Stones Unturned (36 page)

"What is that?" Baalphegor asked.

Danny chuckled, looking at the stuffed animal's stupid face. "It's a stuffed monkey," he said, holding it up for the demon to see.

"A stuffed monkey," Baalphegor repeated. "Was it once alive?"

"No. It's fake. It's just a stupid stuffed animal."

The demon moved with its inhuman quickness, snatching the monkey from his hands. Baalphegor stared at the toy, his black lips peeling back to reveal rows of razor-sharp teeth.

"My father gave it to me," Danny explained, and then was forced to correct himself. "My . . . y'know, my human father . . . gave it to me before he split from my mom."

"This . . . splitting, it still pains you?" Baalphegor asked.

Danny shook his head. "Naw," he said. "Been over that for years."

"You're lying," the demon hissed. "But it doesn't matter, for soon it will be true. All of this." The creature spread its thin, muscular arms presenting the bedroom. "All that it represents in your life will have no meaning. The hurt will no longer matter."

Danny found himself backing up, away from the demon sire, his eyes for some strange reason riveted on the stuffed monkey. The thought of giving up something so simple . . . it disturbed him.

"I sense your apprehension," Baalphegor said, moving toward him. "And I can understand, for it's all you've ever known." He dropped the stuffed monkey to the floor, his taloned foot stamping down on it, tearing open its belly to reveal the white stuffing within.

"If it makes it any better, remember that this and everything around it will be no more, once the Devourer feeds."

"Mr. Doyle and the others, they'll come up with a way to stop it . . . to stop the Devourer," Danny said, wanting to believe it. He imagined the world destroyed, everyone that he ever loved or cared about dead or worse.
Maybe there is something to this whole evolving thing
, he thought, his hand again going to the swollen growth attached to the center of his chest.

Baalphegor slowly shook his head. "Doyle is a mage, nothing more. Not even the most powerful of this world's mages. Merely one among them. The demise of this world is inevitable. No matter how they fight — no matter the level of sacrifice — it will all be for naught."

Danny stared at the writings in blood where his
Slipknot
,
Insane Clown Posse
, and
Green Day
posters used to hang. The markings looked different now, darker, thicker.

"What do they do?" he asked, pointing them out. "How do they help with the . . . the transition?"

"The severing of a Collector from his accumulated humanity is a painful and emotional experience," the demon explained. "These sigils aid in the process of acceptance."

The demon came closer.

"Do you feel their calming effects on you?" he asked. "Helping you to accept your destiny?"

Danny held the sack in his hand, eyes squinting down at the opaque flesh, attempting to see what was stored within.
What exactly does humanity look like? A soul? Even a makeshift one like his.

At first he thought the sound was thunder, but then he realized that it was the middle of November, and there weren't many November thunderstorms in New England.

Baalphegor looked about, a snarl upon his hideous features. "Now is the time," the demon demanded, extending his hands toward the growth.

Danny wrapped his hand around it, protecting it. Behind his demon sire he could see the strange, blood symbols expanding, running into one another. The dark crimson of the blood turned black, and that dark void fell away into nothing. It was as though the symbols were written in acid that burned away a section of wall, leaving a sucking hole into space, a vast chamber of darkness beyond.

"What the hell?" Danny whispered. He craned his neck, trying to see, even as the demon moved to block his view.

Baalphegor sighed, shaking his head. "You're early," he muttered, turning slightly to address the dark void in the wall behind him.

"Do you have what was promised?" asked a voice from the void, and Danny saw something move in the black, a flicker of tail, like some kind of leviathan swimming in a sea of shadow.

"I told you, you're early," Baalphegor replied. "He has not yet given it to me."

The demon looked at Danny and extended his clawed hand. "Enough of this dalliance, my son. The time is now. Remove the sack and place it in my hand."

Danny shied away, turning his body to protect the sack. In the abyss beyond the wall of his bedroom — maybe beyond the wall of the world — the face of something truly horrific peered in at him, circular red eyes watching him, and then it was gone, swimming off with a flourish of a powerful tail.

