“You just took out two powerhouse demons with less effort than it’d take me to squash a bug. Who the hell are you?” I said, suddenly feeling like a kid who had hidden in a dark alley in the middle of the night to hide and found it inhabited by a knife-wielding meth-head. Sure, the meth-head had protected me this time, but what happened when she flipped out and stabbed me? Call me crazy, but I did not want her to stab me.
“I cannot say. To utter my name is too big of a risk.” Her lips curled into a feline grin as she began to fade from my sight. “Bringing them here was fun, but don’t do it again. Had they escaped or uttered my name, all could be lost.”
“I am so screwed,” I said, barely able to comprehend how quickly the tables had turned.
“No. You will be a god among gods.” Her eyes glimmered as the entire mental scene fell away, leaving me standing there in a room full of dead nuns. “After all, that was part of our deal.”
I wasn’t sure how to take that, but as my reality settled around me, and I stared at all of the dead bodies, a chill twisted in my guts. I had no memory of why I’d made the deal with this particular demon. I’d thought it’d been to rescue my family, but she’d heavily implied that might not be the case, or at least, that it might not have been all of the bargain. Now she was throwing around promises of godhood? That seemed pretty insane, but it also seemed like something I could potentially have wanted in my past life, especially if I’d been after the power to dash my enemies from the earth.
Then again, all the nuns were dead, and it seemed like their skulls had exploded. I wasn’t sure how that’d happened, and even though I was glad for it, I was worried my demon might have been responsible for that too.
I’d have hated to fight my way through the nuns, but this seemed like overkill. I mean, okay, they were demonic nuns, so I wasn’t above killing them for funsies, but it’d be time consuming and I was really in need of getting out of here before I completely lost my shit. I had no idea who it was I had awoken, but she was clearly Capital-B Bad.
“I do not know what you did, Mac,” Vitaly said, rubbing his head as he sat with his back to the altar. “But I thank you for it. Even if you did throw me to my death.” He got slowly to his feet. “Next time, try talking first.”
“You’re alive?” I asked, shock filling my voice. I had totally expected him to be burned to a crisp or worse, but evidently, that wasn’t the case.
“I am Russian. We are too resilient to die.” He let out a slow breath and took a tentative step toward the closest wall. “Besides, it takes more than demon possession to defeat me.” He hit his chest. “I am Vitaly, the Widow Maker.”
“Yeah, great,” I said, trying to ignore the non-insignificant fact that my demon had not only expelled Baphomet and Beleth, but had somehow freed Vitaly from Baphomet’s grasp and killed several dozen nuns too. Then again, the nuns were human. They were probably pretty easy to kill by demon standards.
It was crazy and not in a good way. No, it was crazy in a very, very bad way. If my demon was that bad ass and that scary, there was a reason she didn’t want to reveal who she was, and something told me, I was really going to regret making a deal with her.
I took a deep breath and tried to calm myself. I didn’t seem like a dumb guy, and while it was possible I had gone off half-cocked in my previous life, it didn’t seem like something I’d have done. No, there had to be a good reason to pick this particular demon as opposed to one less horrible.
Sadly, I was starting to think it was because she was fucking nutso strong. If that was the case, I was an idiot. I mean, fuck, hadn’t I ever seen a goddamned movie in my past life? Nothing good ever happened to the guy who aligned himself with the big, bad Hell demon. Still, what was that saying? In for a penny, in for a pound? If I was going to sell my soul to a demon, it might as well have been the strongest one.
“I heard what your demon said,” Vitaly said, pulling a torch out of its sconce. “We must burn them.” He made his way over to Baphomet’s corpse and dropped the torch on the demon’s chest. The demon’s flesh went up like it was made of gasoline. “Is good. I like burning things.”
“Yeah,” I said, shaking myself into action. I grabbed a torch out of a sconce and approached Beleth’s unconscious form. She lay flat on her back, eyes rolled up in the back of her skull. Crimson sigils identical to the ones on my arm covered every square inch of her flesh. It was clear that, at least for the moment, no one was home, but I couldn’t risk her getting back up and coming to finish the deal. Besides, what was one more dead demon? I torched her. It sort of smelled like bacon.
