Fire City

by Bali Rai

  Pipe, his ears ringing, a wound the size of an apple in his belly, tried to get to his feet as the big blond man emerged from the smoke. He looked over at his men. Kemp was finished, the left side of his head gone. Williams seemed fine, however, bar some cuts to his face and a single shard of metal embedded in his right arm.

  ‘Williams,’ he gasped urgently. ‘Look lively!’

  The younger mercenary rolled onto his side and pulled out his handgun. He watched the giant approach his boss, machete swinging in his hands.

  ‘Hey!’ shouted Williams, taking aim.

  Mace turned to the younger soldier, saw the gun, heard his shout. He froze. Williams fired his gun and the bullet whizzed past Mace’s head, urging him into action. He dived to his left, behind Pipe. A second bullet slapped into a wall behind Mace, a third close behind. Mace grabbed the old soldier’s pistol and, using him as a shield, shot back three times, catching Williams in the throat, jaw and temple. Then, sure that Williams was dead, Mace throttled Pipe. The soldier’s mouth fell open. The stub of his cigar rolled down his chin, across his left shoulder and onto the floor. Swirls of blue smoke rose up into the night.

  Jonah dropped down between two buildings and across an abandoned car park. Ahead, a church spire rose into the sky and somewhere beyond it a fox cried out. Behind him, he could feel Valefor gaining ground, a wave of energy surging towards him. The closer the demon lord came, the more Jonah felt his human half receding. He ran straight on, down past the church and right onto a wide road littered with debris. To his left was the railway station and he went in, aware that he was running into a nest of cannibals. He drew his blade and sprinted across the concourse, down some stairs and onto the platform. A single train sat empty on the tracks and rats scattered as he crossed behind it. Over a wall and past the shell of a storehouse, a narrow alleyway opened out into a housing project and he slowed as he approached it, sensing trouble.

  ‘RUN!’ came Valefor’s voice, rasping, grating.

  Jonah heard a scream from a hundred metres to his right. He shook Valefor’s words from his mind and entered a wide expanse of land, overgrown and dangerous. His eyes picked up human-sized heat signatures, four to the left surrounding a prone form, and three to the right. He turned left and came upon cannibals tearing at the flesh of a young woman. He was too late to save her. They sensed his approach, turning to roar at him with blood-soaked mouths, and Jonah ducked beneath the first blow, spun round and swung his blade, severing an arm. The next swipe sent a cannibal head flying, blood spouting into the air.

  Suddenly the cannibals looked beyond Jonah and saw what was coming. They screamed as Valefor closed in. Jonah knew that the demon lord would be unable to pass up the feast. He’d counted on it. As the black cloud surrounded the cannibals, tearing them to shreds, Jonah set off again, sprinting back towards the main road. His diversion would hold Valefor for a few minutes, long enough for Jonah to make it to the park.

  To the place where he would finally confront his enemy.

  * * *

  Martha gasped as she saw the bodies lined up across the floor of the Haven’s main chamber. Each had been wrapped in blankets, a few with faces visible. May’s body lay at the end, her face serene, as though she was merely sleeping. Martha approached her aunt and crouched beside her, her whole body shaking. She leaned in and felt her heart breaking as she kissed the cold, waxy flesh of May’s face, stroked her once lustrous hair. Behind her, Mace scowled.

  ‘Something isn’t right,’ he snapped. ‘The bodies have been moved.’

  ‘Well,’ came a voice from across the chamber. ‘If I’d waited for you to do it, old man . . .’

  ‘Oscar!’ screamed Faith as he emerged from the shadows, limping. She threw her arms round him, kissing his forehead, holding him tight. Martha, unable to speak, stared at Oscar in disbelief.

  ‘We thought you were dead,’ sad Mace, feeling his heavy heart soar.

  ‘So did I,’ Oscar told them. ‘I blew the south-facing entrance and the tunnels collapsed around me. Knocked me out.’

  ‘But you survived?’ asked Faith.

  ‘Yeah,’ Oscar told her. ‘When I came round, it wasn’t too bad. My leg was trapped but I managed to free myself. Took hours to crawl down to the inner hatch though, and then I found them. I don’t know what happened. One minute it was quiet, and then the demons appeared out of nowhere.’

  ‘We know,’ Mace told him. ‘Aron betrayed us to the Mayor.’

  ‘Aron?’ spat Oscar. ‘That weasel-faced, dirty little bastard!’

