J.L. Doty - Dead Among Us 01 - When Dead Ain’t Dead Enough (29 page)

The demon did cry out and shook Paul like a limp rag. Paul sensed it trying to restore the flow of the
pull
, to stop Paul from feeding on it. But Paul kept his grip on the demon’s wrists as they thrashed about the room, and he continued to force the flow of the
pull
out of the demon, flooding him with some sort of power and strength.

Blink.

Paul saw something akin to the bat-thing, but different  . . .

Blink.

 . . . with writhing snakes for arms  . . .

Blink.

 . . . and reptilian scales covering its face and torso  . . .

Blink.

 . . . maggots crawling among the razor sharp teeth of its mouth and into the nostrils at the end of its snout  . . .

The demon screamed and threw Paul across the room. Paul bounced off the wall several feet above the floor, then bounced off the floor. He should’ve broken several bones, but instead he felt strength and power flooding through him, and he could now see the true nature of the demon, a winged reptilian horror from hell.

Bullets thudded into the demon’s torso as it picked Paul up off the floor and slammed him into the ornate desk, shattering the heavy wooden piece like part of a breakable Hollywood set. It should’ve killed Paul, should’ve broken his back and every bone in his body. Instead he just felt the power within him diminish with each blow from the demon.

The demon turned away from him, did that thing where it crossed the room in a blink. The leprechauns fled out of its way as it reached down, lifted Katherine by her waist as if she weighed nothing, then turned toward the shattered French doors.

As the demon moved with blinding speed Paul ran after it, thinking his attempt to keep up with demon-bred speed would be futile. But somehow Paul crossed the room in the same blink and slammed into the demon just as it got to the shattered French doors. This time he hurt the monster, and he and the demon and Katherine sprawled out onto the patio.

Paul staggered to his feet, realized the incredible strength and speed he’d gained by reversing the flow of the demon’s
pull
had now left him. His shoulder ached with the force of the collision with the demon. He understood then that using whatever had flowed into him had consumed it, used it up like fuel for a fire. But the same must be true of the demon, because it no longer maintained the glamour of a distinguished older gentleman.

Jim’Jiminie pulled on Paul’s arm while Boo’Diddle helped Katherine. “Run,” they both screamed.

Joe Stalin stepped out onto the patio, raised his howitzer and aimed it at Paul. Suzanna and Cloe climbed all over him, unsuccessfully trying to deflect his aim as Clark Devoe stepped out behind him. Paul had one instant to wonder what the hell the gun-shop owner was doing here, then Devoe swatted Joe in the back of the head with butt of a sawed-off shotgun. Joe went down like a bag of rocks.

Not far away Paul saw Katherine’s father and the hippie woman running toward them; more crazies coming to join the let’s-kill-Paul party.

“Run!” the leprechauns screamed again.

Chapter 21: Rule the Unliving

“Come on, ye daft fool,” one of the midgets growled.

As Katherine staggered to her feet, Paul looked back at the demon. Its image flickered back and forth between the distinguished older gentlemen and the bat-thing with snake arms and maggot lips. Katherine saw the same horror and she looked at Paul, her eyes wide with terror. She screamed, “My car,” then she turned and sprinted for the gate.

Paul ran after her, limping badly, his right ankle sending sharp splinters of pain up his leg, the two leprechauns on his heels urging, “Faster! Faster!”

The run to the gate was a couple hundred feet, and Paul had slowed to an unsteady stagger by the time he got there, the leprechauns literally pushing him along. Miraculously, the gate was open. He stumbled out into the street but stopped abruptly as a tall, skinny Russian stepped into the street about ten feet away. The guy must be dangerous, and he proved that by reaching behind his back and pulling a blade the length of Paul’s arm. He advanced carefully toward Paul.

Paul back stepped slowly and the Russian advanced into the middle of the road. Paul glanced right and left, looking for some sort of a weapon, because without something this fellow was going to slice him to pieces. Then a pair of headlights about fifty feet away lit up Paul and the Russian, both standing in the middle of the road. The car roared to life, its wheels spun, spitting gravel as the car fishtailed and came their way. Paul back stepped to get out of its way, and the Russian dove into the bushes on the other side of the road as the car skidded to a stop in front of Paul. The passenger door slammed open, and Paul saw Katherine seated behind the wheel, an almost demonic look on her face as she screamed, “Get in.”

Paul leaned forward, but the leprechauns hit him from behind, launching him head first into the car. He landed with his knees in the passenger seat, the shift lever jammed painfully in his gut, and his face in Katherine’s crotch. “Not now, Conklin,” she shouted. “We can do that later.”

The leprechauns crawled into the back seat as he pulled his face out of her crotch. She looked at him, smiled, slammed the gearshift into drive, punched the accelerator and the tires squealed again as she spun a doughnut, straightened the car and rocketed down the street.

“Weeeeeee!” the midgets in the back seat shouted.

