Minor Demons (8 page)

“General Cain. He made my position as your bodyguard official, which means you’ll need to find a new helper monkey to polish your armor.”

Shadow smiled.

“Fair enough. Do you want the good news first or the bad news?”

“Let’s go with the bad first.”

“Venom held your ranking and froze your place in the death match at my uncle’s request. That means the next three matches are all you, you have to play catch up. Venom is going to make you fight three demons-in-training in a row. It’s probably a ploy to get you killed off.”

“The good news?”

“Wait, you don’t seem very alarmed. You’re alright with three one on one death matches in a row?”

“You uncle told me what the prize is if I make it to the semi-finals.”

“You gonna clue me in?”

“You’ll see when I make it there. What’s the good news?”

“No one was counting on your new armor and modified weapons. Your first two opponents are cake. You only have to worry about the last one... mainly because he’s decently skilled and you’ll be exhausted. That’ll be it for the day. Most of the demons-in-training didn’t have decent enough times in the labyrinth to get them through to the death pits. The semi-finals are tomorrow.”

“So you know my last opponent?”

“Yes. Andras. I haven’t trained much with him but I’ve heard that he’s a wolf conjurer. You know how to kill conjurers, right?”

“Nope. How?”

“Kill them before they conjure shit.”

Leech laughed.

“Sounds good. I’ll kill him before he conjures shit.”

Venom looked over at the two of them and motioned for Leech to enter the death pit.

Leech’s first fight was over quickly. He pulled his daggers from his belt and threw them at his opponent. His opponent blocked both with his shield and then prepared to launch an attack of his own. Leech had used the time to cover the distance between them and was able to sink his axe into his opponent’s stomach before he could launch a counterattack. Leech removed his axe and hit him with the butt of the weapon to knock him over. Leech then attached his axe to his back, retrieved his daggers, and placed the daggers like a pair of scissors over his opponent’s neck. He moved his daggers in opposite directions and cut off his opponent’s head.

Leech was about to leave the death pit when he was hit hard from behind and fell over. He saw a rock on the ground next to his head. Leech rolled to his right and kicked hard at his new opponent’s knee. Apparently he wasn’t even going to get a short break in between matches.

Leech ran for cover behind one of the rocks jutting out of the floor of the death pit. His opponent followed and swung his sword at Leech’s head. Leech ducked and guided the blade into the rock, where it stuck. Leech would have loved to have ended the fight right there but he needed to catch his breath and he didn’t want to start his third match winded. He hit his opponent with two quick punches to the face, directly in the eyes, and then he ran to hide behind another rock. He was able to recover while his opponent regained his sight and struggled to pull his sword out of the rock.

His opponent stealthily walked in and out of the spiked rocks. When he passed by the rock that Leech was hiding behind, Leech jumped out behind him, pulled back his head, and stabbed him several times in the neck. A black blood-like liquid squirted out of his neck like a water fountain. Leech laid down on the floor of the death pit, hidden by the layer of fog, and waited for his third opponent to appear.

A
ndras, Leech’s third and final opponent of the day, looked like the conjurer that Shadow had described. He carried nothing but a simple staff and, unlike the other demons-in-training, he didn’t have a set of armor or weapons. His face was mostly masked in a shawl and his robes seemed to be glowing a shade of red that Leech was unused to seeing, even in Hell. Several wolf pelts hung from his belt and two were slung over his shoulders. He began chanting the second that he entered the death pit and Leech decided to take Shadow’s advice and end it quickly.

Leech sprinted at Andras and tried to keep inside the cover of fog. While Leech was smaller than most demons, he wasn’t small enough to entirely hide himself in the mist. Andras saw him approaching and turned to face him. As Andras adjusted his stance, Leech jumped into the air and came down with what he hoped would be a fatal strike to Andras’ face. His battleaxe was instead caught in the mouth of a creature that emerged from Andras’ chest. Leech hadn’t been quick enough and Andras was able to summon the wolves that Shadow had warned him about. As Andras backed up, the wolf leaped from his chest and emerged in full form, with Leech’s axe still clenched in its jaw.

