Authors: Randall Morris
CHAPTER 43
Adrenaline woke Shadow in the middle of the night. He looked panicked. Shadow wondered if he was about to be attacked and reached for Damnation.
“It’s Sarah. She stole the berserker staff.”
“That’s not possible because she’s…”
Shadow checked the side of the bed where Sarah had been sleeping. He realized he had been played.
“Do you have anyone tracking her?”
“I have all of my berserkers out there looking for her. Shadow, we need to get that staff back so you can take on Abaddon. It’s the only way.”
“Yes. I know. He’s too powerful and all that shit. Kind of irrelevant if we don’t find her, isn’t it?”
A berserker demon entered the tent and bowed.
“Apologies, Lord Adrenaline and General Shadow. There’s a group of… well… I’m not exactly sure what they are. One seems to be an angel… there’s a crazy demoness… I… a crow led them here and then turned into a small demon. He said he knows you, General Shadow.”
Shadow smiled.
“It’s Muan. He brought Lilith here. Perfect.”
Shadow muttered a few words and his armor and weapons attached themselves to him. He grabbed Damnation and went out to meet them. As soon as he exited his tent, he was knocked back in by Lilith jumping at him for a hug.
“I’ve missed you, Shady. I’m so glad you aren’t dead yet.”
Shadow laughed.
“I’m glad you’re not dead, too. Where’s the baby?”
Thanatos approached and Shadow gripped Damnation.
“I remember this guy. What is he doing here?”
“My niece is in my backpack.”
Thanatos turned around. Shadow cautiously removed the sleeping baby and rocked her back and forth. He turned to Lilith.
“Niece?”
“Long story. I found my father and apparently Hypnos and Thanatos are my half-brothers… and they’re going to help us fight! Surprise!”
“So… that time you guys came down to Hell to help ‘me’ out…”
Hypnos nodded.
“We were really down there for our sister. We couldn’t let her die down there. We used the time to educate you on nephilim and our family ties remained a secret. We couldn’t risk Lilith being outed as a nephilim. They would have killed her.”
“But you were fine with spreading that rumor about me?”
Thanatos shrugged.
“Sure. You’re not our sister. Unless there’s something Dad forgot to tell us…”
Samael stepped forward and extended his hand.
“Good to meet you, Shadow. I’m Samael. I met your father a long time ago when he ascended into the Heavens to find Michael. Powerful guy. It’s too bad that the torture…”
Hypnos cleared his throat loudly. Shadow grinned.
“Well good to know putting your foot in your mouth is a family trait. I always wondered where Lilith got that.”
Shadow saw Steam standing behind everyone else.
“I know everyone now but this guy. Who are you?”
Lilith walked behind Steam and shoved him forward. Steam looked nervous and didn’t say anything. Lilith rolled her eyes.
“This is Steam. He’s happy to meet you.”
“Another nephilim?”
Steam leaned in to Lilith’s ear and whispered.
“He looks scary as fuck. What if I say the wrong thing and he kills me?”
Lilith rolled her eyes again.
“Shadow… Steam wants you to promise not to kill him before he’ll talk.”
Shadow grinned.
“I generally don’t make promises like that. Who knows what the future holds? There are so many reasons I can think of that would make me want to kill you, but if it’ll make you feel better…”
Lilith nodded.
“…I promise not to kill you. Take note that I’m lying. I still haven’t even promised not to kill Lilith and I’ve wanted to at least a dozen times.”
Lilith giggled. Steam reluctantly extended his hand. Shadow shook it.
“The name’s Steam… Lord… General… King… uh… Shadow. Your majesty. Your honor.”
Steam leaned back over to Lilith.
“What am I supposed to call him?”
Shadow laughed.
“Well he’s terrified. Fine. We’ll figure all of this out in the morning. All of you will need to meet Adrenaline and the berserkers. For now, I think we should all get some sleep. I’ve had enough interruptions for one night.”
Lilith looked around.
“Where’s Sarah?”
“That’s a long story, too. Let’s just put it on hold for now.”
Lilith looked like something had just dawned on her and removed Leech’s head from the sack on her belt. Shadow looked at her like she was crazy.
