Never Just One Apocalypse

by Karen L Mead

  Chapter 30

  After getting thoroughly chewed out by Khalil, Sam was unsure what to do with himself. After the initial anger faded, he just walked around, heading nowhere in particular. Normally he would have gone home, but he didn’t feel like dealing with the irritating fairy currently making herself comfortable in his apartment. After nearly an hour of walking aimlessly, he realized that there was only one person he wanted to see.

  He considered taking the bus, then decided to just continue walking; it was calming him down, helping him process everything that had happened that day. It took another 45 minutes until he made it to Serenus’ building; by that time of night, almost no one was left outside. Downtown, by the clubs, people were probably still packing the streets, but in Dr. Zeitbloom’s residential neighborhood, it was nearly quiet as a crypt; everyone was asleep, or trying to sleep, at least.

  When he reached the door to the professor’s apartment, he paused. He could hear odd noises, something that sounded like whimpering, and another voice: a syrupy, excessively pleasant voice. The kind of voice that told you over the phone, in an automated recording, that despite all appearances to the contrary, your call was very important to them. He couldn’t make out individual words through the thick walls, but he had a vague idea what was going on.

  Sam banged on the door with his fist, hard.

  “Ser! You in there? It’s me.”

  There was a pause, then a low murmur that indicated furious whispering.

  “Go home, Sam!” Serenus called. “I’m busy and I don’t have time for you now!”

  Sam ran his tongue over his teeth, considering. Serenus’ voice sounded hoarse. Like someone who had been screaming for quite a while. Quickly, he reached out with his mind to his familiars; Cassie was out of reach, unsurprisingly, but Ethan was available. Hoping it wouldn’t discomfort the boy too much, he pulled what he needed out of Ethan from afar, and made a barrier around himself. It was nowhere near as strong as the barriers he had made before with Cassie’s magic, but it should do in a pinch.

  Then he kicked down the door. Or at least, he intended to kick it down, but instead it went flying off its hinges and shattered into pieces against the opposing wall.

  “Busy, hmm?” said Sam, walking into the apartment. He turned a corner so he could see the living room. “Busy getting tortured, I take it.”

  Serenus was lying on his back on the coach, shirtless. Strips of flesh were hanging off his sallow chest, and his face was bruised. He fixed Sam with a look of horror.

  “Get out of here! Don’t worry about me! Go!”

  The man standing above Serenus smiled, rubbing his hands together. The tips of his fingers were covered in the professor’s blood. He was almost obnoxiously handsome, with ice-blue eyes and golden curls, but Sam still found something about his genial expression utterly sickening.

  “Well, there go the best laid plans,” he said, chuckling. He wiped his hands on his blue silk shirt and turned to face Sam. “I had an entire elaborate cat-and-mouse scenario set up for us, but it looks like we’re going to have to cut that short. Not much left to do when the mouse simply leaps into the cat’s open maw,” he said.

  Sam looked at the other demon through tired eyes.

  You’re more right than you know.

  “You’ve been using Serenus to spy on me. Why? For what purpose?”

  “To manipulate you, obviously,” the other demon said, still wiping the blood off his fingers absentmindedly. “Of course, now that you’re aware, there’s no point. I’ll have to find some other way to accomplish my goals. But there’s always another way.”

  He took a sip from a coffee mug on an end table, and for a moment, Sam felt an almost overpowering hatred at the demon for having the nerve to treat himself to any of Serenus’ precious coffee.

  “But still, killing you would create all sorts of complications, so we’ll have to resolve this another way. How about this: I’ll undo everything I’ve done to this one,” he motioned to Serenus with his free hand, “and everything I’ve done to your other servants. In return, you don’t breathe a word of this to your father; not that he cares particularly, but he might become suspicious, and I’d prefer to wait a little longer before I have to deal with him. Agreed?”

  He took another sip of coffee, then sighed, as though he were really enjoying it.

  “What have you done to my friends?” Sam asked flatly. He didn’t even feel anger now; he knew the anger was there, but it was tucked away in a convenient, quiet place. He would have it when he wanted it.

