Demon Lord 3: Blue Star Priestess (36 page)

The rose glow pulsed erratically, mourning I guessed.  

“Look, Rosie, I’m going to need you to suck it up and get on the job.  Don’t let these light-killing sons of bitches get away with this.  Let’s track them down.”

Yes, Master.  They must pay!  We were going to get married.

I sighed in mock-sympathy and lied. 
Yeah, it’s sad, he was a hell of a guy.

“Caine!”  The Old Man’s voice caught my attention.  He pointed off toward the coast, toward the only peer anywhere near these parts.  I looked where he indicated and saw a purple beam of light spearing straight up into the sky.

I nodded grimly.  
Nothing like a bat-signal when you need one.

THIRTY-SEVEN

“You’re not a man until you can kill the thing you love.”

                                      —Caine Deathwalker

Rosie darted straight off toward the purple light, all aglow with her lust for vengeance.  I had to drive a more circular route until St. Catherine’s became
Playa Azul Road once more, and split right while a left fork led to a parking lot and the peer we wanted.  We bailed in the parking lot, going on by foot.  The sky was dimming but there were still a good forty pleasure boats and yachts out on the water.  The peer was deserted except for the very end.  There were four figures: a giant stupid-looking blue-skinned doofus that had to Lauramus, his mother, and Julia, being control by a creature her own height, but nearly three times a wide. 

“Dwarf,” Red muttered.  “Tasty snack, I think.”

The Priestess had the Cup.  The glow of purple light was spilling up from its mouth.  The sapphire in her forehead was also alive with energy.  Rosie was high in the air, circling the beam.  As we approached, she zoomed over to join us. 

You will kill the bad people now?
  She asked.

“Everyone but the little girl.  We’re here to save her,” I said.

Rose strobed a little in excitement. 
I will wait until I can help.

Red strode ahead of us, his feet thudding heavily on the peer.

Following a little slower, I said, “No, wait, it’s a trap.”  Of course, he didn’t listen.

We were half way to the end when a giant squid surfaced beside the peer and plucked Red into the air.  He was pulled off to the side, into the water.

I shrugged. 
Well, you wanted something to kill.

“Think that’s the last surprise?” I asked.

“No,” Izumi said.

Lauphram just shot me a look that said,
Are-you-kidding?

We went another ten feet and I stopped everyone.  Just like at the museum, I saw a hint of blue-violet energy on the peer, a pattern not quite attuned to this space. 
Another trap?  No, this is likely a major work of magic, probably tied to the white scroll.

Lauramus
held it.  He read quietly, his lips writhing in invocation.  There was something funny about the skin-tight material sheathing his body.  The fabric caught and played with the light, making it look like he was wearing smoke.

“I’ve got the big guy,” I said.

“I’ll take out my adoring wife and get the Cup,” Lauphram said.

Izumi shrugged.  “Then I guess the dwarf is mine.”

“Lauramus,” I called to break his focus, “what would have happened if we’d been dumb enough to step into your cloaked circle?”

He ignored me, chanting away.  The sky was darkening way too rapidly for dusk.  I looked up and saw heavy black clouds rolling in.  Purple-white lightning crawled on the underbellies of clouds.  Chopping up the water, a savage wind rose, cold as a witch’s ass at Winter Solstice.  The sea itself was rolling higher, swaying like a charmed cobra about to strike.  I’d seen this before.  Cataclysmic history was about to repeat.  Unless we the Old man and I could stop it better than last time.

Of course, last time I didn’t have my Beretta’s Storms.  I drew the guns and fired two shots from each.  There was violet flick of light over the circle.  I didn’t know where my shot went to, but they didn’t hit my target.

Okay, so no projectiles.

Izumi poured pure cold onto the peer where the unseen circle waited.  Ice formed over the concrete.  Snow danced in the air.  Lauphram pulled down a lightning strike from the clouds, appropriating the gathered storm for his own use.  The flash of light blinded us all for a moment.  Thunder chased the bolt to the peer.  Heat waved away Izumi’s cold as chunks of rock pelted us.  When everything cleared, a crater lay in front of us.  With nothing for the spell circle to be drawn upon, the magic should have closed down.

