Phoenix Contract: Part Four (Fallen Angel Watchers) (3 page)

“Yes, I’ve been using it for a couple of centuries now. Do you have a problem with that?” The demon’s sneer dared Matthew to go ahead and mock the name choice.

“No, not at all... Ernie,” the priest agreed hastily.

“Good.” The demon sniggered. “Keep going. You’re doing so well. I want to know if you’ve figured out the rest.”

Matthew cleared his throat. “I’m guessing that sometime after Lilith cast the curse, something happened that made her change her mind and desire your destruction,” Matthew continued.

“I discovered how to feed on the souls of the living. To briefly assuage my ravenous hunger.” The demon strode across the room and stood in the full firelight with his arms spread wide in a look-at-me pose. His new form presented a painfully pale figure with snow white hair tipped with metallic blue. His eyes bore bright red irises.

Thrash.

Righteous and boundless anger stiffened Matthew’s body into a rigid posture. “You murdered this boy, and now you wear his body like some unholy abomination!” he snarled.

“Like?” The demon mocked. He looked, sounded, and acted precisely like Thrash. “Oh, no.
Am
. Make no mistake. I didn’t just murder him.
I ate him.
His immortal soul, destroyed. His entire essence, eradicated. Gone, other than the part that resides within me.”

The demon smacked his lips obscenely. “He was quite a tasty tidbit too. I happen to prefer Nephilim to more mundane meals. Because of the angelic blood running through your veins, your kind makes better eating. Thrash isn’t the only one I got either.”

Mouth contorted in the same ugly sneer, the Soul Eater’s physical features flowed with mercurial swiftness and altered shape until a new face was presented to the priest.

Troy.

Matthew’s stomach heaved with a sudden, violent lurch.
Oh, dear God, please no...

“How do I know this isn’t another trick?” Matthew demanded. “You’ve demonstrated the ability to assume a physical likeness without having consumed that person’s soul. I know you weren’t able to eat Magnus.”

Troy’s handsome face worked, reminiscent of one who’d eaten tainted food and was fighting to keep his gorge from rising. “Hmm, Magnus, no. He wasn’t particularly palatable,” the demon agreed sourly. “But rest assured, this isn’t a trick. I ate Troy, body and soul, even his possessions, and he became part of me.”

A thought seemed to occur to the demon, and he smirked. Raising a hand, he regurgitated something into his open palm and held it out for Matthew to inspect.

The priest’s eyes were irresistibly drawn to a sapphire ring—Troy’s family ring, the one that his father had left him.

With a callow laugh, the Soul Eater tossed the ring onto the table where it landed and rolled on its rim.

“Mine now, just like his soul,” the demon bragged. After a metamorphic shimmer, his features reverted to Thrash’s pale countenance.

Matthew’s eyes locked on the spinning ring which completed one final revolution and dropped to a rest on the tabletop. Dead. Just like Thrash. Just like Troy.
Those poor boys...

Dizziness overtook Father Matthew. He staggered and seized the table for support. A cold sweat broke out on his skin, and his breath huffed in short, panicked gasps. Nausea mounted in his gut, a ghastly beast that his stomach sought to drive out. His anger manifested as an incredible, intense pressure that expanded within his chest and caused him awful distress.

He recognized the symptoms as the onset of another heart attack
.
Matthew’s medication resided in the upper right hand drawer of his desk on the far side of the room. Under the circumstances, it might as well have been on the opposite side of the world. He couldn’t get to his pills in the desk drawer without alerting the demon to his weakness which he had no desire to do. He saw his body’s betrayal as a welcome intervention, a means of escape. Once his heart stopped, his soul would fly free, forever out of the reach of the monster.

“Why was your imitation of Magnus so awful?” Matthew gasped, seeking information as a means of distraction. The intense physical pain forced him to sit on the tabletop for support. His own end was close at hand. He just wanted to delay it long enough to cheat the creature out of another Nephilim meal.

“Awful, humph. I do believe that I’ve been insulted,” the demon grumped. It folded its arms, seemingly unaware that their positions as storyteller and audience had swapped.

“Actually, I’ve wondered that myself. My inability to consume him puzzled me at first. But I eventually realized that I was unable to consume his soul, because there’s no soul there to consume. Vampires are demonically animated corpses, so I must assume that anything worth eating is already gone.”