“Why have you been carrying around Leech’s head? Lilith… this is a whole new level of…”
“We can bring him back.”
“What do you mean? He’s dead, Lilith. We don’t have time for false hope right now.”
“No. It’s not false hope. When he took on Azazel to save us, he consumed a small army of nephilim with his parasitic touch. Took all of their energy in. I had Jess cast a spell on his head. He can come back if he can siphon off power from someone powerful enough to…”
Samael cut her off.
“Shadow needs his strength to fight Abaddon, Lilith. Maybe we should hold off on…”
Shadow shook his head.
“No. No waiting. What do I need to do?”
Lilith hesitated.
“This is going to hurt. It’ll drain you. Are you sure?”
Shadow nodded.
“Let’s do it.”
Lilith grabbed Shadow’s hand and put Leech’s head in his open palm. Nothing happened. Lilith looked confused.
“I don’t understand. It usually just…”
Leech’s eyes started to glow green. Shadow yelled out and fell to his knees. Blood started to trickle down his nose and out of his eyes. Lilith started to cry. In a panic, she tried to take Leech’s head back, but Shadow stopped her with his free hand.
“No. Let me finish this.”
Shadow slowly got back on his feet. He tried to tighten his muscles and bear the pain, but he called out again in agony. A green form started to crawl down Leech’s head. It formed a neck, then a torso, and slowly crawled out until arms appeared. Lilith continued to cry.
“Daddy! Help him!”
Samael sadly shook his head.
“I can’t, sweetheart. Shadow is stronger than I am. He has to do this alone.”
When the green mist formed Leech’s toes, it became a solid body. Leech started to breathe again, but didn’t open his eyes. Shadow let go of Leech’s head and fell into unconsciousness.
CHAPTER 44
After Weapon left the nephilim that had captured him, he made sure everything was still in his coat. The process took a long time, because his coat held every weapon in his collection and some other items he found useful. When he finished, his stomach growled.
“Damn it. I need to find something to eat. Those assholes took everything in my plane.”
Weapon saw a nearby town and started slowly walking towards it. He made it several steps before he remembered that he had faster modes of transportation. He set his coat on the ground and slowly pulled a motorcycle out of one of the larger inner pockets.
“Should have grabbed a few souls when I saw those idiots coming and taken off on this thing… I just never get a chance to use the rocket launcher anymore.”
When Weapon made it down to the small town, he packed his motorcycle back in to his coat and pulled out a pair of pistols. Weapon started making his way down a quiet residential street. It was night, so any angels and demons in the area were likely bored and didn’t have their guard up. Weapon entered the first house he came to because he smelled death inside. An old man sat in a recliner. His drink had spilled on the floor and there was no breath coming from his mouth. It looked like the guy had drank himself into sleep and wasn’t going to wake up. Weapon retrieved the old man’s soul and took a big gulp. Dirty cop. Perfect to take the edge off of his growing hunger. He stored the rest of the soul in a jar in his coat and moved on.
Weapon left the house and walked across the lawn of the next house up the street. There were toys on the lawn. Children. Weapon grinned. While he couldn’t take the children yet, there were probably some angels and demons inside and he was fine with killing and eating them. Weapon spotted a door with a poster of a heavy metal band on the door. Probably a teenager, so there was likely an angel and a demon inside. Weapon walked through the door and saw the angel and demon struggling. The demon was winning. Weapon pulled a short sword from his coat and jammed it up the demon’s spine. The demon arched his back and then fell over dead. The angel looked relieved until he saw Weapon standing over him, demon blood dripping off his blade.
“No! Please don’t! I won’t cause any trouble. You can take whatever you want.”
Weapon rolled his eyes and cut the angel’s belly open. He then hacked the angel and demon into manageable pieces, wrapped them, and stored them in his coat. He cleaned his blade and remembered the toys in the front yard. They didn’t belong to the teenager. There was a younger child in the house somewhere. Weapon put his short sword back in his coat and pulled out a shotgun. After he stepped back into the hall, he saw the door next to the teenager’s room. It had flower stickers and cartoon characters all over it. Weapon readied his shotgun and ran in. As he scanned the room, he saw an angel kneeling on the floor and praying. She opened her eyes, looked up at Weapon, and grinned.
