by Ben Zackheim
I understood that, but I couldn’t let it happen.
I released the demons from my command and shouted a new one. “Flee!” They scattered to the skies and scampered into the shadows. Vostra and his friend walked down the boulevard. The snipers took some shots, but the bullets only caused flesh wounds. The giant demons turned a corner, took one last look at me, and disappeared from sight.
All human eyes were on me.
I could feel them.
I knew the snipers’ trigger fingers were shaking. I knew their brains were telling them to kill me and to wait for Lancelot’s orders at the same time. I knew my life was in the hands of people who didn’t trust me. I also knew what to say. It’s a rare day when I don’t know what to say.
“They have the general! He needs us. You kill me, the portal closes for good!”
The vibe changed. I could feel the confusion and anger turn to rage, but it was a controlled rage. A righteous rage. They were going to let me live right up until they had Lancelot in their sights. Then all bets were off. I’d made a deal in an instant. I’d also burned all my fucking bridges with these people and there was nothing I could do about it.
“So what now?” It was the guy who had held a pistol to my nose a few minutes before.
“Now you tell me who you are.”
“Nickolas.”
I brushed off my jacket and pants. “Okay, Nickolas, here’s the deal. I’m done trying to prove myself to you assholes, so I’m going to throw you into my world. Give you a little perspective.”
“Sounds like you’re going to try to kill us.”
“I’m trying to save you, idiot. Tell the others I’m opening the Swap Portal again in one hour. They need to get the wounded to the infirmary. Scarlett will take care of them. Anyone who can walk, be back out here in 45 minutes.”
“Fine,” he said. He lifted his firearm again and jerked his head to get me walking back to HQ.
“Sorry, Kane,” Rebel said over the comm. “We don’t have time for this bullshit. Open the Swap Portal.”
“Rebel…”
“Do it, Kane.”
One deep breath later and the portal opened to my right. Rebel leaped from the shadows of a nearby alley. She locked Nickolas in a choke hold and used him as a human shield. He dropped his gun. I stepped through the portal and landed on a slippery surface. I fell on my face and slid down a slope knocking into very hard things as I went.
Much to my relief, Rebel and Nickolas followed quickly. Much to my dismay, they also landed on said slippery surface and slid into my face. We took a few seconds to moan in pain before yelling at each other.
“What was that all about?” I yelled.
“I’m sick of worrying about these people shooting you in the back! They’re only going to slow us down. When we get Lancelot back, we can include them in our plans.”
“Oh,” I said. “Good thinking. Why did you bring him?” Nickolas was frowning at me like I’d stolen his pudding.
“Spur of the moment decision.”
“Now he’s a spur in our side.”
Nickolas almost said something, but Rebel smacked him on the back of the head. “You keep your mouth shut.”
I took a look at our new settings. Let’s just say it was not welcoming.
We were in a warehouse. It was a waterfront warehouse from the looks of it. The view of the Hudson River would have been pleasant on any other day. I got a lay of the land. We’d slid down a delivery ramp. A blood-soaked ramp, littered with the bodies of demons.
I held up the sceptre just in case any demons were preparing to attack from the pitch black shadows.
“Is it me, or are the apocalypse shadows darker than the pre-apocalypse shadows?” Rebel asked.
Nickolas’s hand was slowly reaching for a pistol on the ground. I slapped his fingers with the sceptre. “No.”
Rebel put a couple of fingernails in front of Nickolas’s face. He went cross-eyed as they danced on the tip of his nose.
“Fine,” he said, raising his hands in the air. “But I don’t have creepy fingernails and magic relics to protect me, so I’m going to be a real drag.”
“You’re already a drag,” I said while looking around for any sign of life. But there was no movement. No sound except the light slapping noise of the river pushing against the shoreline.
“You people need to forgive and forget, Nickolas,” Rebel said. I was surprised she knew his name, but that might have been the reason they were so loyal to her.
