eyeing us up for supper right now!’ He crouched to retrieve the torn trousers he’d worn coming here, which the Fire Imp had dropped on the ground, and fished around inside one of the pockets. He pulled out the mobile phone and was about to activate the radar function that Tom had demonstrated to him when Dreck reached up and snatched it out of his hand.
‘This is of absolutely no use,’ Dreck said in an offhand way. He shook his head and tutted loudly. ‘Nothing electrical can work in the Netherworld. In fact, very few mechanical things at all work here. This phone is knackered now. It won’t even work back in the human realm any more.’
‘Wait!’ Trey shouted, realizing what his guide was about to do, but already too late to stop him. He watched in horror as the Fire Imp shook his head and tossed the device over his shoulder. It twisted and turned as it sailed through the air in a high arc, before landing on a stony patch of ground, where the hard plastic covering shattered into numerous pieces.
‘No!’ Trey ran over to where it had landed, and his heart sank at the sight of the smashed screen and various broken pieces strewn about. It was ruined.
‘Get another one when you get back,’ Dreck said, turning his back on the teenager and rummaging in the bag again.
Trey swore, kicking at the ground with his bare foot, and hurting his toe in the process. ‘You complete and utter dickhead!’ he shouted at the Fire Imp. ‘Do you know what you’ve just done? Do you?’ He pointed down at the broken pieces. ‘That wasn’t just a mobile phone!’
Dreck carried on delving in the bag, not even bothering to look up at the ranting boy. ‘Oh, I know they’ve got all sorts of gizmos and applications on them these days, but like I said, you can buy another one when you get back.’
Trey was so angry he was unable to speak. He turned his back on the nether-creature, clenching and unclenching his fists and issuing a great long string of curses and swear words that even Tom would have been proud of.
‘Aha!’ Dreck said, and threw a pair of canvas trainers in the boy’s direction. ‘I forgot to bring socks,’ the Fire Imp said with a shrug of his shoulders, ‘but I remembered these.’
Trey turned to look and saw that the Fire Imp was holding out a pair of large, cumbersome-looking handcuffs. ‘You need to put these on too.’
Trey’s mouth was hanging open. He stared at the metal restraints dangling from one of the demon’s claws and shook his head in disbelief. ‘As if all this –’ he gestured around him – ‘wasn’t unreal enough. You smash my phone up, tell me I have to stroll around the place as a human, like some meal on legs, and to top it off you want me to wear those?’ He pointed at the handcuffs turning in the air in front of the demon’s face. ‘No way.’
‘They’re more for show than anything else. If you did have to transform into your lyco form, they wouldn’t be able to hold you.’
Trey frowned as he looked at the demon. ‘I can see you,’ he said in a small voice. He walked over to stand by the Fire Imp.
‘Hmm?’
‘When I’m in my human form I can’t see nether-creatures – just the human mantle they wear.’
‘That’s in the human realm. Here in the Netherworld I don’t have to wear that ridiculous carapace. You can see me for what I am, whether through human or lycanthrope eyes.’ The demon nodded at the handcuffs again. ‘You really do need to put these on.’
Trey puffed out his cheeks and was about to say something else, but stopped himself. Instead he shrugged his shoulders resignedly and slipped the manacles over his wrists. He stared at Dreck. ‘You’re sure this will work?’
‘No. But right now I don’t think we have any other choice than to give it a go.’ He pulled the last item out of the canvas sack: a whip with a long, heavy-looking handle. He nodded in the direction that they should walk, gesturing with the whip for Trey to lead the way. ‘Let’s go, prisoner,’ he said in a cheerful voice.
Trey glared at the demon.
The Fire Imp cleared his throat. ‘Please?’
Trey nodded, and they set off.
9
Caliban let the demon’s lifeless body slip out of his grasp and fall to the floor.
He looked down into the sarcophagus at the figure that still lay there. He had not anticipated the revival of Helde to be as arduous as this; he had already dispatched five demons, allowing their blood to be absorbed by the thing in the coffin. And yet the creature showed no signs of reanimation. Yes, there had been glimpses that the process was working: that initial long sigh when he had sacrificed the Pit-Shedim, and since then he’d witnessed one of the arms lift slightly, a finger extending before collapsing back down into the gloomy depths of the coffin. But beyond these, there was no sign that his sorceress was any closer to being resurrected.
He would dearly love to give this task to one of his minions, to wash his hands of this whole sordid business until it was completed and the thing was done. He had no problem with the killing of demons, but he preferred other prey: prey whose blood was crimson and sweet, and not the black and fetid filth of these nether-creature sacrifices.
He looked down at the lifeless form again. But it couldn’t really be described as lifeless: the countless thousands of insects that made up the body were in constant motion – a giant colony of black shiny bodies bound together to create a whole. A cruel smile crossed the vampire’s lips. He loved the grotesquery of this form. He loved it because he knew how much Helde would hate it. She had been the Netherworld’s most powerful sorceress, and legend had it that she had been a creature of great beauty. And when Caliban had been turned into the undead being he now was, and had discovered the Netherworld, he had been besotted with the idea of her: with her power and her beauty. But he had never met her. She had long ago been killed by a demon lord fearful of her power, a victim of the ancient Demon Wars.
He hissed in impatience, turning from the raised dais that held the sarcophagus, and was about to leave when he heard a small noise from inside the stone coffin. The vampire kept quite still, straining to see if his hearing had simply fooled him, when he heard it again. He hurried back to peer inside, breathing in sharply when he saw movement on Helde’s lips.
She was trying to say something. She was trying to communicate with him!
He bent further forward, pressing his ear to her mouth to catch any utterance that she might make.
‘What is it?’ he said. ‘What is it you want?’
He waited a second.
‘More,’ the figure in the coffin managed.
‘More?’
‘Blood. I need more … blood.’
The vampire swallowed, the sound loud in his ears. ‘And if I get you more, will you come back? Will you come back with all the powers you once possessed?’
‘Yes.’
Caliban n
arrowed his eyes and studied the thing before him.
‘And will you use those powers to help me bring the humans to their knees? To help me become master of both the Netherworld and the human realm?’
There was a pause, the creature in the coffin struggling to articulate the words.
‘Yes,’ she managed.
‘Then I shall get you the blood that you need.’ The vampire stood up. ‘I shall get it, and together we shall wreak havoc.’
10
Hag called out for Lucien to enter even before the vampire had a chance to knock at the door to her dwelling. He smiled at this; it had been a long time since he’d seen the old sorceress, and he’d forgotten how alert she was, despite her apparent frailty. He glanced behind him to see if Moriel was still there, but the battle-angel had gone, silently disappearing into the skies overhead. He didn’t bother to look up; even if she was directly overhead, he knew she’d be invisible to him now.
Hag’s new residence was almost identical to the one the vampire had visited years before: a ramshackle and dilapidated affair which looked as though at any moment it might fall down around the ears of its occupant. It sat at the edge of a huge burning sulphur pit, and Lucien turned for moment to watch the almost invisible blue flames licking across the blood-red surface. Noxious fumes filled the air and he quickly turned away and pushed at the door.
