Awakening (36 page)

A wicked grin spread across its
face.

“
Who are you?” I
whispered.

Its face morphed and my father’s
features disappeared and were replaced with something warped,
something that no longer resembled anything human. “They’ve names
for me, but names hold power. Why would I be so foolish as to tell
you mine?”

“
You’re a
demon.”

“
That is what they call my
kind. I prefer soul-eater, or perhaps Legion if you believe our bad
press.” It went on in a movie villain voice, “
We are Legion
,” and laughed with a
sound like cracking granite.

This thing had come out of the black
abyss. I realized the dark thing I had felt each time I had done
one of the rituals, the thing out there that made me feel like a
deer being hunted, it was this creature, this being. It was this
demon.

As if reading my thoughts, the demon
bowed in my direction. “You are correct. I’ve been near you,
following you since you began your journey into the dark arts.” The
demon laughed, “When you tried to heal, your magic was barely
there, but it was enough to narrow in on you.”

“
The men kept finding us.
It was you, you led them to us.”

“
I didn’t think the death
dealer brat had it in him. I worried he’d kill you with his
inexperience during the rituals. I tried to save you from his
stupidity.” Its voice slid across my mind like dirty, oily water.
“I was wrong though, he did succeed. Look at what he’s done--he’s
created you in your new form, just as you should be. He made you
for me.”

“
Made me for
you?”

“
Do you think I’d allow
myself to come forth only to be bound to such a puny worthless
creature?” It gestured toward Macaven. “I needed you to set me
free. And here I am unbound. Now able to do whatever I please, and
that pleases me well.” It turned back toward me. “You’re mine now,
and that pleases me even more.”

“
What do you want from
me?”

“
I created you.” Suddenly I
was looking into my father’s face again. “True, to be released into
this realm I needed the spirit of someone with incredible power to
be encapsulated into the dagger, a powerful bridge to help guide me
into this world. But do you think your father was the only one I
could have chosen? It was because of you. I knew you would never
take the journey you needed to take if your family was
alive.”

I shook my head and took a step back.
“Macaven killed my family!”

“
Of course he did, at my
bidding.” It looked over at Macaven. “Do you think this puny
creature is capable of such an elegant plan on his own?”

The cold chill ran down my spine. It
couldn’t be true what the demon was saying. It wasn’t true. I
raised a trembling hand to my forehead. My words barely came out,
“You killed my family because of me?”

“
I set you on your path. I
helped guide you along. Of course, what I truly want, truly need,
you aren’t yet ready to give. Not yet, but soon enough. For our
fates are tightly wound together. But for now I give you a gift,
something you deeply desire in return for my life. For freeing me
I’ll give you a pretty present all wrapped with a shiny bow. I’ll
give you your inner-most desire.”

I heard the words whispered
across a breeze. “
Revenge will be yours,
but it will come with a price.”

The dark thing started floating across
the room. It was heading toward Macaven. The wizard was slowly
picking himself off the floor. He looked uninjured. He seemed to
sense something moving in his direction. He turned and when he saw
the demon his face lit with pride.

Macaven yelled across the
room, “Rise up, my brothers and sisters. Our day of glory has
finally arrived, we’ve raised a piece of the greater darkness and
bound it to our will. Our enemies will fall before us now. They’ll
be consumed by hell’s own flames.” As the black robes began to rise
from the floor and move toward Macaven, he faced the demon.
“Hellion, you’ve been raised by our will. Our enemies are yours.
Your power is ours to command.” With an evil grin, he pointed a
hand, red with sacrificial blood, in my direction. “She came to the
bait, just as you said she would, and our pact is complete. Now her
usefulness is done, and she must pay for the damage she’s done. The
coven has been crippled, and our plans set back years. She has to
die, I want to watch her die.”

The demon laughed again, a
wicked sound. “No, you have it wrong,
your
usefulness is done. You fool. An
unbound arch-demon, commander in the devil’s army is now before
you, free to use you as he will.” A deep growl came from the
demon’s mouth, “But you’re not worthy to serve in my army, so
you’ll feed my hunger instead.”

Macaven stumbled back, his
eyes showing white with horror. He screamed at me.
“You released it before we could bind it! Do you
know what you’ve done? You’ve unleashed a demon onto the world with
no one controlling it!”

The demon, I had released it, but I
hadn’t done it on purpose. I had only wanted to help my father, but
I hadn’t saved my father’s spirit. My father was now part of that
unholy creature. An unholy creature I alone was responsible for
setting free.

Macaven raised his arms and
shouted out words of a spell. Orange lights flew from his
hands.
Most of the coven still capable of
action turned and ran, but three stood to fight, adding their power
to Macaven’s. Their spell reached out toward the demon, enveloping
it completely. Whatever they were hoping to do, it didn’t work. As
the orange cloud washed over the demon it laughed and waved its
hands, and slowly the cloud disappeared. The demon clapped its
hands and a crack of thunder filled the air, and a black storm
rolled toward the closest of the robed wizards. The storm hit the
wizard and he exploded, sending a splatter of blood and chunks of
flesh into the wall behind him.

Banshees suddenly flew at
the dark thing,
but the demon just drew in
a deep breath and inhaled one banshee and then another into itself.
It seemed to grow more solid with each soul it took in. I realized
in horror that the next soul the demon would consume was my brother
James.

I screamed James’s name and
stood watching helplessly as the demon sucked James in. Both my
father and now my brother were trapped within the wicked
being.

