Legends of the Damned: A Collection of Edgy Urban Fantasy and Paranormal Romance Novels

by Lindsey R. Loucks

  Then it was just the two of them, her and the demon. It turned to her without turning, a kind of face appearing in its back, if it had a back. An eye appeared and stared at her. She was alive, and had a soul. That wasn't what the Dead-eaters feasted on. But as it looked at her, and filled her with a terror of thousands of consumed creatures, she suddenly didn't feel so sure.

  She looked at her salt circle. It didn't seem adequate for this at all. She wasn't even sure if that held it at bay, or if it just didn't like the look of her. The feeling was mutual. She patted her pockets for her phone, but spotted it on the bookshelf nearby—outside the circle. She knew enough about magic to know not to leave it, not to even reach a hand outside.

  She was safe, for now. For what little training she had, she had succeeded at one of the hardest invocations. The threat of death was a great motivator. The problem was that she never really learned any banishing. She got the Dead-eater here, but she didn't know how to get it back.

  23

  Graveyard Chase

  Dearg ran, and the Dead-eater followed, launching itself out of Lilly's apartment, seeming to fall apart as it did, only to reassemble itself in the alley outside. The O'Neill family split apart in all directions, using their unnatural speed to get away. But it wasn't chasing them. It was hungry for her.

  She raced through the alleyway, aware that the strain of the magic she had used had already slowed her down. She had prepared to feed. She hadn't prepared to be the meal.

  The swirling mass of mouths and arms and God-knows-what came in pursuit. It had its own kind of unnatural swiftness, but it was less movement and more a form of teleportation through tiny vortexes. A limb would disappear into one, and then came out of another further ahead. So it seemed to disassemble itself, or maybe it was pulled apart, only to reform further ahead.

  Dearg leapt up onto the bonnet of a car, and then hopped across the roofs of several vehicles, trying to remember some spell for speed. Fear fuelled her feet quite well, but that same fear told her that it was not enough.

  As the Dead-eater followed, the cars were left mangled in its wake, just as twisted as it was. There might have been people in some of them. They weren't people any more. The Dead-eater hungered for the lifeless and rotting, but it consumed the living in its path as well.

  Dearg's heels clattered off the cobblestones. Her hair whipped the wind and lashed her face. Just as easily as Lilly summoned the Dead-eater, Dearg's mind summoned those few fears she felt. She remembered every time she closed her coffin lid, and that brief feeling of vulnerability at the thought of what was out there, circling like vultures in some demonic plane of existence. Here it was, the nightmare unleashed.

  She made for the nearest graveyard, sensing its location, feeling the death in there. But the Dead-eater hungered for the living dead, not just a corpse. The graves alone would not do.

  The gate was ahead, but the beast was behind. As she closed the gap, so did it. Then, as she made a leap to clear the wall, she felt a sudden revulsion and was forced back. This was hallowed ground. She wasn't welcome there.

  If she had time, she could have worked her magic against that barrier, but it was strong. She didn't have time. If she wasn't quick, she wouldn't have anything at all.

  So she ran again, alongside the cemetery wall. The brickwork buckled behind her as the darkness followed. She recited old words and made signs with her hand, before making a gesture like grabbing the head of a vegetable and pulling it from the earth.

  Inside the graveyard, something stirred. The ground shuddered in one spot, and then a decaying hand broke through. Muriel Conroy. Wife and mother. Gone too soon. Back even sooner.

  The Dead-eater halted and raised its head, if you could call it a head. Its bulbous, bloated form seemed to collapse into itself and then push out something with a mouth, which gave the most ghastly intake of breath, like someone gasping for air. It was its own kind of sniffing something out, and it smelled the dead arise beyond the wall.

  Dearg kept running, slowing for nothing. She cast the spell again, and another arm broke loose, followed by its late owner.

