The Edge of Temptation: Gods of the Undead 2 A Post-Apocalyptic Epic (16 page)

Jack turned his head back and forth trying to get a better look at the smile
.“
It ca
n’
t be. It is
n’
t alive, is it
?”
He reached out a hand, not to touch anything physical, but to feel the nearness of magic
.“
Ther
e’
s nothing I can feel. What about you
?
”

All Cyn felt was awe and desperate fear. They had to get out of there before something bad happened and she was sure that something bad was only seconds from occurring, and yet she yearned to go to the Mother and kneel before her.

“
No
,”
she managed to say.

Carefully, Jack stepped forward and touched the island. He looked back with a shrug
.“
Nothing
.”
Next he took a step onto the island itself, his hand now on the hilt of his sword as if it could do anything to harm the Mother. Holy sword or not, it was a splinter compared to
Her
.

Cyn followed Jack and then stepped past him so that she stood before
Her
. Cyn trembled as her gaze traveled down the face and nubile body. Up close she saw that it was a girl, her body hairless and small. She was too young to be with child and far too young to have been with a man.

The statue was magnificent but what drew Cyn’s eyes was the hole that went down into the earth. The hole was a madness of stench and begging eyes. The hole went deep. It went beyond the bounds of the earth. It went directly to hell.

Cyn dug in her pocket for the golden coin that Jack had handed her. Gold or diamonds or the souls of children were the only fitting gifts to give the Mother of Demons. Almost as if it were a Wishing Well, she was going to toss the coin in, but Jack stopped her hand.

“
Are you crazy? Do
n’
t put anything down that hole
.”
Jack was sweating, no longer so self-assured as he had been
.“
I do
n’
t think w
e’
re going to find anything here. Robert has already taken everything of value
.
”

That was insane on the face of it, Cyn thought. The statue was absolutely priceles
s—
it was worth a million souls easily. That was such an ugly thought that she forced her eyes away from the statue and asked
:“
W-what do you mean
?
”

“
Right there
,”
Jack said pointing at a pedestal that stood just to the side of the statue. She had
n’
t seen it before. It had been right there and yet it had been so overshadowed by the statue that it might as well as have been invisible. She was only just noticing the piece of paper sitting on it, face down.

There should have been a book on it. A spell book to be precise. How she knew that she did
n’
t know.

The piece of paper certainly did
n’
t belong in its place and nor did it belong anywhere in this cavern. The paper had come from a tree birthed only twenty years before. It was college ruled with three holes running up one side. Robert had undoubtedly pulled it from his notebook and left it for them in place of the spell book he had stolen.

Jack reached out, picked it up and turned it over. In the glow of Jac
k’
s particles, they both read the words:
Do
n’
t read this
.

“
Do
n’
t read this
?”
Cyn asked, feeling slow in the mind. Jack thrust her behind him as she said
:“
Why would
n’
t we rea
d
…”

The doors to the cells where the demons wer
e“
trappe
d”
were suddenly thrust open with the sound of metal and wood crashing, splintering and breaking in a single great explosion that rang in the cavern.

Jack was already cutting himself, opening a portal to his soul, bleeding in a room that had been built to collect blood and to feed off of it. Cyn turned from the onrushing creatures and saw the leering face of the Mother of Demons. The smile was gone and in its place was a look of want.
She
was hungry!

A sudden urge overcame Cyn just then. She had the need to stab Jack in the back with her knife. She would slide it in him, just above where he kept his Holy Water, right in the kidney. It would incapacitate him. It would leave him gasping. She would be able to bleed him and oh, what a prize he would be. He was strong. His soul was a powerhouse. He was nearly as strong as a demon.

She fought the dreadful desire, but then he reached out a bleeding hand. It was so much of an invitation that she almost put the hand to her lips and drank.

“I’
m going to need your help
,”
he said. It took a second before she realized he wanted her to cut herself and join their souls as they had before against the necromancer. It was a crazy suggestion. Did he not realize what he was asking? Cutting herself this close to the Mother of Demons would be too much for her. She would
n’
t be able to control herself and she was just as likely to throw herself into the hell-hole as she was to stab Jack.