"Who the fuck is that?" Danny demanded.

"We haven't the time for this, Baalphegor," the thing in the darkness hissed. "Complete your part of the bargain. Take the sack and be done with it."

Danny shook his head in fear and confusion. "Bargain? What's he talking about?" He tried to move past his father, to get a closer look at the substantial ocean of darkness that had filled half of his room. "The writing, those sigils you painted on the wall, those weren't for me, were they?"

Baalphegor sighed, a thick, steaming trickle of saliva dribbling from the corner of his mouth to the floor. "Do not make this difficult."

Danny looked back to the darkness, his hand falling away from the sack. And the nightmare that swam in the shadows was there at once, drawn to the sack of humanity like a shark to blood. Danny stumbled backward, startled by the sight of the thing. It reminded him of the piranhas he'd seen at the aquarium — but huge and . . . different.

Horribly different
.

Baalphegor sprang at him then, knocking him backward to the floor.

"A bargain has been struck," the demon growled, leering over him. "A bargain that will save my life and start you on the path to fulfilling your destiny."

"What kind of bargain?" Danny asked, glaring up at his father defiantly. "I didn't agree to anything."

"Has he been told?" the thing from beyond asked.

Danny thrashed beneath his father, fear and hopelessness warring in him. He'd already betrayed his mother and his friends, betrayed his humanity. If his demon sire had lied to him, he had nothing left. It wasn't a choice anymore of embracing his soul or his demonic nature . . . it was a choice of nothing or nothing.

"Have I been told what? What the fuck is going on?"

Baalphegor climbed off of him, allowing him to stand. The demon stood at the brink of darkness, the thing that swam in the shadows peering out at them eagerly.

"All he knows is that his evolution is at hand," his sire explained.

"Tell me," Danny demanded as he rose to his feet. "What haven't I been told?"

"There is a special purpose waiting for you, child," the piranha said, its hideous mouth filled with far too many teeth. "Give up the burden of your humanity and achieve this promise all the sooner."

Danny's brain felt as though it just might explode. This was too much for him to handle. How could he hold it all in his head, in his heart? All his life he'd thought he was an ordinary kid, and then his body had started to change, twisting into something horrible and grotesque. When he'd learned from Mr. Doyle what he really was, part of him had been relieved. All the harassment he'd taken, all of the looks, not to mention all of the instincts and urges he didn't understand . . . it was all for a reason.

He wasn't a freak. He wasn't human at all, so he no longer had to live up to the expectations human society put on a typical teenager.

But his metamorphosis had continued, leeching away more and more of his humanity. His reflection was more monstrous, more demonic, every time he looked in the mirror, and his instincts had followed suit. The flashes of violence, the hunger for carnage . . . his true nature explained it all. Mr. Doyle, Eve, Graves . . . all of them had urged him to fight it, had told him he could choose to be good and noble despite his bloodline.

God, how he had wanted to believe them.

If only Dr. Graves was here, right now
, he thought.
He would know what to do, what to say.
Everything always seemed so much clearer seen through Graves's eyes. Right and wrong. Danny guessed that was why Graves had been a hero during his life.

But I'm no hero,
he thought.
I'm just a kid.

And not even that. I'm a demon.

Now he was being asked to give up all that he had ever known to become a full-fledged monster. This whole special purpose thing, it was more than he could stand.

A demon, yeah.
He caressed the fleshy sack on his chest.
But as human as I choose to be, as long as I have this.

"I can't handle this," he said, his hands going to his head, as if to keep it from breaking apart. "This is all too much to deal with."

He heard Baalphegor chuckle, a low, rumbling laugh that sounded like the engine of an idling truck. "It is your humanity that plagues you, changeling. Give it up, and your pain disappears."

Can it be that easy?
Danny wondered.
Tear this thing from my body and everything will be all right?

He looked down at the growth. It was even larger now, storing up his life experiences even to the last moment.

"And then you'll give this to him?" Danny asked, motioning to the creature floating in the darkness.

"That was our covenant," Baalphegor answered. "In exchange they will provide me with escape. This plane of existence, and so many others will be gone soon. I do not wish to share their fate."