  The demon made a small shrug, like it was all of very little account. “Just your basic tracking, Look-and-Listen spells, that sort of thing. Nothing too invasive. Once I realized that this one wasn’t very good at his job, I had to find other ways to keep an eye on you.”

  He patted Serenus on the head, like a favored child. The professor barely seemed to be conscious.

  “Azazel, he’s…one of the....” Serenus mumbled. “Azazel!”

  Azazel grimaced and yanked what remained of the professor’s hair in a spurt of anger. “Well you just had to go and tell him my name, didn’t you? Nevertheless, I’ll let you go, as promised, because I’m a reasonable fellow.”

  He turned back to Sam, that unctuous smile more prominent than ever.

  “Take the deal, child. Considering the circumstances, I’m being quite generous.” He put his hands on his hips and glared down his perfectly shaped nose. “Don’t give me cause to kill you both.”

  Sam was silent for a moment, then began undoing the cuffs of his shirt.

  “Boy?” Azazel asked, sounding uncertain for the first time.

  “I’m going to make you wish you were dealing with my father.”

  “I beg your pardon?” Azazel said, his smile untouched.

  Sam took a deep breath and walked forward, still undoing his cuffs. He began rolling up the sleeves of his shirt to his elbows, freeing his forearms.

  “I’ve had a pretty bad day. Been walking around for hours, thinking ‘what now? Is there something productive I can do with all this anger?’ And here you are, torturing my oldest friend,” he said, crossing his now-bare arms.

  “Don’t,” Serenus croaked, still barely clinging to consciousness.

  It seemed to take Azazel a moment to process what Sam was saying.

  “Is this a joke?” he asked, his expression dripping with condescension. “You threaten me? You, a filthy half-breed, and I, who have been alive since the dawn of—”

  “Yes, you’re a true-blooded demon, so incredibly powerful, and I’m so pathetic and insignificant. I get that,” Sam said, taking a step closer. “But you weren’t sitting near the head of the table during the council meeting in Realm, the one time I was there; I would’ve remembered you. You’re not that important, are you?” He smiled and tilted his head slowly to one side.

  “In all that time you’ve been alive, since the dawn of creation, has anyone ever called your bluff?”

  There was a brief moment where the demon’s expression faded from smug to panicked, then he began gesticulating wildly. Sam realized he was about to travel back to Realm. With a burst of strength from his legs, he barreled into Azazel and pinned him to the wall. Before the other demon could recover, Sam put his own wrist to his mouth and pulled a strip of flesh off with his teeth, filling his mouth with his own blood. Then he put his mouth on Azazel’s, forcing the blood into his body. Azazel gagged, struggled, and tried to push him off, but he was too stunned to react fast enough.

  As Azazel gasped for breath, wide-eyed and panicked, Sam wiped the blood away from his mouth with the back of his hand. “See, now that you’ve got some of my blood, all those nasty little traps that Azrael and his friends set for me in Realm will catch you, too. You can’t run.”

  Azazel belted out a panicked yell and managed to kick Sam in the midsection, knocking him off balance. In the brief moment it took for Sam to recover, Azazel ran to the window and jumped through it, shattering the glas
s. When Sam reached the window, he saw that Azrael had already taken off at a run on the pavement, far below.

  Run, little mouse….

  Serenus tried to say something through his damaged throat, but Sam didn’t have time to listen. Bracing himself, he jumped out the window, barely feeling it in his legs when he landed on the sidewalk five stories below; all the energy he’d been suppressing for days was coursing through his body, bolstering him. He took off at a run in the direction he’d seen Azazel go.

  “Vladmira, I need it darker!” he yelled. Regardless of how deserted the streets were, all it would take was one person taking video to mess up his life.

  As he closed the gap between himself and his prey, the night seemed to grow several shades darker. Hearing the hiss of countless flapping wings, he looked up and saw that the bats were doing as directed; tens of thousands of them, blackening the sky, keeping out the light of the moon. He doubted the lack of light would have any effect on Azazel (besides possibly unnerving him), but it would make it a lot harder for someone to get a clear video of either of them.

