Fall From Grace, page 12
part #9 of the Preternatural Chronicles Series
“NO!” I screamed as they disappeared under an ocean of malicious rain.
17
LILY
Three heads toppled to the dirty street as the stumps they left behind began to spurt demon blood into the air like demented geysers.
Lily skidded to a halt on the other side of the group, turned, and dove in again.
The few remaining fallen angels unsheathed obsidian knives, but it was too late, as entire bodies were bisected at the waist. The aroma of burning tires covered in cat piss filled the air as gallons of demon blood spilled into the streets.
In just two blurring passes, Lily the Ancient Vampire had efficaciously killed all but a single demon.
Coming to a halt, Lily, still in her glamour, turned toward the remaining enemy and smiled with canines that were a bit too long, even for a demon.
The last man standing screamed in a pitch that surprised all who witnessed the carnage and fled.
Lily let him go as she turned back toward the very stunned Greg.
“I hope you can fight,” she stated in a way that was almost a question.
To Greg, it felt like a statement that strongly suggested if you don’t know how to fight, I still have a mission to achieve, and you are expendable.
He wanted to be offended by the thought, but remembered the obsidian clouds above his beloved Faerie…his home.
It was time for war. Except for one itsy-bitsy problem.
“I’m a pacifist,” he informed Lily, who responded with a chuckle that confirmed her initial suspicion of Greg’s ability to fight.
“But I know a guy…”
Clenching his thickly bearded chin, Greg reached into the satchel disguising his Pocket of Holding and pulled out a handful of items.
The first was a PEZ dispenser with the head of Saitama from the anime One Punch Man.
Pushing back on the expressionless, almost bored face, a pink PEZ popped out.
“And here…we…go…” The shaman started chewing the concoction with a sour face.
“Oh God,” Greg gagged. “I can never get the cotton candy flavor even close.”
Replacing the PEZ dispenser in the satchel, Greg turned his attention to his other hand, where he held custom-made gloves of his own design.
As the enchanted herbs began to alter Greg’s state of being, he slipped on the nearly indestructible Fae silk gloves. They were tipped in long, cold-iron claws that would have been at home on a robotic grizzly bear.
Tightening the straps around his wrists, Greg began a low, unnerving chuckle as his concentration shifted, dropping the glamours that shrouded both him and Lily, revealing their true forms.
His dark blond, almost brown hair began to lift as if he were holding a conductor for static electricity, and each eye went fully black, with no distinguishable pupil or iris.
Lily, as well as the entire busy street, looked upon Greg with sheer awe at the transformation. It was like watching Dr. Jekyll turn into Mr. Hyde.
Peering at her companion with renewed respect, Lily instantly understood that the shaman, Greg, had entered an altered state of consciousness. And by the looks of it, one that wasn’t a pacifist.
“About fucking time,” the warrior, Greg, growled. His voice, sharing identical vocal cords with his pacifist alter ego, sounded the same, but with an added aggression to his words. “It has been ages since I was free.”
A group of armored demons wielding varying assortments of deadly hellion weapons rounded a corner a few blocks down the street.
“Well, now is your chance to make up for lost time,” Lily called over her shoulder to where Greg was tightening the straps of his satchel so that nothing would fall out during the glorious battle.
“Good! I thought they were going to make me wait, hahahaaaaaa!” the warrior boomed, claw-tipped hands outstretched to the sky.
Lily could see that each tip of Greg’s cold-iron claws was etched with a mixture of scripts that she vaguely recognized portions of.
Turning back toward the approaching group of armed soldiers, Lily took note of how quickly they had appeared, and from which direction. An unknown yet welcomed variable of her plan had revealed a new interesting tidbit of information in regard to the rules of travel within Hell.
An obsidian arrow whistled through the air and toward Lily, who was ready with her bloodswords.
As she lifted to strike, a blur rushed past her, and the arrow was snatched out of the sky by a chortling Greg, who easily broke the projectile in his fist.