But I still saw blue-violet writing bleeding into our reality.  It hung in the air as if the peer had not been blasted away.  “It’s still there,” I told the others.  “But we’re lucky; the Cup isn’t working as expected either.”

The Priestess stared into her cup, then up into the sky.  She even touched her forehead as if the stone there might have fallen off when she wasn’t looking.

I laughed at her.  She was trying to draw souls to strengthen her power, pouring them into the cup, into herself, and back into the cup is a cycle of amplification until she achieved the state of dark goddess that she hungered for.  “Not going to happen,” I said.  I needed to be careful and not confess to creating the necromantic traps across the city that were hogging all the souls she wanted.  “The storm-fey got there ahead of you.  Death isn’t going to feed you, not this time.”

Lauphram slanted me a look rife with suspicion. 

I showed him my look of well-practiced innocence.  “Or so I’ve heard from my sources.”

The water erupted in a spout.  The squid stared with cold intelligence, its black arms doing their best to hold onto Red, now a full-sized red dragon.  Out of the water, fanning his leathery wings, he unloaded a belly-full of fire on the squid.  Together, they toppled back to the water, getting swallowed once more.

The Priestess lifted the cup toward the sky and sang out in ancient Atlantean.  Several strands of lightning rushed to embrace her.  The electrical fire dazzled the eyes a moment, before being sucked in by the Cup.  The Cup’s glow burned brighter, obscuring the vessel itself.  It was as if she held a fallen star.  Since soul magic was beyond her reach, she was charging up on storm magic instead.  At a certain point, she’d be able to brush Lauphram aside like an errant dragonfly.

I could see from his face that he knew it, too.

“Okay,” I said.   “Here’s Plan B.”  I jumped to the top of the peer’s side rail and balanced on it, one slip away from choppy water.  And I ran forward, seeing from the corner of my eye that Lauphram had copied me.

The Priestess held up a palm to deny us.  “Stop, or the child dies.”

We stopped.  I looked at the dwarf that stood behind Julia, holding her upper arms in strong, meaty hands.  Though she was half dragon, she was young, and he was all dwarf.  That meant he could control her easily.  And the eyes were especially mean.  He’d hurt her a soon as squish a bug.

Maybe bribery…?

He was a scarred, disreputable dwarf without a rhinestone to his name.  His clothes and beard were dirty.  His eyes had that yellow look you get just before your liver throws in the towel.  There were holes in his chainmail in need of fixing. 

I smiled disarmingly.  “Hey, dwarf, what are they paying you?  Is it enough to tangle with demons, dragons, and fey?”

“That won’t work,” the Priestess said.  “He’s ours, bought and paid for.”

The dwarf shot her a nasty stare, like maybe he resented being considered property.  He looked back at me and said, “What are you offering?”

Julia yelled, “Don’t give him anything, Onii-san.”  Her face was smudged with rough handling, and some of the grime had been cleaned by tears.  Her arms were bent at the elbows.  She held one hand in the other.  The central hand had a white handkerchief around the remaining fingers.  The cloth was spotted with bright red blood.  “He took my finger!”  She said I with so much rage, my half-dragon heart swelled with pride.

Impossibly, behind her hands, pressed to her stomach, she still had the stupid stuffed green dragon I’d given her last summer.  She was doing something to it, moving her hands slowly, painfully, careful that no one but me should see what she was doing. 

The sky over the island was a seething, churning mass, ripped by lightning, twisted by winds, coiling in on itself as if about to vomit twisters.  The sea beyond the peer was raging.   The pleasure boats were running for the Avalon Marina. 

Water slammed against the peer.  Cold salt spray clung to my legs and the rail, making any advance for me and Lauphram exceedingly risky.  He called out to the dwarf.  “How about a hundred thousand in cash.”

The dwarf’s eyes brightened.  “Now that’s an interesting offer.”  He looked at the Blue Star Priestess.  “Anybody care to offer more?”

Julia’s face was set, hard as flint.  Her eyes had grown calm with purpose.  She had that look a dragon gets just when it’s done playing and ready to eat its prey. 

