Demon Lord 5: Silver Crown King (31 page)

“She wouldn’t.  She didn’t!”  Carefully, she set the plate of food on the table.

“Sorry, love, she did.  It’s a mother’s love, wanting what’s best for her daughter.  With me out of the way, you’d rule this land on your own, and the fey lords wouldn’t mind since you’re one of them.”

I turned to face Kellyn.  “If I were you, I’d take my people and go.”

Kellyn lifted her nose into the air, the better to look down on me.  She opened her mouth to say something stupid.  Then realized that my golden dragon family had her boxed in.  They didn’t look happy with this betrayal.  I was actually a little touched they took my side. 

Completely unexpected
.

Kellyn closed her mouth and strode away with her dignity and vital organs intact.

Izumi breathed a word full of sadness.  “Mother!”

The queen left with all her people trailing, my own forces going along to escort them out of the valley.  That left a lot fewer people to party.  In fact, it seemed like the party was over.  I took Izumi’s arm and led her across the hall, into the hallway that led us to my suite.  We moved silently until we reached the right door.  I put my hand on the latch.

Izumi stopped me with a touch on my hand.  “You know I didn’t know, right?  I’d never want to rule without you.”

She was fey; I had to believe her—now.

I smiled and told her the truth.  “I never doubted you once.”  I had in fact doubted her twice, arguing myself out of it both times.

She peered into my eyes.  “Really?”

“It’s the truth.”

She draped herself over me and hungrily sought my lips with her own.  Her tits flattened against my chest.  I gripped her ass and pinned her to my swelling cock.  In the back of my head, I heard his voice. 
At last!

She broke the kiss and murmured.  “We should probably do this inside.”

I already had the door swinging open.  I dragged her across the threshold—and into a raging battle.

THIRTY-THREE

“It isn’t the monster in the abyss that’s

the problem, but the abyss itself.”

                                 —Caine Deathwalker

Osamu had my crystal tie tucked under one arm, wielding his demon sword one-handed.  Three fey were on the floor, dead and bleeding. A table and several armchairs were crashed to the side.  A patch of two-dimensional shadow clung to one wall, a portal from elsewhere.  More warriors streamed through.  Unlike the black-clad corpses, these were Storm Court, wearing purple and yellow leathers, purple-white electrical charges dancing on the edge of their rapiers.

I am so getting tired of the politics of ambush.  I need to teach the fey a lesson they will remember for generations.

I shoved Izumi toward Osamu to give him support, and lunged to intercept the storm fey myself.  They weren’t shy in meeting me.  Snarling curses met my presence.  Swords slashed at me.  I pulled my demon sword out of thin air, and felt a wave of cold at my back as Izumi went to work.

The lightning charged blades slid along my demon sword, silver against meteoric iron.  The magic they used to strengthen their silver weapons collapsed, devoured by my sword’s demon aura.  The lightning poured into me, jazzing every nerve in my body.  I gritted my teeth against savage pain, offering a grimace of joy and bloodlust while my inner dragon drank that fire, making it his own.

My sword sheered through two rapiers, going on to slash across their owner’s faces.  The fey fell back, faces crimson, blood splattering.  Their curses died with them.  The fey warriors slumped, dead, but their souls became a screaming blue-white mist.  The red haze of light on my black steel slurped up the souls, devouring them.

My sword’s voice spiked through my head:
Ah, delicious!  More.  More!

A portion of the absorbed lifeforce kicked back into me from the hilt of the sword, taking my speed, vitality, and strength up a notch.

I brought my sword around and batted aside another rapier.  The tip of my demon blade pointed at the assassin’s face.  My inner dragon used my sword as a conduit; golden lightning leaped from the point.  The fey face exploded into vapor and fragments of bone that sprayed everywhere.  Dropping the point, I stabbed the fey’s heart, letting the blade take another soul.  Again came the backwash of energy, the sound of a soul’s scream echoing in my head.

Two more fey were just inside the shadow-portal, staring out.  Not liking what they saw, they hesitated.

I didn’t.  I flung myself at them and passed through the wall.  Wrapped in red flame, my straight katana stabbed ahead of me into the darkness, piercing another heart as I ducked a slash. 

Getting in close, I used my left hand, pressing it against a fey chest.  Still tingling with magic, my
Dragon Stomp
Tattoo did its thing.  The warrior grunted in pain, having little breath left with his heart and lungs blasted back through his backbones.  I stabbed him, letting my blade drink another soul.  It fed me power I’d probably need once I slipped out of the shadow portal, arriving on the other side.