Chapter 22
“Burning demon smells like roast pig,” Vitaly said, a grin spreading across his face as he bent down, picked up a fallen AK47, and offered it to me stock first. “Who knew?”
“Not me,” I said, taking the gun and slinging it over my shoulder. Then I picked up two more because you can never have too many assault rifles. “I didn’t even know you could burn demons to death.”
“Same,” the Russian agreed, staring at the flames ravaging the twin corpses of Baphomet and Beleth. “Whatever lives in there,” he gestured at my arm, “is one goddamned freaky monster.”
I smirked. “That’s the most American thing I’ve heard you say all day.”
A look of horror crossed Vitaly’s face as he clapped one hand to his chest. “Do not let Motherland hear you say such a lie.” He shook his head. “I am very Russian. When we get out of here, I will show you my collection of babushkas.”
“It’s okay,” I said, a smile I couldn’t help breaking across my face. “I believe you.”
“Is that so?” he asked, looking me over. “Because last time we had disagreement, you threw me off a cliff, and a demon tried to kill me.” He narrowed his eyes at me, all traces of humor gone. “It was not appreciated.”
“I set that demon on fire. You’re welcome very much,” I said with a snort before walking smugly past him because if we got into an argument now, we were going to be in trouble. After we were out of here, if Vitaly wanted to take it outside, I’d be okay with that. “This is why I never reveal my master plans to anyone. People always think they’re insane.”
“You will buy me nice bottle of vodka after this,” Vitaly said, a grumble lacing his words as he followed behind me. “Russian vodka. Not disgusting French piss they call vodka.”
“Sounds like a plan,” I replied, hoping I was going to get off that easily. If all he wanted was a bottle of Stoli for tossing him into a pit full of certain death as a distraction, well, it seemed like I should count my blessings. Hell, I might spring for two bottles. “How do you propose we get through that?” I gestured at the million pound stone slab of a door blocking our escape.
“I cannot lift it,” Vitaly said, looking over the rune-etched slab with a dubious expression on his face. “You should use magic. Blow it up. That’s what Americans do, no?”
“Oh, I see how it is,” I said, slinging the AK in my right hand over my free shoulder before pointing my palm at the door. “Make the American do all the heavy lifting. It’s like WWII all over again”
“You are incorrect. Russia did heavy lifting to defeat Hitler. Is common misconception Americans did more,” Vitaly replied as I shut my eyes and called upon my magic. “Is okay. I forgive you. Your education system is shoddy.” Humor crept into his voice. “Always talking about feelings. Math. Science. Hard work. They do not care about feelings.”
“Trying to concentrate,” I growled, trying to ignore his jabs. I honestly had no way of knowing how much power I had left after the whole storm the front gates method of child saving I’d used, but since my arm hadn’t turned white, and I didn’t feel particularly exhausted, I was hoping it was enough to blow open this door. Part of me wondered if this might be the result of the Bat in the Hat’s curse. If he’d doubled my “curse” had he in actuality doubled my power?
“Do not stand there thinking like little girl concentrate,” Vitaly said, glancing over
his shoulder. “Just do.”
“Fine,” I growled. “You want to see power? I’ll show you power.”
My tattoos sprang to life, casting garish shadows across the room as red, orange, and purple plasma danced between my fingertips like bolts off a tesla ball. It was a little weird because my magic was always red. Were the extra colors because my demon had eaten Beleth and Baphomet? As the thought flitted through my brain, a satisfied purr rippled across the edge of my consciousness. Well, that was just great. Now my demonic inner cat was eating other demons. That was totally going to end well.
“Resero,” I said, touching the stone door. The runes etched into its obsidian surface sparked to life, filling with pulses of bright purple energy. Power jumped from my finger tips and cascaded across its surface, illuminating the design of a man and woman with their arms intertwined around each other. As I stared at the relief etched into the door, it exploded into a flurry of white sparks that flitted through the air like erratic fireflies.
