Forgotten in Darkness (5 page)

Ten minutes later with little more than a twinkling of daylight remaining, the SUV pulled in front of a decrepit church on the outskirts of the city, a different building than the one in which he’d fought his battle weeks ago. There must be a local dark-magik dabbler that had found success twice in summoning daemons. Usually, the daemon turned on its summoner immediately after entering the world—not pretty.

Christian pointed at Dakar. “We can’t leave Kira alone with
him
. I mean, look at the guy. There’s something distinctly not kosher about him.”

“The name is Dakar,” he grumbled.

Nate glanced at Dakar before addressing Christian. “Ashor will have a shit fit, if she’s not protected.”

“I can handle myself with him,” Kira declared.

Nate and Christian blatantly ignored her as they continued to bicker.

Kira huffed and crossed her arms.

They were so fired up about their duty. After centuries of working alone, Dakar had forgotten the camaraderie and responsibility that came with being a Scimitar.

He blew out a long breath, resigned to the fact Shai, the God of Fate, was a bastard that refused to leave him alone.

“You gentlemen do not trust me to behave?” Dakar smothered a smile when both stared at him as if he’d sprouted a second head.

Christian ignored Dakar to address Nate. “I’ll go. You stay here with her. And him.”

“No. Two magi against these daemons wasn’t enough. I think they need both of us,” said Nate.

Dakar slumped in the seat. In an indifferent tone he said, “I shall take Lightning and resolve your daemon problem. Charmer, you and Kira will go on an information errand for me while we battle.”

Nate’s blue eyes flared wide. His jaw fell open. He clamped it shut and asked, “How do you know about my electrical ability?”

Christian gritted out, “It’s Christian. Don’t call me Charmer again.” He snorted and glared out the window.

Dakar said, “My lady, if you could find out what happened to the girl that aided me before I was hauled into prison, then I will assist. Ask the amulet where the body is. I require details.”

“Okay, first, no one addresses anyone like that these days,” Kira replied.

Heat crept up Darkar’s neck. How he despised being so out of touch.

“Second, it doesn’t work like that, and I think you already know this. The amulet won’t tell me anything about you, which is odd. Usually, it lets me know about all the magi. Well, at least your medical status. As I’m sure you well know, the amulet isn’t a crystal ball that you can just ask questions and answers will appear.”

Dakar leaned forward and uttered low, “It will for me. That bitch goddess can do me this one favor.”

Christian sucked in air loudly through his teeth. “Did you just call the goddess a bitch?”

Dakar ignored him.

Christian shook his head and muttered, “That’s super bad juju.”

Kira closed her eyes and concentrated. Her eyes shot open seconds later. “Wow. The gods must like you.”

Dakar scanned the door. How did it open? He ran his hand around the seam as if it might miraculously open by itself.

Kira cleared her throat and pointed at a small protruding bar.

He pulled, relieved when the door unlatched and swung wide. “Come on, Lightning. Let us send some daemons back to their hell.”

“It’s Nate, not Lightning. Do you have any fighting experience with these things?” Nate asked as he hopped out of the driver’s seat and moved to the back of the SUV.

“Do you feel I need advice?” Dakar’s lips twitched upwards.

“I’ve been at this a while.”

“How long would that be?”

“Look, no offense here, but these guys aren’t very nice.”

“Duly noted. I appreciate the warning.”

Nate pulled his sword from behind the back seat. “I assume you’re already a magus or something like it? You know what’s going down inside there?”

“I can hazard a guess.” Too bad they couldn’t reclaim his scimitar from the prison. Kira suspected they had sold it.

“We don’t have an extra blade. Hey, Christian, can he borrow yours?” Each magus forged his own weapon. The process took years to perfect, and required a special alchemy of metals and spells to create a blade effective against daemons.

Christian shot both of them a
hell-no-way
with a double eyebrow raise.

“I’ll be fine,” Dakar said. He requested of Kira, “Find out what you can for me and I will ensure your magus is returned to you. Ashor, was it?”

Kira added, “Alive. And as much in one piece as is possible. Or no deal.”

Dakar nodded and pivoted toward the church.

Nate led through a heavy wooden door into the stained white church. Dakar rolled his eyes at the hesitant way Nate peered into the dim sanctuary. The scene that greeted them showed one daemon toying with a wildly enraged magus, likely Ashor. No other possessed that level of anger when fighting. Rage was his gift, and his Achilles’ heel. But he had his
senariai
, which meant he would be in control, and a force to be reckoned with.