The demon finished off the
banshees and then paused a moment before blowing a cloud of ashy
black smoke into his hands. It moved its hands around, as if the
cloud was clay and it was molding something. Its hands worked and
worked until it seemed pleased and it dropped the object to the
floor. The impact of it hitting the floor caused the ground beneath
us to shake. Ever so slowly the thing grew and morphed until it
took the shape of a monstrous dog. It looked like a massive
pit-bull on steroids. The dog’s eyes glowed with flickering red
fire as it moved to stand beside its master.

It couldn’t be. There were
no such things. But I’d seen a picture in one of Luke’s books. The
dog standing before us was a hellhound, a creature out of myth and
nightmare, pulled from the air by the demon. The demon pointed, and
its hound leaped at the next wizard. It passed right through his
falling body, ripping his soul away with a pair of red gleaming
teeth. What remained of the wizard dissolved into flame. The
hellhound stood gnashing its teeth as it gobbled down the wizards
glowing red soul. It then turned to the last of Macaven’s
supporters. A spout of flame jetted from the hellhounds mouth, and
it leaped at the man, swallowing him whole. The man’s terrified
screams echoed out from between the dog’s teeth. As the screams
died down the dog shook its head and out sprayed a cloud of ash and
embers.

Amidst this chaos, the
demon continued toward Macaven. It floated a few feet from him,
completely unconcerned as Macaven flung spell after spell at it.
Each spell broke harmlessly against it. When it was finally close
enough, it reached out and touched a finger to Macaven’s
forehead.

Macaven screamed, and from
the touch, welts spread across his face and body. He raised his
hands and watched in horror as they erupted in bloody, oozing
blisters. The blisters multiplied until they covered every inch of
exposed flesh. They began to rupture, and the smell of infection
and rotting flesh filled the room. Macaven touched a hand to his
face, and a huge section of the skin slumped away, showing the
grey, dying flesh beneath.

I looked away, no longer
able to stomach the sight of my vengeance. But wet, gurgling
screams continued to tear through the room.
The sounds he made were more terrifying than the banshees.
When the world was silent again, I looked back. Macaven was dead, I
was sure of it, the way his limbs were twisted in unnatural angles.
The demon had given me what I wanted most--Macaven’s
death.

The demon turned toward me
again, its eyes glowing brighter. I stood frozen as it came closer.
It reached a slow hand out and delicately wiped a finger across my
face, the skin blistering under the demon’s touch. It came away
smeared in my blood. I shrank back as it raised the finger, bright
red with blood, to its mouth and sucked with obvious pleasure. It
gave me a wicked smile and suddenly the dark mass twisted and spun
and the demon morphed and changed before my very eyes. Where it had
been a seven year old girl now stood. Dark pigtails hung from each
side of her head and freckles spread across her nose. It was the
eyes, the color of her eyes, a reddish orange not found in nature,
which gave her true identity away. And when she grinned, another
chill ran down my spine. The smile was not that of an innocent
child, it was an unclean, unholy, grin
but
it was somehow oddly familiar.

“
I’ll
come for you when the time is right, and what fun we’ll
have!”
Before I could think of what
to say or do the child turned and skipped across the room.
She stopped by a broken display case that had once
held an assortment of magical artifacts. With a childlike cry of
delight, she pulled an antique doll from the wreckage. Its dress
was shredded and fell away as the demon girl picked it up, but that
didn’t seem to diminish her pleasure. She clutched the smoking doll
to her chest as she turned and headed toward the door.
Flames erupted behind her as she went. The room
slowly began to fill with smoke as she glided out.

The demon child whistled over her
shoulder, and the hellhound followed, shrinking as it went until it
was the size of a normal pit bull, but the air of menace still
radiated off it as trotted through the flames.

The demons words kept swirling around
in my head. It’d said it had killed my family because of me. It had
wanted me to become a death dealer so I could help release it.
Everything that had happened had been part of the creature’s plan.
A sick and wicked plan to get itself released unbound. I couldn’t
believe it, everything I had been through, the horror, the
nightmare, the rituals, had all of it really been just part of the
creature’s plan?

I looked across the room--bodies were
thrown everywhere like discarded rag dolls. The dead and injured
littered the ground around me--the sounds of moaning and screaming
filled the air. All this destruction I had caused. In a moment of
insanity I had rushed in bent only on revenge and I had set all of
this in motion. How many people had died tonight because of me? And
my family. I was the reason they were dead. Macaven might have
killed them, but it was because of me he went after them in the
first place.

Luke. I suddenly
desperately wanted him by my side. He would know what to do. He
would somehow help me make everything all right again. It was my
fault the creature was loose, but we could go after the
demon.
We would find some kind of spell in
one of the old books that would force that thing back to hell. If
someone had found a way to kill and force demons back into oblivion
before then there was a way, we just had to find it. And maybe by
doing so I could find some kind of redemption for the things I’d
done.

A fire was blazing on the other side
of the room. Black smoke swirled into the air and up toward the
ceiling. I had to find Luke and Freddy, we needed to get out of
here before the whole mansion went up in flames.

I moved through the room and searched
each face looking for Luke and then I saw him by the altar. A part
of the gray stone had fallen and was now lying on top of
him.

“
Luke!” I cried out his
name and rushed toward him.

Darla was next to him. She was
cradling Luke’s head in her lap.

I could see blood streaming out from
beneath the stone that trapped him. I reached out and screamed his
name again, “Luke!”

I was almost to his side when hands
grabbed me.

It was Freddy--he wrapped his arms
around my waist. “You can’t touch him!”

“
I can heal him. Let me
go!” I struggled to get free.

Freddy arms tightened around me. “You
can’t heal him, he’s dead.”

“
No, no, no. He’s okay, let
me go, Freddy, I can heal him.”