Forfeit Souls (The Ennead Book 1) (24 page)

“I don’t need the competition.” He said as he swiped at me with a claw-like hand. “The rest of Gallu’s followers are volatile enough. I can’t imagine the chaos and destruction a female Asakku would cause. Human females are destructive enough as it is.”

“And you don’t want chaos or destruction?” I asked, knowing he would lie.

“No, I do my best to keep them in line. Chaos and destruction are why my kind do not live long. Do you think I’ve survived a thousand years by doing exactly what every other Asakku has done? No. I have survived because I am smart enough to know that chaos and destruction get you killed. I choose my battles.”

“Well then, you chose poorly today,” I said as I thrust a gale that hurled him toward the spinning wall again.

He hit it twice in his ricocheting before he landed on the floor again. Picking himself up from his prostrate position, he looked at me and snarled.  He burst into flame and came toward me again. I blew at him, dousing his flames and rolling my eyes as I stepped out of the way of his charge.

He produced a rain of fiery brimstone that fell to the floor about me, but I produced a shield of air over my head that kept the bowling ball-size rocks from pelting me. The pyroclastic atmosphere around me was not doing the damage he expected and he snarled more ferociously than before, and thrust a ball of flame toward me.

I held out my hand and caught the speeding projectile, snuffing it with a twist of my hand.

“What the…?” he looked at me with murder in his eyes. “What sort of trickery is this?”

He lit up again and I put him out. “There is no trickery,” I assured him, “simply your misunderstanding of what your bite does.” He looked at me with great concern in his eyes and I let the vortex drop.

I saw Ryan, Carlo, Mike and the cobra’s jaws drop. Gallu and Sasha both looked furious. They had all assumed that killing me would be a cake-walk for their beloved Jack.

“She’s tricked us,” Hephaestus called back to them, “she’s not a Lilitu. She’s something else.”

I smiled as though the last statement was a compliment. “Your misguided assumptions cannot be called my trickery. I never said I was a Lilitu.”

“But you, you live in the company of Lilith and the Lilitu.” Ryan stammered, his left eye bulging with is hate-filled confusion.

“What are you?” Sasha demanded, and I looked up at Gallu. Her eyes were narrowed in confused rage.

“I am something more,” I said, not removing my eyes from their leader. “I am neither Lilitu, Asakku, Naiadu or Utukku.” I looked to the five that surrounded me now, my eyes lingering on Hephaestus the longest. “I am your worst nightmare.” I returned my gaze to Gallu.

Carlo was shaking, he was so angry and I winked at him, provoking his attack. He took two steps toward me before he was flung backward, making a dent in the gold plated wall. My eyes never moved from Gallu. “If you let Paul go now, I will let your six minions live, for now.” I held my hand up toward her as though she would fulfill my request by placing Paul in the palm of my hand.

As I said it all six began to converge on me, and I turned my hand over. A pulse radiated out from me like a giant ripple of air sending all five of the beastly Asakku back toward the gilt walls, the dents now totaled six. They came at me again; half at first, thrown back by my pulse and the other three dove at me from their separate directions.

I vaporized as I stepped forward, only barely hearing their hard heads clunk together. Gallu was still staring at me, unwilling to give in. I shook my head at her and waited for them to charge me again. I pushed four of them back but allowed Jack to get to me.

As he rushed toward me I grabbed him by the throat. I pushed my freehand down and the portion of the floor that held the medallion rose upward. It was level with Gallu’s throne when it stopped.

“I will spare their lives. All you have to do is let him go.” I stared into her unblinking eyes and waited. Her jaw unclenched for a moment, as though she was about to say something, but it went tight again before she forfeited pardoning her hoard.

I looked into the red eyes of the demon that had killed me. “You can go to Hell,” I said as I took my free hand and shoved it into his chest. “It’s where you belong.” I pulled my hand from the hole that I had formed in his chest. It held the black flame that had once occupied the space where his heart had been when he was living. I clasped my hand into a fist, extinguishing the flame and Hephaestus went limp in my hand, his head changing back to its human form before he burnt up in a quick burst of flame.

I heard the simultaneous howl, hiss and screech as three bodies flew toward me. I raised a finger counting “one.” Mike fell to the ground. “Two.” The cobra fell as well. “Three.” Carlo made it a trifecta.

I looked down at them, lying on top of each other all looking up to the flames that I had pulled from them with barely a thought. They were hovering in the air where they just were, now with a small drop of water poised over each one. I smiled down at the murderers who would now meet their maker, and I closed my fist, dropping each finger one at a time. The drops of water waited patiently for their turns before extinguishing what was left of the three Asakku. They were now nothing more than piles of ash.

I looked to where Sasha had been, but he was no longer there, Ryan too had disappeared. I heard the click of a door shutting and looked to Gallu’s throne. All three had vanished.

Paul and I were alone in the once golden room that looked quite different now than it had when I’d first entered. Perhaps the most startling of the new additions was the column of earth that I stood on; it far overshadowed the dented walls and the large black scorch mark on the floor.

I looked down to where my friend was imprisoned.

