Demon Singer II (2 page)

              To the demoness, it appeared to use her strength as the Power of Bondage to bind him to her as her slave. Using a trick he learned from Bonen Tansyon, he flipped the script. Unbeknownst to Lisian, the ring had the power to bind the power of Bondage. The longer she wore it, the deeper she fell under his control.

              Varia didn't like to contemplate what he had to do to create the ring, but firmly believed it was worth it. If only he could have made more than one. Regardless, it seemed to be working perfectly, which encouraged him immensely considering his ultimate goal was to bind something much larger than one demoness.

              The door opened and a guard stepped outside. Raising his arm, he waved three times, the sign they were waiting for. Legion was in control. With Varia’s and Lisian's help the demon had managed to overcome a pretty serious case of two thousand year old PTSD. He still preferred one body, but had regained his ability to control a thousand different bodies when need be.

              Varia and Blink crossed the street and entered the door with Lisian right behind them. The plan was simple. Varia had planted an innocuous spell weeks ago, that grew imperceptibly every day. Tonight he triggered it. Everyone within a two-block radius fell into a deep sleep. To be safe, Legion would split up, possess everyone at once and hold them still. Lisian and Varia would make their way through the building. Lisian would kill them one by one; severing each Soul Tie, then bind each Verger to Varia. In one fell swoop, the Singers would be dead and Varia would be in command of every Verger on earth.

              Legion wanted to blow the place up once they finished. Varia felt like that was overkill but decided not to argue.

              Somewhere deep inside Varia's broken mind lay regret and sorrow over what was coming. He didn't
want
to kill everyone, it was just the easiest way to accomplish his purposes. He promised himself he would make up for it once his plans all came to fruition.

              The Guild slumbered peacefully, unaware that death stalked its halls.

Chapter 1

              Lyric stared at the road through his windshield, pondering the sequence of events that had led them here.

              The Soul Singers Guild, the place responsible for the shaping of his talents and general philosophy on life, was gone. It had been attacked and destroyed in his absence, and now he was returning to discover what had happened.

              The Soul Singers Guild was impregnable, at least it always had been. Trytohn, the Shining One himself, had sought to destroy repeatedly over the centuries, always failing.

              Always.

              How could it have fallen?  What about the Guild's mysterious High Master? He was supposed to be the single most powerful man on the planet. Guild legend had it that he himself had stood toe to toe with Trytohn and come away the victor.

              Thinking of the Guild’s High Master brought up another issue Lyric found unbelievable.  According to Nit, the Guild's kindly barber, Ervin, was in fact the High Master himself, the very man responsible for protecting mankind and the Score of Creation from the monsters that would destroy both. Why did he masquerade as a barber? Why the secrets and charades?

              He forced his thoughts down a different path and came to the revelation of Acheron, the demoness he  was tied to. The seductive hellion represented everything he had hated for as long as he could remember. But then he sang his eighth measure, the final measure his training required to become a master Soul Singer. This was the measure that unlocked her mind, body and soul to him. He was shocked by what he found there.

              Evil, yes, abundant evil, but that wasn't all. He also found pain and sorrow and despair, the likes of which he couldn't grasp without dangerously bending his sanity. Acheron was so much more than he thought.

              The true shock came when he looked into his own heart, his secret heart, the heart no one knew but himself and he reached a sobering conclusion: of the two of them - himself and the demoness - she was more constant and more honest than he had ever thought to be.

              Lyric felt as though a crisis of faith was inevitable as he faced the truth of it. Acheron was corrupt, but deep down, so was he and every Singer he knew. The difference was, she never claimed to be anything other than what she was. Whereas Soul Singers lived arrogant, tiny lives inside the tiny bubble of their world.

              If she was pure evil and everything he hated, then what did that make him? What did it make the Guild he served? Then he recalled something he'd been told by an angel once.

              The Composer doesn't hate the fallen, He mourns them.

              Shaking his head at the weightiness of it all, he turned his thoughts to more immediate concerns. Namely the huge, vaguely man-shaped beasts in the road ahead of him.

              He was terribly worried. With Acheron and Cadence as his companions, there wasn't much he feared.