  ‘Doesn’t matter now,’ said Faith, even though she knew that it did. ‘Aron’s dead, they’re all dead. We have to get out of here.’

  Oscar looked surprised. ‘And go where?’ he asked.

  ‘We’re leaving,’ said Mace. ‘No time to explain now, we need to hurry.’

  ‘I cleaned up,’ said Oscar. ‘Covered up May and the others.’

  Faith squeezed his arm and kissed his cheek. ‘Thank you,’ she said.

  ‘Is Tyrell with you?’ he asked, looking around.

  Faith shook her head and watched Oscar’s eyes grow wide with fear. ‘He got taken by the army, out in the wastelands,’ she explained. ‘We don’t know where.’

  Oscar looked to each of them in turn. ‘But he’s alive, yeah?’ he added hopefully.

  ‘Yes,’ Mace told him. ‘Alive but lost. We’ll find him, Oscar. Jonah will find him.’

  ‘Well, he’s better off than May,’ Oscar said with a touch of relief and a heap of resignation. If anyone could take care of himself, it was Tyrell. And at least he wasn’t dead. Despite that, though, Oscar felt a deep sense of loss.

  ‘I hope so,’ Faith replied. ‘I really hope so.’

  Martha took Oscar by the hand. ‘He’ll be OK,’ she told him, finding her voice. ‘I’m so pleased to see you. So pleased.’

  ‘As much as it hurts to leave them all here,’ said Mace, looking down at May, ‘we need to get going. Gather anything you can carry – food, arms, whatever.’

  ‘But what about them?’ Martha asked angrily. ‘We can’t just leave them to the rats.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Mace told her. ‘Before we go, I’m going to set some explosive charges. May was the life force of this place. It’ll make a fitting tomb.’

  Martha took a final look at her aunt and pushed away her grief. Mace was right – the Haven would make a fine resting place for May.

  For them all.

  52

  STONE POINTED AT Mias. The demon stood next to the arch in front of the old Corn Exchange, consulting with Saarl. The walls of the building, made of a yellow stone, had taken on an olive tinge. The market square thronged with lesser demons, the vast majority of them patrollers, while the winged ones, ten of them, were perched on the rooftops and around the perimeter, watching with their intense, beady eyes, wings folded behind them.

  ‘There,’ Stone told Prior. ‘Next to Mias.’

  ‘Are you certain?’ Prior asked him. ‘We’ll only get one chance at this.’

  Stone nodded. ‘The bomb is big enough to take down this entire block,’ he explained. ‘Even more than that, I reckon.’

  ‘What about getting away?’

  Stone smiled at the old man. ‘Don’t worry, Prior,’ he told him. ‘We’ll be far enough away when it blows. As long as you get the timing right.’

  Beyond Prior’s head, Stone saw that Mias and his troops were growing restless. He turned to his men. ‘Be ready to move out.’

  Both men nodded, their faces grim. A coughing fit overtook Prior.

  ‘Will you be ready?’ asked Stone.

  ‘I’ll be fine,’ Prior wheezed. ‘There’s life in me yet.’

  Stone checked out Prior’s sallow, yellowing skin and the black rings that circled his eyes, the way his hands trembled slightly. ‘About ten minutes, I’d say,’ Stone told him. ‘From the look of you.’

  ‘Twenty minutes will do me,’ countered Prior. ‘It’s all I need.’

  Sto
ne considered the timing. In the absence of watches for the others, he knew that much of the plan would be based on guesswork. He calculated that Mace and the women would be finishing up at the Haven, unless they’d taken Pipe’s offer of an escort. If they had, then Stone’s next step would be much easier. With Mace dead, he’d only have Jonah to deal with. However, something told him that Mace would be too smart for that. Either way, Stone was covered. If Mace and the women were dead, his own plan would be given a short cut. If they weren’t, he’d be in for a long-term assignment. Either one was fine with Stone.

  ‘Shouldn’t you be going?’ Prior asked.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Stone. ‘But what about you?’

  ‘Don’t bullshit,’ Prior told him. ‘You don’t really care about what happens to me. I’ll be fine. Just give me some cigarettes.’

  Stone gave the old man his nearly empty pack and then offered his hand. Prior took it in good spirit, and shook.

  ‘Let’s move!’ Stone told his men.

  ‘See you on the other side,’ chuckled Prior, lighting a cigarette.

