Voidhawk - Lost Soul (25 page)

“Heard a story on a world I visited once,” Rosh panted. Falcyon looked up at him, his bovine nostrils flaring with rage. “Sounded like fun. They called it cow tipping.”

Falcyon brayed louder than ever, deafening Rosh. He didn’t need his ears, only his eyes to know when to drop under the charging horns of the demon and then drive his legs into the ground. His right side was weak, but already recovering from the ghastly wound. He lifted Falcyon up off the ground and rolled backwards with the creature’s momentum. When they came to rest Falcyon was flailing on his back and Rosh was laying across his shaggy thighs. He picked his head up to find himself uncomfortably close to the business end of the region he’d kicked earlier.

Rosh picked himself up and slammed his fist into Falcyon’s chest. The sound of the impact echoed through the cavern but the demon kept struggling. Rosh hammered him twice more before he thought to look for his sword. It was trapped beneath the beast and out of his reach. On the other side, near his right knee, the broken haft of Falcyon’s axe lay.

Rosh grabbed up the sharpened stick and jammed it into Falcyon’s chest. He stabbed again, then had to fend off the blind punches Falcyon threw at him. Desperate at last to end the fight, Rosh jammed the stick upwards, driving into the hollow at the juncture of the demons throat and its jaw and not stopping until it grated on the rock on the other side of the demon’s head. Rosh collapsed on the ground as Falcyon fell apart in a cloud of wretched smoke beneath him.

The triumphant warrior
grabbed his sword and stood up slowly, then made his way over to Volera, limping with each step even though his body was knitting itself back together. “Next time I get the fury,” Rosh said.

Volera smiled, the blood on her neck and chest wet but no longer flowing. “Yes, Master.”
She fell in behind him and lifted a finger wet with her blood to her lips.

“Hey Cap, we done here?” Rosh asked the staggering man.

“Just about,” Dexter hissed.

Rolxoth turned, having heard their voices so near to him. “Impossible!” His voice hissed
in their minds. He ended his summoning spell and turned to face them. “I’ll have to start over. You’ve cost me time and a great deal of power. I’ll be sure to torture your souls for years to come!”

“You’ve thrown your best at us, what you got left?” Rosh asked.

“Might is the tool of weaklings,” Rolxoth said.

Dexter had a witty reply in mind but found his mouth wouldn’t work to let it loose. For that matter, his legs and arms weren’t working either. That latter fact became painfully apparent when he smacked into
the rock floor. His momentum caused him to roll over so that he was able to see the faceless demon. He remembered Celia’s story of how Rolxoth has smashed in her heads of her friends with a rock while they were paralyzed. Sounded a lot like using might to him.

A scream of fury surprised Dexter, not that he could do anything about it. “You fool!” Rolxoth snapped. “What? How? No!”

Dexter saw something gold flash across the corner of his field of view. A moment later, he realized it was Tasha running towards Rolxoth. She slashed, her sword cutting across his torso before her shoulder crashed into him and sent them both flying. Rolxoth rolled away from her and staggered to his feet. He clutched his sliced skin, blood running down his body.

Blood? Dexter wondered. Wasn’t Rolxoth a demon
, too? Dexter turned his head to watch Rolxoth stagger away, then he realized that he could move again. He struggled to rise to his feet but only made it to his knees.

Rolxoth limped to the black flames and stepped into them. The flames climbed across his body, making him scream as they burned the mortal flesh from his body. He stood there, immolated, until he exploded in a cloud of noxious gas and was gone.

Chapter 15

Dexter stared at the flames. Rolxoth was gone. The ring he’d worn—the ring Jia had been trapped in—was gone with him. Just like that, gone in a puff of smoke. He rocked back on his knees and slumped down, sitting on his calves.

“Captain?” Tasha said, walking up to him. She knelt down beside him and placed her hand on his shoulder. “Captain?”