  When Sam had nearly caught up, Azazel suddenly spun around gracefully and aimed a curse at him, using both his hands. It was absorbed by Sam’s barrier, but it still produced a little jolt that made Sam slow down for a moment. Grunting in frustration, Azazel took off down a side street.

  That was a death curse, naturally. I can’t expect this barrier to absorb too many more of those. Need to finish him, quick.

  To his surprise, Dot was suddenly running next to him, her high-heeled shoes making rhythmic clicks on the pavement.

  “Why do you block out the Moon, Necromancer? What has the Moon ever done to you?” she asked in a chiding tone.

  “Kind of busy now, Dot!” Sam yelled, trying to sprint ahead of her. Despite wearing heels and making no apparent effort, the fairy kept up with him effortlessly.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Killing a demon.”

  “Which one?” she asked, then got a better look at Azazel as he turned another corner.

  “Oh, good! I know that one!”

  “You want to help me kill him?” Sam asked incredulously.

  “Try to steer him toward the park, the one near your shop,” the fairy said casually. “If you can get him there, I will help you.”

  Then she was gone. Sam rolled his eyes to the back of his head, but only very briefly, since he was running very fast and couldn’t afford to trip.

  They actually weren’t far from the park; due to random luck, the direction Azazel had chosen was leading them both closer to The Daily Grind. As Azazel ran past some scaffolding at a construction site, Sam hexed it from afar, nearly bringing the whole thing down on the other demon’s head. Azazel managed to escape, but changed direction to avoid the wreckage. Sam grinned; herding him toward the park might not be all that difficult.

  Sam got another lucky break when an oil truck slammed into Azazel’s side while he was crossing the street. An impact that would have killed a human sent him reeling, trying to regain his bearings. He was nearly hit by another car, but the red sports car ended up on the sidewalk instead, crashing into a glass bus shelter; in the limited light, the few drivers on the road at this hour could barely see where they were going, and cars were careening off the road. Sam almost caught up to him right there, but Azazel suddenly regained his senses and jumped, perching on the metal frame of the ruined bus shelter for a fraction of a second and jumping again, taking to the roof above a delicatessen. A woman somewhere screamed, but Sam ignored her. He followed Azazel, only to lose a few seconds when he nearly lost his balance lining up the jump to the roof, but still kept his target in sight.

  Be as tricky as you want, asshole. As long as you keep heading toward the park, I don’t care if I have to clear an obstacle course to follow you.

  Now that they were above the streets and there was little chance of an innocent bystander getting in the way, Sam did his best to fire off a few curses in Azazel’s direction while he ran. They didn’t hit, but they got Azazel to make a sharp left to avoid them. Which was the point.

  For a little while the chase continued over the tops of the buildings, only as they started to approach the downtown area, the buildings started to get too tall, the gaps between them too wide. Azazel jumped down several stories onto a café balcony and then back down to the sidewalk, stumbling slightly. Sam followed, keeping his footing. He was getting used to this.

  Suddenly Azazel took off for another side street, and Sam groaned; that was the wrong direction. To his surprise, Azazel had to backtrack when a familiar gray sedan emerged from the darkness, trying to run him down. The car even followed the demon onto the sidewalk, colliding with a mailbox and sending it flying.

  Isn’t that…John’s car? What’s he doing here?

  If Azazel had time, he could have turned around and hexed the car, changing it into a rusting wreck. But he couldn’t afford to stop with Sam so close behind, so he had no choice but to keep running, otherwise he would be run over. After about two blocks of this, he turned onto a narrow path, bordered by a sturdy, wrought-iron fence, where the car couldn’t follow— the park.

  Sam felt like his grin must be a mile wide.

  “Stay in the car!” he yelled to Golding as he jumped over the hood of the parked car, following the fleeing demon into the park. As helpful as the teacher’s intervention had been, he didn’t want to risk John taking any curses that were meant for him.

  Azazel had barely set foot in the park when a tree branch came out of nowhere and impaled him from the side. Gasping for air, he was doubled over in pain when another large branch rammed through his midsection and pinned him to the large oak tree on the edge of the duck pond. Bleeding profusely from his stomach, the demon tried to pull the branch out of his body, but it refused to budge, manipulated by some unseen force.

