Demon Singer (8 page)

They exited the orchard and Acheron’s voice was cut off as she was bowled over by a man who moved faster than was possible.  Lyric looked around and noticed shapes flitting through the trees across the road.  Turning his attention back to Acheron he watched her stand up calmly, a man easily a hundred pounds heavier than her was on her back biting her neck.  She winked at Lyric and tilted her head to make it easier for the thing to feed.

“Vampires.”  she said, “They suck.”

Lyric was mentally sprinting through his repertoire, preparing his defensive strategies for vampires when one of the attackers knocked him to the ground.  An odd smell assailed his nostrils as he struggled with the woman who had jumped him.  She was immensely strong, and had him pinned in a moment when her head jerked up at the sound of a terrible scream.  Lyric freed a hand and punched her in the throat, watching her fly off him in surprise before remembering his augmented strength from his bond to Acheron.  Looking over to the demoness, he saw her standing calmly, surrounded by six more vampires, crouched and ready to spring.  The one who had attacked her was the source of the screaming.  He lay quiet now, on the ground, smoke rising from his blackened mouth.

“Who sent you?”  Acheron asked the vamp directly before her.  He just snarled.

The small vampire who had jumped Lyric joined the circle surrounding Acheron.  

“Obviously someone stupid who didn’t mind losing eight servants.  You bloodsuckers are usually much smarter than this.  Didn’t your master warn you about what you were going up against?”

The largest looked at Lyric’s attacker.

“We’ll handle the bitch; you deal with the Demon Singer.”

The vampires chose that moment to attack the Demoness, covering her in a mass of writhing bodies.  Lyric watched helplessly.  Everything he had to fight vamps would damage Acheron as well.  He didn’t have long to be concerned.  The small vamp turned back to him and vaulted at him, her small frame flying through the air as though gravity was more suggestion than law.  Lyric caught her with both hands, holding her at arm's length from his throat.  Spinning in place, he used her own momentum plus his muscle to send her careening into the mass of vampires attacking Acheron.

For her part, Acheron became decidedly more animated as the leeches attacked.  Ripping the head off one, she used it to cave in the face of another.  Two vamps grabbed each of her arms while the small one Lyric hurled managed to twist in the air, vault off the large one’s back and jump up on Acheron’s shoulders.  Wrapping her legs around the demoness' head and vaulting backwards.  Acheron went flying through the air and landed in a heap thirty feet away but was back on her feet instantly.  The vampires rushed at her, seeking to overwhelm her, obviously deciding she was the immediate threat.  This time the small one jumped on her and wrapped her arms around her body.  Acheron wrapped her own arms around her assailant, intending to break her back. The other four were waiting for that opening.  The largest moved with that incredible speed and wrapped his huge arms around both Acheron and the small vamp from behind the demon, lifting her bodily off the ground.  Another wrapped her arms and legs around Acheron’s lower half while two more advanced carefully with black knives, carved with silver runes that almost seemed to glow.  Acheron saw them and her eyes widened for a moment before narrowing in anger.  

A loud, wet cracking sound heralded the shattering of the small vamp’s spine.  Grabbing the wrists of the large Vamp holding her in the air, she ripped his hands off which brought her crashing down on the vamp wrapped around her legs.  A swift, fluid motion set her knee in the vampire’s throat and a wicked strike of her hand sent the vamp’s head flying into the trees.  To his credit, the large vamp did not cry out at the loss of his hands, he simply came at her again, trying to club her with his bloody stumps.  With remarkable flexibility and strength, Acheron sunk her fingers into his forearms and planted her heeled boot so hard into the bottom of his chin his head snapped back and hung unnaturally as he fell over backward with the demoness riding him to the ground.  The small vamp was growling and clawing her way toward Acheron while the two with knives approached cautiously from either side.  

“She’s going to die,” Acheron said, gesturing to the small vamp on the ground.  “You two are welcome to take those shiny knives of yours and go running back to your master to let them know you failed.  Or I can spare you the pain and kill you now.”  

