Good Intentions 3: Personal Demons (46 page)

The only part of his life that flashed before his eyes took place on a pull-up bar. He could do this. He didn’t even need two seconds to catch his breath or solidify his grip. Drew heaved back up, pulling his head and shoulders over the edge and through the magical curtain.

For all Wade’s bitching about people holding guns sideways, it worked out perfectly well in this instance. Drew pointed the rifle at Evelyn and let it rip. Whatever barrier she’d worked up to keep Wade and Molly out of the fight ended at the boundaries of the office. The rifle knocked her backward into the office entryway once again.

A rush of air under his dangling legs helped Drew wrench himself back up a little further inside. He dropped the gun, deciding the closest leg lying on the floor made for a better anchor.
Dude looks bigger and heavier than me anyway
, Drew figured, clamping down on the last living man’s boot.

“Uh, what?” grunted his unwilling savior. “Get off me!” He tugged back, inadvertently helping Drew, but his hand went for the pistol at his hip and his other foot came up to kick. Then he writhed back further, clutching his head with both hands and rolling away. Onyx reached out from her spot on the floor with a weird gesture of her fingers a defiant glare.

It was all the help Drew needed. He got his hips up over the side. Beyond Onyx and the growing pool of her blood, Evelyn slowly picked herself up off the floor. Guns were a good way to beat up demons like this, but they wouldn’t put Evelyn down. Not normal guns anyway. Drew remembered the way Wade’s otherwise magic bullets fell to the floor here, too…

He turned back toward the apartment. “Wade!” he shouted. “I need the gun!” As soon as the words left his mouth, Drew wondered if it would do any good. Did Evelyn’s magical transparent curtain of nonsense block sound?

Only a heartbeat passed before he had his answer. Wade rose from his kneeling position and flung the rifle hard. Molly followed its path with her wand, too, correcting its course and keeping it aloft until it reached the office.

The gun nearly didn’t make it. Drew had to reach.

“Molly! Wade!” he heard Amber shout amid even more gunfire. “We need help!”

“Shit,” Drew grunted. He spun and looked for Evelyn again.

He didn’t see her anywhere. Instead, he saw an open door, and a very shocked, familiar woman. “Drew?” she gasped.

“Wha—?” He blinked. Everything about her fit: her hair, her clothes, her eyes. Everything except her presence. “Momma?”

“Drew, what are you doing here with these people?” Leticia asked. She gingerly stepped through the wreckage, reaching out with trembling hands. “What are you doing with that gun?”

His foot came up in a side-snap kick planted straight into her gut. The blow pushed her back a couple of feet, but not far. More importantly, the point of impact felt just as unnaturally solid as he expected. His rifle came up before she could do more than look at him with shock. Drew couldn’t hear whatever rebuke she offered over the sound of Hector’s rifle.

The very first bullet ended the illusion. In an instant, Leticia disappeared and Evelyn returned in her place, only this time her skin was red. Horns jutted from her head and wings spread from her back. He saw an angry snarl, a hand waving at him with fire trailing from between her fingers, and then the sudden jerk backward as he pulled the trigger a second time.

He kept shooting.

Where a normal human being bled when shot, Evelyn burned. A gout of flame erupted from her chest, spilling around like ignited gasoline. None of it caught on the carpet, simply leaving an unpleasant smoldering haze rather than setting the place on fire. Drew fired again and again, opening frightening holes in her at point blank range until he’d exhausted the dozen rounds left in the magazine.

The trigger clicked without further effect. Thankfully, she’d stopped moving well before that.

“Man, get the fuck outta here with that bullshit,” Drew snapped as he turned away. “Like my momma would run into a gunfight without at least tryin’ my cell phone first. Think I don’t know devils use illusions? Damn.”

Across the street, Drew saw more commotion and heard more gunfire. Molly flung spells toward the foyer, but he couldn’t see around that corner. Nor could he do anything to help there. He turned his attention to what little good he could still do from here.

“Onyx, you still with me?” he huffed, rushing to her side. Blood spread out all around her body, scaring him more than anything Evelyn ever could have done. “Onyx?” He touched her shoulder and felt movement. She was still alive, but…

“Help,” she croaked.

