Then there was an incubus standing over me, looking at the frozen motif of fury surrounding me. He was coloured a grey that seemed to shift between silver and blue with wings that blurred somewhere on the extreme outer edge of the colour palette, never settling on any one or two shades but being all of them all at once and none of them at all.
“Interesting,” he said and his voice was so urbane I was surprised there wasn’t a Martini in one of his hands and a casino chip in the other. “Let’s get you out of there.”
We couldn’t actually move the stiff imps, so I had to wiggle and squirm my way out of the cage they’d created around me. A few clung to my shirt and between me and the odd incubus, we extracted the material out of their claws with only a few rips. When I was completely free, I stepped back from the incubus and while keeping one eye on him, took a look around the rest of the place.
Nothing and no one moved. A 3D painting or perhaps Madame Tussaud’s wackiest exhibition ever. On the far side of the room, Amaya was caught in mid leap, her wings half spread, long hair streaming behind like a banner, fingers curled like talons reaching for the neck of the red-shaded incubus crouching beneath her. There were several rents in her hide, black demon blood stark against her golden colouring, but she looked strong and fierce, a faint blue glow surrounding her. She was snarling but at the same time, beautiful, as if this was what she was supposed to be doing, what she was made for. The red demon she was aimed for was half turned away, as if ready to run, face bleak with the realisation he didn’t have long to live. Another demon was poised to spring off the floor at Amaya while a third was either full on running away or trying to flank her.
Behind Amaya was the slumped and broken shape of a pale succubus, its head twisted so far around I knew it was dead. Half lying beside the succubus was an incubus, its wings broken and throat slashed. Holding itself up by weakening arms, the incubus gaped at the torrent of black blood pouring from his neck.
Above Amaya was a dark coloured incubus, wings extended to full length, body bowed with the strength of the blow he was about to deliver to Amaya’s unprotected back. He had a blue glowing sword like the one Amaya had come marauding with at Mentis. If the blow ever fell, the sword would take off one of Amaya’s wings.
Asmodeus, perhaps too good to get dirty doing any of the actual fighting, was stalking toward Rufus, two of his children at his back, an honour guard or rear guard or perhaps just there to hold his gloves while he did polite torture, I don’t know. Rufus was in mid burn, his head and shoulder ravaged to weeping, raw meat, his face twisted in agony and fear as he watched the Demon Lord approach.
The worst of my berserker fit seemed as frozen as everything else, but simple, honest fury was still there and it moved me toward Asmodeus, hands curling into fists.
“Not so fast,” the strange incubus said, a hand on my shoulder.
That touch didn’t quite freeze me but it did stop me in my tracks.
“I didn’t do this so you could have free reign on Asmodeus,” he said.
“Then why did you do it?” And perhaps just as pertinent, “Who are you?”
The impossibly perfectly handsome face smirked. “I’ll give you some thinking music.”
From somewhere and nowhere music started up. It was actual thinking music, the same sort they used to use in game shows of the eighties. The incubus tapped his foot to the tune, a thoughtful expression on his face while he pinched his chin in contemplation. After thirty seconds or so, the music stopped with a reverberating gong.
“Time’s up,” Mr Hilarious said brightly. “What’s your answer, Mr Hawkins?”
“Lucifer,” I said with the same sinking feeling you get when you realise the pretty, glittering thing in the fog is an iceberg.
“Bingo,” he said, and I swear there was a sparkle on his teeth as he gave me a big game-show grin.
So. This winged pretty boy with the out of date humour was Lucifer. King and all round Grand Poobah of Hell. Can’t say I wasn’t expecting something more.
“This isn’t my usual appearance,” he said as if reading my mind. “I just dressed up so I could sneak in and watch the show. When you go to all the trouble of setting up the dominos, you have to be there to see the grand finale, don’t you.”
“I suppose.” I took a wary step back.
Lucifer wandered over to Asmodeus, peering into his general’s grim face. “It’s my fault, really. I knew he would try something like this, I just didn’t expect it so soon or to actually get close to working. Got you to thank for stopping him though, so that’s just marvellous. Champion effort, Mr Hawkins.”