“Interesting theory,” Matthew replied dryly. He wondered what Magnus would think of it, though he suspected the Celt would be insulted.

“Once Lilith learned of my new dietary preferences, she was displeased. But even the All Powerful Dark Mother was unable to remove the curse she’d cast upon me. The best she managed was to create a weapon capable of destroying me.”

“So Lilith forged Acerbitas from her blood and tears,” Matthew said, noting the holes which remained in his theory. For one thing, the blade had been carved from a dragon tooth, not forged from molten steel.

“The Dark Mother designated the sword as the one and only instrument of your destruction. But somehow you evaded death, and the sword eventually found its way into the possession of the Papacy where it remained for the last thousand years.”

“Correct,” the demon said, gesturing toward the partially covered sword. “It would still be sitting on a dusty shelf in the vaults of Vatican City if not for a slight miscalculation on my part.”

“Let me guess,” Matthew wheezed, struggling for air. “You couldn’t leave well enough alone. You were irresistibly drawn to Acerbitas, seeking to possess or destroy the only thing in this world that could end your miserable existence.”

“All true, sadly enough,” the demon agreed gleefully. “I got caught snooping in the wrong place at the wrong time, and a certain Cardinal figured out the mystery of the sword and got it out of Italy. I’ve spent the last six months tracking it down, destroying anyone who knows its purpose. It’s been a long, hard chase, but it’s finally over.”

The demon gestured toward Acerbitas which lay on the table, pulsating with hypnotic power. “Here it is, mine at last!” Features distorted with menace, the visage of Thrash turned toward Matthew with a hideous grin.

“Look at you, priest. Pathetic!” the Soul Eater mocked. “You’re so terrified that you’re shaking like a leaf. Your faith is so weak that confronted with a terrible demon, you haven’t once raised your crucifix or tried to call upon God for salvation!”

Matthew blanched as the truth of the matter struck home, along with the shameful and humiliating realization that the demon was correct. Here, this whole time, he’d thought of holding out until either death or Magnus could save him. Not once had he called out to God.

“You’re right,” Matthew whispered, reaching at last for his crucifix. “My faith is weak. I’m a terrible failure as a priest.”

“Oh please. Don’t waste your time trying now.” Seizing the crucifix, the Soul Eater dragged the long, heavy silver chain over Matthew’s head, then flung it over his shoulder.

“And now, let’s wrap this up before you croak and slip the noose, so to speak.” After a wicked chuckle, the demon lunged forward.

In a final act of desperation, Matthew jerked away and toppled onto his back. He slammed onto the tabletop, and the demon crouched over the priest. Just out of the corner of his eyes, Matthew caught a glimpse of Acerbitas. He had a brief thought to seize the sword and use it against the Soul Eater. But the old man’s hand barely twitched before he felt a hand press against his chest, directly over his heart.

What followed was horrible beyond words. A sucking darkness surrounded Matthew’s soul and slowly ripped it to shreds. Matthew screamed until his voice was raw and ragged. He thrashed until his entire body hurt, and his cries gradually died away to pitiful whimpers and his struggles diminished to weak trembling. The vile assault, ravishment, and violation went on and on for an eternity. And then it ceased.

The albino removed his hand from the black man’s chest and cocked his head, staring down at his still living victim with bemusement. Matthew’s head lolled to the side and a dribble of drool fell from the corner of his open mouth.

“Weird,” the demon drawled. “You’re not dead. Why aren’t you dead, Preacher Man?”

I don’t know. Why aren’t I dead?
His miraculous survival puzzled and amazed Matthew as much as it did the demon.

“You’re not part of me. Why wasn’t I able to eat you? I feel like this is going to cause me emotional trauma, maybe even performance anxiety,” the Soul Eater continued to rant.

The Soul Eater hopped from the table and began to pace the study restlessly, continuing his troubled discourse. “It just isn’t right! This is the second time this has happened to me. First that Celt—”

The demon stopped pacing and gave an exclamation of enlightenment as an epiphany came to him. “Ah-ha! That’s it. You taste like that Celt. He’s the one to blame! Somehow, he’s marked you. Your soul is already taken!”