              Acheron, the demoness, was an offensively beautiful, excessively violent, violet-eyed pain in his ass.  Years of training as a Soul Singer told him it should not have been possible to tie to her. After all, she was exactly what he had spent the last several years of his life learning to hate and kill. Yet, here they were. He had tied both a demoness and a Verger to himself with his Soul Song. Then they discovered that the tie extended between all three of them; like an uncomfortable three way phone call.

              Cadence was a Verger, a denizen of that mysterious place between heaven and hell.  More correctly, she was the
first
Verger.  She was also a Nephilim, the giant offspring of an angel and a human.  It still seemed odd to Lyric to call the small woman a giant. However, he figured since that was how the angels referred to her, he would too.  Cadence had been around for a very long time. Lyric did not know how long.

              It seemed rude to ask.

              Three days ago, a flock of harpies had attacked Acheron.  Odd enough by itself, since the only harpies in America lived in the wilds of Montana.  Odd also, because at the time of the attack Lyric, Acheron and Cadence were in California, walking down a busy sidewalk in downtown Sacramento.

              Lyric tried to lead the vile creatures away from the crowded area.  Thankfully, the people thought it was some kind of street performance and cheered wildly when Acheron burnt several of the bird-ladies to ash.

              America.

              Since then, they had been attacked by goblins, a coven of witches, a pissed off chimera, two ogres and now their latest assailants: trolls. It quickly became apparent that every attack was focused on Acheron.  Lyric and Cadence were ignored until they involved themselves.

              Now it was trolls. Why trolls?

              The huge brutes stood stupidly in the road, forcing Lyric to stop or wreck his car on their brick house bodies. The Soul Singer jumped out of his car and began singing in an effort to persuade the beasts to go away. Instead his song only resulted in riling them up enough to charge the trio.

              “Keep them away from my car!” Lyric shouted before singing a short phrase that ripped a nearby pine tree from the ground and hurled it into the lumbering monsters. He could feel Cadence and Acheron both rolling their eyes.  

              Acheron had hopped out the other side and shot gouts of Hell fire at them, setting them and the tree ablaze. That resulted in making them angrier; as well as smoky and smellier.

              Acheron advanced, preparing to get physical when Cadence shouted and they all turned to see a second company of trolls appeared from the trees on either side of the road behind them.

              Acheron tore into the first group without mercy, grabbing, twisting, breaking, and tearing.  The trolls pounced on her, trying their best to turn her into jelly; a pointless effort since as a demoness she could simply smoke out and reform.

              Lyric and Cadence squared off against the new arrivals.  A handful of them faced the Singer and Verger directly while the rest went around them to join the attack on Acheron.

              Lyric ducked a clumsy fist and kicked his opponent's knee.  Even with his augmented strength, all he got out of the troll was a grunt.  He hated fighting trolls.  It was like fighting big, angry rocks. The other troll he faced grabbed for him and the Singer jumped backwards, barely avoiding certain death.

              Cadence moved fluidly between her two trolls, spinning, hacking, slicing, and generally behaving like a psychotic blender.  The Verger was an amazing warrior.  The fact that her efforts were barely scratching the enemy was making her more than a little annoyed.

              Lyric looked over to see Acheron smoking out and reappearing, happily destroying her attackers.  The odd thing was how many of the big brutes were getting back up to rejoin the fight.

              Lyric looked closer at his own adversaries and recognized the tell tale blankness in the eyes.  It was easy to miss since trolls were pretty blank anyway.

              That was when he realized what they were.  
Zombie
trolls.

              How does that even
happen
?  

              He had dealt with zombies before.  They were slow witted and single minded; great for manual labor in harsh conditions but a general pain otherwise.  Few creatures could be turned into zombies. He had never heard of it happening to magic resistant trolls.  Who had the juice to pull that off?

              Fall back!  
Lyric shouted across the soul tie to Acheron and Cadence.  He ignored the colorful responses from the two women as they unwillingly complied.  So they ran away from the trolls to give Lyric time to think.

              "They're zombies!"  He shouted as they sped among the trees.  The sounds of the trolls' pursuit were rapidly growing fainter.

              "I noticed," Acheron yelled back as she ran ahead.  "Why are we running?"