“What about Amaya? Didn’t you manipulate Rufus to get her to Brisbane to stop Asmodeus?”
The Demon King waved dismissively. “Amaymon was born for one reason alone. To oppose Asmodeus. I might have put her in his path, but she did the rest. It’s her nature to fight him, to fight her own nature, in fact. She had no choice in the matter. You, on the other hand.”
He left Asmodeus and came back toward me. As he walked, though, he changed. Just as Amaya had morphed from her Erin-shape into her true form, so did Lucifer. His incubus guise peeled downward, revealing a blazing, incandescent white light. I cringed, squeezing my eyes shut and shading my face when the first proved ineffective. The light burned magnesium bright even through my hands, a flare set off in my face.
“So sorry,” Lucifer said and the light dimmed and finally died. “I forget sometimes. I hope this is better.”
Tentatively, I peered at him through my fingers. A normal man stood where the burning pillar had been moments before. Blinking away the last of the tears, I focused on...
“Dr Angelshire?”
He smiled. “No. I merely picked this shape because it’s one you find unthreatening and respectful.”
Phew. I don’t know how comforting it would have been if Lucifer really was a psychiatrist.
“Where was I? Oh yes. Free will.”
Okay. Things were a little muddled and charging full bore toward the straight jacket end of the weirdo scales, sure, but I’m not sure I could have followed his conversational logistics on a good day. I guess my confusion showed because Lucifer slung an entirely too familiar arm around my shoulders and steered me to where Amaya hung suspended.
“As much as she denies it, she is a demon.” Lucifer stroked her immobile wing. “An extraordinary demon, but demon nevertheless. Bound by the constraints of our kind, a slave to our natures.”
“But you just said she fights her nature.”
“And her nature is to fight her nature. I mean look at this image. Asmodeus’ children attack because he ordered them to. They’re dying because he willed it. And yet they fight one of their own kind. If this incubus,” he indicated Red Boy, who was either seconds away from escape or death, “took a moment to think for himself, he might just realise what is happening here. Amaymon may have no choice in fighting Asmodeus, but this incubus does. He’s witnessing one of his own kind oppose their Lord. He knows it can be done now. So why is he fighting a clearly superior foe when he has the knowledge he doesn’t have to?”
“Because all good soldiers follow orders.”
“No. Mediocre soldiers follow orders. Good soldiers question them. Look at his face, look at the fear, the understanding that he is going die. Do you think he agrees with Asmodeus’ orders?”
“Maybe he’s a mediocre soldier.”
Lucifer/Angelshire smiled. “Maybe. Or perhaps he doesn’t have the capacity to question. Asmodeus says jump, he says how high. Asmodeus says kill, he says with pleasure. Asmodeus says stop, he says—”
“Collaborate and listen?”
The Demon King laughed, slapping me on the back. “Very good. But you get the idea.”
“The incubus has no free will.”
Lucifer shrugged. “More that he has no choice. Amaymon likes to fool herself into thinking escaping to your realm was her choice, but she could never have done anything different. She is as bound by her na
ture as the rest of us demons. You, however, always have a choice.”
I deliberately didn’t look at Rufus’ half ravaged body. “Not always.”
“Yes, always. You might think there was no other option but to come here after the boy, but you had the choice to leave him here if you wanted.”
If I wanted. It all came down to want. “Free will’s a bitch,” I muttered.
“No. Free will’s an illusion.” Lucifer wandered over to Rufus. “There are always boundaries we can’t cross. You might want to beat up the arsehole who cut you off in traffic, but you don’t do it. Why not? Because it’s not acceptable. You might be happily married and still want to screw your personal trainer, but you don’t.” He touched the tip of a finger to a frozen flame and jerked back, sticking the finger in his mouth. “Still hot. And you might want to kill your mother for refusing to buy you a toy, but you don’t. At least, you don’t if you know all about the boundaries. Yet, when you do learn about the boundaries and those you can and can’t cross, still you want to kill the woman who won’t listen to you, who was so selfishly wrapped up in her own wants she failed to see your needs. If you kill her, you cross a boundary and you think this is free will, but what you fail to see is that there are always boundaries. Cross one and there will be another one.”