Paul

As I re-formed next to him, I reached for the black chains that restrained him but they only coiled more tightly around him.

“I can’t free you on my own,” I said. I heard the thickness in my voice as I fought back the welling despair that threatened to flow forth at any moment. “I’m going to go get Lilith. Don’t move,” I said the last part with as much humor as I could muster.

Defeating four of Gallu’s Asakku warriors was not enough, by itself, to satisfy me now. Paul’s freedom was necessary to complete that picture.

-Paul-

“Ellie,” I managed to rasp out. “You were right. It was stupid of me to think that I could survive on my own.”

“Shut up you big lug. I’ll be right back.” She smiled at me, and her hope gave me hope.

I watched as she ran from the room, dissolving into the air of the corridor. I couldn’t move or speak anymore, but I was immensely grateful for Ellie. And, if I was truly being honest, I would have to admit that I was now ridiculously afraid of her. Nothing of what I had been taught about the wind demons could have prepared me for what I had witnessed from her.

I let my head slump forward. The chains that wrapped around me seemed to be pulling all of their strength from me, I could feel them leaching the strength from my muscles, as though it was liquid and I was being drained.

I hoped desperately that Ellie would come back for me, that she would have a way to free me from these chains, but that hope was not well founded.

“Touching, isn’t it?” Gallu’s voice came from above me. “She thinks she’s going to have time to save you. How distraught she will be when she returns to find that she’s wrong.”

I looked up, leaning my head against the platform I was chained to. Gallu was looking down on me, her sandaled foot tapping on the ledge.

“What do you want, witch?” I asked, though the words came out much weaker than I was expecting. “Have you come to finish me off? Some benevolent spirit you are,” I coughed out.

“I’ll only kill you if you make me,” she said with a small pout. “I’ve come to offer you an alternative.”

I lost sight of her for a moment and assumed that she was descending the stairs. I pulled my head back down so that I was facing forward and found myself nose to beak with Ryan’s falcon face.

He cocked his feathered head to the side and stared at me with his glowing grey eyes. I could see Sasha tensed behind him and I was leery of what was about to happen. I had never fought Ryan before, so I didn’t know who would win in a fight between us, even if I was miraculously free of my bonds and no longer felt the debilitating weakness as the black chains sapped all of the energy from my body. They would no doubt gang up on me. Demons don’t fight fair.

“She will come back for you, but what then?” I heard Gallu ask from behind him. “What do you think you will do? The wind demons won’t take you. They will see your flame snuffed sooner than offer you a place at their table.”

“I’ll take my chances,” I said spitefully as I stared at the falcon. Lilith wouldn’t take back her offer now, would she? “I would rather be destroyed than become a monster.”

“Tisk, tisk!” she said, clicking her tongue against her teeth. “We are not monsters, we serve our purpose in the order of the world.”

“You are the worst kind of monster!” I growled at her. “You have no remorse, no conscience. You are a killer of those who are weaker than yourself, and you do it for sport!”

“Like it or not, you are one of us,” she hissed. “Back away, Ryan.” The falcon backed away, but his stance told me that he had in no way lessened his readiness to tear me apart, and his jaguar companion stood back as reinforcement.

Gallu approached me now, looking ever more snake-like. “If you beat Ryan, I will let you live. If you do not, I will let him claim your soul.” As she said this she waived her hand and the black chains that had held me disappeared into the air.

I stood there for a moment gauging my ability to stand. It was not so difficult as I imagined it might have been, in fact, my strength was quite readily returning to me now. I stood there for a moment, staring at Gallu, but maintaining Ryan in my peripheral vision. He was easy to keep track of because of his eyes. He was waiting patiently for Gallu’s signal. His face should have taken the form of a dog instead of the bird of prey.

The chains had made me feel as though I had spent months without food or sleep, which I had, but I was dead now and needed neither food nor sleep. The chains had, in reality, made me feel human again. Regardless of what I needed, it felt like I hadn’t gotten it. But the strength I had become accustomed to began returning to my muscles as though it were being forced by an I.V. drip into my system.

“Do you understand?” Gallu looked at me condescendingly, as though I was no longer in control of my mental faculties.

I just nodded to her; I wouldn’t waste my energy on her when Ryan was who I needed to worry about.

“Good. You may begin when ready,” she said, and with a flick of her wrist she sent the plated doors swinging closed as she began to walk back up the stairs.

Her words may have been directed at me, but Ryan seemed to take them as though they were meant for him, and he came at me in a blaze of ruffled feathers. I pivoted as quickly as I could to get out of his way, and drove my foot backwards, kicking him squarely in the side of his ribs. He flew toward the far wall, but I ran toward him, hoping to get to him before his could find his footing. This was a fight for my existence and I would take any advantage I was given.

Unfortunately, I reached him a little too late and I felt his hard head as it impacted with my abdomen. The force of his attack threw me backward, but I used my feet to push him up and over my head, throwing him into the air as I returned to my feet, ready for his next move.

What he did next seemed strange to me. He set himself a blaze, something that would not harm me in the least, and stood waiting.  I didn’t move, I stood amidst the already decimated room and waited just as he was. I would not make the first move.