“Or the part of him that was transferred into me makes me unpalatable,” Matthew mumbled. The thought was more coherent than the words he actually spoke which emerged as a jumbled gurgle. Never before had he been so damn grateful to Magnus for anything as that unwanted, unasked for gift of power.

“What was that?” The Soul Eater swung toward his victim.

The priest rolled onto his side and made a weak effort to sit upright. He failed miserably.

“Oh, never mind. It doesn’t matter. I’ll just have to finish you off the old fashioned way.” The demon advanced with hands raised, perhaps intending to strangle the priest.

The shadows in the room stretched long and thin, an unnatural distortion of light and darkness. Abrupt relief swamped Matthew to realize the cavalry had arrived.

Marshalling all of his remaining strength, Matthew thrust out his hand and seized the sword. His fingers closed on the velvet wrapping, and he dragged the weapon to his chest like a shield. He lacked the strength to wield the sword, but held onto the desperate hope that it might provide some sort of protection against the creature it was designed to destroy.

“Oh puh-lease!” the Soul Eater exclaimed with an explosive burst of mocking laughter, but Matthew noticed the demon’s hesitation. “You’ve got to be kidding! You can’t even stand, Preacher Man. You haven’t the skill, or the strength to fight me.”

“I might not,” Matthew replied through gritted teeth. “But you can bet
he
sure as hell does.” With a Herculean effort, the priest tossed the sword across the room. “Magnus, catch!”

Gaping, priest and demon followed the weapon’s flight. Within a split second, it was clear the throw would fall short. When the last of his strength deserted him, Matthew fell to the floor.

On the far side of the study, Magnus manifested as if regurgitated by shadows. Arm extended, he lunged to catch the spinning spatha.

Acerbitas froze at the pinnacle of its arc, hovering in the air as it spun on its axis. The sword completed measured rotations, slower and slower until it finally came to a halt with the thrusting point of the sword aimed toward the ground. The silver runes on the black blade were alive with energy, shimmering and crawling across the sword.

Having leapt with his arm extended, Magnus hit the ground rolling, head and shoulders tucked. He went around and over before landing in a crouch beneath the hovering sword. Disgruntlement swelled within him once he realized the reason for his empty hand.

Tilting his head back, he gazed up at the gravity-defying weapon. A crimson aura emanated from the blade, and a woman’s voice, full of power and majesty, spoke to Magnus’ mind.

“I am Acerbitas, embodiment of a mother’s bitterness and grief for a beloved daughter, forged from the blood and tears of Lilith. I am the implement of destruction of this wretched, murdering abomination known as the Eater of Souls.”

The words fell on the Soul Eater as a physical blow, causing the creature to shriek and thrash as great ripples traveled the length and breadth of its fluidic body.

“Liar! That bitch had it coming.” The demon screamed, thrusting a defiant finger and a melting hand toward the sword, even as he cowered upon the floor. His face melted and morphed into a churning liquid surface, perhaps the truest expression of terror the demon was capable of.

Lurching into sudden motion, Aiden ran past Magnus and dropped to her knees beside her mentor. She took his arm, lending the frail priest support. Despite his preoccupation, the Celt somehow registered that she was administering Matthew’s medication.

The sword’s calm voice filled his mind again. “I require a champion to wield me. You, trickster, shall have to do! No other present is capable. You shall be the instrument of Lilith’s vengeance and end this vile creature. Do you accept this task I charge you with?”

“Are you addressing
me
?” Magnus asked, amused that the sword had the gall to issue
him
a command. “Are
please
and
thank you
in your vocabulary?”

“Magnus!” Matthew snarled. “Now is not the time to be an ass!”

Fine.

Magnus snapped out his hand. “I accept.”

“So shall it be!” Swift in flight,
Acerbitas
sped toward the Celt.

Before the sword reached his hand, a wall of blackness rose between the weapon and the warrior. The demon spread his mass high and wide, and within seconds, the viscous barrier had eclipsed Matthew, Aiden, and Acerbitas from view. With mercurial speed, the barricade spread to the opposing walls of the study, ceiling-to-floor, completely dividing the room in half.

Magnus refused to let a wall of demonic goo keep him from reaching the sword. He would fight his way through it, tooth and nail, to reach the other side. The Celt stepped forward and thrust a gloved hand into the shadow wall which pulled his arm inward with a tarry belch. The surface rippled under the pull of internal currents that flowed through the mass and tugged weakly at his extremity. The thick, cold surface yielded to his strength.

