The Dark Storm (36 page)

“Am I dead?” Julius asked. He had heard stories of the ferryman and his ghost ship.

“You almost were. I sent my shades to retrieve you just before your last breaths,” Ezrah told him.

“So you’ve rescued me to be a part of your pirate crew?” Julius asked.

Ezrah regarded him. “Only those who died as members of this crew may have the run of my ship. I have other uses for you, mage.”

Julius’ face went slack at the mention of his true nature. Since he had first come to the order his lineage had been a secret to all but Brothers Angelo and David. “Then if not service, what do you want from me?”

Ezrah cast his ghostly eyes on Julius. “The chance to be flesh again.”

The first thing Lucy noticed was that her head felt like it was going to explode. As painful as it was, she was grateful for it. If she could feel the headache, then that meant she wasn’t dead, but from the smell of wherever she was it may as well have been a grave. The last thing Lucy remembered was the horrible expression on Sulin’s face before somebody knocked the snot out of her. Lucy had always imagined that it would be her who fell to a violent death, but not Sulin. She would have her revenge against who- or whatever had killed Sulin, but first Lucy had to figure out where the hell she was.

Slowly she raised her head and took stock of her surroundings. The enclosure smelled heavily of animal musk and feces, like a barn or zoo. All around her were cold steel bars that glowed faintly. Upon closer inspection she could see the faint runes etched into them. She tried to work a spell, but as she expected, nothing happened.

Whoever had built the cage obviously knew something of magic. Lucy tried to call to Tiki with her mind but got nothing. At first she feared the worst but she’d have felt if he were dead. He had to be badly ruined, but the cage kept her from detecting how bad.

“Out of the frying pan and into the fire,” Lucy thought aloud.

“Very well put,” a voice said behind her.

Lucy spun around and found that she wasn’t alone. In the far corner of the cage there was a silver-haired old man. He was a mess of cuts and bruises, but from the way her body ached she imagined she looked pretty much the same.

“Who are you and where the hell are we?” Lucy approached the old man.

“My name is Redfeather and we are prisoners of the goblins. They brought us here after they destroyed Sanctuary.” Redfeather struggled to his feet.

“Destroyed?” Lucy sounded shocked.

Redfeather nodded. “I’m afraid so. The Dark Order intends to make slaves out of humanity.”

“Sorry, I’m not real big on manual labor. I think I’ll pass on becoming a goblin slave.” To Lucy’s surprise, Redfeather laughed at her. “And what the hell is so funny?”

“The goblins do not take prisoners, dear child. That would be far too merciful for that lot.”

“Then what do they plan to do with us?” Lucy asked worriedly. There was an inhuman scream somewhere at the other end of the corridor, followed by the smell of burning flesh.

Redfeather looked at her sadly. “They intend to eat us.”

Read on for an excerpt from Kris Greene’s next book

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“Redfeather, are you still with us?” Asha snapped him out of his daze. He had been sitting completely motionless for the last ten minutes and it unnerved her.

Gabriel blinked and looked around as if he was seeing the faces surrounding him for the first time. “Yeah, I’m good,” he lied. He had been receiving images from the Nimrod ever since he’d come into possession of it, but they were usually through the eyes of the Bishop. What he’d just seen was different. Even before he heard the dark-haired man speak, he knew who he was. The question was, why was he seeing it?

The fuel light on the dashboard blinked, but they dared not stop until they were out of Manhattan or the sun had fully risen. It was sheer luck that they had survived the initial onslaught of the dark forces, and in their present condition, not even luck would save them from a second attack. The stretched Hummer drew more than the occasional glance as it rumbled down the
FDR
en route to the Queens Borough Bridge. It wasn’t every day that you saw a modified Hummer with a religious emblem etched into the hood and doors. The cross sat in the center of three rings, which represented man, demon, and spirit. The ancient symbol once struck fear into the hearts of the enemies of
the order, but that morning it served as a grim reminder of all that had been lost.

