Demon Lord 5: Silver Crown King (18 page)

The air all around her grew dim, shadowed.  Violet sheens betrayed motion as the wall behind her grew into a vortex.  The funnel obliterated the space where the window should have been, but nothing shattered.  No debris flew.  The window and wall were just gone.  She’d reached into an altered space, into nightmare itself, and something huge and terrible was stomping toward us, small only because it was charging from a distance.

I skidded to a stop, sending my guns away, calling my demon sword to me.  I yelled, “Leona, out of the way!”

She vanished.  I heard her growl off to the side and knew she was safe. 

My black sword was edged with a demon-red glow.  Its hunger slammed into my body like

a mammoth fist.  Its voice shrieked in my head. 
Feed me!
 

I switched the blade, left then right.  Two fey fell with riven armor, dead before the hit the floor.  They dropped their weapons, having no more use for them.  Their liberated souls hung in the air, streamers of lifeforce that my sword slurped down.  The swords were eaten by my blade, their screams echoing off the steel, filling my own head.  A backwash of raw energy flowed from the demon sword, adding to my power—a side effect of using cursed steel.

My sword didn’t wait for me to move it.  Levitating, it almost wrenched out of my grip, plunging its point into another warrior’s guts, spinning, cutting free once more to intercept the last guard’s sword as it tried to sever my arm.

I pumped my sword against the guard’s, deflecting it aside just enough for my point to stab in and flick across the man’s throat.  He grabbed his throat and gurgled as he slid off his feet.  He landed dead.  His soul hung in the air a moment until my sword sucked it in.  My sword said
Yum
as one more screaming voice now joined its chorus.  More lifeforce spilled from the hilt, into my hand, into body, which wasn’t a bad thing, because a real bad thing was chittering down in the black funnel. 

I saw a scuttling, six-legged monster whose single-horned head should have overbalanced it, but didn’t.  It emerged into fey space scraping the red-brick ceiling high above.  Its glossy black body was a chitinous armor streaked with fluorescent green and red.  Defying the insect motif, its curly tusks were wicked yellow hooks.  Worst of all, an infernal red light beamed from its eyes, superheating the air like a wind from hell.

Since Leona was invisible, the monstrosity locked on me.

The woman pointed at me, as if the monster needed help.  “Kill him!”

The monster smiled, rippling bristles inside its wide-gapping maw.

I hate it when they do that.

EIGHTEEN

“I hate it when I have to

clean up my own messes.”

                                                  —Caine Deathwalker

The creature summoned from Nightmare probably didn’t have a soul.  It wasn’t true life, just a killing illusion.  Knowing this meant fighting it was a huge waste of time which only an idiot would attempt.

“What are you waiting for?” Leona cried out.  “Hit it right between the eyes!”

I shifted my grip so my sword hung in my left hand as I angled my body.  My right hand swung up toward the woman who still chanted lovingly to her black crystal.  If she’d had half an ounce of caution, she’d have ducked down that vortex already and escaped.  My PX4 Storm popped into my hand.  I squeezed the trigger, as the hell-beetle’s death-ray gaze caused my coat to burst into flames. 

I poured more magic into my
Dragon Fire
tattoo.  It pulled in the fire, absorbing it.  I flung that hellfire energy back into the monster’s sensitive eyes.  It flinched away, trembled, and collapsed into black billows of smoke, dissolving. 

The creature’s unmaking was a side effect of the shot I’d made.  My explosive round had punched into the woman’s face and shattered her head from the inside, spraying brain, blood, and slivers of skull everywhere.  Almost headless, she collapsed to the floor.  The large, six-sided crystal she’d held rolled out of her lax hand, clinking across the flagstones.  It was the only prize from this encounter since there weren’t any survivors to interrogate.

Leona materialized beside me.  “I thought you’d want a prisoner to play with.” 

“I did.  Plans don’t always work out.”

“Hmmm.”  Leona left me to go slurp up the fresh blood.  Blood was her main form of sustenance, though she was known to occasionally pilfer my booze as well, and sniff my coffee. 

“I don’t need a prisoner to know that killing off high-ranking fey will drive the rest of them bat-shit crazy.  We are definitely going to be attacked by massive numbers on my coronation day.”

“So what’s the problem?” Leona asked.  “Killing’s what you do best.”

“Well, next to fucking, yeah.”  I counted the bodies.  “We’re going to need to make use of the dead.”

“Cannibalism?  You’ve starting a new hobby?  Trust me, it won’t taste like chicken.”

