“I don’t know where they took him. The trail goes dead in the middle of the road.”
Priest leaned on his scabbard, shoulders drooping. “We will find him,” he said, attempting to bring some level of optimism to the group. “I’ll keep looking. Thank you, lad.”
Liev shrugged. “It’s not like I did much.”
Lisa gave her brother a hug, more relieved that he wasn’t a ferocious, hyperventilating wolf right now. Whatever she was about to say to console him flew out of her mind, however. Sauntering up the road ahead of them was Donnie Wickles, the man in black striding beside him.
“Back for more boys?” Donnie called. “Thanks for bringing the other losers. I missed them this week. How are you guys doing?”
“You know what?” Nash said, “I always thought you were a magnet for trouble. Thanks for proving me right.”
Donnie pretended to pout as the man in black moved ahead of him. Priest took a protective stance in front of the others.
“You come back for your China man?” the demonic man asked with a nasty smirk. “Let’s make a bargain for his life. Donnie, go fetch our friend.”
Donnie ran back toward the smoke shop as Priest looked over his shoulder. “Don’t communicate with it,” he told the others. “Demons aren’t normal monsterkind. The less you have to do with it, the better.”
“That’s true. Other monsters like to survive, thrive, build civilizations and communities. All that jazz. Me? I just like to see you writhe. And I will see you writhe!”
The man in black’s smile grew so large that it split his face. His lips pulled back to reveal muscles and bone, layers of jagged teeth, liquid fire dripping from his jaws. His dress jacket started to smolder and burned away, the fine threads glimmering with embers. He put two crooked fingers to his lips and let loose a distorted whistle.
At first nothing happened, except for Donnie emerging from the abandoned shop dragging a bruised and emaciated Chen. Waves of anger and frustration washed over the hunters as they saw their friend’s cut wrists, blackened eyes, and shredded clothing. Chen looked close to death.
And then, from the direction of the mill, something emerged from beneath the earth. The group took their eyes off the demon and Chen, and what they saw in that moment pierced their hearts with fear.
Hell itself opened wide its jaws and what came into view, ravaging the earth in a rampant, violent wind toward them—seething in frenzied bursts of savage howls, burning sulfur, and vexed intentions—were two tempestuous manifestations of evil on a warpath, whose only objective was the complete annihilation of anything, and anyone, within their sights.
The hunters staggered in despair. Their minds sunk as any hope of survival became a fantasy. The ground beneath them shook, as did whatever faith or desire or good intentions they may have clung to until now.
The thought, this is the end, grew with every step these two monstrosities made.
Laughter, like that of metal gnashing against metal, erupted from the demon, which no longer held any resemblance of a man. Its true form fully realized.
“Your choice old hunter! A bargain for this damned soul ... or I watch you die!”
Chapter 15
The two nightmares rushed down the slope toward them. The first and larger beast was humanoid, with cloven hooves, ram-like horns, and fearsome musculature. He dragged a red-hot spear behind him, leaving a trail of fire beside the cloven depressions that were its footprints. The ground shook beneath its every step.
The second horror was a skinny, hunched, eyeless thing with sickly-white skin receding over blackened bones. The closer the fiend lurched, the more violent its bone-like fingers scratched at the air, sharp like knives.
“Last offer?” the demon prodded. “We could work something out. If not, I have a plane to catch.”
Priest raised his sword. “Go back to your Hell and its Godless horde.”
The demon laughed again, its silky voice causing the ground to tremble. With a bow, he turned to depart. “Better than to remain in yours, foolish human.” He and Donnie began to walk, dragging Chen behind them, and time seemed to seep through the cracks of eternity as they walked around the mountain bend in a broken and unnatural speed. The very fabric of nature seemed to twist and contort around them.
“Liev, can you follow them?” Priest asked, turning toward the monstrosities headed their way.
“No!” said Lisa. “He can’t just go after a demon like that alone. It will rip him to shreds.”
“Relax, Sis,” Liev rasped with some difficulty. His mouth was becoming more snout-like, lips losing their mobility. “I’ve got this. You guys okay here?”