The shadow portal fell behind me and I was tumbling across a great round hall that soared four stories around me. 
Talk about being at the bottom of the barrel
.  Black volcanic stone formed the building blocks.  Torches circled the walls, spiraling up.  As I slowed to a stop, I registered the lack of a roof, seeing a shadow-sky with a black moon rimmed by white fire.  The frozen eclipse peered down, a hidden sun that might never return. 

The floor proved slick, causing me to skid and fight for balance as a band of black-hooded magicians leaped at me with wavy, silver daggers.  Here were the ones who’d opened the portal into my room, probably the same ones who’d sent the soldiers against me in the pavilion.

My sword screamed,
Dinner!

“Hell, yes!” I said.

I used my dragon-born strength to swing my sword.  I didn’t pay much attention to what I was slicing through: wrist, knife, torso…  I just kept my sword in motion, taking a full spin.  The last two magicians went down, souls screaming as they were consumed, and I noticed two knives sticking in me.  One had entered my left shoulder, which had already taken damage.  The other knife had slid between floating ribs.  I had a lung that was deflating. 

Fortunately, there were no guards in the room, and I didn’t steps running my way.  I thought it safe to take time and deal with my injuries.  I plucked the knives out and let them fall to the floor, noticing that the shadow portal had died along with those who’d created it, leaving me stranded in enemy territory.  I felt inside the hole in my side, past coat, vest and shirt.  The torn skin was wet with blood, my life leaking away.

But I had a lot of life.  The power fed me by my sword burned in my cells.  I pulled golden magic through my body, gathering that lifeforce, drawing it to where I needed healing.  My labored breathing strengthened.  I felt warmth in the punctures as they closed.  Skin knitted and pain fled as I became fully functional again.

Hearing slow steps, I turned and saw a woman approaching.  Her eyes were black ice, her lips the blue of sorrow.  She was thin and tall with milk-colored skin that would done a vampire proud.  Her hair fanned behind her, descending from a silver crown dotted with black diamonds.  Black silk veils wrapped her body, whispering as she moved.  She carried a single black rose in her left hand, and behind her—like an evil omen—an onyx throne rose, its back like bat wings catching the winds of night.

Her sigh preceded her.  She spoke in a voice sharp as a razor, “Now you’ve gone and spoiled my fun.  I had wanted to play with you a little longer.”

My sword shrieked,
Give her to me!

My cock said,
No!  She obviously need to be fucked to death.  Really, it’s the only merciful thing to do.

Shut up!
I told them both.

My
Dragon Sight
tattoo still burned, bringing little comfort.  My magic found no weapons on her except the rose.  It registered as a
familiar
of all things.  My vision tagged her in overdrive with an ever climbing evaluation of power.  Here was one of the
Old Ones
; a fey who’d lived ages, steeping herself in dark power until she was at the verge of transitioning into something more than fey, something beyond dangerous.

I slanted a glance across the great chamber, looking for an exit. 
fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck!  No doors or windows. 

I backed away, calling on my inner dragon. 
I need your wings
.

My inner dragon stirred, looking out of my eyes at what was slowly advancing on us. 
You’re afraid of a girl?

“Just give me those fornicating wings, lizard-breath!”

Hearing me talk to myself, the Old One paused.  She tapped her chin with the black rose.  I could tell the petals were carved from obsidian.  She said, “I’m sorry, am I interrupting something?”  And then she was gone, not even a blur of motion.

I spun, somehow knowing she’d be behind me.  She was, close as death.  Her right hand caught my right wrist, taking control.  She lifted my wrist, bringing my demon sword vertical, posting it between us so it could flip-off God. 

I jerked with dragon strength, but my hand didn’t budge.  I reached with my thoughts and brought a Berretta PX4 Storm out of nowhere.  The comforting weight filled my free left hand.  I felt my shoulder blades heating with golden fire, the bone reshaping, flowing.  Calcium spurs poked out of my back, ripping shirt, vest, and coat.  Blood drizzled down my back, dampening the cloth.

The wings were on the way, but I needed to buy time.

Her gaze ignored me for the moment, sliding along my black sword.  She said, “Oh, how pretty.”  The sword’s red haze glossed her black-ice eyes, adding a little pink color to her face.  She smiled with thin, cruel lips.  White flashed, ridges of spiky bone that reminded me of piranha teeth.  She ran her rose through the red haze, twirling it up like a cotton candy vender.  The demon sword aura seemed to have no effect on her rose.  Drawing the rose to her lips, she lapped the petals and the haze that clung to them.