Dexter wasn’t a captain right then. He wasn’t even a man. Jianna was gone. They’d saved Port Freedom and maybe even the void from evil unimagined, but he’d failed to save his daughter. He looked up at Tasha and slowly shook his head. “I don’t know,” he whispered.

“Sir, yes you do. You always know what to do. You always have plan. Even when you say you don’t, we know you’re working on something. What are we going to do, Captain. How are we going to get Jia back?”

“Jenna?” Dexter asked, turning to peer through the flames across the dais. He saw a few shapes moving, but couldn’t make anything out. “Where’s Jenna?”

“Master, may I go?”

Rosh grunted. “Go where?”

“Through the portal,” Volera said. “I can do it.”

“Thought you wasn’t one of them no more?”

“This close I can feel it. I can feel my power over there. Everything that was stricken from me awaits.”

“What’s that mean?” Rosh growled. “You go there you gonna be like you was?”

Volera’s head dropped. “I don’t know,” she said. “It’s possible.”

The giant warrior scowled. “I’m going, too.”

“You can’t,” Volera said. “When one of my kind comes here, they must expend a great amount of energy to remain and survive, unless they take on the guise of a native of the realm. Rolxoth did that, and when he entered the portal his mortal form was cast aside. For you to go to my realm you would need to take on the form of a native, but you cannot do so.”

Rosh’s scowl deepened.

“Master, I’ve learned many things from you. I’ve learned your weaknesses and your strengths. No, let me finish. I’ve also learned that many of your weaknesses are hidden strengths.”

Rosh clamped his mouth shut and listened to her. “I’ve learned about emotions other than anger and vengeance. I may never know love, but I know it exists and I see its many forms. It has no power of its own, but it can lead to power that may be greater than any out there. How else could a band of mortals find and defeat beings that are nearly mighty enough to be dukes of hell?”

Rosh nodded. “Go, and if you go back, then heed my final command. You bring that girl’s soul back to us or I’ll come and find you. It won’t matter if you’re hiding in the void or in hell, I’ll find you.”

Volera smiled. “Yes, My Lord, I hear and I obey.” Volera pushed herself up to him and kissed him. She backed away, leaving Rosh’s face red, and turned to the dais. She drew her sword from its scabbard and held it at her side, then walked into the flames.

As with Rolxoth, the flames raced up her body and consumed her. Her armor combusted
and fell away, leaving behind her impossibly proportioned pale body gleaming amidst the black flames. In seconds it, too, was consumed. She screamed, the sound of her wail on the border of agony and ecstasy. Then Volera was gone, consumed by the flame in an instant without the demon-spawned puff of smoke.

* * * *

Volera landed on the cracked red plain that stretched away to the horizon. A crowd of demons surrounded the portal, thousands deep in places. Each wanted to be chosen to come through and ravage another realm. Each sought to add to their power by devouring anything they could get their hands on. Only those chosen by the portal’s creator would be allowed through, but thousands flocked each time hoping they might have a chance to increase their power and raise their station.

She stepped free of the blue flames, her sword at her side. As soon as she was free of it she gasped and fell to her knees. She felt herself filled to bursting as everything rushed back in to her. All of her lost powers and her private reserves of captured souls. All of it was there. Her experiences and her might.

“Duathrym!” Volera cried out, her voice echoing across the plain. She rose up, her signature black and red armor forming around her flawless red skinned body. She was powerful again, powerful and unstoppable! Rosh had caught her by surprise before, now she had her powers as well as those she’d learned while trapped in his realm. She could do anything now! Even her role as a fury was too small for her.

The minions of hell separated, a path appearing between Volera and Rolxoth. She snapped her arm forward, her whip reaching out an impossible length and wrapping around his neck. She hauled him back, dragging him across the parched ground until he lay before her. “Rolxoth, how rude of you to leave.”

“Volera!” Rolxoth said, starting to rise.

“You will kneel!” She snapped, jerking the whip and driving him back down.