“I heard the angel call out in the other room. I just finished saying a prayer to the Archangel Uriel. He’s still in the area and he knows you’re here now.”
Weapon pointed the shotgun at the angel’s head.
“Well then fuck you and fuck your noisy friend in the other room. Uriel won’t find anything when he gets here other than angel and demon blood on the floors. I’ll be taking your corpse with me in smaller, manageable pieces.”
The angel looked disgusted.
“You’re a savage. Curse you and all of the nephilim.”
Weapon laughed.
“I didn’t know angels could curse.”
Weapon fired the shotgun and the angel’s head exploded. As he was hacking up the remains, he heard footsteps downstairs.
“Shit.”
Weapon abandoned his future meal and made his way out of the window. The angels entered the room shortly after he left and saw the remains of their sister on the floor. The middle angel ordered her corpse be covered and then taken outside. He also called for a messenger. The messenger angel bowed.
“Lord Cassiel, what would you have me do?”
“We were brought here by a prayer to Archangel Uriel. Get a message to him. Everyone has been killed. I suspect a nephilim. I’ll be pursuing him and taking him down. No reinforcements needed.”
The messenger angel wrote out the message and Cassiel stamped it with his ring. The messenger angel bowed and left. Cassiel followed him out of the house and then turned to his army.
“There’s a nephilim in this neighborhood somewhere. We’re going to find him and then rid the world of his abominable soul. This will be no different than the other nephilim we’ve killed. We’re doing the Lord’s work here. Those creatures are worse than the demons. Report to me when we have him captured and bound. Go with God, my brothers and sisters.”
Minor angels began organizing search parties and the angels spread out, searching the neighborhood.
Weapon watched Cassiel’s speech from a rooftop three houses down from where he had killed the angels and the demon. He held his hand over his heart in mock appreciation.
“Those angel speeches. They always get me going. Sometimes when they call me a plague enough times, I even want to kill me.”
Weapon pulled a pair of binoculars out from his coat and zoomed in on Cassiel. He was an angel of medium build and the only thing that separated him from the other angels was the fact that his blonde hair glowed a little brighter and his robes were a little whiter, if such a thing was possible. Weapon was about to return his binoculars to his coat and run away when he noticed something odd on the angel’s belt. He zoomed in even further. There were heads attached to Cassiel’s belt. Nephilim heads. Weapon knew a few of them.
“Well fuck. I guess I should have given this guy a little more credit. He’s a special kind of asshole. Didn’t know the angels were
successfully
hunting nephilim now.”
Weapon returned the binoculars to his inside coat pocket and made a run for it.
CHAPTER 45
When Gangrene made it to his army, he summoned messenger demons and prepared a message for his middle demons. He told them to cut a path towards an exit to the Earth and to not get pulled any deeper into the battle. The messengers nodded at the message and took off to deliver it. It was up to Murmur, Jess, and Aim now. He had equaled the playing field for them by killing Astaroth and that was enough.
Gangrene and Raven jumped into the battle and started cutting down the remains of Astaroth’s army. They were nearly through to a cave with a portal to the surface when the ground started to shake. Gangrene grabbed one of his minor demons by the shoulder and killed his opponent.
“What’s making the ground shake like that?”
“It’s been happening off and on since we started fighting, General Gangrene. The rumor going through our ranks is that it’s the gateway twins. Culsans and Culsu. They were in Astaroth’s army and are likely to succeed her now that she’s dead.”
The ground shook again as soon as the demon finished his explanation.
“They’re getting closer. Should I get Lord Ghoul down here?”
Lord Ghoul was one of Gangrene’s middle demons. The minor demon obviously fought for Lord Ghoul. Gangrene shook his head.
“No. I’ll deal with the twins. Just be ready to run to the surface. We’re getting out of here as soon as possible.”
