Demorn: Soul Fighter (The Asanti Series Book 3)

by David Finn

  80%

  The real Smile was filtering through. She could see his more recent touches, red and blue earrings that the auto version didn’t have. His hair was too long and he had circles under his eyes.

  ‘Hey, Sis, sorry to cut in on the dance, but I can’t finish the complete hack. Somebody has degraded my auto hacks. I can give you a circle of interest, but I can’t give you a hot lead.’

  ‘Somebody? Is it Jason? An Innocent?’

  ‘Maybe, I don’t know. It’s the same force that pushed me out of the Grave and made it so hard to help you. I could barely get a line on you there and that was with the Spire on full search power. Right now, I’m huddled in a panic room in the Clubhouse.’

  She snapped the watch away. ‘So? Where’s my circle of interest, Smile? That’s what I need.’

  ‘Nearby. A huge energy reading right off the charts.’

  Demorn ducked her head out of the small control cabin. In the industrial landscape a huge inter-locking radar array stood out prominently. ‘I’ve got eyes on what looks like radar, calling for ET, radio waves, something like that.’

  Smile replied, ‘I’m almost certain that’s a God Point. It’s not the regular aliens they’re looking for. My readings are picking up all kinds of leakage. This won’t be clean, there will be a reality bleed.’

  Suddenly all she could think about was traitors. She could speak for herself and for Smile and probably Jackie Z. Everybody else was a line-ball call. ‘I’m twisting in the wind, Smile. Where’s the circle?’

  ‘Head for the radar. I’ve programmed a pathway and entry code in, you’re good to go. Good luck, soldier.’

  She gave him a wink. ‘Thanks, bro. Keep the home fires burning, and play some Johnny Cash.’

  ‘Hey, Sis. Where’s Wolf? I’m not getting a reading. Isn’t he supposed to be running point?’

  She ran her finger across her throat. ‘They got him, missing, presumed dead.’

  Smile’s image shimmered, doubt and fear in his electronic eyes. This wasn’t the life he had wanted for them. He hated the risks she took, the games she played. She knew that. She understood that. But there wasn’t much else to say, so she blew him a kiss, shut the connection and hustled fast.

  14

  * * *

  Demorn kept moving through the ghostly silence, weaving on the upper platforms, the snub pistol out, guided by Smile’s directional cues that fed into her brain via the watch. She didn’t know where the people were. She reached the far point of the complex. Looking out, the radar array stood before her, separated by perhaps a mile. Tiny figures dotted the near distance, clusters of people slowly walking across the sand toward its immensity.

  When she was a child in Asanti, before Ultimate Fate had consumed the world, Demorn had been a wanderer, slipping away from Library Tours or tricking sleepy minders, to fade into the shadows, often with her kid brother in tow. She had gone where she was not supposed to go. She was fascinated by legends and the esoteric. She had wandered into the Military Halls and seen the great Generals of old, from the days when Asanti had been a powerhouse, a Name Planet, not a library, not a relic, not the cultural storehouse it became in later years. The neo-fascist nature of the giant figures had captivated her then, alluring in their immensity, just as the memories disturbed her now. Nobody else had visited them. The Asanti had been embarrassed by that violent period in their history. They sought to put it behind them, retreating into the realms of information and data gathering, building huge libraries to retreat into the past, seeking to gaze into the future, turning from the now, becoming a Mirror World, perhaps the most famous one of all. And for many Asanti, there had never been a war, just oh-so-many other more distant wars to dissect.

  Demorn had gone to other forbidden and forgotten places in Asanti. She had met people who put her on this current path. She knew that now, even if she had not known then. This path of death and bloodshed, this path of compromised survival. And she knew what she looked at now, staring out at the huge structures dwarfing those below. She was looking at worshippers who didn’t know reality from fantasy. They swarmed like locusts to a promise that was nothing but an empty lie. Or if not a lie, a horrible truth that did not care for anything at all, a bottomless hunger for souls.

  Demorn couldn’t help them, but she had to join them. There was no future in the anonymous, winding corridor behind her, and the way back to Firethorn was closed. The insanity of Josie and the double dealing left Demorn with nothing but a headache. She wondered suddenly if the answer really did lie in the massive radar array. With a heavy sigh, she climbed down the side of the rig.