I glowered at her.  “No, fur-brain, we need a display outside the keep, something to make my fey guests think twice about fucking me over—in a bad way.  The ancient Roman’s got a lot of mileage out of mass crucifixions.  Then again, I can always hang the bodies in iron cages.  The crows would like that.”

“We have crows?”

“I am the land, the land is me.  We’ll have crows if I want crows.”

“So,” Leona said, “if you want there to be flocks of tasty young sheep grazing by the river—”

“Then they’d shortly be dead and stinking up the place because you don’t eat your kills.”

“Hey, can I help being a blood-slurping spirit leopard?”

“I suppose not.  Want to give me a hand dragging these bodies outside?”

Silence.

I looked for her.  She’d gone invisible.  Again.  I saw the disturbance made by a ghostly tongue lapping spilled blood.  Apparently, I was on my own.  I sighed. 
Try to get a cat to be helpful… 

Thankful to my dragon strength, I easily dragged the four guards together and piled them up, two to a shoulder.  I carried the bodies across the tunnel-shaped kitchen, while Leona cleaned my bloody floor with her sand-paper tongue, doing her part. 

It took a couple more trips to get all of the dead fey outside.  That gave me time to consider the esthetics of what I intended.  I’d considered stripping the dead and posing them as if death had come mid-orgy; my warped sense of humor.  Reconsidering, I decided there needed to be less humor and more horror.  After all, this needed to be a deterrent.  My enemies needed to know that there would always be a heavy cost paid for coming after me.

I settled upon growing brambles around their bodies, letting the thorny vines lift the bodies into the air where they could be seen by those coming up to the keep.  For a final touch, I went with the crows, calling to the land.  A black cloud spiraled down out of the sky, settling on the dead.  Wings rustled.  Red-eyed crows cawed, jostling each other to get first dibs.

Ah, eyeballs, such a delicacy!  Have at it boys.  Bon appetite.

I headed down the white road along the river.  Enjoying the walk, stopping here and there plant shadow wards at irregular intervals.  At one such spot, where rocks made a river crossing all too easy, I paced off a five-foot circle, leaving footsteps of shadow in my wake.  I knelt within the ring and placed a palm on the road’s alabaster surface.  Feeding raw magic into the spell caused a disk of shadow to expand from my hand, anchoring darkness to the shadow steps.  I lifted my hand as the land accept my gift of power.  The darkness sank into the road, leaving no trace, but I could spring the trap with a flicker of shadow magic when needed. 

I planted ten of these shadow-wards, and encouraged the land to grow me some stretches of quicksand off the road as well.  Varying the traps, I grew pillars of rock and fragments of wall so an army couldn’t sweep through the valley at top speed.  Caution would be needed or carnage would follow.  I was hoping for carnage. 

Seeing all this, an insightful enemy might think that coming in along the valley wall, using the forest for cover, would be best.  Certainly, fey from forested land would think they could travel that way with impunity.  I smiled a little evil smile.

A dark blur formed in the air, taking on definition as it landed at my feet.  Leona had tracked me down.  She flicked her tail tip, looking up at me baleful yellow eyes.  “I know that evil smile.  What are you up to?”

“Everything,” I said.  “Let’s take a walk in the woods.”

“Why, are there tasty sheep in there?”

“I could arrange for something that needs killing if you like.”

Her eyes brightened with the prospect.  “Really?”

“Sure, what are friends for?  Speaking of which, you have spirit beast friends back in the Amazon jungle right?” 

“Yeah.  So what?”

“Just a minute.”  We entered the edge of the woods.  Although this was a mountain valley, there was a decided lack of snow.  The temperature actually increased.  This was due to volcanic vents and hot water springs that dotted the woods.  The intertwined pine and black oak, the weaving trails, combined to create a natural labyrinth.  A few crows looked down on us as we walked.  I’d asked for them, but the land seemed to have provided more than necessary.  I’d probably find a few wherever I went after this.

I stopped in a clearing where a stone-lined depression in a slanted bank formed a basin for a steaming spring, with feed-off for a second pool that returned the water underground.  There was an adjoining shelf of rock next to the first pool, kind of a patio for entertaining.  A few small boulders created steps up to it. 

I took the steps.  Leona jumped straight up, landing lightly ahead of me.  She turned and flashed me a smug grin, sitting on her haunches.

Show-off.

I sat and brushed my hands over the rock, sinking part of my awareness into the land while picking up the thread of our conversation.  “I was just thinking, while I’m having my coronation, there’s no reason why you can’t have all your friends over for fun and games.” 

I felt the land reacting to my desires.  A flash of reddish brown passed behind some brush, hooves digging into the dirt.  Leona lifted her head, sniffing.