The minor demon nodded and returned to the battle. The ground rumbled again. A large beast-like creature ran in front of Gangrene and split into a demon and a demoness. The demon drew two swords from his belt and the demoness summoned fire in each hand. They each pointed at Gangrene and alternated speaking.
“We’ve been waiting for you, Gangrene.”
“You’re a coward and we’re here to kill you and take your scythe.”
Gangrene grinned.
“Do you guys
plan
coordinated speeches? Do I get a one-liner from each of you every time I say something? I really don’t have time for that long of a conversation.”
“Surrender now. Fall on your sword.”
“Die with honor. You can’t win.”
Gangrene spun his scythe and attacked. Culsu started throwing fire, but Gangrene was able to expertly dodge the attacks. Culsans attacked with both blades and Gangrene was able to block everything with his scythe. He didn’t notice Culsu sneak around to his back, though. She fired off two fireballs and his back began to burn. He unlatched his breastplate and cape and threw them on the ground. His back was slightly singed, but the pain just increased the adrenaline flowing through his system. He attacked Culsu, but she summoned a shield of fire and kept retreating while throwing fire in his path. When he had nearly caught her, he felt a stabbing pain in his right shoulder. He spun around and saw Culsans smiling at him. One of his swords was sticking out of Gangrene, close to the shoulder blade. Gangrene removed it and broke it on his knee.
Gangrene was starting to regret not asking Lord Ghoul to join him. He remembered that Raven was somewhere nearby and called out her name. He played defense against the gateway twins until he could hear gunfire getting closer. It sounded like White Death.
“Hey babe. There are two of them and they’re starting to piss me off. Flip a coin?”
Raven looked at the gateway twins and shook her head.
“No coin. I get the hot chick. She looks yummy.”
“Fine. Whatever. Just kill her. We need to get out of here.”
After dodging several fireballs that Culsu hurled her way, Raven struck with her whip. She was able to wrap it around Culsu’s throat and then yanked on it hard. Culsu went flying through the air until she was only a few feet from White Death. Raven fired and the bullet penetrated Culsu’s eye and lodged itself in her skull. She fell over, dead. Raven looked disappointed.
“That wasn’t as fun as I wanted it to be. I think I’m going to steal her clothes. It’s the least she can do for me since she wasn’t willing to fight very hard.”
Raven removed Culsu’s clothes and then ran off to continue fighting. Culsans began circling Gangrene, driven by fury but determined to not launch a foolish attack. Gangrene started circling in the opposite direction.
“Your girlfriend is kind of insane.”
“I know. I’m into it. Your sister is kind of dead.”
Gangrene hoped this would provoke an attack, but Culsans just smiled and kept circling. Gangrene felt someone tap him on his shoulder. It was the minor demon he had talked to earlier.
“We’re through to the cave, General Gangrene. We’ve started sending the armies through. Shouldn’t be long now.”
Gangrene nodded.
“I’ll be there shortly. Get everyone through.”
Culsans launched himself into the air with his blades overhead. Gangrene aimed his scythe and sliced upwards. Culsans was able to land part of his attack, as each blade had sunk into Gangrene’s shoulders, but neither wound was very deep. Gangrene managed to cut Culsans in half. He pulled his scythe back and ran towards the cave. A few moments later, he was on Earth with his armies.
“We need to find the Dragon. I need to be officially named a major demon. After that, we have two choices. We can side with Shadow and fight his father or we can head back down to Hell as the new official department of idolatry. I want my tent built right now and I’d like to see all of my middle demons inside within the next ten minutes. Get it done.”
Several demons scurried off to build Gangrene’s tent and the rest of them started bandaging and cleaning injuries. Ghoul approached Gangrene and asked if he could have a word in private.
“What’s up?”
“If you’re hoping the middle demons will back your play to help Shadow, know that it’s going to be close. Half of the middle demons want to head back down to Hell and finish off Nightmare’s army to share in the spoils of war. Just… be ready for that when it comes up.”
“I haven’t made a decision yet. I could seriously go either way. My real loyalty is to my armies. If everyone decides to head back down, we’ll head back down.”
Ghoul smiled as if he was pleased with Gangrene’s answer.
“I guess I’ll see you in ten then.”