“What do I do?”

“…Aaron…w-wand…”

He didn’t remember who Aaron was. The wand wasn’t hard to find, though. The two broken pieces of ebony lay easily within reach. Before he spoke, though, he saw the boots that lay past those pieces come down onto the floor.

Aaron kept his back against the wall, practically using it to slide himself upright with a pistol in his hand. Light shimmered all around him in a sort of halo effect that didn’t look remotely divine. “She’s already gone, asshole,” huffed Aaron. “Ain’t enough magic in the world to save anyone after losin’ that much blood. At least you’ll get to go out quicker.”

Targ ran down vaulted granite halls as fast as his short legs could carry him. The clamor of battle chased him through the passageway. Roars of triumph and hatred mixed with howls of pain and the clash of weapons. More than once, the little demon’s tattered brown tunic caught under his hooves and left him tumbling along on the floor. Each time, he picked himself up and ran once more.

Others were better suited to this. He wished they were available. Targ was the only one left.

“Countless armies have assaulted my realm,” shouted a deep, angry voice through the tall double doors up ahead. “Few have ever made it past my wall. None have made it to my palace. How is this one already in my streets? Within mere
hours
?”

The voice renewed Targ’s terror. His master would not appreciate this news. Someone else should have delivered it. Someone larger and tougher. Or perhaps someone lower in rank. Targ was Ninth Servitor to the Warlord himself. Shouldn’t that have afforded him some privilege? Or at least allowed him to delegate this to the Tenth Servitor?

Runes of power covered the door from top to bottom. Targ bit his palm until it bled and held it up against the lowest rune in the right corner. He barely reached it. The entire sequence of runes darkened until the double doors parted only enough for a demon of Targ’s size to slip through. Ordinarily the doors would open with a hiss. Today, such subtle sounds were drowned out by the ambient noise within the throne room, and by the shouting.

The ceiling stood even higher here. A large portion of the roof lay open to the vortex reaching down from the sky, flashing with lightning and occasionally rumbling with thunder. Clouds lazily swirled toward a stone staircase rising from the floor. None of it had been in place even a day ago. Everything from the stairs to the gap in the roof occurred by the magic and will of Perdition’s master. As far as Targ knew, the vortex was all Azazel’s doing as well.

Demonic warriors stood guard along the walls within the huge chamber. Two others, as large and fearsome as any, knelt before the great throne. The one who ruled them all stood over his supplicant generals as a twelve-foot tower of rage.

Azazel wore far more gold and jewels than cloth, though all of it paled under the grandeur of his golden crown. His skin, never enough to cover him on good days, now parted in ugly gaps over flexing muscles and bared bone. His great wings looked tense as if ready to fly at any moment, while his tail twitched with impatience.

“I asked you questions! Speak!”

“The enemy force is the most vast we’ve ever seen,” ventured one of the generals. Neither he nor his peer were small or weak. An unfamiliar witness might even think the monstrous demons stronger or more dangerous than their lord. Their bowed heads, bent knees, and wings set limply to the floor suggested otherwise. “Our every force is either matched or outnumbered. The defenders at the wall were overwhelmed, and once the breach was made they had not the force on hand to hold back the weight of numbers.”

“Meaning
your
defenses failed?”

“They are your—yes, master,” the general corrected, bowing his head further.

Glaring at his general, Azazel reached back with one hand. The shimmering golden light that appeared behind him stole Targ’s remaining courage. He knew what would come, yet could not look away. Azazel struck his general with a spiked, golden mace, knocking the other demon face-first to the floor and then pounding him again and again until the general no longer moved.

The other general held still. Targ wilted further with each step. The master would not appreciate this news at all. The little demon held up one shaking hand and hoped he’d be seen before he came within reach.

Azazel turned his fierce gaze to his other chief subordinate. “Is this to say you cannot hold?”

“No, master,” the other general answered quickly. “We need only more time and more troops to turn the tide. Calls have been sent throughout the realm. Yet the enemy comes with everything from behemoths and stalkers to the lowliest of servants. The weight of numbers tells, and almost all of our foes display great ferocity. We must meet this with the same. We will need every…”

The general hesitated. Azazel glared. “Yes?”