“Nothing we can’t handle,” Charlie said with every ounce of hope he had left. He eyed the horned beast’s burning spear dubiously, feeling the magic in the air become more potent. It wasn’t a type of magic he had felt before—distinctly different from the Otherworld, full of wrath and malcontent; more of a tangible, living presence of evil, than any form of conjured enchantment. He looked at Liev. “Be careful.”
Liev growled something unintelligible in return, sprinting into a run. Lisa watched him go, intense worry perplexing her features. Darcy nudged her.
“Hey. He’s been through worse. We need you here now.”
“Get down!” cried Nash.
Without warning, the larger beast swung its spear around, delivering it in a wide arc. It phased through Darcy, and the rest scattered, avoiding the mass of burning metal—except for Priest. His head snapped hard against the rocky gravel several feet from where he stood.
Charlie jumped to his feet. “Priest!”
Something tackled him from behind, and he cried out as a set of teeth clamped into his shoulder. He heard Nash scream “Get off!” just before a crackle charged the air, feeling the back of his jacket singe. Nash’s bolt was supercharged from whatever new atmosphere the demons brought with them, carrying enough force to make the thing on his back dislodge.
Nash’s strong hand pulled Charlie to his feet. He barely had the time to thank his friend before the giant spear was swinging toward them again.
With no time to worry about Priest, Charlie lunged forward, hoping the others would do the same. He brought the image of the Dark Prince to mind and sent it to the ram-creature, making it pause long enough for Charlie to get back up and charge into it. With his own spear, Charlie jabbed up and under its ribcage, aiming for some vital point. He cheered inside, sensing the tip of the spear puncture something soft.
The thing bellowed an unholy mix of bleat and scream, but it didn’t fall. Charlie managed to dodge a backhanded blow, his spear remaining lodged in the monster’s gut. He released his grip to avoid being picked up.
“Move, Charlie!”
He moved and Darcy let a bolt fly from her crossbow, the silver tip neatly landing in her target’s chest. Beside her, Fish fired a round of his custom monster-hunting ammunition into the beast. Still, it stood upright, alive, and angrier yet.
Charlie looked for the others—Nash and Dink were striving to take down the bony imp. Lisa aided them with her black waves of energy, keeping the smaller devil from thrashing uncontrollably. Charlie, Darcy, and Fish gathered to work together.
“Any ideas?” asked Fish. “Big guy doesn’t seem too worried about us.”
“It’s a tank,” Charlie told them. “I don’t think we can hurt it. Just gonna have to take it down. Darcy, can you get behind it, try and cut its spinal cord?”
“Duh. What about you two?”
Charlie pulled out his throwing knives. “We’re going to defang the snake.”
She nodded, drawing her dagger.
“Aim for the joints and motor muscles,” Charlie told Fish. “I have a feeling it isn’t going to just sit there and let Darcy get behind it. Let’s keep its attention on us.”
“Sure thing, my friend!” Fish took aim. His second shot was perfect, nailing the beast’s knee. Sadly, the thing merely looked at the gaping hole in its leg and swung
his burning spear again.
Several yards away, Nash was yelling at Lisa, “Can’t you keep it more still?”
“This isn’t as easy as it looks!” she snapped back at him. She returned her focus to the imp as it threw a claw at her face, narrowly missing. Lisa focused on two sharpened spikes of energy, sending them through the monster’s shoulders in the hopes she could pin it to the earth.
“I’m over this,” Nash grumbled, unsheathing his ax. With the fiend still clawing at the air in front of Lisa, he stepped forward and swung, the blade of the ax landing deep in the monster’s neck. It was a certain deathblow, or so it should have been. The imp turned around, twisting its eyeless visage into a sneer. Long claws dug into Nash’s forearm.
“Get back!” Lisa shouted. She pulled at the creature with braided energy, but it was firmly locked onto Nash’s arm. The hell-beast raised its other taloned hand, aiming for the kill.
Dink stepped forward with a technically-perfect right cross, clenching an iron horseshoe in his fist. The cold, spelled metal cracked several of the imp’s teeth, dislodging the creature from Nash. Angered, it writhed on the ground, digging its way free of Lisa’s hold with the short ax still jutting from its cranial stem.