  There was no heat from that empty blue sky and the pale yellow sun which shone on Demorn as she carefully descended. The air was quite cold. She kicked at the sand with her combat boots, which reached right to the edge of the machines. She could see more people walking across the sand in a small group, close by her cover. Something about them looked off. Demorn began to shadow them, her hand on the snub pistol. She drifted across the sand, light on her feet, savage fire alight in her heart, a smile crawling across her face as she realised Xalos was alive again.

  It was a group of three, two men, one woman. The woman sensed her first, turning to look as Demorn slipped into their group. Demorn kept her face neutral and composed. The woman’s beautiful face was obscured by a crown of thorns which was taking over her mouth. Demorn’s jaw opened in shock. It was Jackie Z—Jackie Z, the Treasurer of the Innocents. Sarcastic Jackie, brilliant Jackie. Jackie Z who holidayed in her condo in Florida and didn’t care about mysticism. Jackie Z who liked hot guys and a glass of wine. Jackie Z who she had met one night deep in the layers of the Clubhouse virtual reality machines and always tried to keep in touch with. Jackie Z who seemed like the least likely person in the world to fall prey to Triton demons.

  It hadn’t completely eaten her the way it ate the thorn-head drones. There was something still pathetically human in her eyes, something that still made Jackie, Jackie. Demorn felt true fear. ‘Can you see me, Jackie?’

  The woman nodded, slowing her progress. Her eyes were glassy. Jackie was super sharp, she was the hard financial edge that the Innocents needed. She classified the threats from green to red, and was one of the hardest bargainers Demorn had ever seen. Innocents like Demorn or Alex only got high amber or red missions.

  ‘Has the Clubhouse fallen to our enemies?’

  Jackie slowed to a complete stop. She shook her head, and gestured at the two men. They set up a convoy tent to shield them from the sun. The men did not have the crown of thorns, but they seemed to be in great fear of both Jackie and Demorn. The two woman sheltered under the tent’s awning, their legs crossed.

  Jackie’s eyes sharpened. She took the crown of thorns off her face. Demorn’s eyes widened in shock. Jackie Z shot her a smile, drinking deeply from a flask, gesturing to one of the men to give Demorn one. Demorn glanced backwards. The huge industrial complex had disappeared. Jackie was looking as elegant as ever in her pants suit. Demorn blinked. Everything around them was desert.

  ‘What the F is going on, Jackie?’

  ‘It’s gross, Dee, but I needed to do something.’

  Jackie sighed, not meeting Demorn’s eyes.

  ‘It’s Kate, we traced it to Kate. And from Kate, to you.’

  ‘Traced what to Kate and me?’

  ‘The virus. Ultimate Fate. We traced it to you.’

  15

  * * *

  ‘What the hell!’ Demorn exclaimed, her back stiffening.

  Jackie Z waved her hands in the air. ‘Not the entity itself. The connections of Ultimate Fate. The Soul Skulls that you wear around your neck. The Banker ships which take the souls when the host runs empty. The reality virus that eats worlds. There’s a trail of infection leading straight into the Clubhouse. The Sympaths caught it first, six months ago, bizarre infections intruding in their thought conferences, enough to eventually take them off the board. Even now, we only have one Sympath operational.’


  ‘Then your brother, and we all know how he loves Sympaths, got a miniature dose, plus some randoms got hit. Now it’s cut into the lowest level, into the dream itself, where I picked up this hideous crown of thorns, dead as a doornail.’

  Demorn was sarcastic. ‘Which dream would that be, Jackie?’

  Jackie looked at her. ‘You know what I mean, Demorn. Our deepest cavern. The baseline of the Innocents.’

  And suddenly Demorn did understand. Demorn walked to the edge of the tent. The soldiers’ gazes followed her.

  ‘That’s bad. It’s so long since I visited the Clubhouse, I forgot all about the Dream Cavern. I never went there much anyway.’

  Jackie Z was trademark dry. ‘And yet the place still exists and business is done there. Shock-horror, the whole world doesn’t revolve around you, Demorn.’