  Sam leaned over and caught his breath, taking huge gulps of air. Finally, the chase was over.

  As soon as he felt like he could breathe again, Sam stood up and took a few strides toward where Azazel was trapped. “Nice job,” he called over his shoulder.

  “Thanks,” said Dot, crouching in a nearby tree. “You didn’t keep me waiting for long.”

  At the sound of her voice, Azazel stopped struggling with the branch and looked up, an expression of utter shock on his face.

  “Dorothea?”

  Dot didn’t answer, just kept whatever hold she had on the branches that were keeping him impaled to the giant oak. The trapped demon let out a cry of anguish.

  “It is you! How could you do this? How could you choose this, this half-human beast over me?”

  “You never should have put me on that card, Zazie,” Dot said. “I warned you.”

  As much as Sam was consumed with the thought of killing Azazel, Dot’s unexpected statement awakened the calmer, more rational part of his mind.

  “Card? You mean that game?”

  He looked from Dot to Azazel, who was still struggling, albeit unsuccessfully.

  “You’re the one behind that ridiculous card game, aren’t you? Why? What do you get out of it?”

  His handsome face distorted by pain, Azazel only laughed through gritted teeth. “As if I’d tell you now, you unnatural pox on this Earth.”

  “All part of your master plan, I see,” Sam said, closing the distance between himself and the bound, bleeding creature. He put a hand around Azazel’s throat. “Don’t worry, I happen to know a few expert Sorcery players. I’m sure they can help me figure it all out after you’re dead.”

  “Wait!” yelled Azazel, trying to pull his neck out of Sam’s hand. “The tablet! The Tablet of Phantasms! You want it, don’t you?!”

  Sam had not been expecting that. “What?”

  “I know where it is!” Azazel screeched, then laughed. “If you kill me, you’ll never find it!”

  Sam considered that for a moment.

  “Oh well,” he said regretfully, and was about to snap the demon’s ne
ck.

  But a Lord of Hell, albeit a lesser one, was not so easily killed. Azazel let out a guttural scream and a shockwave emanated from his body, sending Sam flying back. Grimacing with effort, he pulled out the tree branch that had pierced his middle, shattering it in his fist. Making an X with his forearms, he gathered a barrier around himself.

  Picking himself up quickly, Sam hurled a curse right at Azazel’s heart, but the new barrier absorbed it harmlessly. Taking his arms out of their cross, Azazel aimed a freezing curse at Sam, who threw himself down and rolled to avoid it, getting fresh-cut grass and wet leaves on his shirt. He took cover behind a thick tree, then followed Dot’s example and hopped up into the canopy above the park. He circled Azazel from above, firing off curses whenever he had a clean angle, while Azazel screamed and tried to follow Sam with his eyes. Azazel threw curses too, but they bounced harmlessly off the trees that Dot was protecting; he clearly wasn’t used to fighting this way, and didn’t know how to hit a moving target he could barely even see. Sam was tempted to taunt him, but held back; the sound of his voice would give him away.

  You’d think, in all that time since the beginning of creation, he would have learned how to aim…that’s a thick barrier, though. He must have a dozen familiars. Can I hold out for long enough to wear it down? Do I have a choice?

  Fortunately, Dot was still there. She began hurling dozens and dozens of large branches at the screaming demon; whether she was getting them from the floor of the park or conjuring them into existence outright, Sam had no idea. At first they just bounced harmlessly off the barrier, which shimmered dimly from each impact, but as the barrage continued, some began to pierce. Whenever the tip of a branch penetrated, Azazel would expel it before it could touch his flesh, but clearly, the barrier was starting to lose its effectiveness.

  Sam tried to aim a curse through one of the spots that Dot had just pierced with one of her branches, only to be interrupted by a blood-curdling scream; it was Azazel, trying to dislodge something by his collar. Sam squinted and realized that the thing causing Azazel’s distress was a tiny rat, biting his neck. With a blur, the rat turned into John Golding, and Azazel fell backward, suddenly compressed by about 220 pounds of man. The shock of the whole thing had wrecked his concentration, causing the barrier to fall.