Dire Destiny of Ours (29 page)

"Ooh." Ivy bared her teeth. "The spark." Without another word, she engulfed it in a blanket of Murk and snuffed it out.

Jade stopped just as it was lifting its rear leg to walk forward. Seemingly in slow motion, it toppled backward toward hundreds of Brightling infantry. Most of them didn't even see it coming. With the clouds covering the sun, there was no shadow and no noise but a slight rush of air to warn them. I heard hundreds of voices cry out and just as suddenly vanish in a roar of dust, stone, and confusion.

Ivy clenched her fists. "Die, you filthy bastards."

Mom's eyes flared. "Watch your mouth, young lady."

A trumpet sounded from below. Despite the heavy casualties the Brightlings had taken from the fallen golem, the Templar front was collapsing. To my left I saw the Darkling army falling back. I couldn't tell how many were left, but it looked like we'd lost hundreds. Another of the giant golems, Bronze, toppled sideways as explosions raced up one of its legs, severing it a third of the way from the ground. It hit Onyx on the way down, sending the disarmed golem stumbling sideways.

Most of the golems were down or badly damaged, but it didn't matter at this point. The bulk of Daelissa's army pressed in from all sides.

A Templar trumpet sounded again, this time to retreat. I saw a dozen portals open behind our back lines. The troops began falling back in an orderly withdrawal. The Brightlings cheered and surged forward.

"We've got to help the retreat," I said.

Mom nodded. "I say we strafe their forward ranks."

"Follow me." I guided the carpet to the far right edge of the turmoil, dodging spells and bolts of Brilliance along the way. I veered sharp left, urged the carpet to full speed, and dove to about twenty feet off the ground. Ivy and I unleashed searing beams of destruction into the second row of Brightlings. Mom and Lanaeia aimed for the third row.

Soldiers screamed as we raked their lines.

A thrown spear with a wicked black blade narrowly missed me. Enemy soldiers began to aim ahead of us, hoping to strike us from the air. I bobbed and weaved, but it took all my concentration so I let my sister do the firing.

Ivy cried out. I glanced back as she slumped to the carpet. Blood seeped from a cut in her Nightingale armor.

"Ivy!" I gained altitude to take us out of range.

"I'm okay," she said, tears in her eyes.

I looked back. We'd sown enough damage and confusion in the Brightling ranks to give the Templars space, but the Darklings were still under heavy assault.

A line of gray men, the elite fighting units, raced into the fray, inserting themselves between the Darklings and the enemy lines. One gray man leapt high into the air, flying over the front ranks of the Brightlings. Spears slammed into the golem. It hit the ground and exploded. Bodies flew in all directions.

I took us back down and razed the disoriented Brightlings. "Retreat!" I shouted to our people. "Retreat!"

I spotted Ketiss in the back ranks motioning his people into a full run. The enemy flung crackling energy and spears at us. I flipped sideways to avoid a rush of blades and death rays and flew out over our army. I looked back. For a panicked moment, I couldn't find Mom and Lanaeia. I finally spotted them guarding the Templar flanks along with other revived Darklings on flying carpets. Bolts of energy flashed back and forth in a dazzling display.

The Brightlings recovered from our delay tactics and raced after us with a roaring battle cry. My bones went limp as noodles with fright. There was no way we'd get our army through the portals in time.

I thought desperately for some way to slow down the onslaught. The Darklings had stopped running and turned to face the enemy while their fellow soldiers filed through the bottleneck: three omniarch portals. The Templars, having done this many times before, made much faster progress. Even so, allies were being cut down left and right. The remaining giant golems fired into our tight ranks.

Daelissa had a bigger army. Her forces were stronger in every way.

I couldn't see her from my current location, but I knew she was laughing. She'd drawn us out and slaughtered us. Our attempt to stop her from attacking Atlanta had been futile. Even worse, her army would only grow stronger if they built more goliaths.

I watched as the enemy cut down retreating lycans. I saw Saber in his massive prehistoric cat form savaging Brightlings in a desperate attempt to defend his people. Hellhounds swarmed around our right flank, throwing their bodies between Daemos and the attackers. The red demonic form of my father stood out. He swung a massive cobalt blade and cleaved through a Brightling. Kassallandra in her purple demoness form, spun, ducked, and weaved through enemy attacks, twin daggers flashing as she cut down infantry.

A sudden blast from the weapon shard of a giant golem slammed into the Daemos. Bodies scattered. Hellhounds yelped and squealed. As the smoke cleared, I couldn't find Dad or Kassallandra. My horror turned to an inferno of rage.

They're dying!
We wouldn't escape. Daelissa would cut us down like fleeing deer. There was one thing I could do.

I closed my eyes and sent my senses into the demon plane.

I am here,
said the calm many-voices of the Abyssal demon.

Jeremiah Conroy had warned me not to do this. Hell, anyone I'd told about the Abyssal demon thought summoning it again was stupid. I wanted to ask this thing what it wanted for its help. Did it want my soul? Did it want freedom from Haedaemos? I didn't have time to play twenty questions.

Get ready to fight
. With that, I wrapped its presence in a strand of my essence. The demon didn't feel massive like other powerful presences, but like a brick of lead, incredibly dense, as though something tremendous had been concentrated into a much smaller space. The cold grip of fear touched my heart. Then again, it might have been the chilling touch of this demon. I couldn't sense its emotions, expectations, or anything else from it. It was a complete enigma.

And I had no choice but to use it.

I opened my eyes and focused on a bare patch of asphalt between the Darkling army and the Brightlings. The surface bubbled like a pool of molten tar. It widened as if oil were seeping up from the ground. The Brightlings backed away, uncertainty in their eyes. The Darklings used the diversion to reform their defenses.