With an involuntary glance toward the battered peer now dead on the floor at his side, the general finished, “We need every hand we can get out there in the fight.”

Azazel’s eyes narrowed. He looked to the dead general, and then back at the other. “Your critique is noted. We’ll have to make do without those two. Perhaps we’ll be short by one more general’s tongue, too.”

None of this made Targ feel any better about his task. He crept ever closer, crossing halfway from the doors to the tense conversation up ahead before an undeniable interruption boomed through the halls outside. Both Azazel and the general looked toward the cringing servitor in the middle of the room.

“What was that?” demanded Azazel.

“Likely it was the main entrance, master,” said Targ. “The enemy is…ah…near. I came to, um, tell you, master.”

“Only now?”

“Y-you were busy, sire,” Targ explained weakly. He gestured to the bloody corpse lying at Azazel’s feet. “I wouldn’t w-want to be rude.”

Targ’s next words drowned under the deafening sound of warping metal and crumbling rock. He turned back to the doors long enough to gape in horror as he saw them wrenched back from their hinges. The servitor ran for his life before the final crash, hardly even looking where he was going as he screamed in terror.

Guards swept in from either side of the hall, forming a line of defense against whatever came through the shattered entrance. Thankfully, the line formed behind Targ, but the sounds of battle chased him the rest of the way down the path to the throne. He heard the clash of blades, the rush of mystical fire, and the chomping of beastly jaws against armor and flesh.

Before Targ made it to safety, the general at Azazel’s side rushed forward to join the fight. Targ felt the floor shake under the general’s feet as he passed. Within seconds, the noises of battle grew louder. One combatant landed on the floor to Targ’s right and skidded past. Targ thought it might be one of the incubi, given his relatively human features, but it was hard to tell with the gruesome and bloody opening torn through the fallen demon’s chest.

Azazel ignored Targ as the little servitor passed, focused instead on the fight. The master’s seething anger frightened Targ almost as much as anything he’d seen or heard since the attack on Perdition began. Targ didn’t look back until he’d climbed every step of the dais and crawled into the small, dark space underneath Azazel’s throne.

Carnage and ruin surrounded the general, who himself looked battered and bloodied though he at least still stood with his axe in hand. The same couldn’t be said for anyone else. Targ saw a variety of bodies: tall, spindly hunters with their gleaming black or chalk white hides, insectoid monsters, a mystic wrapped in robes, even a servitor or two. He also saw others dressed in armor not unlike the throne room’s guards—who, like the rest, lay dead and broken.

The general paused, catching his breath. Targ saw the general’s wounds glow with a faint red light as he healed himself with infernal powers. The big demon took up a ready stance with his axe, ready to take on whatever foe might charge into the throne room next.

He wasn’t ready for the heavy chunk of stone debris flung from the ruined entrance. It struck his face with such force that it knocked the demon’s helm from his head. The general swooned in place while the helm clattered along the floor. A second broken piece of masonry followed the first, striking with all the same force. The general collapsed.

Azazel stood firm at the bottom of the dais to his throne. “Throwing rocks?” he asked. “This is how you fight as a lord of Hell? You bring your entire realm against mine with no strategy, no guile, and now you throw rocks?”

“Credit me with some guile,” said a feminine voice from the broken entrance. Her silhouette preceded her as she stepped out of the cloud of dust. “Neither one of you saw it coming.”

The sight of the demon stole Targ’s breath. Born of the Pit and created to serve, Targ did not know the urges of lust. Sexuality held no purpose for him. Still, Targ understood beauty and majesty. The red woman embodied both. Her tattered black clothes lent her a rugged strength in contrast to the grandeur of his master. The iron spikes atop her head suggested power without pretense, unlike the golden crown of Azazel. One demon decorated himself with jewels and wealth. The other bore the black animalistic stripes of a predator.

Close beside her walked two more demons, one a bulbous, insectoid creature on six legs and the other a tall humanoid with broad wings. As with the others, her escorts remained quiet and vigilant, clearly ready to react to anything they saw as an order or an attack. Lorelei seemed equally wary, but calm.

