Demon Lord 5: Silver Crown King (19 page)

NINETEEN

“There is merely profound

horror and then there’s me.”

                                                  —Caine Deathwalker

As I hit the bed, the threat cleared the cobwebs from my mind.  My heart pounded as I felt the soft brush of moving fur.  Adrenaline jazzed my nerves, tweaking my muscles to deliver extra strength.  I pulled a Storm PX4 out of thin air and jammed the barrel into the wolf’s mouth, using the gun like a horse’s bit so the jaws couldn’t close and savage me.  At the same time, I warmed my
Dragon Flame
tattoo with a flush or raw magic, preparing to incinerate the enchanted rug.  There wouldn’t be much of my bed left over, but necessity is a
motherfucker!

It seeped into my mind that the rug wasn’t fighting me, but had stayed inert.  There was no threat.  I pulled the gun back and placed a slug between the eyes of the wolf anyway. 

It didn’t care.

Rolling off the bed, I sprang onto my feet, my smoking gun panning across the space.  That’s when I heard it: the muffled giggling of two young girls coming from the bathroom.  I stalked over, wrenched the door open, and glowered down on Julia and Teramantha.  They were convulsing with laughter, trying to be quiet about it with little success. 

Seeing me, they went dead quiet.  Julia looked into my face without fear, a smile in place.  Tera ducked behind the older, taller girl, using her as a shield.

I used my smoking gun muzzle as a pointer.  “One of you want to explain the fuzzy dead thing in my bed?”  My other hand clutched the rug, using it to cover my private parts.

Still smiling, Julia wiped a tear from her right eye.  “Just a little harmless joke.”

I glared.  “Inducing a heart attack would not have been harmless.”

Julia huffed.  “Like you’re scared of anything!”

Damn, using my own pride against me.  How can I contradict her claim that I’m overwhelmingly courageous—I mean, it’s so true!  Kid’s still too smart for her own good
. 

I looked past her to Tera whose face poked out.  “And what do you have to say about yourself?”

Creases appeared between her eyes as she glowered back at me.   “I promised to stop trying to kill you until I paid off my debt of honor.  I never said I wouldn’t try to scare you.”

Technically she was correct.  It was one of those fine lines the fey draw all the time.  She was being true to her heritage.  I said, “What will happen, do you think, if I tell Lysande about this?”

Julia looked shocked.  Overly shocked actually, a little too into her role of protective big sister.  “Isn’t it against the demon lord code of honor to snitch?”

Damn, and I thought Angie was a natural lawyer
. 
Precocious or not,
Julia’s getting a little too spoiled.  That’s not good for her.  Time for consequences.
 

I willed my weapon away and pointed a finger at Julia.  “Do you know why there will be no ice cream for you tonight?”

Her face stayed angelic as she answered.  “Because you’re a big meanie?” 

I smiled.  “No, because aiding and abetting is a crime.”

“So what?  It’s not like you’re a law-abiding citizen.”  Julia looked genuinely bewildered.

“Yes,” I said, “but the difference between us is I don’t get caught.  In the Demon Clan, getting caught is frowned upon.  It marks you as a rank amateur.  Any other questions?”

Tara held up her little hand.  “I still get my ice cream, though, right?”

I smiled.  “Of course.  You get your and Julia’s as well.”

Tara hopped in place.  “Yea!”

Julia sank fully into grumpy petulance, her expression stormy.  “That’s not fair!”

I shrugged.  “Tell you what, track down whoever told you that life was fair.  You have my permission to kill them.  Just don’t get caught.”

A suspicious gleam entered Julia’s eyes.  “So you’re saying I can do anything I want, as long as I get away with it?”

“Sure.  Just remember that not everything you might want to do is a good idea, or especially safe.  There are countless hell-dimensions full of dead ass-holes that didn’t know their limitations.”

Julia nodded gravely.  “I’ll remember that.”

I turned and walked away.

Tara whispered to Julia, as if my dragon hearing wouldn’t catch every word.  “Don’t worry, I’ll slip your ice cream to you under the table.”

Julia sighed.  She answered without whispering.  “It won’t work.  He heard you.” 

I returned to the bed, slid under a sheet, and flung the wolf skin rug across the room, into the bathroom.  I closed my eyes and said, “Run along and bother someone else.  I need some sleep.  And make sure someone wakes me up for dinner.”