Paul glanced back toward the mansion. McGowan and the hippie and the Russians stood on the patio, and they all looked on helplessly as a black silhouette spread large wings, flapped twice, then climbed into the air.

“Aw shit!” Paul said.

It boiled with rage. The Lord-of-the-Unliving had fed on It, actually consumed a portion of Its accumulated power when It tried to feed on him. For the first time in centuries It now struggled to maintain a decent glamour, so It decided not to bother.

It climbed to Its feet, glanced at the beings standing nearby: some lesser wizards, two powerful old wizards and a powerful Druid. For a moment It considered feeding on them, but together they were a dangerous combination. No, the Lord-of-the-Unliving was weakened and still ignorant of his true powers, and the witch accompanying him was also weakened, so they’d be easier prey.

It was time to end this. It could sense the Lord in the distance, would have no difficulty following him. It spread Its wings, always a pleasurable experience, and took to the air with ease.

Colleen watched the demon rise into the air.

One of the young Russians said in a thick accent, “What the fuck was that?”

“That was a demon,” she said. “An old one, probably Secundus caste. And it’s after young Conklin.”

Karpov said, “Then we go too.”

“Ya,” McGowan said. “But don’t let the two thralls get away. Bring them too.”

“We’re in deep shit,” Paul shouted as the car careened around a corner, tires squealing in a black cloud of rubbery smoke.

“I know,” Katherine shouted back, struggling with the steering wheel. “My father thinks you’re a demon, or demon possessed, and I’ll bet Karpov does too. That’s why they’re trying to kill you. And until I can convince them otherwise, we have to keep you away from them as much as that demon.”

“That’s gonna be a problem,” he shouted. “That vamp took to the air.”

Her head snapped around and she grimaced at him. “What?”

“It’s flying,” he shouted. “Yuh know, with wings.”

Both midgets pointed through the windshield and screamed, “Look out.”

Katherine looked forward, spun the steering wheel and swerved to one side, barely missing a young man in a crosswalk. The car spun out of control, swung about and skidded backward down the street in a cloud of smoke from screaming tires, amazingly missing the cars parked on either side as it slid to a stop. Paul caught a brief glimpse of the pedestrian running away up the sidewalk.

In the silence Katherine said, “Shit! Shit! Shit! Thank god I didn’t hit him!”

The bat-vamp landed with a crushing thud on the hood of the car just outside the windshield, crumpling the hood like a potato chip. It screamed an ear splitting shriek. Katherine rammed the gearshift in reverse and slammed her foot on the gas pedal. The car shot backward, spilling the monster off the hood into the street. Paul watched it recede as Katherine kept the pedal jammed to the floor, stopping only when the back of the jaguar slammed into a parked car. The car’s antitheft system started flashing its lights and honking its horn.

Far up the street the monster climbed awkwardly to its feet, glared at them with blood-red eyes that penetrated into Paul’s soul. He sensed its hatred and malevolence and hunger on some level foreign to any past experience, and he knew it sensed him in return.

The monster started toward them, running on ungainly, clawed talons, slowly picking up speed. With the back of the jaguar smashed against a parked car they had only one hope, so Paul grabbed the gearshift, jerked it from reverse to drive, shouted at Katherine, “Ram the fucker.”

It took her a second to understand him, then she jabbed the gas pedal to the floor and the Jaguar shot forward, the engine roaring, tires screeching and spitting gravel. The car and the monster both picked up speed rapidly. With her hands clamped on the steering wheel in a death grip, her knuckles turning white, Katherine screamed, “Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit,” the midgets shouted, “Yahooooooo!” and Paul yelled, “Oh fuuccckkk!”

The front end of the car crumpled as it slammed into the vamp, the airbags fired with a series of staccato pops and the car careened to the left, slid diagonally into a parked car. In all the confusion Paul had forgotten to put on his seatbelt, but the airbag had saved him, though he had no conscious recollection of it opening. One moment they were speeding up the street playing chicken with a nightmare from hell, the next he was sitting there stunned and watching the airbag deflate. Paul guessed the dazed look on Katherine’s face mirrored his own.

The door next to Paul suddenly shot open with the shriek of ripping, tearing metal. The monster tore it away completely, tossed it aside, grabbed Paul by the throat with a reptilian hand and dragged him out into the street. Its hunger had grown into an almost palpable fog that engulfed him completely, sucking at him with ravenous need. It screamed its maggot-breath in his face, tossed him contemptuously into the air. He landed on his shoulder on the hood of a parked car, a hammer blow of pain slamming through him, bounced off it and landed on the sidewalk on the other side.

Paul struggled wearily to his hands and knees, got to his feet just as the monster crawled over the top of the car, watched in fascination as its claws ripped through the metal of the car’s hood like soft cheese. It stood up on top of the car, loomed over him, spread its leathery wings and cried out triumphantly as it lunged at him. He tried to leap to one side but it hit him like a freight train, pinning him to the ground with talons as long as his fingers.