The demons were rushing across the cavern and, unaware of her internal battle, Jack waved his hand at her. The blood was too enticing. It was almost erotic. She had a knife. It was blessed and when she cut herself she almost screamed in pain and ecstas
y—
and then Jack slapped his hand on hers.

There was no time for anything as Jack hurled his spell into the water. Lightning strobed the room as the lake was lit by electricity that ran from one end to another. Four of the demons were in the water; they blew into thousands of hunks of decayed flesh and ancient bone that twitched and jigged.

The other five paused for all of a second before one leapt across the expanse of water. Jack hit it in midflight with another bolt of lightning. Water is one of the best conduits of electricity, while air is one of the worst. The bolt sent the demon flying back where it fell with a rattle of bones.

It was up in a second and the others Jack had exploded were beginning to reform as well. “We’ll blast our way through,” he said, “and then put a binding spell on the door as we leave.
”

Cyn felt the energy of her soul rush out of her as Jack hurled another lightning bolt. It blasted two of the demons, charring the rags of cloth draped on them and sending them hurtling backwards. The effect was disappointing to Jack. Not only were they still completely intact and ready to go, there were another two that were totally unharmed.

Jack turned to Cyn. “What are you doing? You’re holding back.”

“It’s
Her
,” Cyn said, darting a look back over her shoulder at the Demon Mother. “She’s angry. These are her children. She doesn’t want you to hurt them.”

“What? They’re going to kill us. Forget the statue and give me your power!” Though he asked he didn’t wait for an answer; he
took
her power.

Cyn resisted. The theft...the rape of Cyn’s soul was a direct affront to The Mother, as was the hurling of spells about in her presence, as were the blasphemous words that had come from his mouth.

This time the lightning that came from Jack’s outstretched hand was a feeble arc and barely cleared the twenty feet of water and did nothing to the demon it hit. Weak as it was, it drained the last of Jack’s power. Cyn felt it. There was nothing but the hard kernel of his shrunken soul.

He was weak and it was her fault. She had taken part of his soul.

It had been utterly natural...and utterly evil. Yet she couldn’t help it. The Mother of Demons was there in the room.
She
was staring out of the golden eyes on the statue and whispering up from the hell-hole. She spoke directly into Cyn’s soul with a slippery tongue. Her power over a necromancer was nearly absolute and Cyn couldn’t help herself as she pulled her hand from Jack’s grip.

He fell to his hands and knees. His blood mingling with the water. “Fight it!” he gasped. He knew what she was feeling. He knew because he had gone through the same thing the year before.

She dug out the coin once again and now her blood was on the gold. “Fight it?” she asked, incredulously. “Like how you fought it? Remember how you murdered people, Jack? Remember that? And you didn’t even have the Mother watching over you. There’s no fighting it, Jack. You of all people should know it. There’s only submitting to her power and sacrificing for her love.”

The words came out of her mouth and she couldn’t believe they were hers and when she moved it was as if someone else had control of her body.

Cyn flipped the coin. It twirled, spinning red and then gold in a blur. Her eyes tracked it, but her mind couldn’t grasp the circle or the metal or the colors. She only knew that the coin held more than her blood. A part of her soul had been swept into the coin.

And she hadn’t even fought it.

She had been right about Jack. He had sold his soul over almost nothing; over the power of a few spells. At the time he had rationalized about the necessity of it. He was saving the world after all, but it had been the beckoning of the spells that had turned his heart greedy and evil. The Mother had woven her power into the spells, but that power had been altogether insignificant compared to being in
Her
presence.

She
was ancient beyond imagination. She was one of the first born. She had power over mortals and could kill them with a thought. The statue held a mere spec of her power and yet she had turned Cyn with complete ease.

The coin disappeared down into the hole just as Jack reached out and took her hand and their blood mixed once again. She could suddenly read everything she ever wanted to know about him. He was going to drag her out of there, even if it meant being torn apart by the demons, even if it was against her will—and it was.

The Mother was in her, turning her insides black, corrupting her, making her a pet, a nothing to be used and discarded.

But before Cyn was discarded, the Mother had need of her. Without warning, Jack screamed, his head thrown back and his eyes wide. The connection between him and Cyn was also a connection between him and the Mother of Demons and
She
wasn’t happy with him. He had thrown away the gift that she had bestowed on him. She had made him a necromancer and he had thrown that away for love!