The Priestess turned scathing eyes on him, but her voice went honey sweet.  “Now, Jorkin, you don’t want to betray me.  I’m the one who can make you a god among dwarfs.  What’s mere money when you can have near limitless power at my side?”

Who’s she kidding?  When he’s served his purpose, she’ll cut his heart out and feed it to him. 

“Mere money?” I echoed.  “You are
totally
insane.”

Julia had her injured hand clear of the toy dragon.  I saw the dragon had a zipper installed since last time I saw it.  There was a secret pocket from which she extracted the
matte black Ruger SR 22 I’d given her for hunting rats.  She relaxed the arm that held the weapon and pointed the muzzle down, and back a little.  I saw she was angling toward the dwarf’s right boot. 

I smiled at her and said, “Another inch back.”

I was swaying now in the pelting wind.  So was Lauphram.  We were balanced precariously.  The difference between us was that he was enjoying this, surfer-boy at heart that he was.  He smiled at Julia, and said, “There.  Perfect.”

She squeezed the trigger like I’d taught her, careful not to jerk.  The shots sounded petite, like firecrackers going off.  The dwarf screeched and hopped backwards on his good foot.  He grabbed the ankle of his bad foot and fell on his butt, staring.

“I’m shot!  That little bitch shot me.”

“Yeah, just like this.”  She turned and pointed the gun between his eyes, firing once more.  A small red dot appeared there.  Neat.  Clean.  There was no mess from the back of his skull since the round didn’t have enough force to punch back out.  It rattled around instead, carving up his brain from the inside.  He fell over, dead before his head hit the concrete.

Her face creased with fury, the Priestess turned toward Julia, and threw the contents of the Cup at the child.

The will-o-the-wisp ducked in and carried Julia out of line of the attack.  She fell.  Her gun went spinning into the crater under the blue-violet spell circle that was gripping the elements, flailing the sea and sky into an ever greater frenzy.  The waves out in the bay were becoming small mountains.  Instead of seeking the shelter of the deep ocean, the squid surfaced, minus a couple arms, claw marks on its face, it’s cyclops eye torn, damaged.  Red shot into the air, taking wing into the sky with a tentacle dangling.

Well, he always did like sushi.

Unfortunately for the squid, the lightning play blasted the corner of the peer and spilled out into the water.  The electrical fire seared the squid, blowing chunks of meat clean off him.  What was left, sank into the water.  Most likely dead.

Both Lauphram and I were now well enough past the spell circle to fire our weapons.  I sat on the rail, anchoring myself with my legs, and drew both Beretta PX4 Storm Compacts.  I pumped two magazines worth of 9mm rounds into Lauramus. He didn’t even flinch.  My tungsten bullets ricocheted away, one round nicking the railing by the Old Man’s leading foot. 

Lauramus
lifted his head, done with chanting, his spell complete.  He threw the scroll away like used toilet paper, and smiled widely.   “Get with the times, little brother.  Kevlar is out.  Graphene is king.”

I knew about graphene, pure carbon in the form of a very thin, nearly transparent sheet.  Just one atom thick, it had very low weight and was a hundred times stronger than steel.  Cheap as hell, the only reason I didn’t make it at home was because of how exacting and fussy the process was, a real pain in the ass. 

I’ll have to reconsider that now.

I holstered my guns, and warmed my Dragon Flame tattoo.  It felt like my head exploded, leaving little tendrils of smoke behind.  I shook off the sensation as my body burst into fire.

The queen threw herself down as if dodging fireballs.  It made no sense since I hadn’t tossed any yet.  But her plan became clear as she dipped her Cup through the crater, gathering up the residual magic from the circle. 

Julia kicked the priestess into the hole.

With nothing to bar her magic, Izumi filled in the pothole with ice.  The priestess just managed to get her head out of it as the stuff solidified.  Lauphram fell off the railing, onto the peer.  He scrambled over to, stretching out on his stomach to stare into her eyes.  She spat at him.

“Get away from me, you noisome
cretin.”

Lauramus
turned his back on his mother and me, clearly not concerned with my fire.  He stared out at the horizon.  “Have you noticed that all the water in the bay has receded into the ocean, little brother?”

Oh, fucking shit!