A glazed look came into their eyes and almost marionette-like they jumped at the demoness together.  With easy grace, she ran up the body of one, leapt high into the air and came down sinking the heel of her boot heel into the top of its shoulder.  With ridiculous commitment, the vampire refused to drop the blade, and then Lyric noticed it seemed that the hilt of the knife was actually fused to the vamp’s hand.  Twisting off the vamp, she grabbed its head and carried it with her.  Casually she stomped the neck of the small vamp who was reaching for her heel.  

The last vampire crouched and watched the demoness carefully, planning his attack.  Acheron sighed.  “Done waiting,” she said and faster than the eye could see she moved across the space separating them and shoved the black knife into the leech’s own heart.  Turning black, it slowly crumbled to a pile of ash.  Acheron retrieved the knife and tended to the broken vamp on the ground as well as the one missing its face.  

"I'm sorry; I didn't have anything prepared that wouldn't hurt you."  Lyric said when Acheron turned to him.  “Did you hear him call me Demon Singer?”

"Not a big deal, Lover," Acheron's body flared with black flame.  As the flames died down he saw the blood and gore from the fight had been burnt off, leaving her clean and lovely one more.  "However, we should probably work on some good multi-purpose defensive songs.  You need preparation and experience, and after that display in town, I might add self-control to the list.  Though that’s not exactly one of my strong points.   Interesting mystery added to the mix though.  Did you see how they moved?  Someone else was controlling those vamps.  The simple fact that they attacked me was surprising though, considering my blood is lethal to vampires.”

“These knives the last two held looked like they were fused to their hands.”  Lyric turned one of the black blades over in his hands.  Acheron plucked it from his grasp, picked up the other one and concentrated on the two of them.  They began to glow red hot, then melted through her fingers, scorching the grass where the metal dripped.  

"Did you recognize the markings on the blades?"  Acheron asked as she shook the remaining molten steel from her fingers.

"They resembled eleven runes, but none I recognized."

"Very good, Lover, they were made by elves.  Stupid tree huggers.  The runes were an ancient magic brought out of the earth early after the fall.  The knives are forged from iron and carbon, that's why they are black. The runes imbue them with magic that will banish any hellion back to Hell.  It won't bind us, but it hurts and is super annoying when you have places to be.  

"Vampires and elves aren't friends, and elves keep relics like these knives carefully hidden.  This begs the question, how the hell did vampires get their hands on them, who sent them, and was it the same person who sent the Hellhounds?  Were they related to your town's kidnapper? Or do we have yet another player in this game?”

“Not much of a game,” Lyric muttered.

“Oh I don’t know Lover, I’ve been having a swell time, now where’d we park that car?”

* * *

Lyric looked up at Acheron from the flat of his back.

“Why can’t I sing?”

“Because, you need to be ready physically as well as with your pretty singing voice.”

“Lomong said you’d train me in the eighth measure.”

“I am.  What you don't know is that the eighth measure is the same as the rest only in that it is a key that unlocks the next discipline.  Otherwise, it's completely different.  You cannot be trusted with that key until you can control what you will be unlocking.  As long as I am in control, we can learn and experiment without causing your premature death.  Once you have mastered what I teach you to my satisfaction, I'll teach you the measure.

"Besides," she continued in singsong. "You're a pansy."

Lyric stood up slowly and painfully.  The clearing they had stopped in was lovely, perfect spot for picnics.  Right now he hated it.

“I’m not a pansy.  I’m just not a supernatural being with supernatural strength who can supernaturally beat the crap out of ordinary folk.”

“False,” Acheron said smacking Lyric in the head faster than he could see.  “You have the good fortune of borrowing
my
strength.  This tie of ours carries all sorts of goodies.  Instead of avoiding it in disgust, you need to embrace it and explore it.  Besides strength, you can also move fast, much faster than ‘ordinary folk’.  So stop whining and stop me from kicking your ass."  She smacked him again, hard enough to knock him back a step.

