Demon Hunters (26 page)

“You don’t know what you’re doing, Jackal.
You don’t want what I have! It’s a curse!” He knelt down and placed
his hand on the floor and all the black liquid that was crawling
along the room was sucked back into him.

“You just don’t realize what you have,
Jake,” Jackal bent down and tore the dagger out of Morgan’s arm and
as he did, I saw what was left of Morgan’s body whither into dust
and disappear. He slowly approached me. “Now,” Jackal began. “I
believe I owe you a favor. You never were able to collect on our
little deal, were you?” He shot his free hand out and snagged my
throat. His hand was cold to the touch and his grip was like a
vise. I tried to speak, but his grip was forcing my throat closed.
I felt the muscles in my neck begin to burn and tear. The next
thing I felt was the cool blade cutting through my stomach. I felt
something rising up through my chest, but it got stuck in my lungs.
I felt the dagger digging deeper and deeper. My arms began to
tingle. My eyesight blurred and I felt something happening in me
and I could hear the demon’s voice in my head, but it wasn’t
speaking. It was screaming.

A strong jolt ran up my spine and I finally
felt my arms break free. I swung around and took Jackal by his
throat. His neck crushed in my hands, like an aluminum can. I
jumped out of the chair and threw him back. The dagger was still
stuck in my stomach so I pulled it out. It bled for a moment, but
the wound quickly healed over. I looked over and saw Jackal getting
up. I started toward him. My legs felt stiff as I walked. The
closer I got, the wider his smile became. I could feel the demon
inside of me filling me with power. It was like fire rising up
through every pore. I had never felt the demon in such control
before. Just as I was about to grab Jackal again, he stepped
back.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” He then
snapped his fingers. Two of the punks I dealt with upstairs came
rushing in and they were holding Gwen by her arms as she struggled
against them. “We found her loitering outside. She seemed so
lonely, I couldn’t help but invite her in,” I turned to Gwen. She
looked as though she could barely recognize me. The power of the
demon in me was rushing through my body. “Give it to me, Jake.” I
then realized I was still holding the dagger in my hand.

“You don’t know what you’re doing.” I heard
my voice, but there was another voice underneath it. Bigger.
Deeper. It echoed under my own words and held a force that I could
feel. Jackal didn’t seem as moved.

“You think just because you’re possessed,
you know more than anyone about the occult. You believe you’re some
standard of experience we all must bow down to. I do know what I’m
doing. Now give me back the dagger!” I held still. He then leapt
forward and took the dagger by the blade. His fist tightened around
it and blood from his hand poured out and splashed down onto the
floor. I looked into his eyes. He didn’t even seem to notice. I
felt his long, bony fingers wrap around my hand and dig in. My
fingers opened and I released the dagger into his waiting hand.

“The fact that you think you want this
proves I do know more than you, Jackal. You just absorbed Morgan’s
soul. She’s in you right now, like black ink swarming through your
veins. Toxic.” Jackal only smirked at me and suddenly I felt his
elbow snap across my nose. I fell to my knees. I could feel the
warmth of my blood seep down my face. Gwen screamed and ran to me.
Jackal grabbed her and held her tightly. He pushed the blade
against her cheek.

“I remember you,” Gwen didn’t make a sound.
“You’re Tyler’s sister, aren’t you? From that lovely little house
we visited.”

“You killed my brother.”

“I admit, I did deliver the final blow, but
lest we forget, it was Jake’s actions that led us all to that
moment,” Gwen began to calm. She was listening to him. “He lied to
Tyler and because of that lie, they traveled to your home and I was
forced to...Well, you were there.” My arms were shaking and my legs
felt like gelatin. I tried as best I could to stand, but a sharp
pain began to buzz in the front of my brain. I looked up and Jackal
was pressed up against Gwen, nose to nose. I could hear his voice
humming words to her. I didn’t know what he was saying but the
tears began to pour down Gwen’s face. Finally, he let her go and
she fell to the floor. He then looked over to me. The pain grew
more powerful.

“What did you do?” Jackal smiled down at me.
He walked over and took a hunk of my hair in his hand and pulled me
up.

