Damoren (35 page)

Or did he?

Matt eyed the strange anvil, barely visible behind the oni that had once been Selene. None of the other demons carried weapons. The hammer’s chisel-like head looked as though it might fit perfectly inside the anvil’s slot. Matt struggled to his feet, trying to get a better view.

His movement drew the guard
’s attention. Her hand tightened around the gun.

Squinting, Matt peered at the cloth-covered plank a few feet beside the anvil.
Several shapes bulged from beneath the crimson shroud.

“
I know where the weapons are,” he whispered to Luiza.

Her head snapped up toward him.
“Where?”

He nodded to the draped cloth.
“Under there.”

“Are you sure?”

Luc leaned closer to the cage door, his eyes studying the cloth.
“I recognize Velnepo’s shape. She’s there.”

“
All right,” Allan whispered. “So what do we do?”

Matt gnawed his lip, his hands pulling against the hard cuffs.
“Wait for an opening.”

Allan snorted.
“Oh, yeah, of course. We’re fucking dead.”

“
Shh,” Luiza hissed. “I’m not.”

Once the prisoners had been tied down, the cultists and demons enclosed the ring around them.
They chanted something, low and impossible for Matt to hear clearly as the drum thumped in a slow, methodical rhythm. He licked his lips, trying to see through the wall of bodies. Wisps of smoke rose above the crowd and Matt managed to make out the incense carrier slowly circling the ring, circling the pendulum-like censer over each of the bound prisoners.

The incense carrier completed the ring and the drum sounded three quick times.

Agostino stood at the center and raised his staff high.
“Bring forth the forsaken. Let them bear witness to the Great Mother’s rebirth and suffer her judgment for their sins.”

“
We’re up,” Matt said.

“
What?” Allan asked. His eyes widened as a robed figure and a pair of vampires peeled from the congregation and strode purposefully toward the cell. The drum pounded slowly as they approached.

The guard withdrew the keys from her robe and handed them to the cultist.
She aimed her gun at the door. “Step back.”

The hunters backed away as the cultist unlocked the cell.
The pale-skinned demons stood behind him side-by-side. One a male with wavy brown hair, the other a bald female, her pointed ears almost transparently thin. Her spider-like hand hung at her side. Each finger a digit longer than a human’s and tipped with a yellowish claw. Matt searched her red-ringed eyes, wondering if she had been the one that killed Clay.

The door squeaked open. “Out,” ordered the cultist.

The hunters all shared a look, then Malcolm, his face bruised and gritty with dried blood,
gave a resigned nod and stepped out. Matt followed, then by Luiza and the others. The slow drum beat mocked his racing heart.

Malcolm stood tall, his shoulders back, as they walked, giving Matt the courage to do the same.
Defiantly Matt met the eyes of their captors as the vampires led them around to the far side of the courtyard. Firelight from the metal basins lit the ring of terrified tourists bound to the ground, arms and legs spread, their touching feet formed a giant star. At its center, Agostino watched them with hateful, victorious eyes.

The female vampire stopped.
She stabbed a clawed finger downward. “Kneel.”

Matt grunted as his knees met the hard flagstone.
One of the basins burned behind them. His eyes watered from the smoke. Thirty feet ahead, the oni stood beside the raised anvil. The red-shrouded plank rested beside it. Above, a dark shadow swallowed the moon, only a quarter of it still visible.

The vampires returned to their ranks leaving the two cultists
to guard the prisoners. The woman with the gun stood a few feet off to Malcolm’s right. The other, far to the left, beside Luc.

Agostino returned his attention to the congregation.
“Now that the time is upon us, I call forth our beloved sister, Anya, whose sacrifice and devotion has earned her the honor of becoming one with our mother.” He raised a hand, palm up, to one of the hooded figures.

The bell rang.

The cultist stepped over the staked prisoners into the ring and stopped before Agostino.

“
Do you accept this honor?” Agostino asked.

“
I do,” she said.

The bell chimed twice more and a pair of cultists entered the ring from either side.
Anya extended her arms outward and they removed her robe with delicate reverence. They removed her hood and unclasped her two pendants, one brass, the other Feinluna’s broken shard, leaving her naked. Her clothing folded in their arms, the two attendants bowed to Agostino, then to her and quietly retreated back into the ranks.

The bell rang three times and the incense carrier stepped into the ring and circled Anya.
She stood still, allowing the smoke to waft over her pale, glistening skin.

Matt glanced up at the moon.
It was just a sliver, slightly orange at its edge.

Finished with his work, the carrier stepped back into the circled ranks, leaving only Agostino and Anya inside the ring.
Agostino turned and began walking around the circle, bringing the base of his staff down between each of the bound prisoners’ feet, a hard drum strike with each tap.

Malcolm coughed.

The moon’s tiny sliver of white was almost gone. The reddish orange hue had spread more across its once black face.

Malcolm coughed again.
“Matt.”

Matt glanced over at him.
Malcolm bobbed his nose toward the ground ahead. Matt followed his gaze but saw nothing.

“
The wire,” Malcolm said. No, he didn’t say it.
Not exactly.
He spoke nonsense, just a light grunt and cough, but Matt understood his meaning.

Matt peered harder, trying to see what Malcolm did.
There, nestled in the gap between two of the paving stones five feet away, the bent end of a wire protruded above the surface. It was short, maybe four inches. Probably some relic from the construction, fallen between the narrow channel where the sweeper’s broom had missed it. Matt swallowed, excitement rising. It looked thin enough to work. He gave Malcolm a nod.