To their credit, the approaching demons didn’t even flinch at the show of ability from the unknown assailants. Instead, the soldiers fanned out in a line, with heavily armored demons holding shields in the front, and those with long pikes just behind. At the back was a larger demon with a fancy helmet who was issuing orders. On either side of him were four archers nocking arrows.
Greg caught both obsidian arrows that had been aimed at him with ease, breaking them in his grasp before sprinting forward at preternatural speeds.
Lily, on the other hand, simply lunged to the side while twisting her torso instead of easily swiping the projectiles from the air with her weapons.
Leaping through the air, Greg brought both open hands up to either side of his mouth and began vomiting a torrent of liquid flames on top of the demons’ front line.
The sheet of fire obscured the group’s vision, allowing Greg to land behind two of the archers flanking the apparent captain.
With a blurry thrust of hands, Greg first plunged his clawed fingers into the demons’ lower backs before gripping their spines with a crunch. With a sickening tearing sound, Greg ripped out their entire spines, complete with skulls, and used them to bash the pikemen in front of them.
Their helmets and armor protected them from the brunt of the attack, but considering the skulls still had their own obsidian helmets, two of the pikemen were still knocked silly from the blows.
Moving swiftly, the captain produced a nasty-looking obsidian knife and dropped to one knee while pivoting his torso.
The blade met with the outside of one of Greg’s thighs, not so cleanly cutting through the quad muscle and connecting tissue. With how jagged the blade was, it was more akin to tearing the flesh rather than cutting it.
Much to Lily’s delight, Greg didn’t even acknowledge the wound, instead choosing to dash forward with his good leg like he was about to dive into a pool of water.
As he flew like a missile, Greg spun as he passed through the front line, cold-iron claws slicing through armor and catching flesh with ease. Gore was flung all around, like a powerful tornado picking up an open trailer full of raw meat, sending chunks of viscera and sheets of blood in all directions.
Before he made it all the way through the shielded front line, Greg had his injured leg snatched in midair by the captain, who proceeded to turn a full 180 degrees and slam the shaman warrior on the ground like a lumberjack burying his axe into a block of wood.
Lily, who was almost awestruck at how insanely aggressive Greg’s attack had been, snapped out of it and launched her own volley.
Extending her hands outward, the bloodswords mutated into an explosion of fast-moving marbles that pierced exposed flesh like a blast from a shotgun. Those that ricocheted off of the front line’s shields were then brought around in a wide curve to latch on to the demons in the same way paintballs might. Except, instead of being stained with splatters of red, the blood morphed into multilegged insects with drill bits for mouths.
Much more efficiently than John, Lily had mastered the ability to control her blood energy without a physical tether to maintain it.
The insects skittered over the confused demons, who attempted to swipe at the crimson bugs, but the manifestations slipped under the thick armor in search of tender flesh.
Each of the demons had been hit with at least a handful of the flying marbles, and now, every deadly insect sought bone beneath the skin.
Drill bit mouths began to whir as the flesh was pierced at several points, all at the same time.
Every demon immediately began bellowing in pain and surprise as Lily’s manifestations quickly dug deep. Several of the insects had positioned themselves above their spines in search of the critical treasure that lay at the protected center.
Tendons and ligaments were rent, spinal cords were separated, and arteries were opened wide, spewing precious blood onto the dirt.
The captain, on the other hand, swiftly pulled out a handheld device from his belt and placed it against the exposed flesh of his neck. With an unnervingly calm smile, the captain locked eyes with Lily, and pressed the trigger.
Green-and-blue electricity danced over his entire body, making him convulse where he stood as portions of his skin crackled as it cooked.
All too late, Lily understood what was happening right as the energy she had poured into her manifestations was cut off completely. Unfortunately for her, Lily had directed a large portion of her flying bloodmarbles to latch on to the captain, taking with them valuable power.