Each passenger’s face bore a different expression, but their eyes all held the same weariness. In what felt like the blink of an eye, several totally different people from different walks of life had found themselves thrown together by one common object: the Nimrod. The Nimrod was a thing of pure magic which was neither good nor evil and empowered by the imprisoned spirit of a man known as the Bishop. During the Seven Day Siege, it was the Bishop whom the Nimrod had called master. It was the warped love affair between wielder and weapon that had kept the Bishop from passing into the afterlife when his comrade Titus slew him. The Bishop’s displaced soul lay nestled in the bosom of the thing he had loved most in life, waiting for the moment he would have his revenge on the betrayer and lead his Knights once again. With the Nimrod and a willing vessel, the Bishop would be able to breach the planes of flesh and spirit. And it was through Gabriel that he sought to accomplish this. But one thing none of them had counted on was the strength of Gabriel’s will.

With his tattered clothes and mussed hair, you’d have hardly taken Gabriel as someone who a few hours prior had been living a bland life. He was a bookish-looking young man whose biggest thrills came from deciphering ancient languages and Thursday night Chess Club. He and his grandfather had lived a quiet life in a brownstone in Harlem until the day he met De Mona Sanchez and lost everything he had, including his free will. To everyone’s, especially Gabriel’s, surprise, the Nimrod responded to his touch and stirred the spirit within it. The Nimrod had bound itself to his flesh while the Bishop invaded his heart, constantly threatening to corrupt him. For the most part, Gabriel was still in control, but there was no denying
the strength in the Bishop’s words. He looked over at De Mona and cursed her for the hundredth time for coming into his life.

De Mona rested her head against the window and stared out aimlessly at the pinkish sky. The bubble-gum effect of the increasing light playing on the clouds took her back to when her mother and father would buy her cotton candy at the carnival. That was before she’d found out that she was the real freak. De Mona walked in two worlds, those of men and demons. Her father had been a retired professor turned antique dealer who fell head over heels for a demon. Her mother Mercy was a Valkrin, a race of demons whose sole purpose was to wage war. Next to the goblins, the Valkrin were the most feared creatures in service to the dark lord, but that all changed shortly before De Mona was born.

Mercy had been the first of the Valkrin to cross over to the light and she wasn’t the last. Soon others came seeking peace from the war which had been raging since the beginning of time. And they found that peace within the walls of Sanctuary, but it wasn’t to last. Not long before the anointed weapons began resurfacing, the Valkrin and some of the others began disappearing. No one knew what caused the withdrawal, but when a Valkrin was connected with the mass murder of a missionary village in Guam, the reason had become clear. The dark lord had put out the call to arms and the Valkrin had answered.

De Mona ran her fingers through her hair and winced when she nicked her scalp. She held her hands in front of her face, almost expecting to see the smooth knuckles and frail digits she’d known for the first eleven years of her life, but she didn’t. She hadn’t called the change, but her hands were deformed. Her fingers were gnarled and about a half inch too long, with spear-like nails hanging from the ends. She tried to force the change back, but the best
she could do was smooth out the skin over her talons. Since coming in contact with the Nimrod, she had been having difficulty controlling her changes. It was as if the beast inside her was becoming stronger and she didn’t like it.

What felt like a soft whisper of wind touched her cheek and she immediately knew what it was … magic. She turned her hooded eyes towards the rear of the transport where the mage and the witch sat whispering with each other. Occasionally they would look over at De Mona, but neither of them would hold her gaze. For this she was glad because there was something about the starry flakes in the mage’s eyes that made her uneasy.

“Why don’t you take a picture or something?” De Mona snapped.

“Somebody woke up on the wrong side of the bed,” Asha said with a crooked grin. Azuma bristled on her lap, but he dared not go near the demon. Whereas her form was hidden to human eyes, Azuma could see her for just what she was.

“You’d be in a pissy mood too if you’d been getting sucker-punched by demons all night,” De Mona said.

Asha rolled her eyes and folded her arms. “Try getting blown out of a third-story window. You ain’t the only one who’s had a trying night.”

