Demon Lord 3: Blue Star Priestess (37 page)

I stared past him at the sea.  There’s only one reason a sea does that.  It’s a sign a tsunami is coming.  And there it was, rising high into the ever-loving sky like the fist of God’s judgment.  We were dead.  Even if Gloria had finished the ritual killings and awakened the geomantic master pattern, that protection didn’t extend to this island.  We and everyone on it were about to be body-slammed by tones and tones of water.

I let my fire die out. 
No use to me now
.

Lauramus
turned back around, his eyes falling on his mother as if seeing her for the first time in her frozen pond.  “Mother?  What are you doing?  This is no time for jokes.  We’ve won.  Your beloved kingdom is now avenged.  I’ll buy you a snow cone later.”

The Old Man said, “Don’t bother.  She’s dead after all.  The hell-gate ate her soul a long time ago.  It’s the gem, the souls of the dead, that have animated her flesh, that and stale memories lingering in her brain—a zombie really.  It’s time she rested.”

He plucked the stone off her forehead.

She rotted away to nothing, leaving a woman-shaped pocket in the ice.  Lauphram stood with the gem in his fist.  His fist became shadow, eating the remaining power of the stone.

Lauramus went ape-shit, throwing himself at his father. 

I tackled him midair.  We fell and skidded along the peer.  He caught himself at the hole where the lightning from the Cup had blasted.  He kicked.  I caught a boot to the face.  My head was wrenched to the side.  Lightning blazed up from his body, curling ribbons of it that spun toward me, too fast to dodge, but not too fast for my shadow hand.  It appeared in front of me, drawing power from my warmed
Demon Wings
tattoo. 

His lightning streams sank into my emptiness.  And vanished, feeding my power even more.   He pulled himself back to safety and rose in a crouch, hate and madness in his eyes as he snarled.  “I will beat.  Again and again.  I always have.  I always will.”

“You won’t win
this
time.  You came prepared for who I was, not who I now am.”  The shadow hand between us swelled in size, rising into the air on wings of shadow, now a dragon.  The creature spit black lightning.  Lauramus’ body was protected very well, but his head was uncovered.  It’s always the simple mistakes that matter most.  Earlier, my head had felt like it exploded.  His really did.  Headless, he toppled back off the peer and went the way of the squid. 

They can keep each other company in hell.

The wall of water was high enough to cover the island and blot it out, roaring at us like a dragon—no, that was a dragon.  Red, in dragon form, swooped down and snagged Julia, hauling her into the air, racing across the island to escape with her.  The rest of were battered and rolled like bowling pins. 
No, no,
I thought,
don’t mind about the rest of us we’re just…

“We’re going to die!” Izumi, struggled to form an ice shield over us. 

The Old Man started humming the Beach Boy’s
Good Vibrations
.  He lifted his arms, palms to the sky, and became a three-dimensional shadow.  “I’ve been waiting to do this for thirteen-thousand years,” he said. 

Darkness exploded past us, enveloping us, becoming our sky, our earth, our breath.  I couldn’t see my own hand in front of my face.  My tattoos glowed gold as my dragon stirred in panic.  I felt my heart slow, my lifeforce bleeding into this ultimate expression of shadow magic.  I thought I’d impress him with my shadow dragon.

Damn.  I need to go back to little magician’s kindergarten. 

Enough time passed
for the tidal wave to cover us, Avalon City, the whole freakin’ island, and we never felt a tremor, or heard a sound.  Finally, when sanity itself threatened to crumble, the Old Man thinned his dome.  The boats that had been at sea were now splintered wrecks just off shore.  The island itself looked untouched.

“The whole island?” I asked.  “You covered it all?”

He looked back at me like it was no big thing.  “You didn’t expect me to let my entire clan die, did you?  I could never accepted an oath from another demon if I couldn’t protect them.”

THIRTY-EIGHT

“Surprise, I’m alive!”

                                      —Caine Deathwalker

The Hell-Yes-We-Made-It party was in full swing at the Velvet Door.  Sarah and Angie were both helping out serving tables. 
There was a decided lack of werewolves in the room.  Probably, no one invited them. 

Gloria had chased the regulars away from the darts area so we could have a private discussion.  The old targets were gone and six new one had been trotted out and hung on the wall.  Not so much dartboards really, more like severed heads.  Vampire heads.  

“The Spartan Six, huh?  Are you sure they won’t scare business away?”

“I’ll take that chance.”

“By the way, I want that outfit back.  And my short swords, too.”

“They’re somewhat damaged.  One is bent almost double.  And I want to keep the storm-fey outfit.  I look cute in it.”

“Gloria!” I tried to sound like I meant business, turning her name into a growl.