“A stag,” I said.  Rabbits and pigs too.  You just have to look around for them.”

Leona said, “When you say pigs—”

We heard a squeal and a flurry of grunts.    A small heard of black bristled razorbacks burst into the open, charging down below past the raised bath.  I had a quick impression of high shoulders, sloping rumps, long, skinny legs, and small hips.  Their massive, wedge-shaped heads were decorated with short, hairy, ears and pointed snouts.  The curled tusks looked wicked-sharp.  A male—two-hundred pounds and four-foot long—led the pack.  The females behind him were a little smaller.  Some runt piglets brought up the rear.

Leona watched them in silence, an evil smile on
her
face that she could have stolen from me.  One the pigs were gone, she turned her face to me.  “You’re trying to make me kill, for pork chops?”

I shrugged.  “Half the fun for your friends will be the challenge of bringing down your prey.  What?” I said.  “You think bacon grows on trees?  This isn’t a perfect world, just damn close.”

“You know, I see through what you’re doing.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.  You want free security.  You want us to haunt the woods and kill any of your enemies that come along.”

I pushed off the rock and stood.  I felt tired, drained of energy after all my expenditures. 
Everything has a cost.
 
Especially magic
.  “I resent the idea I’m getting anything free; I am catering your party.” 

There was a distant squeal of pig.

“Point made,” Leona said.  “I’ll pass the word, but we are hardly going to be enough to cover the whole forest on both sides of the river.”

“I have a plan for the far side of the river.  C’mon, we’re going to the tree house.”

“What’s there?”  Leona jumped off the rock shelf and waited at the foot of the stepping stones for me.

Hopping down from one stone to another, I passed her, leading the way.  The forest was stimulating with new secrets popping up as I travelled.  I saw signs of tubers, wild corn, turnips, and mushrooms fleshing out the natural pantry.  One clearing was dotted with small trees awash in sunlight.  Clusters of red grapes hung from low branches.  I gathered some as we went by.

“So, what are you going to do about the other side of the river?  And the river itself?  The enemy could approach by enchanted boats with magic filled sails.”

I nodded.  “I thought of that.”

“And?”

“Have you ever considered the problem that urban shape-shifters have in finding safe ground to run amok on that won’t draw human attention, or government interference?”

“Duh!  Spirit leopard here with a thirst for blood.”

“My plan is to contact the Fenris, and let him know that the American werewolves are welcome to use that side over there for recreation.  It has also been stocked with game.  Who knows?  After the coronation, we might build a few Inns, get some tourist cash flowing around here.  Maybe Gloria would like to branch out, start a franchise.  It might be a nice opportunity for the were-kitties to build a little empire of their own.”

“You have a lot of dreams, enough for everyone it seems.”

“Is that a bad thing?” I asked.

“Not if gladly shared by others.

I stopped and looked at Leona.  “You think putting a gun to people’s heads might not be effective?”

“Not in the long run, no.”

“Like I’d really do that.  You have so little faith in me.” 
Mental note: no guns to heads.  Stick to bribing women with mind-numbing sex.

We returned to the area outside the keep where my tree-house mansion loomed.  By then, the sun was much higher in the sky.  My human form had reabsorbed the dragon elements so I looked my usual self, except I needed a change of wardrobe, preferably something not soaked with blood. 

We used the gate, crossed the private garden, and reached the mirror back to my world.  A crow sat on top of it, keeping watch.  I closed my eyes.  Inside my head was a crimson picture with a severe curvature.  It took a moment to realize I was seeing myself through the crow’s eyes. 
Neat trick.  With practice, I can probably learn to do the same with all the animals in the valley.

I stopped and looked down at the leopard.  “Are you coming back?”

Her head turned at a white flash of motion under some shrubbery.  She and I took a deep whiff. 

Ah, rabbit
. 

“You go on ahead,” she said.  There are a few things I want to catch up on.”

I grinned.  “A few things you want ketchup on?”

“Go, already.  You still have things to do, right?  Battles to plan, alliances to build?”

“All too true.  No rest for the wicked.”  I walked into the mirror, reappearing in my master bedroom in the Clan House.  It was quiet.  I went to the bed, peeled off the bloody rags I wore, and dropped them in a heap.  Osamu would just have to burn them when he got back.

Tired, waving on my feet, I dropped my phone and wallet on the nightstand and threw myself onto the bed—seeing, a second too late, the wolf skin rug, the wolf head still attached.  The eyes were amber.  The white teeth were bared in menace, awaiting their chance to rip and shred.

Oh fuck!