It itched.

Magnus pushed forward, determined to plow through the wall using brute force, but before he got any further, the demon convulsed and released a wounded bellow.

Burning with crimson brilliance, Acerbitas seared a hole straight through the Soul Eater. The sword emerged from the darkness and flew neatly into Magnus’ hand. The hilt connected with his palm, a solid smack of steel striking leather.

The Soul Eater shrieked in agony, and the entire wall convulsed with a giant shudder before caving in upon itself. Magnus’ submersed right hand tore free as the barrier collapse brought Matthew and Aiden into view. Both appeared unharmed, and a sharp sense of relief suffused Magnus.

“Nice bit of damage,” Magnus said, giving the spatha an expert twist to inspect and get a feel for the blade. Designed for close quartered fighting, the compact weapon had superb balance, the product of masterful workmanship. The hand-hewn dragon tooth blade was deep ebony, a streak of black darker than the night, and the angelic runes carved into the bone burned with silver fire.

“This is what I was made for,” Acerbitas replied. The voice in his mind was sultry and feminine, and a haughty sniff accompanied her declaration. As if to demonstrate her readiness, the sword’s crimson halo flared like a sunburst, illuminating the entire study in red light.

“Yeah? Good. Let’s get to it.” Magnus transferred the sword to his hand of preference, right instead of left, even though he was proficient with both.

On one level, he was curious to see whether Acerbitas would live up to her claims. He and Matthew had extensively discussed the complexities of slaying a nonsolid creature but never arrived at a workable resolution. Magnus’ intellectual side was aroused and intrigued, but on a primal level, he didn’t care how it worked, so long as it destroyed the demon.

Hefting the slender sword, he swung her at the writhing demonic mass. Acerbitas sliced through the Soul Eater, and the demon heaved again, releasing a wounded bellow. The blade cut the demon’s viscous flesh and created a deep wound that did not automatically seal.

The Celt thrust Acerbitas toward the Soul Eater again, but the demon collapsed into a puddle of bubbling goo on the floor. In the blink of an eye, the viscous mass spread wide and thin, coating every surface as it oozed along the floor. The demon fled as a paper thin sheet of shadow, retreating with unbelievable swiftness.

Magnus took another stab at his enemy. The miss left behind a deep gash in the hard wood floor. “Damn,” he muttered. “I didn’t know it could move that fast.”

“I’m an excellent motivator,” Acerbitas exclaimed. “Quick! He’s getting away!”

The Soul Eater reached a vent on the wall and seethed through the thin vertical bars. The epic battle was over, as short lived as any Magnus had ever witnessed.

“No, he’s gone,” Magnus corrected as the last visible tendril of the demon disappeared into the airshaft. Unjustly deprived of his kill, the Celt was seized with a monumental sense of frustration and disappointment.

“Follow him!” Acerbitas ordered.

“You’ve been watching too many horror movies. I can’t turn to mist or fit through a keyhole,” Magnus reprimanded. “The ventilation shaft is a hundred times smaller than my physical mass.”

“He’s getting away!” Acerbitas insisted, becoming strife with blood lust. “Get to the other side. We’ll get him when he comes out.”

“Stop being completely unreasonable. This building has hundreds of air vents. The demon could emerge anywhere. It’s not going to oblige us and come out where it’d be convenient.”

“We’ll lose him if you don’t pursue.” Equal parts desperation and despair filled her voice.

“We’ll get him,” Magnus repeated, a hint of irritation creeping into his tone. Frankly, he found her lack of confidence in him disheartening, not to mention insulting.

“What makes you so sure?” Acerbitas’ asked, mixing the desire for reassurance with her skepticism.

“He’s wounded and fleeing in blind terror. He’s accustomed to believing he’s invulnerable, so he has no experience with thinking like prey. He’s going to make mistakes,” Magnus said, offering his assessment of their opponent.

“Hmm.”

“Besides, I have the magic necessary to track him.”

“Well, you could have just said as much in the first place,” she snapped waspishly.

Magnus sighed.