              "We need a better plan than bludgeoning them.  We'll collapse from exhaustion before we make a serious dent."  He replied as they climbed a tall hill.

              "Zombies need their heads."  Cadence said from behind him.  "Remove their heads and they cease to be a threat."

              So Lyric put his mind to finding a way to arrest the beasts' movements so Cadence could get to cutting.

*   *   *   *   *

              Lyric watched the zombie trolls crashing through the trees.  This was getting to be ridiculous.  The United States of America is not the place you'd expect to encounter zombie trolls.

              Well…

              Maybe the lower peninsula of Michigan.

              Otherwise, no.

              No trolls, zombie or otherwise.

              "Sooo, can we kill them now?"  The demoness on his left breathed in his ear.  Lyric tried to ignore the undeniably pleasant goose bumps her nearness prompted.

              "I say kill them all." Cadence spoke up from his right.  The beautiful warrior cocked her head to the side as she considered her words. "Re-kill them all? What would you say for zombies?" She had retrieved her sword from that strange place where she kept her arsenal. He had thought it was a pocket of the Verge but she insisted it was something different. Regardless, it was handy.  She was examining her blade while waiting for his go-ahead.

              The Singer sighed.

              "I don't see much choice-"

              He stopped abruptly. Cadence abandoned her position at his side and leapt down the hill to intercept the approaching threat.

              "Good job, Lover," the demoness Acheron laughed.  "Your Verger is now playing chicken with a train made of trolls.  I hope you're quick with that plan knocking around in your head, otherwise she's likely to end up a pile of goo."

              "It's you they're after, shut up and help."  Lyric shot back as he went sprinting after the small warrior. Everything that had been attacking them since leaving Markhato seemed focused on the demoness.

              He did have a plan.

              Well, sort of a plan.

              More like a vague idea.

              "Yes, sir, preparing to pull your bacon out of the fire, sir!" Acheron called as she followed Lyric at a more leisurely pace.

              Lyric began humming as he ran. To the uninitiated observer this might signal some sort of mild mental illness. This, however, was the magic of the Soul Singers; the most powerful magic on earth. Soul Singers learn to listen to the Score of Creation and sing with it, imposing their own will to influence the world around them. Lyric pulled the key to his tune from the wind whistling through the leaves overhead.  Using the Soul tie that attached him to the demoness, Lyric extended his hearing through Acheron's keener senses and grabbed the rhythm of nature's breath.  The Score of Creation in this place was exciting and fluid.  Planting his voice among the melodies of the trees, he exerted his will and began to sing.

              Cadence had already reached the trolls and was flying among them with her sword. Her skill never ceased to amaze Lyric.  Now that they were tied via his soul song, he was able to lend her strength.  With Acheron a part of the link Cadence was much stronger than her small build indicated. Shockingly so.

              Their powerful hands reached for her, but they may as well have grasped at smoke. Small bits of Troll were flying through the air. Too small. Cadence swung her blade with all her might, barely scratching the huge beasts. Her strength and skill were incredible, but all she managed to do was make the monsters angry.

              Trolls are thick-skinned and extremely magic resistant. All but the most powerful magics bounce off them harmlessly. Lyric had already seen how ineffective his songs were on the beasts when they forced his car to a stop back on the highway.  To his mind, the most troubling thing was the fact that zombies are made by magic. So how could there be zombie trolls? He decided that whoever had enough juice to overcome trolls natural resistance to magic must be someone to take seriously.

              Shaking his head free of unnecessary musings the Soul Singer focused on his singing. He had learned this particular piece years ago from his voice master, Lomong.  It was a tongue twister intended to improve diction. As such, it was intended for teaching, not combat. Lyric, however, excelled at improvisation. One of his former instructors once remarked to another, ‘You can force Lyric to sing a water song and quench your thirst, or you can release his natural talent and watch the skies rain root beer.’

              Sending his song skipping along toward the advancing trolls, Lyric twisted the tongue twister to trip the trolls. Fitting his song into the key and rhythm of the Score of Creation allowed him to exert his will, but let the Score handle the heavy lifting. That was something many singers missed; they tried to change the Score to fit their wants.  Far better to craft your wants to fit the Score.