Demorn: Soul Fighter (The Asanti Series Book 3)

by David Finn

  ‘Oh, stop talking, Demorn. Maybe I did, maybe I didn’t. Come face me!’

  A necklace of skulls hung around Kingdom’s neck, row after row. He undid the clasp and threw the soul necklace through the candles. On his neck a single pearl shone with an unnatural glow. His true soul skull, she realised.

  ‘Am I a coward now?’ Kingdom asked.

  She stepped through the candles, careful not to let the flames touch her.

  The flames grew tall as she walked near them. The fire hissed with secret names. She heard Iverson moaning, half awake, his mind straining to find the connection to his Order. That would never happen in the Ruby Room. Not even the Order could spread its tentacles this far.

  Demorn ripped the necklace off her neck. She threw them out of the ring of fire, wrapping the remaining skull tight around her wrist. Purple fire glowed from the bones. My old soul, she whispered to herself. My favourite soul.

  ‘No. You’re brave to face me,’ Demorn said. ‘But you’re also a fool who deserves to die!’

  She span into a tight kick, smashing his face in a whirlwind blur. There was a satisfying thud as he crashed backward. As he fell, the music crashed back into being, Misty at top volume. She couldn’t tell if she was live or recorded. The soldiers were roaring their chants, tinged with violence. Kingdom grinned, stopping his fall with a heavy gloved hand. The smile wasn’t so genial anymore. Blood trickled down his lip as he carefully got up. She heard the hum of the motor and moved fast as an energy pulse smashed past her.

  We’re going to kill each other, she thought. Good.

  10

  * * *

  She swayed, catching her balance. The left side of her face was charred from a blast that got lucky. It felt prickly and numb. Xalos swung hard, catching a soft part of his arm armour. Kingdom winced when the burning sword gouged, and Demorn followed up with a fast kick into the open elbow joint. He sprawled bouncing off the Soul Circle wall. She lunged with the sword, Xalos narrowly missing his throat. Kingdom accelerated away, swinging with his armoured arm. Demorn dodged, fast on her feet, blood pumping. There was just the fight. The suit made Kingdom a beast at close quarters.

  The space was compact. She had to use every part of it. She brushed the locket with her fingers. The flesh was knitting back on her face, the usual pain overridden by the pounding in her ears. Kingdom was a beast, but the size of the circle didn’t altogether favour him. She had to keep moving, stay fast.

  He came at her again, lunging, missing as she dodged. She feinted with Xalos, the blade glittering in a low sweep which almost took out his legs. His eyes distracted, she sprang at him, clawing up the cold armour, springing onto his back. Demorn gripped her knees around his neck. Her small blade fell into her hand and she slashed, taking out his right eye. Enraged, he punched his power fist backward into her hand, howling. It broke something and the blade fell from her hand. She smashed her metal fist into his face. The soldiers were roaring. The world outside the flames seemed a long way away. Her face stung. Kingdom mouthed words she couldn’t hear. She smashed a last shot with all she had, breaking his nose with the steel fist. She heard the flames, the secret names whispering, and then the flames died down to embers.

  Strong, brutal arms and hands trying to pull her off Kingdom. Lost in savagery, Demorn thrashed against them, the metal fist connecting more than once. A man shouting her name, over and over, a deep calming voice. Demorn looked up. It was Iverson. His pale face looked gaunt and cold. The soldiers were everywhere, rushing to Kingdom. His face a bloody ruin. Kingdom was laughing to himself.

  ‘I got him,’ Demorn said, coming back to herself. ‘I got him for you. I could kill him now.’

  ‘No,’ Iverson murmured. His hands were steady but the stress was written all over his face.

  She was puzzled as she came back to herself. ‘Why not?’

  The locket was flooding her system, slowly repairing her face. Half of her looked like a nightmare.

  ‘They’ll kill you, too,’ Iverson murmured. ‘This is Kingdom’s dimension now.’

  Demorn fingered her ruby ring. ‘Ha. No it isn’t. The Ruby Room is a shard of the Goddess.’

  She held up the ruby ring. ‘Passed down through the hands of the Innocents since the God War, protected by the sisters of Firethorn.’

  Iverson said, ‘Firethorn is a ruin, Demorn.’