Sighing, Lucifer stepped back and held out his hand. An hourglass shaped, clear container appeared on his palm, about half a foot tall. It was flawless with no obvious openings. Holding it before Rufus’ anguished face, Lucifer murmured something I didn’t even try to hear and a colourful swirl of light blossomed out of Rufus’ chest. It flowed into the glass container until it was full. As the last of Rufus’ soul left it, the constructed body broke up into a dozen dead imps. They fell to the floor in a lifeless pile at Lucifer’s feet. He shook his head sadly and came back to me.
“Free will does not exist,” he said as he handed over the soul, “but at least you have the ability to choose to cross the boundaries. He chose badly.”
The container was cool and light, the soul within swirling in nauseating patterns. I got a faint hint of Rufus through the glass, the sour-sweet rottenness and dry heat.
Lucifer’s mellow mood lifted with another game-show-host quality smile. “Don’t thank me. It’s the least I could do to repay you for stopping… what did you call him? Ass-holeus? I will have to remember that one. Now, you have what you came for, I have what I wanted, seems like the only thing left to do is get you out of here.”
“Um, yeah,” I said, still awfully unsure of what was actually going on here. I didn’t think the King of Hell was usually this helpful. “Can you send us back?”
“I’m afraid that is all up to you. But perhaps,” he mused and waved a hand through the air beside us.
With no fanfare, a rift opened up and I looked through it to see Mercy’s room from above. She was still asleep, settled once Amaya and I had crossed into the demon realm. Erin still sat outside the cage, knife by her side, puffy, sleep deprived eyes loosing focus as her head nodded forward.
Lucifer reached through the rift and touched Mercy’s forehead. She was awake instantly and I winced at the onslaught of her demon-maddened rage.
Yeah. There was nothing. Well, except for mild curiosity from Mercy, who peered up at us with a little frown.
“Do you know why vampires hate demons?” Lucifer asked me.
“Vampires are very territorial. Any threatening power that comes into their vicinity is attacked.” But even as I said it I knew it wasn’t true, or at least incomplete.
Lucifer gave me a come-back-to-me-when-you’ve-done-your-homework look. “There are vampire traits that are beneficial. Their longevity of life, their hardiness, their instinctual territorialism,” he said with a nod to me. “Then there are those traits that are something of a bother. Their ineffectiveness in daylight hours, a hungry vampire is a dumb vampire, the fact that they take so long to mature into useful tools.”
“The fact that they spend all their pocket money on clothes,” I added.
“Oh, the worst by far. But hating demons, that isn’t an inbred trait.” He held out his hand to Mercy and she reached up and took it. “It’s something more, something deeper than biology.”
With an effortless jerk, he pulled Mercy—rainbow PJs and all—into the demon realm.
Surely now, here, in this place saturated with demon scent, Mercy would lose it. She didn’t. Instead, she straightened her PJs, looked around and then considered Lucifer with a who-are-you-that-I-should-be-impressed? expression.
Lucifer stepped back and gave me a stately nod. “Consider her immune. She won’t flip out around my kind anymore.” As he began to fade, he winked and said, “Where you’re going, you’ll need a level head.”
Mercy took in the room with a quick glance. “Fight?”
“Amaya is on our side, the rest are free game.”
She nodded then, with two steps, she launched herself bare feet first at the demon poised to strike Amaya’s back with his sword of spirit-blue. The instant before she hit the immobile creature, Lucifer vanished completely and everything burst back into loud, hectic, blurry motion.
The incubus with the sword hit the far wall with a bone crunching crack and Mercy landed in a crouch with cat like grace. Amaya hit the cowering red incubus, slammed him to the ground while she thrust one arm out to catch the succubus coming in from the side. Mercy crash tackled the other incubus and they tumbled across the floor. The imps all toppled into the space I had been occupying.
An inarticulate, grinding howl signified Asmodeus’ discovery of the empty alcove.