The surface of the black pond swirled upward like a cone. A glowing red eye formed near the base. The spinning vortex seemed to turn inside out, reversing shape. The wide top morphed into a head and torso. Arms with six-fingered hands stretched from the primordial goo. The Abyssal grew in size until it was nearly half the height of the goliaths.

An immense weight pressed down on my entire being. I dropped to my knees and nearly lost control of the carpet.

"The Abyss awaits." The demon spoke in many voices, each with its own distinct tone and timbre. It was almost as if hundreds of people spoke at once.

The Brightlings didn't seem to know what to make of the creature at first. The archangels, however, attacked it immediately and the golems changed course for this new threat.

"There's Dad!" Ivy pointed excitedly to our front lines.

I spotted him as he climbed from beneath a pile of dead hellhounds and pulled Kassallandra out behind him.

The Abyssal extended an arm and raked a stream of black energy at the Brightlings. They screamed in agony as their bodies seemed to come unglued to reality and fell apart. I saw ghostly shapes flying from their remains and into the Abyssal's red eye. The weight on my concentration grew heavier and heavier as the demon killed more of our enemies.

Daelissa's battle mages were ready for such an attack. They swooped in on two large platforms, each bearing a large golden tetrahedron. They dropped to the ground and opened the vessels. The Abyssal sensed the threat and fired beams at one set of battle mages as their pyramid unfolded into a complex hexagonal pattern. Even after the mages died, I could still hear the screams of their souls as they streaked into the Abyssal.

"My god, it's devouring souls." The last time I'd summoned the creature, I'd been too preoccupied to notice this. Then again, the army we'd fought had been much smaller.

The gray golem, Ash, reached the Abyssal before the demon could destroy the battle mages with the other tetrahedron. One of the men waved his staff at the device. It unfolded into a complex pattern similar to the first. The mages directed their staffs at the infernal pattern and activated it.

Light flashed and a sonic boom vibrated the air. Crimson liquid formed in the middle of the summoning pattern. A massive red creature uncoiled from within and rose like a python. At first, I thought it was a snake but soon realized it had hundreds of legs like a millipede. Its head bore the shape of an axe without any discernible eyes.

The Abyssal pounded a fist into the chest of the attacking goliath. It seemed to be having greater difficulty with the lifeless automaton, but finally penetrated the rocky outer shell. Its hand engulfed Ash's spark and ripped it out. The golem crumbled to the ground.

By now, the Brightlings realized the perils of attacking the Abyssal and backed off to let their new pet demon engage it. This widened the gulf between the enemy forces and my allies. More battle mages appeared and activated the other demon pattern. A huge ball of tentacles rose from it and rolled toward the Abyssal. At first, I couldn't find the head of this new horror, but then I magnified my vision. What appeared to be suction cups along the tentacles were actually human faces. Round orifices filled with needle teeth served as their mouths.

"Justin, I don't like this at all." Ivy gripped my arm. "Can your guy beat up the other ones?"

"I have no idea," I said between clenched teeth. The Abyssal's weighty presence in my mind was almost unbearable. I slowly swiveled my head and saw most of our army had escaped. As I viewed the bloody landscape, I began to realize how many of our own had been killed. The wreckage of the news chopper smoked in the middle of the carnage. I felt sick with anger and sadness.

Nausea squirmed up my throat.

The millipede trundled toward my demon. The Abyssal gripped the creature's head, but couldn't stop its body from snaking around it. The tentacle creature rolled over to the fighting demons. A dozen of its appendages shot out and wrapped around the Abyssal's head.

"Justin, we can go now!" Ivy tugged on my sleeve.

"Are you okay, son?" Mom appeared before me. "You've got to release the demon. We have to go through the portal."

Unsummoning a demon was simply the reverse of what I'd done to bring it into this realm, but there was a huge difference between then and now. The pressure of maintaining control balanced on a razor's edge. If I tried to spare enough concentration to send it back, I'd lose my grip on the creature.

"Can't do it," I gasped. "I'd have to let it go, or let it die to the other demons."

"Let me fly the carpet," Ivy said. "I'll take us into the portal."

I shook my head. "No. We can't go through or I'll lose the connection." I peered behind Mom. The Abyssal was completely engulfed between the two demons. It couldn't possibly survive much longer.

I briefly considered relinquishing control. I'd been told that freed demons wouldn't last long in this world because their corporeal bodies would eventually fade without someone to mentally maintain it as Daemos did for the bodies of their hellhounds. If these other demons killed the Abyssal's body, it would automatically go back to Haedaemos.

I felt the Abyssal's presence fade. Relief flooded me and the weight on my mind lessened.
They killed it.

The Abyssal's many voices spoke in a calm but very loud voice. "The Abyss is eternal. No less so am I." Its body of dark matter writhed and twisted like water, spinning free from the two demons. It flowed around the millipede. The Abyssal's red eye gaped wide. With a deafening shriek, the eye sucked a shadow copy of the millipede from its own body and drew it inside.

The weight in my head went from unbearably heavy to bursting with pain. I groaned. My bones seemed to crack. My mind screamed to be free. I couldn't take it any longer or I'd die. With frantic desperation, I severed the tether. The Abyssal was free. The tentacle demon tried to flee, but the battle mages controlling it fought back, forcing it to fight.

A deep voice echoed across the parking lot, speaking in a harsh, strange language I intuitively understood.
Once the greatest of demons, I now fall to the Abyss. Grant me mercy, dark one, and I will grant thee great power in Haedaemos.