Burning pain coursed through Cyn and into Jack. It was a pain that no man should have been able to bear. He had tears in his eyes and his face was a hideous mask and yet he was somehow able to wrench his hand away. He fell to his knees, his hands in the water of the little lake.

“Give it to me, Jonathan,” Cyn heard herself saying. She spoke in a voice that boomed and shook the earth; something fell from a shelf in the outer room with a crash and every word caused ripples in the water.

Cyn marveled. The Mother was in her! Using her body. It was the most disgusting thing that she had ever felt and she thought for sure she was going to vomit and faint; yet she was honored. She was being possessed by this tiny sliver of the Mother and it was an honor.
She
wanted that little bit of Jack’s soul that he clung to.
She
was never satisfied.

Jack hissed in pain and then turned his warped face up. “Fight her, Cyn!”

“Why?” Cyn asked in her own voice. “Give it to me to sacrifice, Jack. She will look favorably on me if you do. And if you don’t give it to me, they will rip it from you.” She pointed: nine fully formed demons were in the water, slogging at Jack.

He was utterly trapped.

Chapter 15

Nekhen, Egypt

Jack Dreyden

He actually considered giving in to Cyn...but just for a few seconds. His soul really wasn’t worth much at the moment. Just the hard kernel was left. The little nub that always refused to die. Sometimes that nub was a little pit of anger or hate, holding on out of spite. Sometimes there was so little of it left that it was a ghost of thing, filled with a few memories or the last shred of love left in him.

Just then it was a pinpoint of light in an otherwise dark and empty being. It would be easy to give up if he actually thought it would help Cyn in some way.

Yet that wasn’t the reason that he clung to it. He wanted vengeance. Once again, he had fallen into a trap laid out by Robert. The man was cunning beyond imagination.

He had moved the body of the Necromancer to kill Jack, but on the off chance that Jack had lived, he had set this up as well. The demons were Robert’s thralls instructed not to come out of their cages until Jack had managed to trap himself.

And he was good and trapped.

On his knees and drained of power; Cyn turned against him; nine demons on one side and the Mother of Demons on the other. His sword was gone. When Cyn had drained the last of him, it had flown from his hands to splash somewhere in the dark water.

All he had left to fight with were two vials of Holy Water. It was only enough to perhaps blind one of the demons with a lucky splash. Otherwise all it would do would piss it off. Out of options, he pulled them out.

“Who’s first?” he asked in a whisper. He had meant for it to come out as a ringing challenge, but the whisper was all he had the strength for.

One of the old bundles of rags and bones came forward, a leer on its grinning face. It was interesting to note that the demons had not used any of their special powers: their cold breath, their ability to cause localized earthquakes. They hadn’t even used darkness or fear.

They were more concerned with offending the “Mother” than they were in dealing with Jack. Not that they would need even a tenth of their power to deal with Jack. Not just then at least.

Jack went with his only weapon and gave the demon a good splashing with the bottle of water. It hissed and threw a bone arm up, but other than the temporary pain, it hadn’t really been hurt, at least not in the long run. Holy Water had its uses but it would take a bucket of it to really harm the creatures...and where would Jack get a bucket of Holy Water right then?

Suddenly, he realized that he didn’t need a bucket of water; he had an entire underground lake full of water. What he needed was a priest. What he needed was Father Timmons, the man that Jack had tirelessly tried to get fired from his team of
Raiders
. The man who, even in death, still managed to be disappointed in Jack—he could feel it even then, there was a little pinpoint of light within him that smacked of Father Timmons.

He had wanted to save Jack’s soul, but now both of theirs were going to perish and that was too bad. If Jack had saved anything of Father Timmons, it wasn’t going to be for long and now the question was should he let his soul get taken by the Mother or her minions?

Cyn was fooling herself thinking that she would benefit from helping the Mother. When Jack died, she’d be next. It would be a wake-up call, but one too late to save her. It would be a bit of a splash in…the…face. A sudden idea hit Jack like a ton of bricks and with a quick motion, he popped the top from his second bottle and splashed the Holy Water full in Cyn’s face.

His hope that she would suddenly come to “her senses” was dashed when Cyn laughed and licked her lips. “I’m not possessed. And you just wasted the last of your Holy Water and you lack the strength to make more.”