  Lying far deeper than the Ruby Room where the young bloods were initiated by the leaders, be that Demorn, or often Alex, her chief rival and most experienced Innocent, the Dream Cavern was a place Demorn had seldom ventured. Lying deep in the collective subconscious, Innocents journeyed under a programmed hypnosis to the bottom of the Clubhouse, accessing ancient magic, chilling with each other by great crystal fires, seeing and feeling what they had long wished to see in the Dream Cavern. Innocents came from everywhere and most were battle-hardened combat vets, and nearly all of them craved a measure of peace they could not find in the cut and thrust of their normal business.

  Demorn, wary of such depths, was far happier playing video games or reading comics than looking too deep inside, and had seldom gone into the Dream Cavern in all her years in the Clubhouse. There were exceptions to her normal rules. When returning from her exile in the Grave Demorn had not only gone deep into the Dream Cavern, she had met Jackie Z down there, the slick accountant recently hired to run the books with Demorn off in the Grave, and Smile less and less inclined to dirty his hands with Innocent affairs.

  The pair had quickly developed a close professional relationship which Demorn both enjoyed and felt privileged to experience. Jackie Z was a remote, detached personality, who did not suffer fools gladly and kept socialising to the most basic and perfunctory professional level. Underneath, Demorn had quickly noticed Jackie had a dry sense of humour, and a completely different point of view on the business than any other Innocent in the Clubhouse. This, combined with her kickass accountancy skills, made her invaluable and the compensation package was generous.

  ‘What do you mean, Jackie?’

  Jackie Z said, ‘I can’t write a cheque to make this all go away. Your brother is sick. He barely has the energy to get out of bed. He’s sulking and skipping Music Fridays.’

  ‘That is bad.’ Music Fridays were everything to Smile.

  Jackie put an arm on her shoulder. ‘You’ve been in the Firethorn dimension so long, fighting their wars for them. You’ve become so invested, you carry so many of their souls, Dee.’

  Demorn could barely look her in the eye. ‘It’s a crisis over here, hon. A good old-fashioned one like in the comics.’

  Jackie Z was exasperated. ‘You’re worried about the comet over Bay City, well what about the shadow over Babelzon! More people than just you can see Ultimate Fate now. The Sympaths are benched. Our leader keeps going missing. People are scared. It’s time to come home.’

  Jackie gave her shoulder a slight squeeze and moved away. The speech seemed to have taken something out of her, an unaccustomed outpouring of emotion. Demorn exhaled. She looked out over miles of desert. The industrial landscape had vanished behind them, lost in swirling sand storms. Who knew if that was even real?

  The radar arrays were blurry in the distance. Her voice felt detached and remote, like the words came from somebody else, someone far wiser and more confident. She said, ‘I take your point, Jackie, but I do need to finish this.’

  Jackie Z said, ‘Let me ask you an honest question. I need a honest answer.’

  ‘Sure.’

  Jackie lightly tapped Demorn’s chin, causing her to turn to look her in the eye.

  ‘Why are you so obsessed with Kate? What has she has ever done for you?’

  Demorn didn’t even know what to say. The relationship was over, most of the pain and hurt was gone. They weren’t even coasting on fumes. It was gone, gone, gone. ‘Who says I’m obsessed with her? I have a new girlfriend in Bay City, y’know.’

  Jackie gave her a kind smile. ‘Oh c’mon, hun. I could fuck a gym-jock tonight, it doesn’t mean we’re married. I remember what you told me last Xmas Party. You said Kate’s soul was lost in Firethorn.’

  Demorn felt twitchy, she was hurting. ‘That’s true. A mission went bad.’

  ‘She’s still walking around. I saw her at some terrible pop fashion show last week. So, how’s that work?’

  Demorn couldn’t help but ask. ‘What’s she up to now?’

  ‘Lives in LA chasing shows the last I heard. Filmed two cheesy pilots that didn’t land. There’s talk about a Teen Super Force reboot, and excuse me, but none of them are teenagers any more.’

  Demorn laughed despite herself.

  Jackie continued. ‘Meantime, Kate is a D lister, babe. She’s a ghost of who she was. She mostly does cheesy skin-flicks that are direct to streaming, does the convention circuit in latex, shows her boobs for fifty bucks, sells herself to producers and fans like she’s a piece of meat.’