“I just jogged Gwen’s memory. I reminded her
that it was you who cost Tyler his life. How your lies contributed
directly to his death and how she was robbed of her one and only
brother, all because of you,” Another surge of pain tore through
me. I crumpled to the floor. My breath was short and my lungs felt
like they were on fire. “It seems she’s still holding quite a bit
of anger towards you.”

“What did you do to her?”

“I just kind of hot-wired her brain. All the
resentment and anger she feels toward you over her brother’s death
will translate into physical pain for you, and since you still feel
guilt over Tyler’s death as well, there’s nothing you can do to
stop it. Outside of killing her, that is.”

“You killed my brother.” Gwen’s voice
sounded hollow and lifeless. I felt a shock of pain rip through me.
I fell back to the floor, shaking. I looked up. Gwen looked like
she was hypnotized. Jackal slinked behind her with a smug smile
across his face.

“Looks to me like she isn’t as forgiving as
she led you to believe.”

“It’s all your fault!” I looked up and she
was walking toward me, her eyes pained and red. The pain was coming
at me in waves. Just as one shock began to subside, another would
roll in. I thought I heard Jackal and his men run out of the
basement, but I could barely hear anything over the noise of anger
and rage echoing in my mind. I hit my back against the wall and
pushed myself upright. I looked up at Gwen. It looked as though it
was all hitting her at once. It was raw and unbridled. She was one,
giant raw nerve shouting out at me as she had wanted to do for so
long. I felt warm blood escaping my ears. Her mouth was moving but
I couldn’t hear. I crumpled up and just as I felt my brain was
going to explode, a calm silence came. For a moment I waited and
then I looked up. Gwen was on her knees, crying. My strength began
to come back to me and the pain was easing away. I reached for her,
but her head shook quickly.

“No!” She said sharply. “Get him.” She
pointed toward where Jackal had escaped. I nodded and bolted out of
the room.

I could hear Jackal’s footsteps just ahead
of me. I ran through a maze of corridors, following the sound of
his sick laughter. As I turned a corner, I saw him just ahead of
me. Jackal turned to me and with a ferocious look on his face, he
ran at me. I met him with my fist. I felt his chin break under my
hand. He fell back but was up quickly. He struck out at me with the
dagger. I charged at him and we tumbled to the ground. We slammed
against one of the walls and the whole room shuddered. I kept
slamming my fist onto his chest harder and harder. His fingers
clawed at me. I grabbed one of his hands and snapped it like a
twig. He howled in pain and I was able to pull the dagger from his
other hand.

“It will not be yours!” The walls began to
shake. Gwen came running in from the basement. Suddenly, there was
an explosion. The wall behind us blew apart in a ball of fire. I
looked over at Jackal. He was concentrating hard. A drop of blood
was running down from his nose. It seemed the more he thought, the
more violent the explosion.

I grabbed Gwen and together we leapt out of
a nearby window. We tumbled across the dead lawn and ran as far as
we could from the main house. It began to crackle and flame and
soon it was completely engulfed in fire. I saw a figure walking
through the raging fires. It was Jackal. Singed and crazed.
Laughing like a lunatic.

He pointed to the ground and it began to
rumble. Hands began to pop out from under the dirt. Things that
were once human were crawling out from under decades of overgrowth.
Most of them appeared to be children. Little child zombies tumbling
out of the shallow graves that were dug for them when some panicked
orphanage employee freaked out and snuffed one of them. They were
jumping up at us. We fought them back as best we could as we made
our way back to the car. It seemed for every one we knocked away
two more would come at us. Gwen was screaming. That was all I could
really hear. I picked her up and held her tight against me and as
fast as I could, I ran for the main gate. Bony hands swiped at me
and cut through my pants. I finally managed to get to the gate. I
leapt up and twisted around in mid-air and hit the gate with my
back. The chain holding it closed broke and I fell flat on the
ground. I struggled for my breath as Gwen pulled free from me. I
sat up and saw all the zombie children approaching.

“Get in the car!” I jumped up and both Gwen
and I locked ourselves in the car. The screeching noise of the
monsters scratching at the car outside was almost too much. They
began to crawl up onto the hood of the car and started pounding on
the windshield.