  Demorn looked him in the eye. ‘Right now, maybe. But I’ve been forward and I’ve been back. It all gets reborn. Kingdom’s just renting a space.’

  Iverson looked like he didn’t know what to believe.

  One of the fanatics brought Kingdom the metal mask which Kingdom gripped in his broken fingers. His right eye was a ruin. She wondered if he would see again. She hoped not. Demorn felt that familiar blend of pride and slight embarrassment. She had a lightness in her soul that shone in this Ruby Room, despite all the blood and the pain. She could go another ten rounds with this idiot if she had to.

  Kingdom leered at her, still laughing, blood in his mouth, dripping over teeth. ‘Do you really believe your precious Goddess has always owned this? Was she born to it? Or did she kill and trade her body for it?’

  She grinned. ‘You’ve got big balls, Kingdom. Talking shit about the Goddess in a place like this. Look what I’ve got.’

  Demorn held up the pearl skull in her metal hand, rolling it between steel fingers.

  ‘Is this yours, Kingdom? Such a pretty soul. For such an ugly man.’

  Kingdom looked at her with a slowly dawning horror, his face growing pale as he fumbled with ruined fingers at his empty throat. He looked at Iverson, dropped in an executioner’s stance. Iverson was pale and haunted. The soldiers around Kingdom froze, devoid of orders from their leader.

  Demorn said, ‘What play are we running, Iverson?’

  Iverson held a Glock at Kingdom’s head with steady hands. His voice was gravel. ‘Where is she? Where’s my wife?’

  Demorn felt a flicker of admiration. A classy gold wedding band she hadn’t spotted. Cop sliding down the ladder to executioner. Order Investigator or not, this couldn’t be an easy beat for him.

  ‘Tell me where,’ Iverson repeated.

  A second’s pause that felt too long. Iverson fired, dropping two of the fanatics in the visor with the pistol. They fell back dead, the glass cracked.

  ‘I’ll kill for the info. Tell me where.’

  Kingdom screamed in rage. ‘She’s dead! Your wife is dead, you idiot! She’s always been dead!’

  Iverson fired as Kingdom flung his metal arm in front of his face. His suit smashed into the Investigator, hurtling both their bodies into the firewall. The three fanatics left in the circle charged to protect their boss. Demorn cut them down with a series of vicious slashes, Xalos on fire. She turned on the desperate pair, locked against the circle of flame which had risen again. Iverson was trying to push Kingdom’s nose back into his brain, as Kingdom used the weight and power of the suit to almost completely trap the lanky Investigator against the flames. She was reminded of cage fighting. The flames burnt high around them, searing into Kingdom’s power suit. She could smell burning flesh. Neither wavered.

  Demorn leapt across to them. Kingdom exploded Iverson off his body, throwing him high into the air. The Investigator was ejected from the circle, his body crumpled on the floor, barely moving.

  Demorn held up the pearl skull in her metal hand. It glowed in the low flame. Kingdom looked at her with a slow, cold horror. He seemed to know.

  Demorn said, ‘Why did you do it? What was his wife to you?’

  There was nothing genial or soft about him. Kingdom looked like a desperate thing. His face was a mess of blood and vile emotions.

  ‘Was she a lover?’ Demorn whispered, and her voice felt like death. ‘Is that why?’

  Kingdom’s smile was sick and wild. ‘I was paid to transport the body, that’s all. It wasn’t me who killed her. She’s been dead a long time. He should know. He forgets. He makes himself forget.’

&
nbsp; Demorn crushed the pearl in her steel hand. Kingdom was shouting obscenities in some obscure off-Earth dialect. The flames flickered lower. Iverson was outside, hauling himself onto his knees slowly. She saw men rush him from the shadows. Iverson shot them down without mercy, the pistol flashing, soundless noise, even as he crawled back to normal functioning.

  Demorn could hear nothing. The spell inside the circle was not expired.

  ‘You’re dead, Kingdom. You lost your last soul. The Bankers will come, they will drag you away into the coldest Pit, where the soulless go, bereft of hope.’

  Kingdom laughed, strangely amused for a man who had lost it all. She wondered if he was fully sane or had ever been.

  ‘You think it’s so simple, Demorn. You’re such a loyal soldier. But that wasn’t my soul, you vacant whore. I’m fine, I’ll aways be fine.’