  Demorn snorted. ‘What’s your point? That’s every actor hustling for a break. You try working the con circuit. Don’t be so harsh.’

  Jackie was point blank. Demorn could feel the laser-like focus, like a high school debate student positioning for the win.

  She said, ‘My point? My point is how is she still walking around? Shouldn’t a Banker have come and taken Kate by now? Isn’t that what happens when you lose your soul?’

  Demorn tugged at her necklace, the miniature souls glistening in her fingers as she pulled at the chain, threatening to toss them to the desert sands. The chain was hot in her hand, red deathless eyes burning in the miniature skulls.

  ‘All these goddamned souls, that I fought for and won, that’s how I survive! I feed off the people I’ve beaten in the Soul Circle, Jackie. It really is that fucking dramatic. That’s why I started Soul Fighting in the first place. I was running on fumes.’

  Demorn wrapped her hands around the burning chain.

  Jackie said softly, ‘You kept going though, didn’t you. You’ve got a lot of souls there.’

  Demorn chuckled. ‘Some of them are tiny, some are scarred.’

  ‘Where’s Kate’s soul, Dee?’

  ‘The Bankers have it, they took it in their black ships long ago. They’ve had it for years.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘We were on holiday. We were barely more than kids. Firethorn seemed so passive and imaginary in that phase. So enchanted, a true wonderland. Warm nights, swimming in the ocean with Kate and other girls. We would go deep into the woods around the Fort, exploring more than I ever had. It was like heaven and we used to joke about that.’ She choked. ‘Because neither of us had ever been very religious.’

  Her voice was haunted and filled with hurt. Demorn paused before continuing, unable to look Jackie Z in the eye. ‘It’s my fault the holiday turned into a nightmare. The Sisters warned us that peace was illusory, they knew dark shadows haunted the woods, and that danger was constant. But we were young and in love, we didn’t listen.’

  ‘And Kate?’

  Demorn sounded lost. ‘She was happier than I had ever seen her, she adores magic. Or at least she did . . .’

  ‘What happened?’

  Demorn cleared her throat. ‘The comic books cover it. It’s stupid. Kate found a temple in the woods, wandering alone, on a day when I busy with Firethorn matters. She was desperate to share it with me but I was busy. She went in by herself, she didn’t really believe that demons and monsters were one hundred percent real.’

  Jackie said, ‘That was a surprise to me too. I thought the r
umours of the magic were full of crap.’

  Demorn nodded. ‘It shocks most outsiders, especially city-bound Babelzonites. They live in a future world compared to the wilds of Firethorn. Kate was my girlfriend, but she was never an Innocent.’

  ‘How did she even get into the temple?’

  Demorn was blank. ‘She shouldn’t have been able to. But we’d been together so long. We got comfortable. I stupidly taught her a few tricks, enough to open a ruined temple tomb, but nowhere near enough to purge it.’

  An uncomfortable silence settled in the tent. For all the distance she had on the relationship, this was raw stuff.

  ‘She awoke an ancient creature who sucked down her soul. I got there fast enough to fight the evil, but she was pretty much gone, hanging by a slender thread.’

  Jackie said, ‘There was a cost, wasn’t there?’

  Demorn lost the restraint she had been placing on herself. She was sick of this double-talk.

  ‘Kate has my soul, OK? She has my soul, Jackie. Do you get it now?’

  Jackie pulled her knees up to her chest. ‘I don’t understand, Dee.’

  ‘It was my fuck-up that got her hurt, so I pay the price for that. I went on the Tour. I built up some Soul Skulls. I became semi-famous for five minutes. We had some fun and she left me somewhere in the mix. So I keep moving. I left Firethorn for Ceron, just like I left Babelzon. I put myself for hire.’

  Jackie said, ‘You’re a cool customer, Dee. But what happens to you? If you lose those skulls in a run of bad luck or because somebody is just better?’

  Demorn grinned. Her eyes were green and desolate. ‘I die, Jackie. Simple as that. No comebacks. The Bankers come and grab me and that’s the last train out. That’s every Soul Fighter. That’s what makes it entertaining for the masses. I’ve left the Tour though.’

  She gripped the necklace hard, before releasing the chain, and the skulls slid down beneath her t-shirt.