Her voice cut the cold air.  “I hear the screams, I feel the despair of those devoured.  Their torment is so rich!”

My sword whimpered in fear and called to me. 
Caine, help!

I held still, suppressing the pain, trying to keep her unaware of the wings forming behind me.  If she smelled blood, I hoped it would be attributed to my previous wounds.  True, I had the semi-automatic in my left hand, but I had the feeling that with the first shot, she’d break my right wrist in retaliation.  I was putting that moment off as long as possible.

My sword continued to beg. 
Caine, please…

Oh, friggin’ hell
.  I cleared my throat.  “Excuse me, but I would really prefer you didn’t damage my demon sword.  They’re hard to come by.”

“Ah, a demon sword.  I’ve heard of these, but never seen one.  It’s alive, isn’t it?  And hungry.  I feel endless hunger, bottomless thirst, but it vibrates with so many deaths.  So many souls are chained to it.”  She closed her eyes and inhaled sharply.  “The scent intoxicates.  I feel my own hunger sharpening.”

The weight of my wings was growing.  Fresh muscle and nerve tissue burned, screaming at me. 

She licked the blade with a tongue of blue-shadows that stretched out a good seven inches.  Touching the energies of the blade had no effect on her except to produce a sexual squeal of excitement.  Her grip on my right wrist tightened painfully, as a mist of silver-blue spirit energy wafted from the sword, drawn in with her breath.  Like a leach—the vampire kind that drain lifeforce—she did to my sword what my sword normally did to others.

The sword said
, Caine, don’t let her eat me!  You really want a lifeless sword?

What I want is more time, dammit.  Oh, well.

I swung my handgun’s muzzle up to her face.  “Ever seen one of these?”

She went still, eyes fixed on the weapon.  She frowned as fey instinct warned her of danger.  “Cold iron?  If your sword cannot harm me, why do you think this curious toy can?”

Curious toy?  It seems she doesn’t get out much.

I squeezed off a shot, aiming between her eyes, hoping the shock would cause her to release my sword hand.  At the moment of firing, I closed my eyes, not wanting to blind myself with the muzzle flash.  There was a hard crack of sound and red light seen through my eyelids.  I opened my eyes, my hand still captive. 

Her head was back, face turned to the sky.  Her tongue poked up like an aerial, its tip a coil.

I lowered the gun so it pointed at her stomach.

Her face came back down.  The tip of her tongue coiled around the bullet.  Her eyes blinked.  Gunpowder stippling dotted her milky flesh.  As I watched, the grains sank into skin and vanished.  Her gaze cleared.  I saw real anger from her for the first time, her face hardening into a scowling, demonic mask.  Her grip on my right wrist tightened even more. 

I felt the bones break.  If she expected a reaction, I disappointed her.  The pain my own magic regularly inflicts on me out-scaled so simple an injury. 

“That all you got, bitch?  Have some more.”  I emptied the full clip into her jerking body.  By the last shot, she released me, staggering back a few steps.  While she was off balance, I returned the gun to my armory and joined hands on the sword hilt.  I rushed in with a high, horizontal slash that I hoped would take off her head.

But my chicken-hearted sword swerved in my weakened grip.  Caught off-balance, I couldn’t keep the demon blade on track, and was wrenched into a fall, the slick floor betraying me as well.  I hit heavily.  The sword skidded out of reach, and jumped back to my armory on its own, abandoning me.

Fucking sword!  I’ll get you for this.

I warmed my
Dragon Fire
tattoo and paid the price in agony as my head exploded into what felt like smoking ruin.  As the pain retreated, I brought my hands up to throw fire at the Old One.  Only she was gone.

Not again.

My left fist ignited, becoming a fire-wrapped mace.  I used a spinning back-fist attack.  Coming around, I saw I was right, that she had blind-sided me once more.  I think this was a method she’d developed for ratchetting up fear.  What she didn’t realize was that it also made her predictable.  My flaming fist rocked her head.

She collapsed into a pool of darkness that drained away to nowhere.

I kept my body turning and caught her with a second blow as she surged up, trying to blind-side me once more.  This time, she held her ground, reaching out, seizing my coat and pulling me so my back was to her.  Her hands shifted to my newly formed dragon wings.  Her fingers dug in.  And she tore the wings off, breaking the ribbing, sheering the bone-spurs cleanly from my shoulder blades.

It hurt.  It really fuckin’ hurt.  I choked on a scream.