Ashor held off the daemon admirably with his curved black-bladed scimitar in his right hand and a double-bladed
katar
in the left, even though blood covered his torso. A gash from his upper left cheek to his neck gushed at an unhealthy pace.

A second daemon Dakar recognized as Necho showed off his pointy teeth in a sick leer. Necho had cornered a magus who pulled at a two-foot-long wood scrap lodged deep in his leg.
Damn, that must hurt.
Recognition kicked him in the gut. That magus was Khyan…reincarn-ed.

Necho paused to stretch his six and a half feet of lichenified skin over taut muscle. With a hiss, it emitted something indecipherable to the shorter daemon fighting Ashor. Shorty daemon threw Ashor head first into the plaster wall. He viewed the wood-impaled magus and snorted out a
you-got-him
laugh.

Long-lost protective fury surged. No one fucked with Khyan. Not while he still breathed.

Dakar yanked a metal cross off the wall and tossed it at Necho when the daemon closed in on Khyan. The force of the cross’s chest hit knocked Necho backwards into a pew.

Dakar yelled to Nate, “Light something up.”

“What?” Nate sputtered.

“Come on. Torch something.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Bloody hell. Were you re-born yesterday? Just set something on fire for me.” No other magus could use Nate’s skills like he. Their abilities complemented one another. Therefore, Nate probably had no training and very little control
.
Nate shifted on his feet and wouldn’t meet his eyes.

Dakar grumbled, “Just set something on fire. I can contain the flames. Trust me.”

“You better back up.” Sparks shot wildly from Nate’s left hand. One bolt struck Dakar in the shoulder. With a loud curse, he stumbled backwards and landed on his ass.

Nate focused a few sparks to set a pew on fire. “Oh, shit,” he muttered as he scooted backwards when the fire roared to life. Sparks still sputtered from his hand.

Dakar laughed with a haunting, aggressive sound as he jumped up. As he passed the pew, the fire swelled and arced toward him. He reached for the blaze like a handshake with an old friend. Effortlessly he funneled the flame toward Necho, who closed in on the injured magus again. “Throw me your sword, Nate.”

Nate threw his curved sword into a high arc. Dakar caught the weapon mid-air.

Necho screamed and clawed at his burning body. He rolled on the floor, extinguishing most of the flames. Dakar consciously shut down his nose when the putrid odor of burnt flesh and sulfur assaulted him.

Necho’s biceps had several black, scarred notches. When human, that sadist had loved to keep a tally of his kills, a fact the chatty daemon revealed during a day-long battle in the Middle Realm a half century ago. Since no combatant could die in that hell, there tended to be a lot of small talk during fights. Daemons surprised him with their desperation to talk about their human lives. Necho had been a Greek commander during the Trojan War, which was probably why he wore a ridiculously vulnerable Greek uniform. The short tooled leather strips barely covered his crotch and the greaves on his legs looked to be more of a hindrance than a form of protection. Regardless, Dakar felt not an ounce of pity for the ugly caricature of the black-magik dabbler the daemon had been in real life. The undead creature sweated the evil stench of a rotting egg.

Dakar yelled fluently in the Daemon language, “Time to go home, Necho. And take your brother with you.” Dakar swung the sword in a high arc, intending a clean head sever, but the daemon sideways ducked.

“I think not, Condemned One. I see that your time in purgatory-hell has ended.”

Dakar attempted to re-angle the sword at the last second, but the unfamiliar blade refused to cooperate. He missed. The daemon’s right fist hit him square in the side. As he whirled, the daemon’s left hand with dagger-sharp claws extended swiped for his jugular. Somehow he controlled his twirling momentum enough to evade, although the daemon managed to take a chunk of flesh from his ribcage. Pain ricocheted from the area and intensified when he breathed.
Great, the bastard broke a rib.

Dakar spun, impossibly fast even for a magus, and got under the hulk of the daemon. Unbalanced, the daemon was helpless as Dakar lifted him up and into the air. He threw the daemon toward the wall, impaling him on a projecting beam with a sickening wet whoosh.