Fighting to control his anger, the analytical side of Lyric's brain weighed her words carefully and quickly.  The augmented strength had been a surprise, so he had not paid attention to its source.  Now that danger had devolved into annoyance and his focus could narrow, he realized he had felt a surge in his tie when he used that strength.  Backing away as Acheron prepared to hit him again he tried it, focusing on the tie he noticed it was dissonant, but had a definite motif he could manipulate.  Trying to draw on it, he stepped toward the demoness and unleashed a flurry of rapid attacks.  

Discernment is tricky
was the odd thought that came to mind as he again landed painfully on his back.  For instance, he had just let loose a barrage of strikes that should have easily incapacitated the demoness, so why was he on his back again?

"What the hell was that?" Acheron sneered.  "Speed, Lover, you need speed."

Lyric ignored the taunts as he got up again.  Focusing on the tie, he concentrated on the dissonance and using his voice and training, he grabbed it and sang it into harmony.  A flood of power overwhelmed him and he opened his eyes to see Acheron staring at him in shock.  Her lovely features contorted in rage and she leapt at him.  Something had obviously worked; the demoness looked like she was trying to swim through mud.  Lyric easily countered her blows, exulting in the power flowing through his muscles.  He stepped into her space and shoved one hand into her chest, feeling the bone flex and break beneath his palm.  As the force of his strike followed through, the demoness' body flew backwards and landed in a heap on the other side of the clearing.

Lyric released his focus on the tie and heard it clang ominously back to dissonance.  Everything returned to normal and he rushed to the limp body lying on the ground.  In horror, he saw her sternum was obviously crushed and dark blood was leaking from her mouth, matching the blood that came out of her hair.  What had he done?  Was she dead?

Drawing on his training, he ignored the horror and guilt that washed over him.  Instead, he began to sing, a simple healing song that wrapped around the demoness and started putting her back together.  As he sang, he watched her wounds heal and heard her death rattle turn into deep even breaths.  Once finished, he carefully picked her up, surprised at how light she was, and carried her to the car, laying her down in the back seat.  As he stood up her eyes snapped open, found his and stared at him silently.

"I'm sorry," he began, but she vanished, leaving behind the scent of lilacs.

8 SERIOUSLY, WHERE IS THE PROPHET MAN?

"Amnia Nit Too, is he working today?" Lyric and Acheron stood before the main information desk of the Library of Ru Batoe, largest library in the United States dealing with all things supernatural.  Also the music library for the Soul Singers Guild.

"Check the section on Scoring." The waspish woman as the desk spoke in a pathologically hushed tone.  Acheron laughed aloud, earning a venomous stare from the librarian.  The demoness blew her a kiss and Lyric was afraid the woman might leap over the desk to attack his companion.  She had reappeared yesterday after being gone for two days.  Obviously, she wasn't using the tie to punish him like on Dacapo, but when she returned something was different.  She acted as cheerfully amoral as before but there was ugliness in their tie that had not been there before and it left Lyric decidedly unsettled.

"Not that kind of scoring, Acheron," Lyric muttered as he led the way to the music section, looking for the aisles devoted to scoring and notation.

On the way, Acheron noticed an adults only section.

"You go ahead, Lover, I hear a bookworm calling my name."  She sauntered down the adult aisle giggling at titles.

Lyric continued on, half-relieved to be rid of her for a time, half-worried about what kind of trouble she might get into.

It wasn't long before he found his friend and former research partner Amnia Nit Too, an eager old man, obviously foreign but adamant in his refusal to divulge his origins.  They had spent a semester together in Russia a few years before studying the hunting patterns of several regional supernaturals.  Nit wasn't a soul singer; he lacked perfect pitch.  However, he was extremely good at research and possessed the second sight.  The Guild believed in finding and fostering excellence in more than just the soul singers, and Amnia Nit Too was always busy with research projects for advanced Singers like Lyric and even some of the instructors.  Rumor had it; Nit discovered a dragon's nest in Nepal.  Lyric wouldn't be surprised.

"Nit!  I need your help."

The small man lifted his head from the score he was studying.