“He shot you in the head, ma’am.”
“He did. And I forgive him.”
“But do you trust him?”
“With my life, yeah.”
“Why? We all know he keeps having fits or blackouts or whatever the hell they are. You can’t hide that kind of thing from a group as tight as ours. How do you know he has control of himself?”
“He’s never had control of himself,” Rebel said. “That’s why I like him.”
“Keep yelling at him, Rebel,” I said. “I’m going to take a look around.”
The two of them fumed in silence as I kicked a few demon bodies. There was no sign of life anywhere.
“No humans,” I said. “All the bodies are demons.”
“Maybe they got away,” Nickolas said.
I spotted several tracks of blood on the floor near the open warehouse door. “Maybe.” When I got to the door, I peeked around the wall to see if anyone was outside. The world was still.
I forgot to look up, though.
“Yer slippin’,” someone said from above my head.
Chapter 22
I didn’t bother looking up. I knew that voice.
“Hey Dino,” I said. “Sorry.” I glanced up and saw his massive head peeking over the edge of the roof.
“What’re you sorry for, dude?” he asked
“You got swapped to New Jersey. That wasn’t in the plan.”
“Whatever. We’re near my home. I love New York, Kane. Maybe we can take in a show while we’re here!”
“Or put on a show,” Rebel said as she and Nickolas emerged from the shadows of the warehouse.
“Hey Nickolas!” Dino called out.
“Hey, Dino.”
I turned to Nickolas. “Does everyone know you?”
“Everyone I like, yeah,” he muttered.
Dino laughed. “You’ll fit right in, kid!”
“What happened to the unit, Dino?”
“They scattered. They’re laying low, as planned. We didn’t lose anyone.”
“Excellent. Anyone up there with you?”
“Just me,” Alix said in his gravelly voice from somewhere over our head.
“What about the general?”
“Lancelot?” Dino asked. “Didn’t see him.”
Rebel and I shared a look. That was not good news. If he didn’t swap then where had he gone during the heat of the battle?
“What about the demons? Did we get all of them?”
“Nah, they’re lickin’ their wounds.” Alix pointed to another warehouse closer to the water. I heard movement from inside.
“What kind of demons are they?”
“A giant and about 100 of the smaller variety. Archdemons mostly. I didn’t get a good look.”
“I’m going to talk to them,” I said. I took two steps before I felt Rebel’s hand on my shoulder.
“Hold up, partner. I know you have the sceptre, but we need to think things through. They’re not going anywhere.”
“Good point, okay. When did you become the tactician?”
“I’ve just been hiding it from you to make you feel better. So what’s the new plan? Because the old one needs to get thrown out.”
Nickolas crossed his arms and sneered. “Kane can use his sceptre to kill all of us and go do what he wants to do.”
“Nickolas, what did I say about…” But Rebel didn’t get a chance to finish her point.
Dino landed on the pavement in front of Nickolas with the force of a small
grenade. Nickolas fell on his butt and scampered away from the troll.
“Dino, what was that for?” Nickolas yelled, with a mix of fear and surprise in his quivering voice.
The troll stuck a massive finger in the guy’s face. “You take that back, Nickolas!” Dino yelled. “Kane is on our side. Hell, Kane is our side!”
Nickolas pointed at me. “But he…”
“I know about you and your friends’ whispers and gossip and shit. I thought it was just chatter. But don’t you dare believe it, you hear me? Kane is a good man. He’s been on the frontlines of this fucking war since day one.”
“Some people would say I started it,” I said. Everyone stared at me.
“That’s not helping, Arkwright,” Dino said. He turned back to Nickolas. “You either get on board, or you go home, Nickolas. I like you, but if you work against Kane, you work against us. You may as well join Set’s army now!”