“The strength?” It was an odd choice of words. Since when was his strength the issue when it came to his ability...or rather his inability to make Holy Water? Strength was never the issue. It was always the fact that he wasn’t a priest and yet she hadn’t mentioned that fact.

Did the Mother of Demons know something that Jack didn’t? Was Timmons really inside his soul? If so, could Jack use that tiny essence of the priest to make Holy Water?

Jack cast a glance over his shoulder at the demons; all nine were standing hip deep in the lake waiting to see if Cyn would take his soul. Cyn was also waiting, her face registering a touch of nervousness; she seemed to have forgotten the shotgun in her hand.

“Do you know how to make Holy Water?” Jack asked her. She knew. They both had seen it done a hundred times. She nodded, looking confused now.

“But you have no strength,” she said in a whisper. “She took it.”

He smiled a sad smile. “What did Father Timmons always say?
I am only the conduit. I have no power of my own. The power I wield comes from God
.
”

“Wait,” Cyn said, her eyes going back and forth.

“No,” Jack said and before any of the demons could move he crossed himself, whispering: “Heavenly Father, please bless this water, and renew the living spring of life within me...” He paused to see the demons looking stricken, their bony jaws hanging open. “Cleanse this water and destroy any impure evil within it and me, and protect me in spirit.”

There was a sudden splashing as the demons struggled to turn with the water frothing and bubbling around them. As Jack watched they seemed to be shrinking as the bones of their legs dissolved beneath them. He went on in the way he had heard so many priests speak: “Bless this water and wash away our sins so we may come into your presence free from evil. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.”

By the time he was done speaking, the demons were beneath the frothing surface and the air in the cavern smelled of honey. The sparkling motes were bright as stars. He could barely find the strength to smile at them.

If he had been tired before, he was doubly so now. Next to his hand was one of the bottles that had held the Holy Water. He filled it again and then straightened, getting to his feet like an old man slow and creaking. He turned expecting to face the barrel of Cyn’s 12 gauge; however the shotgun sat on the ground, useless and cold.

The Mother of Demons was ancient and powerful; she had no understanding of man-made weapons beyond those that cut or bashed or stabbed.

And just then, that made her weak. Cyn was used up and trembling as though she was about to collapse. “She has lost, Cyn. The Mother knows I have no power left in what remains of my soul and without souls, what can she do? She can’t do anything to me or to you.”

“You’re wrong,” Cyn whispered as though she were telling a secret. “She hates you, Jack. She is going to kill me to spite you. If you don’t cut your throat, she’s going to stop my heart. She can do it. She’s so strong.”

“Okay...tell her to slow down. I’ll do it, but does she want me to do it right here? Or should we go to the tables or what?”

Stiff and robotic, Cyn took her eyes from Jack and stared into the water—the Holy Water. “She thinks your attempts at deception are laughable.” She turned to the statue and gestured at the hole at the base. It was black around the edges with old blood. “Just lay your head in her lap and cut open your flesh. It’ll be quick.”

“Sounds easy enough, but what do I do with this?” The bottle that he had filled with Holy Water sat in his palm. Cyn’s eyes went wide and she tried to grab it, but was too slow. He tossed it straight into the hole. A half-second later there was a blinding splash of dark light, somewhat like the after effect of a camera flash and then came the sound of cloth being ripped, except it was multiplied a thousand fold. It was a storm of sound that assaulted them.

Both Cyn and Jack grabbed their heads and fell away. When Jack looked back, he saw the hole was belching huge plumes of black smoke which shot up to envelope the ceiling of the cavern.

“Come on!” he yelled, taking Cyn by the hand and pulling her. She resisted but was too weak and when her boots splashed into the cool water she fainted dead away, practically falling face first into the water; he caught her just in time and laid her on her back.

Although he was afraid that the Mother herself would suddenly climb from the hole like a horrid black spider or that the statue would explode like a volcano or the cavern would cave in, Jack paused to wash Cyn completely. Her eyes fluttered open and immediately filled with tears.

He washed those away as well.

“I’m sorry,” she begged. She was sorry; however, Jack knew this was just the beginning. Her remorse would only grow until it would threaten to eat her alive.