"Lyric?  Lyric!  How are you my friend?"  Nit came around the desk and clasped Lyric's hand enthusiastically.  "No wait, don't tell me."  He dramatically put a hand to his head as though divining secrets from the ether.  Falling into his customary carnival patter, he revealed some of his gift for having relevant information sooner than anyone else has. ."Your soul song went wrong and a demon came along.  Who by the way has made you
stupid
strong."  Nit rubbed his hand after reclaiming it from his friend's grip.  "They're already calling you the Demon Singer around here."

"Brilliant." Lyric frowned.

"Not only that but mom and dad aren't available to chat.  Your childhood town is no longer around.  The buildings still stand, alone and unmanned but the people are gone.  It's all over the news, the Guild is whispering Croatoan."

It was no surprise to Lyric that Nit knew what was going on.  The Guild was extremely secretive, but when you can't tell the outside world you exist, you tend to end up in a Rumor mill.

“The Roanoke monster?  That’s a stretch, he hasn’t ever been found, and apparently hasn’t been busy for a few hundred years.”  Lyric frowned.  “Besides, why my town?”

“Maybe that’s it Lyric, it’s
your
town.  The Demon Singer’s stomping grounds.”

“Don’t call me that."  Then Lyric smiled in spite of himself.  "Still the carnival barker I see."

"What can I say? I have a way with words, which like the songs of birds come falling, and calling all out of my mouth. But I'm sure you agree far better for you and better for me that the sounds that I make - though sometimes hard to take - it's better they fly down from the north than rise from the south."  He waggled his eyebrows like a crazy person.

"You've a gift for clearing a room, regardless of wind direction. "

Nit laughed uproariously slamming his hand on the desk.  Lyric winced as various clutter jumped. How such a small man was able to sound so big had always been a mystery to him.

"How can I help you my friend?"

"I need to find someone called the Prophet Man."

"Hmmm, ostentatious.  Who is he?"

"No idea," Lyric replied.  "I just know he is supposed to help me untie from this demon..."

"Demoness!" Acheron's voice came floating over the stacks.  Lyric shook his head Nit grinned.

"She drives me crazy, I need to get this tie severed.  Do you know anything about it?"

Nit threw his hands up in front of him.

"Nothing official, certainly nothing to be found in the library.  The only things I've heard is it can be done.  It's dangerous and at least one method calls for a bondage demon."

"You seem to know more than anyone else."

"Of course I do.  Otherwise, what good would I be?  Now, consider how often there's a call to sever a Soul tie. ... like never.  This is the first
I'd
ever heard of it.  I figured after you went and saw your parents you'd probably come to me, so I did some digging.  You know how much literature there is on the Guild."

"None. "

"Exactly. So you can imagine how hard it is to find anything like what you're looking for.  If it wasn't for some of my dubious acquaintances I'd have nothing.  As it is, all I have is hearsay and rumor."

"What about the methods that don't require a demon?"

"The obvious, die, sing for the Composer and maybe he'll change the score and erase the tie, there was also something about discord.  But that's an old, old legend and involves two brothers who tied the same Verger."

"That won't do me much good.  I've already sang for the Composer, till fatigue forced an end.   I've actually heard the two brothers’ legend , but it is just a legend, sooo so far so bad."

"So what about this demoness, is she as hot as they say?"

"I haven't noticed. " Lyric deadpanned.

"Liar!" Nit laughed.  "I heard one of the Acolytes who saw her has been a babbling idiot, trying to write songs about his infernal love.  The Masters are so concerned about him they're  preparing a purging song to remove his memories from that day."  

"Nit, my mom and dad..."  Lyric stopped, not sure what he wanted to say.  The small man remained silent for moment then spoke quietly.

"Lyric, you and I both know the truth about goes bump in the night. We know what's out there, and we know enough to know there is more than we can see or understand. I won't lie and say everything is okay because we both know better."

Lyric smiled gratefully at his friend's candor.  One of Nit's best qualities to Lyric's mind was his refusal to sugarcoat things.

"I have no idea what to do.  I have less than a year to sever my tie to Acheron, but the priority for me is finding my parents.  The only problem there is that I haven't got the foggiest notion where to begin.  I need help finding some answers."