  The wall crumbled as the Dead-eater passed on through. The shambling form of Muriel Conroy, casting a haze of dust behind her, was its target. Yet Dearg knew that it was just an appetiser. Once it was done with Muriel, it would be back for the main course. She needed to fill it up. She wasn't sure if the graveyard had enough bodies for that, or if she had enough magic in her to raise them all. But she gave it her best.

  The graveyard rocked. Headstones tilted, and some were felled like dominoes. Entire rows of graves burst to life, and the dead arose, dazed and hungry. They ignored the token tributes of their loved ones, stomped on the flowers, and left behind mounds of muck to mar their engraved names. Then the Dead-eater got to them, and they wished they were really dead.

  24

  On the Road

  Rua brought James out to where Caoimh should have been parked, but it took about fifteen minutes for the car to arrive. The glare she gave the driver would have eroded rocks.

  The journey back to Umbra Montis was even grimmer for James than it ever was before. Knowing about vampires was bad enough. Feeling one suck the blood—and the life—out of you was something else entirely. That he had been served up “to prove a point” didn't help either.

  “It was necessary,” was all Rua would say on the matter. She sat in the back of the car with him, tall and intimidating, while Caoimh drove silently, seeming like he had been lashed by some invisible whip.

  “I think I would've believed you,” James said.

  “I know you wouldn't have, not like you believe experience. That was only, if you forgive the phrase, a taste of how powerful you really are. I couldn't afford to wait for you to discover it by yourself. Your power is locked away. I had to begin picking the lock.”

  “Well, you know,” James replied, “maybe I can do that.”

  She stared at him, and he suddenly felt transfixed, unable to move, or do anything. Everything except her faded to black.

  Then she looked away, and the paralysis ended.

  “You can't even resist the vampire gaze,” she scolded. “You needed to be stronger, and you need to be stronger soon.”

  “This is all new to me. I … I need time to let it sink in.”

  “If you give it too much time, it'll be the fangs that sink in.”

  “Well, at least they'll die if they try, right?”

  “If they feast for long enough. The strongest of us can endure a sup.”

  James didn't like that thought. The Red Council had shown him that there were quite a few strong vampires in the country.

  “Maybe he's not the answer to our problems,” Caoimh suggested.

  The feeling in the car changed, and James felt suddenly worried for the driver.

  “Where were you?” Rua asked.

  “I just went for a spin,” Caoimh responded.

  “Did you go to Ballyboden?”

  “No, of course not.”

  There was a pause, where Rua chewed her lip. It seemed like she was going to burst out into a fit of anger, but before she could say anything, Caoimh pointed ahead.

  “There's something on the road,” he said, his voice hush.

  James might have expected Rua to say something like “Go around it,” but she grew suddenly alert. There was enough in Caoimh's tone to tell her that it was serious, that it was bad. She leant forward, casting her gaze out into the road ahead. James could barely see anything in the darkness, but she could see something that made her hand tremble just a little.

  James didn't see it, and had no word for it, but it was clear to Rua what stood out there in the road: a Dead-eater.

  “Turn around!” she cried.

  Caoimh twisted the wheel sharply, but they kept their current course. “I can't,” he said, barely audible. His hands shook much more than Rua's. He clutched the wheel not to drive, but to settle the shakes.

  “Then accelerate,”
she told him.

  Caoimh complied, pressing hard on the accelerator. The car zoomed forward, until the headlights gave form to the creature that barely had any. It was such a fleeting glimpse, and such a shifting form, that James wasn't even sure what he had seen.

  Rua turned to him. “If you survive this—”

  Then the car struck the creature, and everything turned to chaos. The speed of the impact should have toppled anything not bolted to the ground, but instead if was like hitting a wall. Everyone inside was thrown forward, and would have been thrown further if their seatbelts did not yank them back. The back wheels rose, and then the whole car flipped, until the ground was the sky, and the Dead-eater was some dark god that dwelt there. Glass smashed, and shards of it spread throughout the vehicle, stabbing and slicing. The somersaulting car landed on the roof, and gravity played tug of war with their seatbelts. Cut and bruised, and altogether dazed, the survivors of the crash stirred inside. Outside was another survivor, slinking slowly towards them.