  She sneered. This guy had ice in his veins. ‘Nice try, but that’s the only skull you had left on your neck. Don’t worry, I’ll keep you in the soul circle till the Bankers come. You won’t need to run.’

  Kingdom thumped the suit with his gloved hand. ‘Try the suit next time, killer! Powered by what’s left of the Ruby. You just crushed the lovely remains of my ex-wife. It’s sad. She was all the lovely parts of me. Kept me humble. Kept me chaste.’

  Demorn snarled, leaping at him, Xalos slashing in a death move, the flames hissing. He dodged barely, the suit’s mechanics granting a fraction of speed. The energy inside the circle seemed to suck back into Kingdom’s suit. The flames rose high around them.

  His helmet slammed down over bleeding features. His body was flung backward into a tight portal of lethal cold that tore open in the air. Demorn clutched at the ground with her steel hand, fingers curling into concrete, as the negative gravity sucked at her. Her magic eyes glimpsed the infinity of the void, gods circling in slumber or in death, frozen and rotted, a universe giving a last exhalation of true terror. There was no heaven there, just rows and rows of tombs, dead suns, dead horrors.

  The portal snapped closed. Kingdom was gone. The circle of flames extinguished. Burn marks on the ground. His soldiers were dead, shattered visors, dead faces.

  Iverson was slowly getting to his feet. He had the the skull chains in his hands. She offered him an arm and he took it, murmuring thanks.

  ‘Are you hurt?’ he asked.

  She smiled, winding both chains around her neck, concealing them beneath her shirt. Her burnt face continued to slowly heal.

  ‘Nah. Just a bit of pride and flesh wounds. We call that a TKO in the business.’

  11

  * * *

  The room rumbled ominously. Demorn glanced around the room filled with bodies. Only moments before it had been filled with chanting fanatics. Iverson was checking the lifeless bodies. The visors were cracked. He shone a penlight on a skeletal, wizened face.

  ‘The flesh is gone. Something dragged the life-force out of them.’

  Another tremor shook the room. This wasn’t a time for conjecture.

  ‘Yeah, something like Kingdom and his stupid energy sucking portal I bet,’ Demorn said with heavy sarcasm.

  She saw the Triton logo painting itself in the air around them. Sigils calling the Elder Gods. Drawing their attention to this spot, this instant in time. Painting it and them for extinction.

  The ruby ring on her finger barely shone. This place was going under.

  Demorn gripped his shoulder. ‘Come on, we need to fucking hustle. Kingdom has set something in motion. We got about two minutes before this place blows.’

  Iverson gave her a cold smile. He looked fine except for the pallor in his skin and the complete deadness in his eyes.

  ‘What has he done?’

  ‘Nothing good. Time for analysis later. We should be able to get back out through the Bay Pool.’

  Iverson was looking listlessly toward the ruined icons. Fires were breaking out and another rumble cracked the structure. The huge glass windows on the side of the room were cracking. Demorn gripped his hand hard.

  ‘Come on! What will come through those windows is way worse than anything Kingdom could throw at us!’

  There was a gigantic crash. Columns crashed from above, crushing the small room. The quake was tearing the place apart. They wouldn’t be getting back through the Bay Pool. The air was heavy with the symbols of Triton.

  ‘New plan! Come on!’

  Demorn wound the locket around her neck as she ran, twisting through the sigils, barely avoiding them, pain enveloping her, powering her. Iverson just a half step behind as she kicked through a half open temple door, in synch with the blood thoughts of a death god.

  Iverson followed on automatic, his mind reeling but dead calm, like any good Investigator in a crisis.

  Demorn crushed the skull of one of the insectoids against the corridor wall, her boots crushing its spindly body on the metallic grey surface. They had been retreating for an hour, following Demorn’s instinct as they wound downward through layers of tunnels and worn out corridors. She checked her watch occasionally but they travelled mostly in silence on her lead.

  The creatures came in waves, breaks in the action followed by bouts of extreme violence. They turned around a tight corner into a dank cave, hot with steaming water. Demorn checked her watch, flashing blue on her wrist. ‘Ok, this is it. Exit 2.’

  Iverson look unconvinced. ‘It’s funny, I thought I was about to be inducted and shown the secret handshake.’