“It’s nothing. Don’t worry about it
.
Can you walk
?”
He dragged her across to the other side of the lake and now the cavern was half filled with the reeking smoke. She shrugged. Her soul was as drained as his and she had her regret added on top of that; she did
n’
t care what would happen to her. He understood. He had been there.

With a grunt, he lifted her in his arms. Garbed in her armor and soaking wet, she was surprisingly heavy, and he was weak through to his core. Gasping and lurching side to side, he fled from the cavern and fought his way upward until he was out in the blaring light of the desert.

Apathetic to everything, Cyn didn’t move a muscle when Jack put her in the blazing hot Volvo. “I’ll be right back,” he said, and then ran back down into the pit beneath the earth where the air was clouded black and had the stink of death.

The first thing he did was to grab the green box with the skull in it—he couldn’t leave that just lying around; there was no telling what would happen if all the pieces of that particular skeleton were laid out—he rushed down the stairs that led to the necromancer’s lab and without looking in, he tossed the box inside the room and then shut the first of the secret doors.

Next, because he was in his heart an adventurer and he couldn’t help himself, he grabbed a handful of gold coins and another handful of the tarnished silver ones. He then sped back into the second chamber with the broken sarcophagus, again shutting the secret door behind him.

The door was so well constructed that immediately the smoke ceased to billow up. There wasn’t even a hint of it creeping around the edges.

Then he pushed outside, blinking at the glare of the sun as it reflected off the sand. The sky above was a perfect cobalt blue. “I think I’m done,” Cyn said. She hadn’t moved a muscle from where he had left her and laid there staring up at the ceiling of the car. “I think I need to quit this.”

“Yeah.” What else was there to say? He couldn’t find the energy to think and yet he had a big hole in the desert he had to refill.

“I mean, I’m putting my bloody soul on the line and for what?”

Jack went to the pile of debris that was mounded next to the hole. He started chucking rocks down into the slanting pit. “I agree,” he said to her.

“I’m going to go to...I don’t know, to Bora Bora, maybe. Or the South Pole. Or the straights of Magellan. I’ll go where no one can find me.” Jack said nothing to this. He knew this sad train of thought—those tracks were well worn in his mind. He just continued to heave rocks, his head swimming from the heat and his exhaustion.

Cyn was quiet for a long time as he worked. When the hole was half filled she suddenly said: “
He’ll
find me, won’t he?”

She meant their cousin, Robert. “Yeah,” Jack answered.

“Or
She
will,” Cyn said, her voice quieter than the desert wind. This kept her silent for so long that Jack had the hole mostly filled by the time she added: “I can’t run and I can’t hide.”

“That’s why we fight,” he said. “We don’t have a choice.” She began to cry and so he changed the subject: “Tell me about your geese. Will you put little bonnets on them like in the cartoon movies?”

She blubbered and laughed. “Of course. Why have geese if you’re not going to dress them properly?” She was quiet again for a time and despite the heat, she hugged herself. “Can I at least go on holiday?”

Jack paused with a rock at his shoulder. “A holiday? What holiday? We just had Independence Day.”

She finally sat up and rubbed the tears from her eyes. She looked like she was trying to be her old self. To Jack it looked like she was putting on a mask. “First off, don’t say
Independence Day
to a Brit unless you want a poke in the eye. And second, I was referring to a vacation.”

“Oh,” he answered and then tossed the rock. He bent for another and paused again, staring around. The heat and his exhaustion were becoming a force. “I think this is our vacation.
”
Her face clouded again but after making an angry determined sound, she pushed the smirk he loved where it belonged.

“Oh yeah? And was that night in Wadi Halfa indeed your idea of a honeymoon? Don’t answer that! I could tell that you were going to say yes.” She struggled to stand and then came over to the pit and looked inside. Without being asked, she bent and started tossing rocks in as well.

They worked in silence until the hole was filled completely and the only sign that anyone had ever been there was the hunk of intestine. Cyn wrinkled her nose at it. “Robert didn’t leave that.”

“And nor would he leave the crypt wide open like that. It doesn’t make sense that any necromancer or sorcerer would. Truong mentioned Chinese sorcerers. They could probably find the crypt of the necromancer, but would they leave it open?”