Leech lifted his axe into the air with the wolf still attached and brought it down as hard as he could on the ground. The wolf vanished in a flash of black smoke. Another black wolf jumped through the smoke and knocked Leech down on the ground. Leech was barely able to get the shaft of his axe up to block the wolf’s bite that was aimed at his neck. The wolf continued to bite but with Leech’s axe stuck at the back of its jaw, it was still a few inches away from sinking its teeth in.

Leech was finally able to shake the wolf off him, but it carried his axe away. Another wolf lunged at him, but Leech grabbed both daggers from his belt and stabbed upwards. His short blades entered at the back of its jaw and came out through its eyes before it vanished in black smoke. The onslaught didn’t stop. Another two wolves jumped at him from both sides. Leech took a step back and slammed their heads together and both vanished.

For a moment, the continuous attacks stopped. It wasn’t quiet, Leech could still hear wolves circling and growling. He knew he needed to find Andras to end this. Killing puppets doesn’t earn you the head of the puppeteer. Leech ran to the edge of the death pit and sunk both of his daggers into the rock. He climbed slowly until he figured that he had enough height to see everything and then he jumped, spun around, and grabbed the daggers again so he could see everything in the death pit.

It took Leech about a minute to spot Andras. He was riding one of the wolves he had conjured and he was wielding Leech’s axe. Dozens of wolves paced in between Leech and where Andras was. Leech saw only one possible way to get from where he was to where he needed to be. He set his feet against the rock wall and pushed off with as much force as he could produce. As he sailed through the air, he realized that he was going to come up short of his intended target. He looked for a place to land and roll but wolves were swarming the floor. Right before he hit the ground, he impaled the two wolves that were prepared to lunge at him and then rolled as he hit the ground. His daggers flew from his hands as he rolled. Andras was there when he finally came to a stop. He swung the axe with a smile, sure that he had won the fight. Leech caught the incoming swing by grabbing the axe and then using the force of the swing to throw Andras off of the wolf he was riding. As Leech approached the now fleeing Andras, slaying wolves on the way with his newly returned axe, Andras crawled to get away. He used his hands to call several wolves to him for protection but Leech continued to cut them down. As Leech brought up his axe to finish off Andras, Andras called out, “I quit” and vanished with his wolves from the death pit.

Leech dropped his axe and fell on his knees. He could hear the crowd applauding and making noise, but he was too exhausted to care. After a few seconds on his knees, he fell over and blacked out.

––––––––

W
hen Leech woke up, he found that he was sitting with his back propped up against a large rock. His weapons were reattached to his belt and back and Shadow was pacing in front of him. He looked angry. Leech grinned up at him.

“Not bad, right? I took down three in a row with crazy amounts of style.”

“You fell off of a wall and almost got killed several times. What kind of style do you think that is? Is dumbassery a style now?”

“Hey, calm down. I made it.”

“I don’t know if you’ll be so lucky tomorrow. When were you planning on telling me?”

“Telling you what?”

“They announced the semi-final matches. I’m going up against Lilith. I’m guessing you know who you’ll be facing. That’s what you refused to tell me earlier.”

“It’s Nightmare. You’re uncle told me when he gave me this sweet armor.”

“I’m sorry, Leech, but you’re delusional if you think you can beat Nightmare. You’re leg looks like shit after you got stabbed and then jumped off of the side of the death pit. You passed out again for a good reason. What’s that now... the third time you’ve fainted since I’ve met you?”

“Demons faint a lot when they use dumbass style.”

Shadow cracked a smile but immediately returned to his serious facial expression.

“You’re going to quit right after you enter. Nightmare will seriously fuck you up if you limp in there and try to fight.”

“Your uncle gives better pep talks than you do, Shady.”

“This isn’t a joke, Leech. When Venom begins the match, forget your pride and quit.”

“General Cain thinks I have a shot.”

“General Cain wants you to do as much damage as you can to soften him up for me in the finals. That’s his real plan. He doesn’t think you have a shot. What did he try to buy you with? The armor? The modified weapons?”

Shadow stopped and then looked as if something had just occurred to him.