“Okay, okay,” Nickolas said, getting to his feet. He brushed the dust off of his pants. “Maybe we got a little carried away.” He meekly glanced up at the raging troll. He knew he had to say more to dig himself out of the hole he was in. “Sorry, Kane. If Dino and Rebel vouch for you, I’m all in.”
I nodded. “Nice to know.” I changed the subject. I was antsy to get to the strategizing part. I also wanted Nickolas to know that his attitude problem was not going to impact me at all. “So this is what we know, guys. The sceptre controls demons. Why? Who the fuck knows? Right now, I don’t care. Right now, I just want to recruit as many of them as we can.”
“Our human army, plus the demonic hordes…” Dino muttered as he pondered the possibilities.
“Giant demons usually act as lieutenants. That’s what I remember. Is that right?”
Alix had worked his way down from the roof to join us. “Unless they’re morons, yeah. Their massive size gives ‘em some authority, but their brains and loyalty is about as important. The giant demon in the warehouse there is definitely on the smarter side. He had his troops retreat when our guys started swappin’ in.”
“Caught them with their horns down,” Nickolas said, not being helpful at all.
“That’s almost a good one, Nickolas,” Rebel said.
“Okay,” I said. “It’s settled then. Here’s what we’re going to do. If I can manage to take control of this group, we’ll use them to recruit other demons.”
Alix nodded. It was more like a sway, being that he had the smallest neck I’d ever seen. “Good idea. We c’n grow our army by thousands overnight.”
“You make it sound simple,” Nickolas said. “But I detect there are a few hundred things that could go wrong.”
I slapped him on the shoulder. “Sounds like a good description of every second of every day to me.”
“We’ll adjust,” Dino said with a wink at the rookie.
Rebel hopped up on a barrel and crossed her legs. “Improvisation is the key to good comedy and spectacular world-saving!”
“And once we have thousands of demons, what do we do with them?” Nickolas asked, cementing his role as a devil’s advocate.
“We find out what they’re capable of and take full fucking advantage,” I said.
Nickolas nodded. “I’m starting to see why these guys like you.”
“That’s heart-warming, really,” I said. “Now everyone stay here.”
I approached the warehouse with the sceptre held high. Did holding it high do anything? Probably not. But it felt cool to hoist it up like, “Here comes your Demon King, bitches!”
My confidence burst like a lanced boil as the entire front of the warehouse splintered into a million pieces and revealed a charging demon giant.
Chapter 23
Flying chunks of something-or-other knocked the sceptre from my hand.
It felt like the relic slipped from my grip in slow motion. I watched it arch through the air, hit a tanker truck, and fall out of sight behind some barrels.
The giant demon reached out with a sloth-like clawed hand. I fell to my knees. The black claws closed over my bowed head. I rolled and scrambled to my feet and got a visual on the sceptre. I got two steps into a sprint when the demon’s claw gave me a flat tire. Yeah, just like the bully in high school. My forward motion forced my boot off.
“Some help here!” I yelled. It was only then that I realized the sound of chattering demons was drowning out every other sound. So I went to the comm. Rebel and Dino would both be able to hear me there.
“I’m going for the sceptre!”
“He’s right on your tail!”
“Then get him off my tail, Dino!”
The sun cast a perfect shadow of the demon’s claws on the ground in front of me. I watched the shadow get larger and darker. The sounds of the demons waned as the massive hand surrounded me, blocking all light and sound, milliseconds from the kill.
A thunderous crack brought light and sound back to my world. Whatever had knocked the demon off his stride had also knocked me sideways. I rolled to a stop and shook my head. I had a front-row seat at the fight of the year — Demon vs. Troll. Dino hugged his opponent’s arm like a baby holds a doll. Except this baby doll swung my troll friend around like, well, like another rag doll.
“GOGOGO!” Dino screamed.
I found my balance, pulled out a Glock, and ran for the sceptre. Three demons landed in front of me and flashed their demonic grins. One, two, three they went down, care of my Glock. I ran through the bloody haze they’d left behind and managed to swallow some of the mist. Not recommended.