“Well, for the love of biscuits and gravy!” yelled Dink. He dropped his horseshoe, aiming his rune-carved shotgun and firing. The ground exploded with silver and iron buckshot, but the imp was already on the move, pouncing on Lisa.
The darker twin already had her rapier and dagger out, both augmented with inky shards of energy. She parried one of its swiping claws, chipping the bone, and kicked the devil back to give her rapier room, slashing its chest open. The blade dragged itself across the blackened bones there, cutting into charred ribs. She barely kept the creature at bay with a protective bubble of energy as it pounced again in rage. Lisa fell backward from the force of the attack, her concentration breaking, along with the bubble of safety.
A thunderclap rang through the air, and Nash’s lightning bolt launched the bony imp over the top of Lisa. She rolled and jumped to her feet as fast as she could, in time to see the larger demon recklessly strike the imp with its spear. Like a hellish baseball game, there was a teeth-jarring CRACK! and the small devil was sent flying through the air.
It landed next to Fish, who dumped a vial of his own concoction over the fiend. What would have brought another monster to its knees only sizzled over this beast. The fleshless ghoul jumped forward, its claws digging painfully into Fish’s upraised arms.
At ramming speed, Dink tackled the imp with a raucous battle cry, not willing to see his friend die at the hands of this hellion. He maneuvered atop the monster, shoving the barrel-end of his shotgun into its chest, pulling the trigger. The sinewy devil bucked beneath him once, hissing, its exposed ribcage shattered like glass by the shot. Through broken, impaired movement, it continued to flail in attempts to attack anything its diseased claws could reach. Fish, finally able to reload, put a point blank round passing through its eyeless skull.
“Good Daisy Mae, I miss the Otherworld,” Dink told Fish. “Giant spiders and that giant fish-man-thing. Those were things a man could understand. These things here are two streets left of the fifty yard line. Can’t wrap my reckons ’round any of this cursedness.”
Fish clapped his friend on the back. “I know, Dink. I know. I long for a fishin’ hole right about now.”
Behind them, the larger demon had lost some of its mobility, with Darcy’s silver dagger firmly located in the back of its knee. Now it held the glowing spear like a staff, smoke rising from its hands where thick, crusted flesh met burning metal. It spun the weapon with greater speed than it had previously shown, and Charlie didn’t move out of the way quick enough to avoid the blunt end of the shaft. It slammed into his liver, knocking the wind out of him and sending him to the ground reeling in pain. Somebody dragged him backwards.
The hunters stood in a circle around the ram beast, trying to figure out how to deal with it. Fish and Dink unloaded a barrage into the demon’s head and torso, but their customized monster-ammo didn’t seem to bother it.
A gravelly voice boomed from behind them. “Someone,” groaned Priest, “stop that blasted abomination from swinging its spear around.”
Charlie looked up at the hunter, who was limping, leaning on his scabbard like a cane. “Glad to see you’re alive.”
“I’m not ... that hurt.”
Charlie grimaced. “I know what you mean. What are you thinking?”
“Our weapons and strengths aren’t having much effect against it.”
Nash grunted in agreement.
Not a second later, they heard a scathing hiss and turned to see the bony devil pushing itself back to its feet again.
Priest dropped his scabbard, stretching his back. He raised his sword, pointing at the creatures readying for a new wave of attacks. “These are demons, boys and girls. They aren’t going to go down with any conventional means. We’ll have to deal with them the old way.”
“The old way?”
Priest nodded. “Hold them as still as you can with those lassos of yours Lisa.”
“Got it,” she returned.
“You’ll have to move quick,” Charlie told Priest.
Priest growled, “I know how to hunt monsters, my young friend! I’ve been slaying creatures like this since before your great-granddaddy walked the earth.” He threw down his sheath, raising his sword in front of him. “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name ...”
Charlie listened with fascination as Priest began reciting from the Lord’s Prayer to something in Gaelic, and then again to a spell intoned in Latin, each transition fluid and chilling. Priest’s sword began to shimmer, looking much cleaner and brighter than the rest of their surroundings. They all made way for the elder hunter as their large adversary began to reach forward.