With the sudden shock of losing her energy—a feeling she hadn’t experienced in countless years—Lily briefly dropped her concentration on the remaining crimson insects. This resulted in further shock as all her manifested energy was ripped from her in an instant.
Dropping to one knee, Lily clenched and unclenched her hands, which had gone numb at the captain’s clever counterattack.
Even with the wave of pain, Lily refused to scream, choosing to bite down on her lower lip instead. Her mouth was flooded with the warm, metallic taste of her own blood as her teeth nearly dissected her entire lip.
Pushing herself up to both feet, Lily shook her arms as the feeling came back into her hands and her mouth healed, leaving behind porcelain teeth stained crimson.
In direct contrast, the captain continued to stare with calm eyes and a malicious smile, smoke wafting off of his partially cooked flesh.
Using her peripheral vision, Lily could see Greg had been swung into the ground by a few inches, and was only now beginning to lift his head as a groan escaped his bleeding lips.
The captain noticed and began to turn as he pulled an obsidian sword from a sheath tied to his belt. The blade was beautiful compared to the typical material found in Hell. The weapon had a mirror finish that reflected the surrounding area with complete clarity as opposed to the matte and jagged blades the lower-class soldiers held.
Seeing the sword being brought up to strike the injured Greg, Lily blurred forward with a sword of her own forming in her hands, which was exactly what the captain had wanted.
Sidestepping in Lily’s direction at a speed that shouldn’t have been possible, the captain slammed the back of his armored elbow directly into Lily’s surprised face.
With a sickening crunch, her vision went black with quick pulsing waves of red as Lily was thrown backward several yards.
Crashing to the ground, Lily quickly recovered by going with the momentum and rolling backward to land on her feet in a crouch. Her free hand went up to a gushing nose that was doing its best impersonation of the letter C.
Snapping it back in place with a grunt, Lily commanded her face to heal as she climbed to her feet, ready to jump back into battle.
The captain smiled as he turned his entire body squarely toward Lily, no longer paying attention to the downed Greg.
Unsure of her opponent, Lily decided it was best to respect the captain’s surprising prowess. It was clear he was not a typical demon that could be easily dispatched with a straightforward attack.
Blurring forward again, Lily registered that the captain had quickly positioned himself in a counterstrike stance, which was exactly what she wanted him to do.
Once she was only a few feet away, the captain swung his blade, faster than what should have been possible, as Lily skidded to a halt on the dirty street like an ice skater.
Dust, dirt, and chunks of concrete shot forward into the scowling eyes of the demon warrior.
As his blade continued in the arc it was already committed to, the demon grunted in agitation, his free hand rushing to rub at his damaged eyes.
Smiling, Lily slapped a foot on the ground to the captain’s left before silently moving toward his right.
The demon, hearing the intended noise, swung his blade in the direction Lily had faked, leaving his back wide open for attack.
Lily poised her weapon above her head, ready to cut the bastard’s spine in half, when one of his feet lifted off the ground and kicked Lily in the face as if he were a scorpion striking with his tail.
Once more, Lily was thrown through the air as the bones in her face were shattered.
Anger flooded her veins like a rush of nitrous to a race car, and Lily screamed in rage as she recovered in midair.
Putting her hands together while at the crest of her fall, Lily poured an alarming amount of energy into the blood that erupted from her palms.
It had been ages since Lily had felt vulnerable when facing an opponent, and now it had happened twice in a very short amount of time. First with the Ether-controlled sorcerer, and now with this…this demon.
Lily’s wrath formed a long, thick body in front of and beneath her, using an immense volume of blood that couldn’t have physically fit inside her petite frame.
An elongated neck and tail sprouted on either end as four powerful legs formed, effectively halting Lily’s fall.
With a roar of absolute authority, a blooddragon stared down at the much smaller demon captain.
In answer to the challenge, the captain simply looked up and tilted his head to the side quizzically.