  Jonah ran directly for the centre of the park. To his left, the Mayor’s mansion stood in total darkness, silhouetted against a deep purple sky. Grey clouds hid the waxing moon and the wind was strong, the perfect conditions for a thermobaric explosion. His only fear was that he’d tampered with the grenades too much, linking them together into one big bomb without really knowing if it would work. Failure to detonate would leave the demon legion alive and ruin the plan, but he’d had little other option.

  Everything rested on Prior getting it right, and on Jonah’s own ability to take down Valefor. The demon lord was powerful and there was no guarantee of success. Then again, there was no guarantee of anything in this world. Jonah’s mother had taught him well, prepared him for this day, as though she’d always sensed it would come. Her spirit lived inside him – he could sense it – and she wanted Valefor dead as much as he did.

  He felt the surge before he saw it, entering the park from the north, destroying what was left of the old pavilion. The black haze, crackling with electricity, moved quickly and purposefully, the embodiment of Valefor’s true power. Twenty metres wide and at least forty high, he descended on Jonah like a black tsunami, engulfing him in his rage. Jonah closed his eyes and felt something ancient and primeval course through his bones. Round his neck, the amulet given to him by his mother, ordinarily a lump of granite, began to pulse with an azure glow.

  ‘I HAVE TASTED YOUR BLOOD BEFORE!’ roared Valefor.

  Jonah steadied himself, ignoring the buzzing all around him, waiting for Valefor to understand, to realize exactly who he was. It didn’t take long.

  ‘YOU ARE THE SON OF EISHETH!’

  Jonah bristled at the mention of his mother. His human form began to melt, the demon raging through; his face now had elongated, narrow slits with flame-coloured eyes, a tapered and green-scaled jaw, replete with dagger-like teeth, and his powerful, sinuous limbs ended in razor-sharp, thirty-centimetre-long claws.

  ‘MY SISTER’S SON! KIN OF MY KIN!’ Valefor bellowed as Jonah’s ancestry became clearer still.

  ‘GREETINGS, UNCLE!’ Jonah heard his demonic voice roar back. ‘WELCOME TO YOUR DEATH . . .’

  * * *

  Prior gave Stone and his men the five-minute start they’d asked for. Then, lighting another cigarette and coughing up a chunk of flesh, he broke cover.

  All around him patrollers began to snarl and snap, fat globules of saliva, creamy and pus-like, flying all over the place. The air was thick with Hell-kin stench, their pungent faeces and viscous alkaline urine. Above them, two of the winged beasts began to circle, cawing and shrieking. Prior ignored them all, his attention focused on Mias and the lupine creature standing with him.

  The demon underlord noticed the disturbance and sprang down into the crowd, approaching Prior.

  ‘HALT!’ he demanded.

  Prior did as asked and flicked his half-smoked stub at the nearest canine. The patroller dropped on all fours, ready to charge the human.

  Mias held up his hand. ‘I know you,’ he said to Prior.

  ‘And I your mother,’ the human whispered in reply.

  ‘What did you say?’ Mias demanded, stepping in close, his head cocked to the right, eyes wide.

  Prior coughed into Mias’ simian face, holding back nothing.

  ‘You are diseased!’ spat the demon, backing away.

  ‘Guess I am,’ Prior told him. ‘I bring a message from Stone.’

  ‘A message?’

  Prior nodded.

  ‘What?’

  The human closed in on the demon’s personal space, so close that Mias’ fur tickled his nose.

  ‘He said to enjoy the I D B,’ whispered Prior.

  ‘What is that?’

  Prior stepped back, pulled out the last cigarette and lit that too.

  ‘WELL?’ Mias bellowed. ‘SPEAK BEFORE I CARVE OPEN YOUR GUTS!’

  The old man took a drag and blew the smoke into Mias’ face. ‘Instant Demon Barbecue,’ he said, grinning from ear to ear.

  Jonah felt a rush of energy run through his chest. He roared in agony and fell backwards, landing with a thud. The undergrowth surrounding him was ablaze, crackling with intense heat. The black cloud surged up into the sky, swirling like a tornado and sending the flames outwards, creating a ring of fire around him. Suddenly the buzzing, snapping force changed course, pouring in on itself at great speed, the point aimed directly at Jonah’s head. He sprang to his left, knowing that soon Valefor would have to retake his corporeal form. Otherwise the effort he’d expended would leave him weak and open to attack.