“
I’ll cause a distraction,” Malcolm grunted in his non-language. “Get it.”

Matt nodded again.

A small grin tugged the corner of Malcolm’s lips. “I knew I shouldn’t have trusted you,” he spat, his voice clear. “This is your fault!”

The shotgun woman
’s head snapped from the ceremony to Malcolm. “Quiet!”

Malcolm stared hatefully at Matt.
His eyes darted quickly toward the wire. “I’ll fucking kill you!” he screamed, lunging.

Matt
tried to move out of the way, but the bound wrists made it awkward. Malcolm’s shoulder clipped him, sending him falling to the hard stones.

“
You fucking fuck!” Malcolm yelled, kicking as he struggled up.

Matt rolled, but taking one solid strike to the thigh before he escaped Malcolm
’s range. He scrambled across the ground, scraping his back, desperately feeling for the wire with his bound hands.

The guards rushed Malcolm, the woman
jamming her shotgun into his ribs as the man drove his heel into his back.

“
I’ll kill you!” Malcolm howled.

Something sharp jabbed Matt
’s bicep. The wire! He scooted higher, his fingers desperately searching the narrow gaps between stones.

The male guard yanked Malcolm up and forced him back in line.

The woman aimed her shotgun at Matt.
“Stop.”

Matt inched himself a bit further.
He felt the tiny wire and scooped it up as the woman took a step toward him.

“
Up!” she ordered.

Lowering his eyes submissively from her and her gun, Matt palmed the wire and forced himself up.
He winced, realizing he’d scraped a knee. Head down, he moved back into the row of hunters.

Malcolm watched him through the corner of his eye, hopeful.

Matt glanced back at the woman standing a few feet beside them. She snapped a finger, telling him ‘eyes front.’

Malcolm
’s plan had worked, but the guards were watching them close now. He couldn’t risk any move yet. Matt turned back to the ceremony, giving Malcolm a quick smile as he did.

Agostino had finished his circuit, and now stood outside the ring on the far side.
He raised his arms. “The time has come to call our Great Mother back into this world!”

The drum sounded.

A pair of robed cultists approached the covered plank and carefully removed the red shroud. Nine weapons lay spread out across the polished wood. Dämoren rested in the very middle. One of the cultists took Anya’s sword, Baroovda, from the end and placed it on the anvil, its curved blade resting across the open v-slot.

The drum thumped again.
All white from the moon was gone. It glowed red.

The robed figures began to chant.
“
Take the flesh. Taste the Flesh. Rise and Destroy. Rise and Rule. Icthwyn. Icthwyn. Your children call. Your subjects call. Rise and destroy. Rise and rule.
”

The drum thumped.
At the same time, the oni raised her giant, pointed hammer and smashed it down into the anvil, shattering Baroovda’s blade.

Shrieks erupted from the bound prisoners.
They shook, fighting against their bonds as they all howled and screamed. Anya stood calmly in the center of the hysteria, her arms raised, head back.

The weapon killers picked the adze from the museum up and set it on the anvil as the congregation continued their chant.

“
Take the flesh. Taste the Flesh. Rise and Destroy. Rise and Rule. Icthwyn. Icthwyn. Your children call. Your subjects call. Rise and destroy. Rise and rule.
”

The drum thumped as the oni smashed the adze with a loud clang.

Blisters rose on the prisoners’ feet and inner legs, boiling and bubbling. Skin split open. It peeled away in strips, exposing pink muscle beneath. Flesh and blood coursed through the air as if trapped in a cyclone within the ring.

Matt glanced back.
The black ceremony held the guards’ attention. Carefully, he took the wire in his right hand and felt for the cuff’s tiny keyhole.

“
Take the flesh. Taste the Flesh.
”

Matt
slid the wire’s tip into the narrow hole and pressed it to the side, bending a little finger at the end.

“
Rise and Destroy. Rise and Rule. Icthwyn. Icthwyn.
”

Blindly he fiddled around the side, trying to reach the double lock
’s catch. Brushing away bits of splintered adze, the weapon killers placed Colin’s thick-bladed sword on the block.

“
Rise and Destroy. Rise and Rule. Icthwyn. Icthwyn.
”

Matt felt the catch, he pressed against it, but the flimsy wire bent under the strain.
Shit!

“
Your children call. Your subjects call. Rise and destroy. Rise and rule.
”

The maul came down, shattering the blade.

Anya screamed, shrill and inhuman.
She fell to her knees. The skin along her spine swelled and split open, revealing a nest of finger-length cilia, writhing like pale maggots. The prisoners’ howls had ceased. Tendons and muscles unraveled from their bones, swept up into the red maelstrom.

Matt
’s fingers trembled. Fighting the fear and adrenaline he re-bent the wire and worked it back toward the catch.

“
Take the flesh. Taste the Flesh.
”

The hooded figures placed Ibenus on the anvil.

“
Rise and Destroy.
”

Matt felt the tiny lever.
Holding the wire as close to the keyhole as he could he pressed against it. He felt it click.

“
Rise and Rule.
”

Sweat ran down Matt
’s face as he moved the wire around to the other side of the catch.

“
Icthwyn.
”

The catch gave and the cuff popped open.

“
Icthwyn!
”

Matt jumped up, tossing the bent wire at Malcolm
’s feet and charged the woman guard. She turned in surprise just as Matt punched her in the jaw. He grabbed the shotgun, yanking it from her grip as she fell backward.

“
Your children call.
”