From head to toe, the blooddragon was the size of a city bus with unfurling wings, each the length of the reptile itself.
Lily sat upon her fantastical steed with an expression of barely contained rage marring her beautiful, healing face.
A war cry erupted from Lily’s frowning mouth as the dragon reared back, ready to lunge at the captain, who remained motionless.
“Enough!” a familiar voice boomed, making the very air reverberate.
Lily didn’t flinch, but she did pause her attack as tiny trails of blood slipped from her healing ears. In contrast, all of the human souls, and even the gathered demons, clapped their hands over their ears.
The captain, however, did not move, making Lily feel even more uneasy.
From flat on the ground, a purple-and-green portal opened, and a creature most foul dramatically lifted through.
Lily’s dragon growled in warning, sensing its owner’s emotions toward the Grand Master Warlock Vampire.
Coming through fully, Ulric let his portal fade from view as intelligent eyes latched on to Lily’s fierce gaze.
Lily couldn’t help but take note of how beautifully the man dressed, even while standing in the filthy city of Tartarus.
His shoes and pants were a deep black, with a long suit jacket the same color. The twin tails of the coat reached the back of his ankles and wrapped around to barely touch his shins. The silken button-up dress shirt was an almost reflective crimson with a stiff collar that stretched all the way to the man’s cleanly shaven jaw. To top off the eccentricity of the outfit meant for a prestigious gala, Ulric had a tie the same color as his shirt, but with an intricate knot that, at first glance, one would think was physically impossible. But Lily knew Ulric, and a glamour would simply not do in place of the real thing. His short hair was plastered tight to his skull except for the top, which had volume and was precisely combed over to one side.
The sight of the impeccably well-dressed man she had once been involved in a lengthy infatuation with made Lily’s mouth salivate ever so slightly, much to her guilt and disgust.
“Lilyyyyyyy,” Ulric purred contently as he threw his hands toward her in welcome while bending a little backward at the waist and letting his head lull to one side. “How long has it been, my dear?”
“Not long enough,” Lily answered with a noticeable lack of aggression that she had meant to inject into her words.
“Well then, that makes this reunion even more special!” Ulric announced, clapping his hands once as he straightened his stance. “Thank you, Lane, that will be all,” he told the captain, who turned to acknowledge the man with indifference.
“My payment,” the demon said in a surprisingly human voice as he held out his hand, expectantly.
“Ah, of course! Of course,” Ulric repeated, reaching into his—no doubt—insanely expensive custom coat. It almost seemed like a trench coat to Lily, but elegantly maintaining the prestigious look of a fashionable suit jacket.
“You have fulfilled your side of the deal and found Lily for me. You even managed to bring her here,” Ulric said with amusement in his voice as he gestured to the never-ending city with his free hand.
From his suit pocket, Ulric removed a kukri blade sheathed in old leather. Lily recognized it immediately.
“That’s John’s!” Lily growled, staring at the silver knife as it was passed to the demon captain, Lane.
“Not anymore, I am afraid,” Ulric dramatically informed as he placed the knife into the captain’s waiting hand.
“You can’t do that,” Lily said, unable to help herself. She knew the words were juvenile as she spoke them, but seeing the knife that belonged to her beloved John made her chest tighten, like the simple object was a direct representation of the man she loved, and seeing it placed into the demon’s possession felt like an unavoidable omen to everything she feared.
“Oh, but I can,” Ulric chuckled as if he were the star of his own Broadway show. “You see, I acquired it from John, thusly making it mine. And now, it belongs to Mr. Hamilton here.”
Lily couldn’t help but notice the odd name for the demon, and she turned her attention to him.
It looked back at her and smiled. Black smoke wafted off of its body until a normal-sized man was standing where the captain had just been.
He wore a thick, black leather biker’s jacket, plain dark T-shirt, and brandless jeans. Dirty boots worn from years of use and abuse to the point where the steel could be seen through a hole over the toes were on his feet.