“It was your father’s promotion. That’s what he promised you, wasn’t it?”

“It’s none of your business. Don’t act like you have it all figured out. He told me that I have a shot and he gave me the tools to make it. Why don’t we skip the bullshit and get to your real motive here?”

“Why don’t you fill me in on what you think that is? I’m pretty sure I was direct enough so I’m not sure how you see any hidden agenda.”

“You think if Cain gives both of us the same shot, you’ll lose in the finals. You’ll take down Lilith, I’ll take down Nightmare, and then I’ll defeat you. That’s what you’re worried about, isn’t it?”

“Leech... you’re being...”

“A dumbass? Well why don’t you watch tomorrow as this dumbass kills Nightmare and then go ahead and shit yourself as you become my next target.”

Leech propped himself up and limped away. Shadow stood there shocked and didn’t follow him.

––––––––

L
eech has a difficult time sleeping that night. Every time he closed his eyes and drifted off, visions of Nightmare murdering him would scare him back to consciousness. Within a couple of hours of attempted sleep, Nightmare had decapitated him, slit his throat, impaled him through the stomach, crushed him under a rock, and attached his limbs to four horses and had him pulled apart. Leech woke up from the last one laughing. There was no way Nightmare could get four horses down into the death pit. Leech tried to go back to sleep once again but he saw Nightmare staring at him as soon as he closed his eyes.

Leech was once again jealous of Shadow. If everyone in the semi-finals was dreaming of their opponent, Shadow was probably having some pretty kinky dreams right now about Lilith. As he thought about it more, he felt bad for Shadow. His fight with Nightmare tomorrow was pretty straightforward; the best fighter would win with luck possibly playing a very small role. Shadow was going up against a demoness that could control almost every demon that looked at her. Leech had noticed that even Shadow wasn’t completely immune. Even considering how stuck up and prideful Shadow could be at times, Leech didn’t want him to look like a fool in front of everyone.

Leech knew that he needed to rest before tomorrow and that meant that he couldn’t have anymore sleep wasted by scenes of Nightmare killing him. He could only think of one solution. He sat up in bed, took in a deep breath, and hit himself in his injured leg as hard as he could. He passed out and didn’t dream the rest of the night.

––––––––

S
hadow paced back and forth in his room for an hour and nothing came to him. He knew Lilith could control pretty much anyone she fought through pure lust. He had been avoiding her gaze ever since he first saw her, which had become increasingly difficult since the semi-finals were announced. Ever since she found out that she would be facing Shadow, she had gone way out of her way to stray into his field of vision.

Shadow’s only solution so far had been the trick he used when he faced Valefor. He could close his eyes and then use the mist as his eyes. That brought several problems with it though that Shadow couldn’t get around. What if he saw Lilith through the mist and it had the same effect on him? He also assumed Lilith would be launching an all-out offensive assault from the beginning instead of running away with his sword like Valefor had. He needed to see in order to counter-attack.

He looked through his gear and was drawn to his angel’s short blade. This weapon had, on occasion, sparked ideas that he may have never considered otherwise. Shadow grabbed the blade and held it with both hands. He crossed his legs on the floor and meditated, hoping to come up with the idea he needed. His entire battle strategy came to him within five minutes. He put down his short blade and thought it over with his mind no longer encumbered by angelic light and knowledge. It would definitely work, he just needed to be careful or he might actually start to look like he had joined with the angels. Once he was convinced that it was the only way past Lilith in the semi-finals, he put his gear back in his armory and went to sleep.

I
t was rare that Shadow felt any amount of nervousness, but he definitely felt some when he woke up the next morning. Since the angel’s blade had balanced out his rage before, he was planning on using the same idea to keep himself from jumping Lilith and attempting to hump her brains out. The short blade had given him the idea. The problem was that if he held the angel’s blade for too long, his eyes would start to glow white like the angels. He couldn’t afford to be caught using angel’s weapons for any reason. If the Dragon found out, he would be branded a traitor and banished to the spot right next to his father. If he could resist her charms, he had the perfect finishing move to finish her off quickly.