  “Get out,” Rua urged. She sliced through her seatbelt with her razor-sharp nails, tumbling down, and still seeming somehow elegant when she did it.

  James fumbled with his own harness, but his own weight made it difficult to free himself. He tugged at the buckle, and tried to reach the release switch, all the while seeing the Dead-eater slither towards them, leaving behind a kind of slime made of shadow.

  Rua kicked open one of the doors, then freed James with a flurry of nails. He barely had time to fall before she started to pull him out. He stumbled, and she faltered with him. If her grace was infectious, so was his lack of it.

  “Get out, Caoimh!” she cried.

  The driver stirred inside, pulling off his broken sunglasses. He looked through the windscreen. The Dead-eater was very close now.

  “Go,” he said, resigned. “I'll slow it down.”

  “You won't,” she hissed. “Get out. Come, Caoimh. Run!”

  But it was too late. The Dead-eater reached the car, and what wasn't already buckled started to give way before it. It made its terrible sigh, like a muted banshee wail, and Caoimh was pulled back in his seat. Only the straining belt held him in place. He didn't even try to hold on.

  Rua pulled James to his feet, and grabbed his chin, twisting his head towards her. She pulled him close, close enough that he would feel her breath, if she ever had one. “Go,” she told him, and it was more than just a plea. She used her hypnotic gaze to make it harder to ignore. “Find safety. Find help. Just go. Run. Get out of here!”

  He started to leave, but his steps were slow. He didn't even know where he was going. The loss of blood and the crash had taken a lot out of him. She told him to run, and he tried to obey, but right now all he could do was walk.

  Then he glanced back, even as he continued his slow retreat, and he saw Rua dashing towards the front of the car, where the Dead-eater continued to suck Caoimh out of his seat. She grasped the handle of the door, but a tentacle of shadow and ooze lashed at her hand, and she gave a dreadful cry, pulling her hand black, where it seemed that black veins spread inside.

  “It's too late,” Caoimh said, as the threads in the strap became undone. “I'm not worth dying for.”

  “You're worth living for,” Rua replied, and she grabbed the handle tight. The lash came again, and the tentacle stayed. She gritted her teeth through the pain, letting her scream break through the gaps in her teeth. She pulled the door off, wrenching her hand free from the Dead-eater's grasp.

  She reached in to Caoimh, and their hands met. Then several arms reached out of the torso of the Dead-eater and grabbed Rua, holding her in a demonic bear hug. She wailed in agony, as if she was being torn apart inside.

  Caoimh looked at her with tears in his eyes. She should have run. Now both of them would perish in the most horrible way known to the undead.

  Then, just as it all seemed over, and James tried to look away, a light shone in the darkness. Out of that light stepped Mr. Constant, who pulled a wand from his inside coat pocket.

  25

  A Light in the Darkness

  Mr. Constant stepped forward, and with the flick of his wrist he launched a projectile made of light at the Dead-eater. It struck its body, and the creature recoiled and cried out, with many new mouths forming all over it to add to the terrible cry.

  Mr. Constant raised the wand over his head, spinning it swiftly, as if to charge it with even more power, before pointing it at the creature again. This time a larger stream of light shot forth, hitting not only the Dead-eater, but the car as well. Rua scowled and sneered at the sudden illumination, raising her arm to shield her eyes. She pulled Caoimh from the wreckage with even greater speed, fleeing into the shadows, where James watched the battle unfold.

  The Dead-eater let out a terrible roar, like a battle cry. It faced the magician, and though it was in pain—and perhaps always was—it seemed to be preparing for an attack.

  The magician kept up his barrage of glowing missiles, advancing as he did. They tore off bits of the creature, but the parts that fell seemed to become little monsters of their own. Some started to worm their way towards him, until he blasted them apart, and others floated through the air, until he destroyed those too.