More demons were on my tail. With only one boot, I was moving too slowly. I only had one choice.
I fell down. On purpose.
Why the hell not? I’d already hit the pavement a dozen times in the last 24 hours. What’s one more cement rash? As planned, two of the demons overshot me. One managed to catch my jacket in its claws as he passed, ripping it. Another demon trampled over my neck. I could have done without that. So, while wondering if my artery had been sliced open, I rolled onto my back and took aim at their horned heads.
They lined up just right. One shot, two neck wounds. I didn’t have time to celebrate. I heard the next demon before I saw him.
Then he was gone.
A panting, bloody Dino stood over me with a giant severed demon claw in his hand. He’d used it to knock my attacker clear across the lot.
“Home run,” Dino said before he fell flat on his face. I just had to hope he was okay. The other demons were fighting it out with Rebel, Nickolas and Alix. I managed to get to my feet and stumbled to the truck.
The battle had somehow shoved the sceptre under a truck. I crawled through the rubble and grabbed it. No drama this time. No raising of the sceptre. No clever (in my opinion) declarations of how the demons were mine to command.
“Freeze,” I whispered, trying not to pass out.
Silence. The fighting had stopped. The sounds of the small waves on the shore took over. By the time I crawled into the sunlight, Rebel was kneeling next to Dino.
“Is he okay?” I asked.
“He’s out cold. I don’t see any bad bleeding. I think he gave everything he had to take out the giant.” She pointed to a large mass lying on a crushed warehouse roof. The giant demon bled from the stump where his claws once were. But he was alive, panting, confused.
“Hey, you!” I yelled at him. The demon looked up at me. “You speak English?”
“Yes,” he said. His voice was groggy. I didn’t know if it was due to the injury or the spell I had him under.
“You fight for us now. Understand?”
The demon glanced around at the carnage. He lifted a dead demon up in his good hand and sniffed at the corpse. He dropped it like it was a dead bird, then he nodded. “Fine.”
Rebel gave me a look that screamed, “Are you sure about this, Kane?” I just shrugged. Of course I wasn’t sure. But it was a risk we had to try. Or, at least, it was a risk to present as an option to Lancelot. Once we found him. If we found him. I
didn’t like the idea of taking his place. Leading people who didn’t like me wasn’t a burden I was born for. Maybe Nickolas could act as a bridge to the troops. If he could trust me then they could too. I shook off the thought. We’d find Lancelot. We had no choice. Humanity needed him.
I picked up my boot from the blood splashed ground and walked up to the giant demon. He leaned forward from his listless position and held his injured hand under his opposite arm. “You are Kane Arkwright,” he said.
“I guess the demons know me.”
“We do. Your exploits in the village Montfort-l’Amaury are confusing to us.”
“You mean when I took control of the demons with this?” I held up the sceptre. He shrunk away like a scared puppy.
“Yes, that is what I mean. You had control but you released us.”
“Yeah, well, it was a bad day. I just wanted to get on with my mission. Tell me. Who do you work for?” I realized my mistake. “Who did you work for?”
His mouth opened. Then it stopped. He was about to tell me who ruled the demons. But something stopped him.
“Don’t make me ask again,” I said.
The giant shook his head as if a fly were buzzing him.
When he opened his eyes, the vibe changed.
He looked down at me and growled.
I got out of the way of his strike. By about an inch. Lucky for me, the move took a lot out of him. He fell back into the crushed roof behind him. The other demons climbed out of their stupor and looked around. Their stares landed on me and they all joined in the growl-fest.
“Kane, what’s goin’ on, boyo?” Alix yelled in the highest pitch I’d ever heard from a dwarf.
“I think their other master is regaining control!”
Chapter 24
“Who’s their mast… WHAT THE FUCK?”
Rebel’s question was halfway out of her mouth when the answer emerged from a crack in the sky over the river.