She ignored my intimidation.  “I may want to use that persona again one day.  It’s pretty hand being able to do truly horrible things and not be looked down on for it.  One day, I may even want to assassinate a foreign vampire leader, and then I can trot out the legendary Blood-Storm assassin.”

“Is that what the media is calling him?”

“Yes, especially since he vanished the night of the storm when the whole city saw the sky alive with a bloody firestorm.”

“I’m just glad you got the job done in time.”

Gloria turned to stare into my eyes, liking it that I didn’t have to
look away from her vampire gaze.  She said, “I almost didn’t.  I was discovered by the Spartans.  Fortunately, there we’re just enough of them to awaken the entire geomantic pattern after the last necromantic circle was placed.”  She smiled suddenly.  “Want to try out my new dartboards?”

C
OMING DECEMBER 2014

THE WHITE JADE FLUTE

B
y

MORGAN BLAYDE

EXCERPT:

It was Death—or a good imitation—and he’d traded in his scythe for a flute. It had an Asian look, hand-carved from white jade. Its shrill voice was a distillation of sadness that borrowed its song from the dimming colors of the sky, from fresh turned soil, and the howl of a black phantom hound—the one that had led me here. Death stood across the cemetery, in the shadow of a stone angel, as if taking refuge. The flutist wore a black robe, thin and tattered. The hands on the flute were bones. The face that kissed the flute was fleshless, lipless.

My right hand held a Px4 Beretta Storm. My thumb nudged off the safety. I lifted the automatic, taking careful aim. My left hand held a child’s doll long past her prime. She wore a sun-yellow dress with many frills, and her hair had once matched. Time had faded the fabric. Blood and mud matted the hair. One eye was cornflower blue. The other an empty socket. The doll had brought me as well. That and a promise to a ghost child who’d just died a second time.

I normally killed if the price was right. This time, it would be for honor.

Turning, Death saw me. He pulled the flute from his grinning face. His eyes were patches

of black. No demon or ghost light inside them. Empty.

I squeezed the trigger. My gun bucked in my fist. I rode the recoils, sending round after round. Brass cartridges ejected into the air. A few of them rattled off my Kevlar armor. Firing,

I tracked Death as he ran.

You’d think Death wouldn’t be afraid to die.

He scurried low, experienced with staying alive in a gunfight. His black robes billowed, taking several hits. I thought I heard a hiss of breath and a smothered curse on his lips, the lips he didn’t seem to have.

Might be fey glamour. Nothing I’m seeing could be real.

Not wanting to be left out, the phantom hound ran for Death, zigzagging the plots. The beast refused to run over the graves, losing time. I guess he didn’t want to offend other ghosts.

I didn’t have that problem. I like offending everybody. I emptied my magazine and holstered the weapon. I had a better choice available. I sent a thought out into the ether, commanding obedience. My demon sword came, fading into my hand. I gripped the hilt, bracing my mind for the wave of pitiless hunger that rolled off the blade, begging for a soul to drink.

Working on it,
I told the sword.

Death ducked behind a
white marble mausoleum large enough for a family of eight. His steps were fading fast.

Skull-boy really knows how to run. Never mind, Dog and I are faster.

A mass of sludgy shadow, Dog was next turning the corner.

As I got there, I heard him yelp in startled pain.

What the hell!

Rounding the corner, I saw no trace of Death. The ass-wipe had gotten away.

Of more immediate concern, Dog was in the paws of a band of children that had a milky transparency in the silver light of a half moon. The children were tearing the dog’s ghostly substance apart by handfuls. Dog was a good boy; he didn’t fight them, the ones he knew he ought to protect. Like the evil rug-rats they were, the children used this against him. He vapored away, going incorporeal to save himself.

They turned their attention to me. These were ghosts—a particularly nasty type. The Slavic word was
Drekavac
. The children had died unbaptized. Born from mothers who’d been abandoned by their boyfriends, shamed. No choice really. Baby necks break easily when choked. The resulting baby ghosts would have spent a great deal of time killing small birds and animals so they could grow old enough for vengeance. Their unnatural ages were now running four to ten, but they lacked mental maturity, being little more than ghostly ferals.

Gnawing ectoplasm, they stuffed their mouths with what they’d torn from the dog. I had very little time before they swallowed, and unleashed the power they were infamous for: the scream of death. I waded in with the iron of my sword, slashing through their spectral mass, disrupting materializations. The demon sword howled with dark joy, drinking freely.

Then all I could hear was screaming from those still intact. I screamed too, my brain turning to mush as needles of sound spiked into my eardrums, scrambling my brain. The twilight sweep of crosses and headstones stretched in impossible ways. My balance was shot. I stumbled back. I fell. The doll dropped from my hand. Her one eye stared in silent accusation as if to say:
Do not fail me
.

The children came at me with bared pointy teeth and impossibly long clawing fingers.

I struggled to lift the blade.