The sound of boulders cracking into powder filled my ears as the door began to inch its way up into the wall above like something straight off the USS Enterprise. The fictional one, not the aircraft carrier.
Sweat poured down my face as I concentrated on keeping the massive door from crashing back down. With every inch it shuddered upward, the force of gravity on my neck and shoulders increased, weighing me down like I was literally lifting it with my own back. My stomach rumbled and churned with sudden insatiable hunger, and as it did, the urge for cherry cheesecake, a bone-in ribeye, and baked potato slathered in butter, bacon, and cheddar cheese filled my mind and made my mouth water.
“I cannot believe you did that,” Vitaly said, mouth agape as the door slammed into the ceiling. Latches clicked and ground into place as I dropped my shaking hand and sucked a breath into my aching lungs that tasted like freedom.
“You know me. If there’s a door, I just need to open it.” I wiped my sweaty face with my demonic hand and tried my best to smile at him even though I was sure he could hear my heart going a million miles per hour in my chest. “You don’t even want to see me around dragons. Then you’d have to replace the word open with kill.”
“You now have new name. From here on, I will call you Hiccup.” Vitaly snorted and passed through the doorway with way less apprehension than I would have. I mean sure, I’d just locked the door into place but still. Still! I’d done it and I didn’t expect it to stay up there. The big Russian had balls the size of Nebraska. Then again, he’d shrugged off me throwing him to certain doom and had a healing factor that would make Deadpool envious.
I took a deep breath, counted to three in my head, and leapt across the threshold as quickly as possible. Needless to say, the door didn’t come crashing down, which was good. Still, my jaunt into the hallway was a little weird because the hallway, unlike every other one we’d entered, hadn’t changed.
“How come we’re not on the moon or something?” I asked, glancing around at the tunnel of black rock surrounding me. Other than looking like it had been carved out of volcanic stone by a giant worm, it didn’t seem that odd, especially considering it was connected rather obviously to the huge chamber behind us.
Something about it felt off, but not in the normal way. It was more like I’d come to expect the unexpected when passing through doors. Given the circumstances, moving through one that didn’t bury me beneath a thousand pounds of snow was odd.
“I do not know,” Vitaly said, a look of panic etching across his features for a split second before vanishing beneath a mask of perfect calm. “This door should have taken us to the clown room.” He looked at me. “I have bad feeling about this.”
“Don’t ever say that—” my quip was cut off by the stalactite overhead crashing down between us and shattering into rubble. The floor beneath us shook violently as I stumbled backward in shock. I lost my balance and crashed into the wall, striking my funny bone hard enough to make me yowl in pain.
“Run!” Vitaly cried, launching himself forward as cracks began to spider along the surrounding tunnel. Behind me, the sound of rocks falling from the ceiling and crashing to the floor filled my ears.
I took off after the big man, leaping across the cracks splintering the ground in front of me. As I landed, my toe caught an outcropping of rock as it jutted upward from a seismic shift. I tripped, crashing into Vitaly as he came to a sudden, inexplicable stop. My momentum barely moved him, which was good because as I recovered and looked past him, I realized we were standing on the precipice of a steadily opening chasm. Sulfuric smoke billowed up from the rent earth, and as it touched the ceiling a few feet above us, the hiss and pop of melting rock filled my ears.
“Duck and roll,” Vitaly said, grabbing me by the scruff of my trench coat like I was a bad kitty, and before I could even ask him what the fuck he was doing, he swung me around like he was an Olympic discus thrower and sent me flying across the cavern.
I landed hard on the other side of the canyon on my stomach, and the breath whooshed from my lungs. As I rolled into a fetal position, bits of my hair and clothing burned away and left the flesh beneath raw and angry. Thankfully, most of my body had been shielded by my trench coat. Otherwise, I’d have been burned in some very uncomfortable places.
As I tried to suck in a breath that didn’t taste like boiling acid, Vitaly vaulted across the widening chasm in a way that made me very glad he’d never competed against the USA in the long jump. He landed lightly next to me and shook his head. Patches of skin along his body had bubbled and burned away, but as he surveyed our new surroundings, they healed before my eyes. Stupid magical healing.