"I'll do everything I can, Lyric.  I love Emma too."

Lyric nodded.  He did not approve of Nit's oddly strong feelings for his mother, but he wasn't worried.  Nit was the straightest arrow he had ever met.  There was no cause for concern, it was just... weird.  Nit continued.

"You are on the clock with this tie issue.  Do you have a lead on that?"

Lyric shook his head.

"Not really, just the Prophet Man."

"I'll look into that as well," the small man said.

"Emma and Niq are the priority, Nit."

“Of course.  I’ll head over to your village and see what I can learn and discern of the who’s, what’s and where’s of it all.”

“Just a warning, whoever took the villagers didn’t take the animals.  They’ve all been slaughtered and left to rot.”  Nit’s eyes widened.  Lyric hesitated a moment before continuing.  "You should also know this likely has nothing to do with me.  My mother is the daughter of one of the four Kings, there's a good chance this is about him."  Nit whistled.

"I didn't realize you were royalty my friend."

"I'm not; you can call my cel if you learn anything."

"Lyyyyyyric!" Both Lyric and Nit turned at the call.  Lyric sighed.

"Thank you Nit, I'd better go find out what trouble she's caused."

Nit laughed and hugged his friend, smacking him hard enough on the back for it to sting.

"Easy!" Lyric complained.

"Go in harmony my friend, and come back and tell me stories when this is finished."  Nit watched his friend leave.

Lyric found Acheron sitting on the lap of a sophomore student, twisting his hair around her finger.

"There you are!" She said brightly, kissing the student on the head, she hopped up and grabbed Lyric's hand and pulled him toward the exit.  "Get what you needed?  Cause we should go. "

Lyric yanked his hand away and turned as he heard cries for help.  Acheron slid around him, blocking the way.

"Seriously we need to go."

"What did you do?" Lyric asked as he let himself be pushed toward the door.

"In a nutshell, the most entertaining humans in any given library or bookstore are found in the adult section.  And they are delightfully easy prey."

More yells filled the library.

"You killed a guy?"  Lyric whispered in alarm looking back over his shoulder at the commotion.

"They were a lovely couple, and I didn't kill them.  It was
their
fantasy we were exploring.  They'll be fine in a few days...," she continued herding him toward the door.  "Maybe weeks.  The lesson here is when you agree on a safe word, you should use it before things go too far."

* * *

"You look rough."

"I haven't been topside in eighty three years, sir.  I'm pleased to serve the Voice here."

"You do an excellent job.  A charge of mine will be coming through your hospital in the next few months or weeks, perhaps even days."

"I'll keep my eye out, of course.  How will I know him?"

"I've marked him, you will know him immediately."

"You've met him?"

"Indeed," Notation's normally joyous countenance closed with a momentary sadness. "Though he is unaware, we have already shared a part in the Score."  The mighty seraph smiled at his subordinate.  "He will be unexpected, perhaps a bit obtuse, but he is precious to the Composer.  He has a great deal of sorrow ahead of him.  Take care of him, he is my friend."

The cherub's eyebrows rose at that revelation.  It was uncommon for a seraph to befriend a man.

"Shall I deliver a message? Keep him at the hospital?  How may I serve the Song?"

"Keep him healthy and free.  The Composer won't divulge more than that, so neither may I."

"I will serve to the best of my ability."

Notation gave her a measuring look.

"The best of your ability right now means you need some rest.  Don't neglect the fourth out of a misplaced sense of duty."

Notation's chastising was gentle but clear.  The Composer gave rest intentionally; it would be arrogant and rude to neglect it.

"Thank you, sir."

"It is well, dear one, go in peace.”

The guardian angel with the gray wings went back inside her hospital, ready to do battle again with the Fallen who would soon be coming to attack the little girl in 304.  The Composer had determined early in the score that this young one would see tonight’s sunset.  As guardian of this hospital, it was her duty to see to it that happened.  She heard them approaching the hospital.  Only three of them today.  She smiled. It was hardly fair.