“Come now, you’re home again. You have your powers back. Surely you realize there’s more than being the concubine of a bumbling oaf of a mortal!”

“I have one task that remains,” Volera said, twisting her whip and tightening its hold on his neck. “The bumbling oaf gave me a final command of service, then I’m free. He was a fool,” she admitted. “But I must obey this final command.”

“What command? You’re more powerful and you’re free of him! Work with me and we can rule those foolish humans!”

She twisted the whip further. It wouldn’t shut him up but it would cause discomfort. “Another time, perhaps. Oh wait, you won’t have another time, will you?” Volera grinned at him and thrust her sword into his chest. She ripped it up, until it burst free between his shoulder and neck, then she let him fall back to the ground. Lacking a face she missed the expressions she would have otherwise seen while he died. She felt his anguish as he screamed and cried out in her mind. Before it was over she stepped on his twitching arm and let her sword sever his finger. She picked it up and pulled the ring free, then clutched it in her palm.

Volera turned to the flames. She was free now. She was mighty enough she could be a princess of hell with the powers she had. She had a fresh soul in the palm of her hand, a beautiful virginal one brimming with power. Those were the best kind.

Volera chuckled. She had another soul with her too, the damaged soul she’d taken from Willa. It was a part of her but that could be remedied easily. She knew how to do it now that
her lost powers were restored.

She glanced at the ring again. Should she return it to the humans? Would Rosh expect something from her? Would he try to fight her again? Would she be able to beat him this time? She’d learned and grown so much, but so had he.

Volera frowned. Rosh had defeated Falcyon single handedly. No being had ever accomplished anything of the sort, on this realm or another. Was facing Rosh worth the risk? Volera scowled. Fear was something she’d not felt since she was a far lesser being. She didn’t like it, but it served a purpose. Fear kept those that heeded it alive. She hadn’t lived for countless eons by ignoring the things that kept her alive.

* * * *

“Been a while,” Logan said, pacing back and forth.

“The flames are nearly out,” Jenna whispered. She sat with Dexter’s arm around her and their backs against the wall.

“I’ll go after them,” Tasha said, starting forward.

“Knock it off!” Rosh snapped. “You heard her, going through there would be the death of you.”

Xander nodded. “She’s right. It takes powerful magic to survive on another dimension. I’ve read about it but I’d need to spend much time studying and practicing before I could hope to protect you for even a short time.”

“You know a lot about everything, but you can’t do much,” Dexter snapped. His frustration got the better of him as he continued. “All these spells and magic you talk about but you don’t hardly do a damn thing.”

“I nearly died for you!” Xander spat out after a moment of open mouthed shock. “Twice now!”

Jenna’s hand dug into Dexter’s thigh, silencing him before he blurted out something foolish. Dexter glared at the wizard then nodded and looked away.

“She’s not coming back,” Jenna whispered, staring at the diminishing flames. Whether she meant Volera or Jianna, nobody but Jenna knew.

“She’ll come.”

Dexter looked up to Rosh, surprised at the conviction in his voice. Rosh, the man who trusted no one and needed no one. Rosh, the man who was unstoppable. Rosh, the man who had killed an army of demons single handedly. Now Rosh put his faith in a trickster and a seductress. Dexter shook his head slowly.

“Told ya.”

Dexter’s head jerked back to the dais. The flames had burst back up, nearly reaching the ceiling some twenty feet above them. A figure emerged from them, a figure that sent tendrils of terror and excitement sliding down Dexter’s spine.

Clad in a strange metallic black armor that revealed more than it protected. Her red toned thighs were displayed all the way up to the top of her hips on the side and the neckline plunged beyond her breasts nearly half the distance to her navel. She wore matching black and scarlet gloves that covered all the way to her elbow and knee high boots with a stiletto sharp heel several inches long.
The final proof of her demonic heritage were her eyes: they were black abyssal pools.