What would’ve been a definite fatality for any human was little more than an annoyance for the daemon. Necho wriggled to get free, working to get a foothold or handhold to push himself up and off the wood that destroyed most of its chest.

But Dakar didn’t give him time. He pushed a pew close to climb level with its face, and cleaved its head free. He then rammed the blade through what remained of its chest. The body dissolved into blue mist and dissipated. A few flames had set some nearby pew fabric on fire. He flicked his wrist in the flame’s direction and the fire disappeared.

The magus whom he was fairly certain was Khyan had removed the offending wood shard, but now struggled to curb the blood flow. Between the bleeding and white pallor, Dakar judged him unable to hold out for the
akhrian’s
arrival
.
He grabbed a ceremonial cord draped over the altar and tied off Khyan’s leg. Hopefully, that would stanch the flow.

Behind him, a crash indicated the other daemon had again thrown Ashor, who struggled to sit upright. Dakar jumped up and approached the evil shit, who watched him, but didn’t engage. Maybe the daemon remembered their fight in the Middle Realm a few years ago. In the demon language, Dakar said, “Crethos, it has been a long time. Ready to go home?”

“Go to hell,” it tossed in daemon language.

“Been there. I have more than a few complaints about your hospitality.”

The daemon’s eyes narrowed. Decision had been made. Dakar smiled and dropped his borrowed blade on the pew behind him. “You think you can take me out?” he taunted.

The daemon ran for him, talons targeted to kill. Within a few feet, its head fell off in the wake of Ashor’s slice. A chest stab from behind sent the thing dissolving into blue mist.

Dakar nodded at Ashor. At least the Prime Magus, the designated Scimitar commander, still knew how to suck up pain and kick daemon ass. Three sets of magi eyes traveled up and down him as if they couldn’t figure him out. Dakar resisted the urge to squirm.

Rage-man finally said, “Thanks for distracting it. I’m Ashor.” He looked away first and moved toward the guy resting against the wall. “Ethan, you going to make it?”

Ethan?
Dakar would swear on his soul that magus was Khyan.

“Yeah,” Ethan replied, not breaking his deliberate stare at Dakar. He whispered to Ashor, but not low enough Dakar didn’t overhear, “Did you see that shit? Spoke fluent daemon language. Maybe he’s the lost spell keeper.”

“Maybe,” Ashor replied, but didn’t turn Dakar’s way again. He busied himself with cleaning his blade.

Dakar threw the scimitar back to Nate and commented, “Thank you for allowing me to borrow your blade. But it needs work. She’s unbalanced. Uneven at the blade end.”

Nate caught the blade and tested it. “I’ll be damned. You think that’s why it’s so hard to skewer the bastards?”

That would be your inexperience,
Dakar thought as he headed toward the exit.

Outside the church, Ashor glanced around as if baffled. “Where the bloody blazes is the car?”

Ethan chuckled and shook his head. “Goddamned Colombia. Car was probably jacked. Remember the last time we came here? Those three idiots tried to jack the plane with us on it. Knuckleheads.” He laughed.

“We need to get you some help, Ethan,” said Ashor quietly. He closed his eyes and reopened them a few seconds later. “Kira says they’ll be by in twenty or so. Think you can hold on?”

“Must be convenient to be able to talk telepathically to her. Like a permanent cell phone,” Nate mumbled.

Ethan gazed with open curiosity at Dakar. He wiped the blood off his hand. “Thanks for the tourni. Name’s Ethan.”

“Dakar,” he replied as he firmly clasped the hand in return.

Ethan frowned down at their clasped hands.

Dakar looked at Ethan expectantly. “Remember?”

“Remember what? Have we met before?”

Dakar sat heavily on the steps of the church. “Yes.”

****

Dakar shifted the festering wound on his back as far away from the SUV’s door handle as possible. But failed. The car hit a pothole, ramming his back further into the protruding section on the door and jamming his broken rib. He hissed a curse and tried to shift again, but stopped when he detected Ethan wince beside him. If they’d been normal-sized men, the three of them packed into the back seat of this SUV wouldn’t have been so tight.

He covertly prodded his ribcage where he’d been whacked. One broken rib and several bruised. Skin already healing. He’d experienced far worse.

From the driver’s seat, Christian said, “Eth, you look a bit green. Need me to pull over? You know I can’t handle that smell.”

“You’re such a wuss,” Ethan grumbled.