Escape
. It sounded good to him at the moment, too. To give this up . . . he held the throbbing sack of flesh in his hand again.

"Will . . . will you take me with you?" Danny asked.

Baalphegor chuckled again, shaking his strangely shaped head from side to side. "That would be impossible."

"Your destiny is here," the piranha gurgled excitedly from the darkness.

Danny's thoughts were a whirlwind, the demons watching him — waiting for him to make up his mind — making his fevered brain swirl all the faster. He took hold of the growth with the intention of ripping it from his chest and had started to tug on it when he felt the most unbelievable pain. It was as if he were taking hold of his guts and pulling them from his body.

Gasping aloud, he fell to his knees.

"It does not want to leave you," Baalphegor stated, squatting down on his haunches, watching him with excited, golden eyes. "Cut it from your body — free yourself from its constraints."

"Free yourself," the piranha whispered, over and over, a chant urging him to action.

He wasn't sure why he did it, but Danny reached into his pocket, searching for the penknife that he sometimes carried. Instead he withdrew the piece of stained glass that he'd found at the church in Southie. He stared at it, rubbing away the grime to reveal a single eye peering up at him.

Daring him to act.

Danny brought the edge of the glass up to his chest, ready to press the sharp edge against the thick tendril of flesh that connected the sack to his body.

Free yourself. Free yourself. Free yourself. Free yourself.
The thing that swam in the ocean of darkness chanted.

"You sure you want to do that, kid?" asked a voice from somewhere close by, and Danny turned to see his closet doors swing open and Squire emerge. "Just think of the risk of infection."

Before Danny could respond, there was a roar like a lion, and something exploded from inside the darkness of the closet, black and huge and lighting fast, massive jaws open wide in fury.

Squire had not come alone.

Shuck landed in a coiled crouch in front of Baalphegor, driving him back toward the pulsing void in the wall. Squire caught a quick glimpse of the other demonic entity within the sea of darkness and shuddered at its ugliness, even as he turned to Danny.

"We gotta get you out of here," the hobgoblin said, taking him by the arm and hustling him toward the bedroom door.

Danny tore his arm away and twisted around to stare at the demon that was about to square off against Shuck. At his father. Squire couldn't tell if what he saw in the boy's eyes was longing or anger or both.

"It ain't for you, kid," Squire told him. "Come with us, we can help you get over this bad stretch."

The kid looked down into his eyes, and for a minute, Squire believed he had gotten through to him.

Then Danny's eyes flashed, and his lips parted in a nasty snarl as he hurled Squire across the room. The hobgoblin bounced off the wall and landed on the floor in a heap. He shook his head, trying to clear away the cobwebs, and watched through bleary eyes as Danny leaped across the room, tackling Shuck just as the shadow beast prepared to pounce on Baalphegor.

"Son of a bitch," Squire grumbled, climbing to his feet, just as Eve and Ceridwen appeared in the doorway.

"Oh, this is good," Eve sniped, eyeing the dimensional rift that had been opened in the kid's bedroom.

"Yep," Squire agreed, watching as Baalphegor turned his attention toward them, and then four shapes emerged from the pulsing void. They were powerful looking beasties, their bodies covered in thick, spiny shells, like crabs gone horribly, horribly wrong.

"Can't imagine things getting any better than this."

The world turned red.

Danny saw everything through a crimson haze, as though a red filter covered his eyes. The rage had claimed him. He wrestled the thrashing, black-skinned animal to the floor of his bedroom. With incredible strength, the beast twisted in his grasp, stretching, trying to snap its jaws down on him, to tear a chunk of flesh from him.

"Gonna bite me?" he snarled. "I don't think so."

His demonic nature ascendant, he reveled in the thrashing violence. He brought his jaws down, biting into the thick, black skin, reveling in the rank taste of the animal's blood as it gushed into his mouth.

The beast roared in pain, bucking wildly in Danny's grasp. He had his arms around the animal's neck, straddling its muscular back as he attempted to force the animal to the ground.