I heard inarticulate grumbles as the kids stomped loudly through my bedroom, slamming the door to the living room shut behind them. 

I pulled out my phone and called Imari.  She picked up.  “It’s Caine.  Julia and Teramantha are heading toward the main hall.  For fuck’s sake, make sure someone keeps an eye on them.”

“Isn’t that your job?” Imari asked.

“While I don’t technically outrank you,” I said, “I am a cold-blooded, scheming bastard with a very long memory.  Besides, don’t you owe your current job to me?”

She sighed over the phone.  “Fine, I’ll put some people on them.”

“I knew you’d be reasonable.”  I killed the connection and put my phone on the nightstand.  Sleep closed in.  I sank into deep fathoms, welcoming oblivion.

*   *   *

Awareness trickled back.  I still felt tired. 

Can’t have been out long.  Why am I awake?

I listened.  The quiet was deep, offering no clue, but unease lingered.  Trusting my instincts, I slid out of bed and pulled a gun from empty air.  I thumbed the safety off, suddenly realizing I’d been dressed funny.  I’d gone to bed in all my naked glory and was now wearing red satin shorts and a black wife-beater tee-shirt.

WHF
? 
Selene? 

It seemed likely.  Red was her color and black was mine.  I was going to have to have a talk to her.  She needed little encouragement to be outrageous, and I didn’t want her “fixing” my wardrobe on a regular basis, especially in public.  There was no telling where that could go.

I went into the living room.  Another
WTF
moment hit.  The white leather couch closest to me had been hacked into pieces that bled upholstery fluff.  I looked across the room as the door opened to Osamu’s room.  He stepped out looking mummy-ish with white bandages across half his head, covering one eye and ear.  He had a bandaged arm in a sling and hobbled on a walking cast.

Seeing me, he stopped.  For the first time ever, I saw thinly veiled fear in his eyes.  I pointed at the murdered couch.  “Want to tell me about that?”

“You couldn’t get
Heartbreak Hotel
out of your mind.  You said the couch was obviously possessed by Elvis.”  Osamu shrugged with his good shoulder.  “The couch no longer has that problem.”

“You’re saying I did this?”

He cocked his head, studying me closer.  “Are you off your meds again?  You know that’s not good.”

“Meds?  The only medicating I do involves massive amounts of booze.  You know that.”

“Alcohol on top of anti-depressants is dangerous.”

Okay, some kind of gag was in play here.  Wondering how far the joke was going to go, I headed for the hallway door.  “Whatever.  I’m going to talk to the Old Man.”

“Visiting his grave?  Dressed like that?”  Osamu’s voice held a trace of disapproval.

I stopped, my hand on the knob.  “Grave?”

“Ah, you’ve forgotten again.  You did your best against the tidal wave that half-destroyed the city ... you both did.”  He paused.  “I guess even ancient demons can have bad hearts.  His was strained to the breaking point.  If only he’d had time to complete the protective barrier…”

I turned back.  “We won that battle.  He did finish the barrier.  The city was saved.”

He bowed, carefully, as if everything hurt.  “If you say so, Caine-sama.”

Obviously, there’s a conspiracy to make me believe I’ve gone soft in the head. 

I turned back to the door and whipped it open, going through.  The hall looked perfectly normal.  I headed toward the Great Hall.  A door opened and a housekeeping demon in maid’s uniform with green mountain goat horns and violet hair stepped out.  She saw me.  Her eyes went wide with fear.  She stepped back and slammed the door shut between us.

Not the usual reaction I get from women
.

I continued on.  The only way to get to the bottom of this was to find the Old Man.  I reached the foyer to the Great Hall.  The front door was gone along with some of the wall.  I saw the outside porch strewn with rubble.  All of the heroic statues were broken off at the knees now, when only two had been destroyed and replaced before. 

This is carrying things too far
.

Hurrying, I went into the Great Hall—only it looked like an abandoned factory with pipes and rusting machinery.  Shadows choked the space.  I heard the scurrying of rats and saw their beady red eyes glaring hungrily.  Garbage dominated by beer cans, banana peels, and used condoms littered the floor.  The ceiling was gone, giving me a view of a bloated, monster moon in a star-strewn sky—which was really fucking weird since it had been daylight only moments before.