Not knowing Ryan’s strengths and weaknesses was one of the worst possible outcomes of his hermit-like existence for the entirety of my time in the basement. I couldn’t be sure that he wasn’t finding a way to outsmart me, or if he was secure enough in his strength that he was just waiting to get his talons around me.

He let out a deafening screech and ran toward me, once again I stepped out of his path, but he altered it to compensate and I was suddenly pressed up against the wall.

“You have no idea the kind of trouble you’ve caused,” he screeched at me. “There is no reason that you should be allowed to exist.”

He pulled my arm out of its socket as he said it, but I kicked him off, wrenching my arm back into joint as I rushed to where he was laying prostrate on the floor. I stood on his shoulder and pulled his neck back. There was a tearing sound as I heard the skin beginning to separate, and then my other foot was pulled out from under me and I lost my grip as I started to fall backwards. I heard the metallic floor plate twang as my head hit the ground, I knew there would be a dent, but I didn’t have time to observe the damage.

Ryan was on his feet again, his hands clenching in fists at his sides. I could see the area on the right side of his neck where the feathers gave way to the distended skin that was left over from my attempt to rip his head off. It would heal in a few days, but he wouldn’t be happy about it now.

I saw Gallu lounging in her chair again, sitting there with a bored expression on her face, as though there was nothing even remotely exciting occurring beneath her.

“I spent years of my life mourning the loss of my family, of my brother’s defection to the Lilitu. You’re attempted defection makes you worthy of death, just as his defection makes him worthy of his when I defeat him.” Ryan was a bit too verbose for my liking.

“Shut-up and fight me, you baby,” I said as I threw a piece of rubble at him. I watched it whiz past his head as he snapped his beak shut angrily.

As far as I could tell, we were almost as well matched as Sasha and I had been. But if I was being honest, Ryan was the stronger of us, and at this moment he seemed to be just as calculating as I was. This was not a fight I was sure I would win.

Ryan ran toward me again, his arms stretched forward in what looked like an attempt to grab hold of my throat when he got close enough. I stood there, motionless, until he was almost on me. Then I dropped to my knees, slamming my shoulder into his kneecaps. I felt him fly over my shoulder and herd the metallic, gong-like clang as his head hit the floor.

I rushed to him, pinning his arms behind his back and taking hold of his head once more.

“Do you yield?” I growled at him.

“He yields.” Gallu said from atop her platform. “I must admit, I didn’t expect you to stand a chance.” She said as she began to walk down the stairs toward us.

I didn’t let go of Ryan’s head, or hands, as she descended the stairs again. I would not trust her again.

“Ryan wasn’t the strongest of my guard, but I didn’t think you would ever be able to beat him.” She sighed slightly as she stopped several feet from me.

“I won, I live.” I snarled at her.

“Of course,” she said holding her hands out palms up. “I wouldn’t think of changing our deal, simply because my beast lost.”

I should have been able to relax now, but the fire in her eyes was not diminished as I would have expected. It was brighter now, and it flickered malevolently. There was something that I hadn’t taken into account, some loophole she was going to use.

“You’ll let me go?” I asked. I suddenly wasn’t so sure of my fate.

“I never said that.” Her lips turned up in a cruel smile, and Ryan began to laugh in a cackle.

I suddenly realized that I was in a great deal more trouble that I had anticipated. I couldn’t escape; the door was much too far away. Ryan wouldn’t buy me any safety. She would, no doubt, have little problem killing him to get to me, so using him as a shield would do me little good.

I was alone here, with no way out. Like a bird trapped in a gilded cage, my only escape was to kill my keeper. Something that I knew was impossible.

Gallu stood before me in her haughty and regal state, completely sure of the outcome ahead of her. I looked at the demon I had once thought unerringly beautiful and now saw her for the hag she was, no superficial beauty could hide the blackness of her spirit. She was evil to her core.

“Come now, Paul,” Gallu said as she took a step toward me, gliding as though she was on air. “I have a greater use for you; I cannot let you go.” Her evil smile widened. “You have won your life. Not your freedom.”

“I have no life to win,” I retorted, frantically searching for a way out of this mess, but there was none. All exits were out of reach. There was no escaping her. I could only hope that Ellie would return in time.

Gallu did not seem to care about time, she didn’t think that Ellie would come, or she wasn’t worried about her early return. “You may not consider this a life, but it is one.” Her smile softened. “I think you should give the Asakku way of life another chance.”

“The Asakku are murderers. They are leeches who steal the lives of innocent people. The Asakku don’t have a way of life. They have a way of death.” I practically spat the words at her. “I will never willingly be your pawn.”

“If that is your decision, then so be it.” She closed her eyes and the entire room started to hum. Ryan and Sasha beat a hasty retreat, vanishing behind Gallu’s throne. What was about to happen to me?

The bronze plates on the floor reverberated with the hum; the small pieces of rubble shook and skittered across the floor. I expected the roof to cave in on us at any moment. What I was experiencing seemed very much like an earthquake. But there was no collapse.

The room filled with a bright, red light. And then there was nothing.