“Pardon the intrusion,” said the succubus. “One of us is only passing through. Mandah?”

The tall woman-ish demon beside Lorelei leaped into the air and unfurled her broad wings. Mandah turned to her left without challenging Azazel and flew straight for the staircase leading up to the vortex in the sky. As soon as she reached the bottom steps, her speed increased sharply. In only a single breath, she disappeared into the swirling clouds.

“You’ve come for nothing more than the portal?” Azazel seethed. “You are a child with a new toy. When did you pick up that crown? Have you held it for even a single day? You could open such a portal all on your own.”

“Yes, yes,” sighed Lorelei. “It’s so draining, though, isn’t it? Why would I go to so much effort when you’ve already taken care of all that? Especially with all those mortal sacrifices to ease the way.”

Azazel’s grip on his mace tightened. His other hand balled up into a fist at his side. “And so I am betrayed by my ally.”

“Presumably,” Lorelei replied with undisguised annoyance. “I couldn’t say how. But that’s not why we’re here.”

“Then what do you—?”

Lorelei cut him off with an intense roar of flame and light, engulfing Azazel where he stood.

Targ shrank back into what little shadow remained beneath Azazel’s throne. The breath of flame was not an uncommon trait among the demons of the Pit, nor were many demons easily burned. This went far beyond all that, frightening Targ with the thought that he might be cooked alive from mere proximity. Sadly, he had nowhere else to go. Squinting and struggling to watch, Targ could barely make out the staggered form of his master in the foreground, the red-hot glow of Lorelei’s iron crown, and a sudden rush of movement off to Azazel’s side.

The ugly insectoid thing that accompanied Lorelei darted in with thick venom dripping from its pincers. Its black carapace gleamed in the light of her flames, reflecting the worst of the heat. With a screech, the thing lunged at Azazel—and came face-first into the demon lord’s hammering fist with a sickening crunch. Azazel fell to one knee, allowing him to scoop up the fallen wretch with his free hand. Targ had thought the thing was already dead until it let out a second screech when Azazel held it up as a shield against the flames.

Azazel’s other hand slammed down onto the granite floor. The throne room shook, disrupting the torrent of flames as Lorelei shifted to keep her balance. Weapons from Azazel’s fallen guards suddenly leapt into the air under the control of invisible hands. They hacked and stabbed at her on all sides. It was too much to counter or dodge, though none of it brought her down.

The huge blocks of stone that broke loose from the floor proved a far greater threat. The first struck her from behind, battering her from head to waist with terrible force. Another flew straight up from the spot right in front of her, colliding so hard it shattered into a thick particles of dust. The cloud swiftly coalesced into writhing grey snakes, wrapping themselves around Lorelei to prevent another blast of her flames.

“Amateur,” gasped Azazel. Smoke drifted from his burnt flesh and ruined jewelry. He tore the half-melted gold chains from his neck to free himself from their searing touch. Despite the counterattack, Targ saw his master’s face twisted with pain.

Then Azazel turned his head and his eyes met Targ’s. “You,” Azazel beckoned. “Come.”

Targ swallowed hard. He had to obey. Azazel was burned, yet his crown still shone brightly.

Slowly at first, gingerly and wishing he had any way to get out of it, Targ crawled out from under the throne. He picked up the pace when Azazel repeated, “Come!”

“Yes, master,” Targ answered. He scurried down the few steps of the dais and threw himself down at Azazel’s feet.

Up ahead, Lorelei struggled against inanimate things brought to life by the master’s will. Targ knew she would be defeated. She frightened him, surely, yet he feared no one as much as he feared Azazel. Not even when her eyes met his.

Nothing in her eyes could frighten Targ as much as the hand he felt on his head.

The sudden chill through his body justified that fear. Targ felt skin and muscle contract. He felt his breath stolen and his vitality drained. Within seconds Targ felt nothing at all.

Measured against the drain of Azazel’s power and the depth of his wounds, the little demon’s tiny soul didn’t count for much. It only fueled the barest recovery. Still, Azazel’s need was great, and his battle not finished. Targ’s essence was his to take.