I hastily stuffed the Rufus-in-a-bottle into my knapsack and slapped a new cartridge onto the paintball gun. With an imperious gesture, Asmodeus commanded his entourage to attack.
I’d like to say what followed was brave and manly and all things Chuck Norris-esk, but it wasn’t. What it was, was a lot of me running and ducking and firing blindly at pretty much anything moving faster than me. I got lucky with two well-aimed paintballs in the face of a yellow-tinged incubus swooping in from the side. He went down in a screaming pile, thrashing wings tangling up the second demon. Then the imps hit. They hadn’t become any easier to grab a hold of, but that didn’t mean they liked getting the heavy butt of a rifle in their face, either.
All the while, I was highly aware of the soul I carried in my backpack. I had no idea what sort of vessel Lucifer had given me, but it looked like glass, so I treated it like it. When a nasty little imp landed on my back I took great pains to not smash him into a wall. Instead, I shoved the Cougar over my shoulder, and being as dumb as it was, the imp grabbed it and tried to eat it. He got two bullets right down the gullet and didn’t bother me again.
I tried a bit of telekinesis and got nothing more than a quick tickle on the ribs of the incubus lunging for my throat. Still, it surprised the demon and I managed to plant the paintball rifle in his neck and melt enough muscle and flesh his head half fell off. I got my feet under his dying weight, ready to push him off, when the body was jerked up and tossed aside—revealing Asmodeus.
“Where is the thief?” he demanded, grabbing me by the shirt front and hauling me upright. My feet dangled a good foot off the floor.
“I don’t know,” I snapped as I pressed the rifle into his chest. “Where did you leave him?” And I pulled the trigger.
The rifle clicked on empty.
Asmodeus’ incredibly pretty face twisted into a truly ugly mask and the hands in my shirt morphed into scaly paws, claws cutting through the material.
Gulp.
Right about then would be a nice time for Mercy to show up.
She didn’t.
I risked reaching for her. All I got was a screaming ball of fury, and while it was scarily deep, it wasn’t the complete abandonment of demon-influence. She was just doing what she did best—fighting so ferociously little would be left standing when she was done. I took comfort in the fact she was alive and fighting. Where? No clue, but sh
e was around, at least.
Still, didn’t help me much.
Asmodeus snarled almost as if he knew what I’d just done. “Your vampire is impressive. I am quite enthralled by her. Perhaps I will keep her as well. She should survive for a while at least. Long enough for me to dissect why she is so different, I am sure.”
Don’t give in, Matt. He’s intentionally goading you. Dissect? Did he think I was dumb enough to fall for such an obvious taunt?
“Then perhaps I will find something juicy to do with that favour Erin Allyson McRea owes me.”
Red dropped over my vision.
Chapter 43
Usually, when I go berserk, that’s it. Goodbye Mr Rational Thinking, hello Sir Crazy-a-lot. This time, however, while the heat and the pressure built in my veins, something held me back from full tilt wacko. Whether it was the same tiredness that stopped me from using my psychic abilities, or some effect of the poison air, I managed to stave off the worst of the rage. What it left me with was a clear thought ringing through my head and the hyped up vision and hearing.
It felt like everything slowed down into clean, crisp images. Asmodeus released one set of claws from my shirt, arm lifting back in preparation to punch his fist through my face. Behind him, Amaya, bloody, ragged and very dangerous looking, loomed up, torn wings unfurling like dawn after the storm of the century. His killing blow would hit me before Amaya hit him. My rifle was empty, I couldn’t reach a pocket for a cartridge of salt-spiced paintballs and the Cougar was pretty much pointless. I was as good as dead.
Then, as if I was still in the hospital room with Erin, I heard her say, “What about faith, Matt? Couldn’t there be something besides chemistry at work here?”
Asmodeus’ claws curled into a fist. I reached into the shredded remains of my shirt and found the crucifix. The pewter seemed to burn in the charged atmosphere. Asmodeus saw it and his eyes widened.
Night Call (Book 2): Demon Dei Page 38