A ghost appeared in front of me, a transparent image of the Old Man.  He clutched a can to his chest, glaring balefully at me with blue-star eyes.  His hands trembled as did his voice.  “I was god-awful strong.  Now, I can’t even rip open a can of spam.  And it’s all your fault!  My own son let me die!”

“You’re on ghost-crack, Old Man.  I’d never let that happen.”

He dropped the spam.  “But you did!  I stop breathing and you wouldn’t give me mouth to mouth, ‘Because it’s too gay,’ you said.  I should never have taken you in, ungrateful runt.”

This was not Lauphram, and definitely not funny.

“Go fuck yourself, shit-dick,” I told him.  I pushed on as if to walk right through him. 

He vanished as ghosts do.  I kicked a rat out of my way and continued on.  Pipes dripped water.  Gauges wagged needles at me.  I heard the snarl of grinding gears and the serpentine hiss of venting steam.  The mechanisms became more and more archaic in a steam punk kind of way.   

I found the throne of the Great Hall.  Vivian sprawled there, covered neck to knee in a poncho of black gauze that left little to the imagination, wearing only a black thong underneath.  Her nipples poked the fine netting, begging to be clamped.  She turned pink eyes my way.  “So, you going to fuck me or what?  The throne is the only place we haven’t done it yet.”

“I don’t do cheap imitations.”

She rolled her eyes.  “Fine.  It’s not like I can’t replace you with three dildos.”

It was past time to figure out what the hell was happening and to stop it.  I was either insane, high on damn good drugs, or being influenced by dark magic. 

One way to find out
.

I warmed my
Dragon Sight
tattoo with a tingle of warm golden magic.  The payment of pain left me feeling like two boulders had collided, with me in the middle, crunching my bones to powder, pulping my flesh.  The sensation left as fast as it came.  My enhanced vision noted areas glowing with color-coded mystic energies.  Little descriptor tags pop up.  One said, “Hella bad mojo here!” Another said, “Freddie Mercury is rising.”  The place still looked like a post-apocalyptic movie set as envisioned by H. G. Wells.

And then they came at me from every side.  Flying-fucking-monkeys in red velvet vests and caps, their wings beating furiously as the dropped from the sky, chittering like cockroach demons sniffing Raid.  They spiraled, orbiting each other, blurring, kicking up a stiff wind, becoming a thin tornado of darkness.  Fading in like another ghost, I saw Old Man’s gigantic head.  Only his head, doing a bad Wizard of Oz impression.  The head bobbed and rotated, it voice distorted like when you talk into an oscillating fan.  Lauphram’s blue features turned green—and white, morphing into the head of an alligator.  

He said, “I am the great and glorious Gizzard of Odd.  Tremble before me!”

Vivian whined, “I just finished cleaning up all the monkey shit from last time.  If they start fling feces again I’ll kill them!”

Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain,” the Gizzard said.

I saw a mint green curtain materializing.  It was brushed aside as a copy of me walked up.  He wore a black suit and reading glasses.  There was a phonebook in his hands.  He flipped past a couple pages.  “Damn, I just can’t find my ass with both hands.  Where the hell did I leave it?”

Another copy of me came from around the throne.  He wore long hair tied into a ponytail and had a rolled
blunt
in his mouth.  It was lit, filling the air with the scent of top grade pot.  “I’ve almost got it!  A new
Unified Field Theory
.  I’ve covered all natural laws and cosmic forces.  I just can’t account for Twinkies.”

“I think they qualify as a synthetic life form,” another
me
said.

“Or perhaps a fifth state of matter!” I commented.

“Damn it all!”  Vivian screamed.  “There are three of you and I still can’t get fucked!”

The tornado exploded.  A wave of flying monkeys swept past me, on the way to help Vivian out.  Passing, they slowed, faces distorting, as if hitting an unseen barrier of plastic wrap.  Their muffled screeches turned into the whistles of steam locomotives. 

A column of darkness stood where the tornado had been.  The alligator face sank into that darkness.  It expanded, chasing after the flying monkeys.  The darkness took on a midnight-green cast and filled the space, cold and absolute like the moldy touch of death.

After tasting me, the darkness retreated, and the newly revealed floor was a sheet of glass with more darkness underneath.  And I finally figured it out.  I was still in bed, dreaming I was awake.  This was the work of the Nightmare Court; a long range magical attack.  They hadn’t been able to kill my body with assassins, so now they were coming after my sanity.