“Ar n-Athair, fág an bealach!”
A rough, dirty visage with a sword of shining metal and runes, Priest cut downward, severing the demon’s hand in a single arc. The limb dissolved in a fiery flash, and the stump of a wrist began to dissipate in a similar manner. At long last, the larger demon demonstrated pain, bellowing loudly as it clutched at its missing hand.
The hunters stepped back in synchronized formation, watching Priest with awe as he approached the demons, Lisa barely managing to keep her hold on the ram-beast.
The smaller devil didn’t wait, however. It reared up, standing taller than before in an attempt to frighten Priest, throwing its claw out with a raw flourish. Unimpressed, Priest swung his broadsword and cut neatly through the air, slicing into its belly. The sparse muscles there grew white and chipped, like eroding stone.
Priest ducked under the bulkier demon’s spear one more time, pointing his sword upward as the sinewy imp began an aggressive charge toward the Irishman, effectively impaling itself. It paused, then choked a harsh cough, as Priest’s blade glowed even brighter.
“Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I DO NOT FEAR YOU!” Thrusting his broadsword sideways—the bone demon becoming disintegrating chunks of white dust—Priest screamed, “Deliver us from evil!” He turned to face the horned demon, jabbing his blade into its chest, twisting the blade. The creature wailed, erupting into a blaze of white-hot fire as a shockwave of heat and flame lifted them all up off of the ground.
Charlie coughed, eyes burning from the smoke. “Priest? Nash, Lisa? Darcy?” He grimaced. The presence of the demons disappeared from their world, and with its absence, Charlie felt the very human sensation of pain once more. He knew he had a rib out of place, and possibly more damage than that to his organs.
A few feet away, Priest wheezed, clearing his lungs of the smoke. “I’ve always hated hunting demons.”
“I’m okay!” said Dink, throwing off a chunk of wood that landed on him in the explosion. “Just a little burnt. Like Fish’s popcorn.”
“You hush already!” Fish said, not attempting to get up yet.
His friends became clearer as the haze thinned out, and Charlie propped himself up, accepting Nash’s extended hand to stand the rest of the way.
“Anyone get the license plate of that demon?” asked Nash, sitting down on a scorched tree stump. He wiped ashen sweat from his eyes. “I would like to file a complaint.”
Lisa gasped. “Donnie. The demon, Chen,” she said, breathing deep to speak each name. “Liev!”
Chapter 16
Lisa jammed the buttons on her fashionably outdated flip-phone, still no signal to dial out.
“How much longer?” she hollered from the backseat, trying to be heard over the open windows.
“We’re almost there,” Darcy answered. Her foot dug deeper into the gas pedal, wishing Fish’s truck was behind her, not in front. Priest wasn’t there to scold her. He rode with Fish and Dink this time, trusting that Darcy could follow them in what they all hoped would be a simple, and short, search through Hunter’s Grove.
Darcy’s phone started to chime in rapid succession, several notifications coming through at once. She rolled the windows up, inviting the smell of burnt clothing and dirt and sweat to be fully appreciated again.
“What on earth?” She started to pick up her phone, and Nash snatched it away from her. “Hey!”
“You’re driving,” he said with a pointed grin. “Don’t you ever ...!” He swiped the phone’s screen. “Looks like your mom is trying to get in touch with you. Or has been. Pretty much since we’ve been gone. She’s called like twelve times.”
Darcy growled at him. “Texts?”
“Only one. She said, ‘Call me.’”
She snatched the phone out of his hand, voice-commanding the phone to, “Call Mom.”
“Darcy?”
“Hi Mom. Sorry, my phone battery died. Didn’t realize it.”
“Where have you been, young lady?”
“We all went to the movies together. Trying to take some stress off.” She looked in the rearview mirror, raising her eyebrows at the others. It had certainly been a stress relieving day, sort of. Darcy hated lying to her mother.
Charlie Sullivan and the Monster Hunters: Council of the Hunters Page 13