“Start it! Start it!” Gwen shouted. I
quickly stabbed the keys into the ignition and the car came to
life. I forced it forward and ran down a small group of zombie
kids. I managed to get the car back on the road and we sped back
toward town.

“Okay. How do we stop this?” Gwen was still
panicking.

“We have to destroy this thing!” I pulled
out the dagger. “If we destroy the dagger, we cut off Morgan’s
power in Jackal.” One of the zombies was still hanging on and hit
the windshield causing it to splinter slightly. I spun the wheel
around and tossed it off.

“You know this for a fact?”

“No, but it’s worth a shot.”

“Fine. How do we destroy it then,
genius?”

“Demonica said the dagger can only be
destroyed surrounded by where all life began. Any idea what that
means?” Another bony brat landed on the hood of the car from above.
It punched a skeletal fist through the windshield.

“Water!”

“What?”

“Water. Right? I mean, they say that’s where
all life began isn’t it? Microbes and single celled organisms. We
all grew from that. Evolution. I remember that from eighth grade
biology.” Her logic was easy to follow and I was at a loss to
disagree with her.

“Makes enough sense to me.”

“Do you have any water in here?” I always
tried to keep at least one bottle of water in the car at all times.
Just in case. I dug under the driver’s seat but only found fast
food wrappers and old wadded up parking tickets.

“Under your seat!” Gwen checked under her
seat and found a small bottle of water. It was only half full.

“Give me the dagger.” I handed it over to
her and she laid it out onto the dashboard. I looked in the
rearview mirror and saw an army of skeletal children chasing after
us and they were getting closer. Gwen then opened up the bottle and
dumped the contents onto the dagger. We sat watching for
something.

“It’s not working. Why isn’t it
working?”

“I don’t know.” I looked back at the
monsters following us. They were getting closer. I shifted the car
and peeled backward and plowed into them. A lot of bones came
popping up from under the car, but many more were climbing back up
onto the car. The little monsters were holding on with a death
grip. I shifted back into drive and shot down toward the town. We
shook most of them free by the time we made it to the main
road.

“Okay, where are we going?”

“Water. We need water.” My thoughts were
rushed. I slid into a small gas station at the end of the road. It
looked as though it hadn’t been open for years, but out of
desperation, I figured it was worth a shot. I jumped out of the car
and tried the door to the mini-mart. It was locked but a few good
pulls broke the door off. I ran in and saw that whenever it had
closed, no one had bothered to clean it out. The stench was
unbearable. There were ancient hot dogs on display near the
counter, but they looked more like pickles and the floor was sticky
with fluids that had oozed out of the pipes from the freezers.
There was nothing usable.

I walked out and as I started back to the
car, I could see the kid zombies begin to appear up the road. I
leapt into the driver’s seat and charged up the car.

“They’re coming!” I noticed a sign off the
road that indicated the local rock quarry was just a couple miles
away. I pressed down on the pedal and peeled out.

“Hold on.” I looked in the rearview mirror
and I could see black smoke rising up from the fire that was eating
the orphanage. It was collecting in the sky and growing like a
puddle of blood.

I finally came up on a small dirt road just
off the highway and turned. It took us up the side of a large hill
and before long; I could see the gate leading to the quarry ahead
of us. I pushed down on the pedal and broke through the gate. I
drove as fast as I could and stopped suddenly when I felt we were
safe.

“What are we doing here?” I snagged the
dagger and got out of the car. I looked around and I saw an old
service elevator a few yards off.

“We have to drown it! In the water!”

“I repeat, what are we doing here?” I was
already half way to the elevator. Gwen followed behind me and as
she came to the edge, she saw what I saw. The elevator descended to
the bottom of the hill where there was a sizable creek. Deep
enough, I thought, to properly drown the dagger. I hit the call
button for the elevator and it was quiet. The sound of small,
skeletal feet running along dirt began to grow louder.

“Let me check something!” Gwen then bolted
for the small shack that sat a few feet away. It was the only
structure in sight, so it was a reasonable guess that whatever
controlled the elevator, was inside. She pushed the door open and
rummaged around. I turned and saw the zombie kids getting closer.
Their bloodcurdling screams were growing louder. Suddenly, the
elevator came to life and the car below was coming up. Gwen rushed
back out to me.