  Sure enough, as the mass hit the ground, the demon lord began to reappear. Jonah waited until his reformation was complete before charging at him, swiping out with his claws. A chunk of flesh tore loose from the underside of Valefor’s jaw and thick, purple blood gushed from the wound.

  Valefor smashed out with his arm, sending Jonah flying. He shook his head, snapping his huge teeth together. ‘TIME TO DIE, MONGREL!’ he bellowed, rushing forward.

  Jonah took a deep breath and sprang to his feet, balancing himself. When Valefor hit him, the shock wave made the ground shake and the momentum carried them both twenty metres to the left. Jonah landed on his back, with Valefor pinning him down.

  ‘Your stench disgusts me,’ the demon lord spat.

  ‘That’ll be the demon in me,’ Jonah parried.

  Valefor drew back his huge head and smashed it down onto Jonah’s face. The skin round Jonah’s left eye split, oozing yellow fluid.

  ‘Your mother was a disgrace to our kind! She polluted the ancient blood line!’

  Once, twice, three times more the demon lord butted Jonah, the force so great it cracked the earth beneath his head. A battered and bruised Jonah, one eye now completely closed over, fought back, throwing Valefor aside. Suddenly he had the upper hand. Before the demon lord could react, Jonah rained in blow after blow, his claws tearing at Valefor’s torso, shredding the flesh. The demon lord’s screams echoed around the park but Jonah carried on until Valefor was still, his eyes closed.

  Jonah mounted him, looked down into his face, snarling. ‘I’m going to kill you now, dear uncle,’ he spat. ‘I’m going to tear out your heart and eat it.’

  Valefor’s eyelids snapped open. ‘You cannot kill me!’ the demon lord hissed. The giant donkey’s jaw, the lidded eyes, the hair-covered torso, the wings – all of it began to dissipate beneath Jonah.

  In a moment Valefor was gone, and Jonah found himself staring at flattened weeds. Something took hold of him from behind and threw him into the night. He hurtled towards the thirty-metre stone arch to the north of the park and slammed into it, crying out in pain, the wind sucked from his lungs. He fell in a heap, struggling to breathe, the amulet round his neck burning into his flesh. Getting to his feet, Jonah saw that Valefor had reformed and was speeding towards him, his eyes gleaming. Everything around Jonah seemed to blur, to spin round a
nd round, as though he’d entered a vortex. Air forced its way into his chest and he struggled to think straight, groggy and torn but unbowed. Clearing his mind, he began to whisper his mother’s name over and over again.

  ‘Eisheth . . . Eisheth . . . Eisheth . . .!’

  Suddenly a great charge of electricity coursed through him, throwing back his head, pushing his arms out wide. He concentrated his entire being, centred every impulse in one place. On one thing . . .

  Valefor sensed the change in his foe, but a split second too late. As they collided, Jonah opened up his soul, just as his mother had shown him. Valefor tried to turn away but it was no use. He fell into Jonah’s embrace as, simultaneously, Jonah allowed his human DNA to envelop the Hell-kin spore, both his and that of Valefor. The demon lord tried to scream, tried to break free, but his efforts were in vain. Jonah had buried Valefor’s soul deep inside his own core, had at once consumed it and conjoined with it.

  Jonah fell to the ground, rolled onto his back and fought hard to keep Valefor down. His face rippled like a calm pool that had been disturbed by some mighty underground eruption, his human face melting into Valefor’s and back again. Over and over, for minute after minute, Jonah fought to keep the demon lord at bay. The cycle went on and on, and on. Fiery, agonizing shards poked at his chest, his stomach, and his loins. He bucked and twisted, his synapses snapping and popping with thunderclaps of pain, his blood boiling and spitting inside the veins. His heart clenched and expanded, clenched and expanded, fifty, a hundred times each second.

  And then, abruptly and without warning, everything fell silent and Jonah felt himself begin to drift away . . .

  In the market square, Prior threw back the great coat that he’d worn to hide the explosives. He flicked his cigarette butt at Mias’ confused and apprehensive face and began to wheeze, to cough, to chuckle . . .

  He reached with his left hand for the trigger . . .

  . . . and detonated the bomb.

  One week later . . .

  In the end, we fled Fire City just before the explosion that killed Mias and the demon legion. The bomb took Prior too, although he was so close to death anyway that I was pleased he could control how it happened. He died just like he’d lived for me, as a hero.