Lisa Shearin - The Trouble With Demons

A deafening roar went up from the demons in the darkness, and shapes and shadows surged up the stairs and through the massive doors surrounding the Assembly chamber. Their triumphant roars and starved shrieks added to the din.

“Go with them,” she ordered the Volghuls standing on guard around the columns.

I took a look and did the math. Only one Volghul was left for each of us. One on one. Now that’s what I called better odds. Yes, they were demons and we were unarmed mortals who couldn’t use our magic, but I knew for a fact we had something going for us that they didn’t-the desire to survive at any and all costs.

I felt a pressure building, and the air in the room contracted, tightened, as if something in the hall beyond was trying to suck all the air out of the Assembly. I covered my ears with my hands, trying to stop the stabbing pain against my eardrums. Everyone else did the same, demons included. Then the pressure stopped, suddenly and painfully. I lowered my hands, half expecting to see blood on them. All around us, the Assembly doors began slamming with resounding booms until they were all closed.

Beyond the doors was silence. On the dais, no one moved.

The doors didn’t open. No demons appeared to report victory to their queen. No mortals stormed the Assembly to rescue us. Nothing.

That was either really good or very bad.

“Kuitak!” the queen snapped at a Volghul.

“Your will, Majesty?”

“Take the Scythe and go free my-”

Oh, hell no.

My shoulder took the demon queen in the midsection with a satisfying thud. The Scythe flew out of her hand and skidded across the dais, disappearing over the side onto the floor below. We both scrambled for it, but not before the queen’s foot gave me a solid kick in the head, and black flowers bloomed on the edge of my vision. I shook them off and threw myself on top of her, grabbing for her throat, my weight and momentum taking her to the floor. The demon queen hissed and twisted sharply, putting us face to fangs with her on top. One of my arms was pinned between us, but the other got in two solid punches to the side of her face and she had a few less fangs.

The second punch snapped her head to the side and gave me enough leverage to flip her onto her back. Problem was I’d miscalculated how close we were to the dais stairs. I think I hit every bone in my body rolling down those stairs entangled with the demon queen. She was hissing; I was snarling. Her claws were going for my eyes; I was going for anything I could knee, elbow, or punch.

Everything was pretty much a blur while we rolled down the stairs, but from what I could hear, the boys were giving as good as they got. From the stench of burning demon flesh, I guessed that Vegard had gotten clear of the Hellgate distortion and was lobbing fireballs. Piaras’s voice rang out in a single, imperious word, and a Volghul flew by overhead, arms and legs desperately flailing. Tam’s sibilant incantations from the dais above us were tight with effort, fighting for control. I’d taken on the queen, leaving Tam to replace the void of her power with his own, to single-handedly try to keep the Hellgate from exploding, imploding, or whatever it was that a loose Hellgate did.

Tam was powerful, but he was mortal. His power had limits, and time was not on our side.

The queen and I rolled to a stop as a needle-thin shaft of white light exploded the head of the nearest Volghul. I didn’t move. It didn’t seem smart with skull-piercing lightning bolts flying around.

My mistake. A big one.

The demon queen got her hands around my throat and dug in. I screamed, searing pain following the hot wetness of my own blood running down my neck. I’d been right, her nails hadn’t survived the fight, but broken nails left jagged edges, and they were razor sharp.

A dot of blazing white light appeared in the exact center of the queen’s forehead. The fighting around us immediately stopped. The only sound was Tam’s unbroken stream of incantations and hissing, labored breathing.

The light remained where it was, unwavering.

“Her death will be your doing!” the demon queen shouted into the darkness.

A strong, deep voice came from the shadows just beyond the columns. Mychael’s voice. “Release her or share your guard’s fate.”

Just what I didn’t need-a hostage situation and a standoff all rolled into one.

Mychael’s statement was a warning; his words were raw power given voice. Demanding, compelling, those words gave the demon queen a choice, and one choice only-obey or die.

The queen swayed as if from an unseen breeze, but her hold on me never lessened. Mychael’s voice had gotten to her, and for a brief instant he had controlled her.

Her fiery eyes blazed with renewed rage. “Show yourself, mortal!”

I heard the sharp echo of Mychael’s boots as he stepped up on the stage and into the light, but he didn’t pass between the columns. He knew better. Mychael’s left arm was extended; the light beam coming from his index finger was leveled like the deadly weapon it was, never wavering from its target. In his right hand, his sword blazed with pure, white light. His entire body was surrounded by a glowing nimbus.

When the demon queen saw him, her full lips curved in a satisfied smile. “You. I should have known. Come to me, and I will allow the elfling to live.” Her words had power of their own, not the magical compulsion of a spellsinger, but the smoothly seductive tones of a temptress with millennia of experience.

“Release her and you will not die.” Mychael’s voice was calm, but unyielding.

The seductive smile twisted into a sneer. “You think you can destroy me? I will rule when you are dust. Come closer, paladin.”

“Sir, no!” Vegard shouted.

“I can feel the distortion from the gate,” Mychael assured him, keeping his eyes on the demon queen. “I need not come any farther. And neither do your brothers.”

Backup. Guardian backup. Now that was some much-needed good news.

“More flesh for my children,” the queen said in approval.

“More gifts for me.”

Mychael’s beam flared in intensity, searing a blackened circle into her forehead like a brand. The queen screamed in pain and fury, and her claws contracted. I clenched my teeth against the pain. I wouldn’t scream again.

“My children will feast on you!” she shrieked at him.

“Your children are prisoners.” Mychael’s voice was relentless. “Release her.”

“Impossible, there were hundreds.”

“Now they are captives.”

“You lie!”

“Then where are they?” he asked quietly.

The demon queen didn’t have an answer for that, and neither did I. But I had connected some dots, and I knew she wasn’t going to like the picture it made. When I told her, she’d either let me go or finish the bloody job she’d started. Anything was better than a naked demon queen on top of me.

I tried to speak without moving my throat, which was easier said than done. “You have no Scythe,” I rasped. “Saghred coming here… Guardians already here… Only I can touch the rock.” I swallowed, or at least I tried to. “And you have a beauty mark that’s about to become fatal.”

The demon queen smiled, sure and confident. “Not all of my servants are here.”

Several things happened more or less at once.

The demon queen half jumped-but mostly flew-straight up into the shadowed vaults of the ceiling like she’d been shot from a cannon.

Then she vanished.

It had to be a cloak, one so complete that it left no sign that she still existed. I knew better; she wasn’t leaving without everything she’d come for. If she could cloak, it meant she was outside of the Hellgate distortion.

It also meant that she could do anything magically speaking; and from up there, she could do it to anyone.