“I think we’ve all been through a lot over the last few hours so why don’t the both of you cool it?” Rogue interjected. His ribs were still busted to hell, but at least he had gotten the bleeding to stop. He hadn’t heard a peep from the demon he shared his soul with since he’d taken shadow-form. Normally the demon encouraged Rogue to tap further into his shadow magic, but never to attack one of its own species. Using his shadow form, Rogue had managed to defeat Moses, who the shadows referred to as “Shadow Master.” Rogue had managed to destroy his host’s body
and compromise his magic, but he wasn’t foolish enough to think that it was the end of Moses, for you couldn’t destroy a real shadow, only hold it back.

“You’re one to talk. I don’t even know you like that to be giving me orders, dude. So please tell me why your opinion should count for a damn thing?” De Mona asked defiantly. She hadn’t known Rogue more than a few hours and still wasn’t sure where he fit into the mystery.

“Because if it hadn’t been for him, we’d all be dead,” Gabriel spoke up unexpectedly, drawing the attention of everyone in the Hummer. De Mona hadn’t noticed it before but there was something different about him. He seemed somehow older. “Rogue saved my life so I could be around to save yours, even though I don’t know why I bothered since you caused all this.”

“I don’t think pointing fingers is going to help us much,” Jackson said from the passenger seat. His leather jacket was ripped, but other than that, he seemed in better shape than the rest of them.

“Let me be the judge of what’s helpful and what isn’t since I’m the one with a centuries-old relic bound to his arm.” Gabriel flashed the tattoo on his arm which was pulsing slightly.

“And how did you manage such a trick?” Morgan asked from behind the wheel. “My hammer has been with me since I was a boy and it’s never done more than open the overripe skulls of demons and vampires. I fancy myself somewhat of an authority on these weapons, but I’ve never heard tales of the trident merging with flesh.”

“As soon as I figure it out, you’ll be the first to know,” Gabriel said sarcastically.

Morgan had asked the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question. Ever since he had come into possession of the Nimrod, he had learned a great many things, but its darkest secrets were still kept from him by its true master, the
Bishop. When it suited him, the Bishop allowed Gabriel to taste undreamed-of power, but the more powerful he became, the more of himself he seemed to lose to the addictive properties of the magic he now wielded. The rational side of him said that he should get rid of the trident and the vengeful spirit as soon as possible, but there was a little piece of him that craved the old magic, the same piece that seemed to be steadily growing.

“Vile creature,” Gilchrest hissed from the corner. Until he’d spoken, they’d forgotten about the lone goblin they’d been able to capture. His small body was still paralyzed from Asha’s binding spell, but his mouth worked just fine. Gilchrest’s voice was somewhere between fear and hate when he spoke to Gabriel. “Most man-thing carry magic like second skin, in your soul this evil is.” He swept his reptilian eyes over everyone in the Hummer. “Shadow of death follows this one. Bound for the Jihad are we all for keep with him.”

Jackson snatched Gilchrest off the floor and pressed his face against the blackened window of the hummer. Slowly he started to roll it down, sending a swift breeze through the vehicle. “Now I’ve read a thing or two about what direct sunlight can do to you suckas, so unless you shut your damn mouth, you’re gonna get a real good view of this sunrise.”

“Destroy me and risk the wrath of the entire goblin empire!” Gilchrest threatened nervously. He could see the pinkish sky begin to turn blue in certain patches.

Jackson flicked one of his blades out and nicked Gilchrest’s cheek. “Bullshit, what would make me think that those nasty sons of bitches would give a rat’s ass if a toad like you went missing?”

“Law say any who murder royal family meet slow death. Prince Orden not take kind baby brother killed by man-things. Eat you I think he will, after boil you alive.”

“That is a goblin prince?” Asha poked him mockingly, which caused Gilchrest to snap at her hand. “Keep that up and I’m gonna show you some of my nastier spells.” Asha’s eyes sparkled as the small gash on Gilchrest’s cheek began to bleed more freely.