  Then the Dead-eater used the black holes from which it came as a means of attack. A portal opened beside it, through which it stretched a swiftly-growing arm. Another opening appeared behind the magician, from which the arm appeared, grasping Mr. Constant's shoulder and eliciting a cry from him. He broke away from it, and a shimmer of light formed around him in a globe, but the grip left a black stain on his coat.

  Again the Dead-eater reached into the nothingness and grasped from a different place. It was all arms, appearing out of nowhere, feeling through the darkness of the night, trying to maul the magician, trying to grab him and strangle him. It seemed to take a great effort on Mr. Constant's part to evade all of these, for they came with no warning, and even his own shield of light began to strain.

  Then Mr. Constant held out his left hand towards the beast, and pointed the wand straight towards the heavens, where it glowed. He took a deep breath, the kind that took years of meditation to master, and uttered a Latin phrase that rocked the ground and rent the heavens.

  “Procul, O Procul, Este Profani!”

  There was a blast of light, blinding and burning. James thought he would never see again, and the vampires gave out a cry of pain that matched the one given by the demon. When the light subsided, and his sight returned, James saw a wave of energy pushing the Dead-eater back, not just back upon the ground, but back into a dark portal to its own realm. It grasped at the ground, and grew more arms to reach out for something to cling to, but the light continued to force it back until it was no more.

  Mr. Constant let out an audible, angry sigh. He looked at James, and the two vampires hiding behind him, using his shadow for cover from the light.

  “Who brought this here?” the magician shouted.

  Rua emerged, still shielding her eyes with her hands, though now the fingers were splayed, so that she looked between the barbed nails.

  “You know I do not mess with that world,” she stated.

  “And Caoimh?”

  “I do what she does,” Caoimh said, “or doesn't do.”

  “Well,” Mr. Constant said, walking up to James, “I doubt it was you.”

  “Yeah, I think you can rule me out.”

  “But what about Lilly?”

  “Lilly? You know Lilly?”

  “Know her?” Mr. Constant asked, raising his eyebrows. “Dear Lord, that girl will be the death of me.”

  Rua glowered at him. “If she keeps this up, she'll be the death of us all.”

  26

  One Grain at a Time

  Lilly was relieved when the Dead-eater left her apartment, but her relief didn't last very long. It left a little something behind—a lot of little somethings. As she stood trembling in the circle of salt, half a dozen little blobs, which fell from the
creature previously, snailed their way towards her.

  “Go away!” she cried. “Shoo!” She made a shooing gesture, but dared not leave the circle.

  The first of the blobs reached the salt. A mouth formed in it, and out of it stretched a blackened tongue. It lapped up a single grain, seeming to enjoy the saltiness, and then reached out for another. The other blobs joined it, feasting on the salt.

  If Lilly had had training, or even read further in her books, she might have known what to do. She might even have known whether or not these creatures could harm her, or whether the salt barrier she had erected was any kind of barrier at all. All she could think of while she stood there was that when the circle was broken, or there was no more salt to eat, they would try to eat her. Or worse—the Dead-eater itself would come back.

  Maybe it was luck—or fate—but, for some arcane reason, the blobs did not cut straight through one part, but ate in concentric circles, gobbling up each layer one at a time. This delayed the breaking of the barrier, but if death was coming anyway, delay just amounted to torture.

  The salty circle was very thin now, just three or four grains thick. Lilly held her hands together, a kind of subconsciousness act of prayer. She wondered if this ending would be worse than what the vampires had in store for her. She had been warned to be careful with magic. She never really heeded those warnings.

  The final layer was left for one of the blobs, while the others gathered around, baring their teeth. They were very small, about the size of a tennis ball, but she had no racket to bash them away, and tennis balls didn't bite.

  She knew that the end was coming, and she resolved to fight. She would kick at them, even if in doing so they snapped off her toes between those razor maws. She would thrash them with her hands, even if they nipped off the tips of her fingers, and gnawed them down to the knuckles. She wouldn't go easily. Just like the grains, they'd have to take her one little bit at a time.