Turning, he checked on Matthew and Aiden, both of whom were uncharacteristically quiet. Matthew sat propped against the wall, legs sprawled, one hand clutching his chest. Aiden sat beside him, holding the priest’s other hand. Magnus focused his attention on his friend and listened intently. Beneath the labored pants of breathing, Matthew’s heartbeat fluttered in a weak and thready pattern.

Magnus dropped to one knee. “Matt?”

His old friend looked up, and Magnus could see Death lurking in the priest’s brown eyes. Soon, Matthew’s soul would depart on its final journey. The end was very close, perhaps minutes, perhaps hours, but it was near.

“Magnus, I’m okay. You should go,” Matthew said, lying with an expression that betrayed nothing. The clever, skilled liar didn’t bat an eyelid or break eye contact. He never gave anything away, not in face or body, not even the involuntary biological cues that betrayed most humans: facial tics, perspiration, or pulse.

When he and Matthew had first met, Magnus had accepted the priest’s veracity at face value. After all, who could be more honest than a Catholic priest? Yes, Magnus had learned the foolishness of his assumption the hard way, but it taken years for him to fully realized how seldom Matthew actually spoke anything close to the truth.

“We don’t have time for this!” Acerbitas interrupted, voice demanding and urgent. “Quickly, the Soul Eater is getting away!”

“Be silent. This man is my best friend. We have time for this,” Magnus reprimanded her sharply, making it clear that he would tolerate no further arguments.

The sword fell quiet, but he sensed her resentment in the white-hot burn against his palm.

“Magnus,” Matthew wheezed. “You should go now, quickly!”

“It doesn’t matter how quickly I follow if that coward refuses to stand and fight!” Magnus exclaimed, channeling his frustration into futile anger.

“Acerbitas, one blow injured the Soul Eater, but it didn’t destroy him. How is the demon killed?” Matthew asked with great respect and reverence for the mystic blade.

“A single strike, sure and true, dealt to his craven heart shall destroy the abomination,” Acerbitas said, responding to the priest’s honeyed tone.

“Where in that morass is his heart?” Aiden asked.

“His heart is located in his breast, just as any man’s heart. The blow must be dealt while the demon has assumed a solid form.”

“Hmm, that may pose a problem,” Matthew mused. With Aiden’s assistance, he made a valiant effort to sit up but failed and subsided against the wall. “Seeing as how the demon is neither solid nor inclined to remain still so that you can kill him.”

“Then I’ll have to be quick about it, won’t I?” muttered Magnus. The hunter in him circled the problem and considered the best way to deal the necessary deathblow to the Soul Eater’s heart.

“We discussed using magic to immobilize the demon. Without its true name, it’s difficult, but there must be something to be done,” Matthew managed, trailing off as he wrestled with the dilemma. His gaze was distant and his mind preoccupied.

“And we ruled it out. You’re in no condition to cast so much as a simple spell,” Magnus retorted. Even the most undemanding magic would do the priest in.

“Perhaps, or maybe we need to look at the issue with a fresh perspective.” Matthew’s gaze, curious and speculative, strayed to Aiden.

The girl was too preoccupied to notice, but the look did not escape Magnus’ attention. Reservedly, the Celt held his tongue. Matters between the two mortals were none of his business.

“Is there anything I can do to help?” Aiden ground out, obviously frustrated and filled with a sense of helplessness because she couldn’t alter her mentor’s failing health.

Before either man could reply, Matthew shuddered weakly. Already attuned to the priest’s heartbeat, Magnus’ acute hearing detected an irregular stutter from the weak and failing heart. Gasping, Matthew clutched weakly at his chest.

Instantly, Magnus thrust out his hand and let it hover over the priest’s heart, but he refrained from making physical contact. In the tiny gap between Magnus’ fingertips and Matthew’s chest, the air shimmered briefly with the weak, almost undetectable dissipation of the last of Matthew’s borrowed life force.

Matthew felt it also. The friends exchanged a long look. “That was it, wasn’t it?” he asked, accepting, almost serene, in a way that Magnus couldn’t comprehend.

Magnus nodded. The last of the energy he had given to the priest was gone. Matthew lived under his own power, no longer on borrowed time. His death, cheated for a time, was imminent.

“The Soul Eater has left the building!” Acerbitas interrupted urgently, oblivious or perhaps unconcerned with anything but her cause.