It opened a mouth full of razor-sharp teeth and maggots, and screeched at the heavens, then lowered its head toward him. Katherine had told him not to look into its eyes, but too late its blood-red goat-slitted eyes became the center of his universe. They glowed with hunger and need, and in them he found a wasteland of death and despair, a landscape without hope or joy, and he recalled Dayandalous’ words,
Look not into the demon eye, mortal. Look through the demon eye.

Katherine watched in horror as the vampire dragged Paul out of the car. “Come on,” one of the leprechauns shouted, “Let’s go watch the fun.” They scrambled out of the car like children going to a carnival.

Her own door was pinned against a parked car so she crawled across the center console and out through the hole where the passenger door had been. She tumbled out onto the street just as her father’s car skidded to a stop, with the Russian’s two sedans screeching to a stop behind it. Her father and Colleen and the Russians all spilled out onto the street.

“This way,” the leprechauns shouted as they ran across the street and disappeared behind a row of parked cars.

Katherine rushed after them, Colleen and her father and the Russians just behind her. They found Paul on his back, the vampire crouched on top of him, the two of them looking into each other’s eyes like lovers, which meant Paul had succumbed to the vampire’s hypnotic gaze and it was consuming his soul. She turned back to Colleen and her father. “We have to do something.”

“No,” the leprechauns shouted, stepping in front of her, blocking her path.

Karpov snarled, “Kill them both.”

One of the leprechauns stepped in front of him. It was incongruous to see a little man barely knee high in a face-off with four full-grown mortals. “You’ll not interfere in this wizard.” The little man looked at McGowan. “Nor you, old man. This is his battle.”

Colleen gripped Katherine’s arm, spoke with wonder in her voice, “Look, child.”

Paul looked deep into the demon’s eyes, then looked through the demon’s eyes and found a spark of life in that blasted landscape, a tormented soul chained by centuries of misery and hopelessness. He recalled Katherine’s words, that the vampire  . . .
possesses a live mortal, feeds on its essence until there remains only a faint spark of life, leaves that spark of life untouched, which must be a forever living hell for its victim.

Paul could sense the torment in that soul, could feel it in his own soul, knew at some level it had died long ago and wanted to move on to wherever souls went when this life came to an end. For a moment he wondered if it was the same for Suzanna and Cloe, if they wanted to move on and something was keeping them from doing so. But that thought struck a sharp pain in his heart, and he put it aside. He had to deal with this soul, this spark of life the demon had trapped and tormented for centuries. And he knew he could free it, free that spark, and end its torment and captivity. And, with just a simple touch from his own soul, he did so.

Katherine looked again at Paul and the vampire. The two of them remained in a frozen tableau of what seemed like joyous communion. Both Paul and the vampire started to glow with a grayish, ethereal haze that grew brighter with each second. The glow grew slowly in intensity until it lit up the entire street, but then the vampire’s glow reached a peak and started to diminish, while Paul’s continued to grow. Paul’s glow brightened and the vampire’s continued to wane until it was almost extinguished. And then Katherine felt a soul depart the Mortal Plane.

She gasped, thinking Paul had died. But in that moment the vampire’s glow disappeared completely and it collapsed in a cloud of ash that settled down in a slow sprinkle over Paul.

Paul laid there glowing like some angel in a Hollywood movie, and both leprechauns spoke in unison, “Necromancer!”

Paul’s hands were glowing, and when he looked more closely he realized his arms too were glowing, and his chest and his stomach and legs and feet. Apparently he was glowing all over.

Every muscle, every bone, every part of him hurt. He explored his face with one hand, confirmed what he already knew, that his left cheek and the left side of his lips were badly swollen. It took an enormous effort just to sit up. Some sort of powdery ash fluttered off him as he did so. It caked his hair, encrusted the blood on his face, on his arms and legs. He crawled the few feet to a nearby parked car, propped his back against it, sat with his butt on the sidewalk, his legs sprawled out in front of him, closed his eyes and tried to rest in the silence that descended. He decided that if there was more craziness to come then let it, because he didn’t have the heart to fight any more of this madness.

He heard footsteps on the sidewalk, opened his eyes to find the old man, the hippie, the Russians, Katherine and the two midgets standing over him. The humans looked at him with eyes wide, and something approaching wonder and awe on their faces.

Boo’Diddle turned to Jim’Jiminie and said, “You were right. You won.” He held out a pouch.

Jim’Jiminie took the pouch, held it near his ear and shook it. Paul heard the sound of coins clinking as the little man said, “We both won,” and they high-fived each other.

Paul closed his eyes again and wished for Suzanna and Cloe. He sensed Suzanna sit down on the sidewalk next to him on his left, Cloe on his right.

Tough night, eh, Paulie-boy?

He thought he might’ve broken several ribs, certainly torn some ligaments in his shoulder, probably his hip and ankle too. But while the physical pain was demanding and intense, it was the hurt in his soul that wounded most.