  Demorn shrugged. ‘I guess not every crazy cult meeting goes off without a hitch. Who would have guessed?’

  Two insects ran through the tunnel, skittering along the wall, followed by four more. Demorn heard them as Iverson backed into the water, his Glock blazing as he fired, lead popping into the steaming pool. After four shots, the wave seemed to have worn itself out. Iverson ejected a clip into the dark water and popped a fresh one into the chamber. He cast a suspicious glance backward into the darkness of the underground lake behind them.

  ‘Do you know where we’re headed, Demorn?’

  ‘Sure, I always come this way.’

  ‘Really?’

  Demorn threw her leather jacket on the ground with a look that summed up “over it.” She wore a thin black Spider-Man t-shirt. She shivered in the cold as her ruby heart pulsed with mad energy. She kicked off her combat boots, looking with envy at Iverson’s glistening black jumpsuit.

  ‘I’m being sarcastic, Iverson. This is the emergency exit to the emergency exit. The Ruby Room is corrupted, we’re right in the bowels of the tunnels.’

  She looked at him in his black leathers. ‘Can you swim in that get up?’

  ‘Yeah, it’s durable and light. In training they made us swim twenty miles in these carrying a full pack. I was younger then, obviously.’

  Demorn tested the water, cold and salty to her fingers and taste. ‘How long can you hold your breath?’

  ‘When I was young, a few minutes.’

  ‘And now that you’re old?’

  He was dry. ‘Take a minute off.’

  A creature screamed in desperation, the harsh noise echoing through the cave. Another followed. The ground shook.

  Demorn was matter of fact. ‘Well, we don’t have much choice, hun. I think the monsters are coming hard. I’ve sacrificed my favourite jacket and boots. Just follow me.’

  ‘Do you know the way?’

  She popped a mint, savouring it. ‘Fingers crossed I do. And all the other options are bad. So man up, soldier!’

  Demorn leapt into the water with an exultant holler. Iverson cast a last baleful glance down the tunnel. The creature roared again, much closer. He could feel it, some initiation of the end. It was something far crueller than the insects, closer to the cruel dimension it spawned from. He could feel the dragging power of it, the negative space and the hint of the Void. He imagined it had dead stars for eyes, an absence of emotion or regret, a tomb where the soul should lie. He imagined too much.

  Iverson holstered his pistol and sealed
it up on his leg. With a wry prayer to absolutely no god he believed in, Iverson dived into the water, following the ruby light Demorn’s heart cast in the dark water.

  There was a light at the end of everything.

  The cold stung Demorn’s eyes as she swam through the cave tunnel. Time felt disjointed and slow. She could feel her hair splayed long behind her. The slap of cold on her face. There was a light at the end of everything. That’s what they always said, Demorn thought. I just have to hope that isn’t the light of oxygen deprivation. She was conscious of Iverson somewhere behind her. There was no time for second guessing. She could feel the heat from her ruby heart, pleasant in the cold water, charging her with energy.

  Her strong legs pushed hard and her hands dug at the stony walls, dragging herself through the passage. She found herself looking at the runes plastered on the wall, the garbage of time collected in the tight space. She swam on, thinking of the moment, the distant past, the light at the end of everything and how much that scared her. The tunnel opened up and she swam upward, toward the dazzling white, closer and closer, as her lungs strained, so close to bursting.

  Demorn surfaced, taking a giant, ragged breath. She was in a white-walled room inside a crystal plunge pool about three feet across. The room was empty and icy cold. Harsh white light. She looked up to vaulted ceilings and plate glass windows.

  Her eyes took it all in in an instant. Where was Iverson? She sucked in a deep breath and plunged back into the cold. The ruby burnt in her heart, mixing with the power of her eyes. She could trace the arc of the cavern that descended from the bizarre plunge pool. Iverson’s body floated, spread out like a marionette. Demorn kicked down to him, her hand clutching onto the pain amulet, then hauled him upward, his frame so light as power thundered through her veins.

  Surfacing, she dragged Iverson out of the water, his face blue. She pumped life into his lungs with the kiss of life, pounding onto his chest as the freezing cold of the room bit into her wet skin. In desperation she took the amulet from her hand and went to put it around his neck. He suddenly coughed, a mix of water and blood, rolling away. His hand caught her wrist.