“Get up,” he said and not bothering to wait for me, took off down the cavern, Italian leather shoes pounding the ground with reckless abandon as he dodged and weaved past falling boulders. Not wanting to be left behind, I scrambled to my feet and sprinted after him, careful to trace his footsteps to avoid getting skewered.
We ran like that for so long, my lungs burned with the effort, and my heart threatened to explode in my chest. After sprinting what felt like three marathons, and avoiding near-death several hundred times, we found ourselves standing in front of a dead end. It was over.
“What do we do?” I huffed, grabbing the big man’s arm for support as I sucked in a lungful of burning oxygen.
“Pray?” he offered, turning to look back at the rubble-strewn tunnel. There was no way we’d get back through, and even if we did, where would we go?
“Are you being serious?” I said, glaring at him. “Do I look like I’m good at praying?”
“Yes, just not to right people,” he said, turning back to stare at the wall. Then, before I could say anything in response, he pulled his stupid key from his pocket and pressed it against the sheer black rock in front of us.
The room shook violently as the space in front of us exploded in a flash of silver light that sprayed us with bits of rock and debris. When I opened my eyes, I found myself staring at a mirror just like the ones I’d seen in the forest of mirrors. I resisted the urge to punch it in a flurry of rage. Seriously? Another fucking mirror? That was absolutely the last fucking thing I needed right now.
“I have a bad feeling about this,” I said, glancing back at the way we’d come and wondering if there was another way out. It still didn’t seem likely, but if it was a choice between heading into the forest of mirrors and going back the way we’d come, well, I was a little more willing to chance it. “Journeying through mirrors never ends well.”
“Don’t be little girl named Alice then,” Vitaly said, touching the shimmering surface with his key. Concentric circles radiated outward from the key a second before the face of the Princess of Mirrors appeared before us. She pressed her face against the other side of the glass and made a face at us.
“Come on in, boys.” Her lips curled into a bemused smile. “The water’s fine.” Her voice hit me like a slap in the face, and I staggered backward. “I promise I won’t bite.”
&nb
sp; “We can’t go in there,” I squeaked, fear twisting my guts as I turned to look at the cavern slowly collapsing around us. “And we can’t stay here.”
“I vote we beat up ugly lady,” Vitaly said, and without another word, he leapt through the mirror.
“I know, I’m going to regret this,” I said and followed him through the looking glass.
Chapter 23
As I emerged on the other side of the mirror, my body felt like it’d been torn to shreds, reassembled in the wrong order, and then blown up, you know, for funsies. I staggered forward, trying to remember how to breathe, but before I could even suck a single breath into my aching lungs, a fist hit me under the chin with the force of a Mack truck.
My head snapped back and stars shot past my eyes. My feet lifted from the ground, and I flew backward into a crystalline tree. I guess the adage about me being hard-headed was true because my skull shattered the tree into a billion scintillating shards that cascaded over me. As my vision narrowed into a dark, hazy tunnel, I tried vainly to roll myself into a ball, while the rain of broken glass sliced my exposed flesh to ribbons. Judging by the blood running down my face and hands, I was about sixty-three percent successful.
“What have we here?” the Princess of Mirrors said, her black stilettos clicking on the mirrored floor as she sauntered toward me. She rubbed her chin with one hand while dragging Vitaly’s unmoving form with the other hand like he was a sack of dirty laundry. I wasn’t sure if the big Russian was conscious, but since his tongue was lolling out of his mouth, I wasn’t going to bet on it.
“A soon to be dead bitch.” I held down the trigger of the AK47 in my hand, allowing the assault rifle to cut an erratic upward arc across her body. It didn’t even slow her down.
“Now, Mac. You wouldn’t want to hurt me, with sticks, stones, or words” she said as the bullets protruding from her flesh fell away from her like the ice off a launching rocket. “If you do, I might forget my manners, especially since your friend here started it.”
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