Dark Calling (31 page)

Keely stops yelling when she hears the sound.  Bryon snatches up the bar and runs his hand across it
.  It broke evenly on both ends
, but it will still work.  “Well, Lila, now we have a weapon.”

Lila pushes herself up and grips the bars in shaky hands.  “O.k.  Don’t be mad.
”

“Mad about what?  We have a weapon.  I mean it’s not the best, but it’s better than nothing.”

“No, that’s not what I mean.  That’s what I was waiting for
,
I think
,
because right now everything inside is warning me to get out.  Now.”

“Oh for shit’s sake, Lila.”

“No time
, Bryon
.  Start yelling.”

Keely can’t find her voice for several seconds.  A lose bar in a cell?  Lila kept them down here for that?  Well, it better be the best
damn
cell bar ever.  She shakes her head and adds her voice to her friends’. 

Though it’s chillingly cold,
Bryon
is sweating.  Using the back of his hand, he wipes his forehead
.  With a shakiness he isn’t accustomed to
, he
lines the bar
back up where it came from
,
holding
it firmly in place.  He takes a deep breath
, readying himself for what he’
s about to do. 
Keely and Lila cease screaming
as soon as the door creeks open
and a lantern
glows in the distance
. 
Bryon
squints against the light as he checks the bar, making sure it appears unchanged.  He
continues
shouting
as planned in order to draw Geryon to him.
  He had hoped for a smaller Demon, or at least one less intimidating, but he isn’t exactly in the position to be choosy.
 

T
he lamp is bright in contrast to the deep darkness,
but
Keely has no trouble making out the enormous bulk of the man coming toward th
em. 
He is the largest person she has ever seen. 
Bigger even than
the men at the
professional wrestling show
her da
d took her to
.
  (She went through a faze when she was twelve.)
  She had been surprised at their size because they hadn’t seemed that big on T.V. 
Geryon put
s
them to shame. 
His arms a
lone are as big as Keely’s legs
and his eyes are fully black.  As he moves closer to her cell, he seems to shimmer, or ripple as if he
i
s under water
.  Only, when he shimmers, she can
see the real Geryon.  The real Demon is scarier. 
Sickly g
ray skin, drooping
blank
eyes, and a mouth full of
razor sharp
fanged teeth.
 
Part of her wants to cower, the other p
art anticipates Bryon ripping this Demon apart
.  She wraps her hands around the cool metal bars, biting her lip.

“Is that you screaming like a little girl?” Geryon addresses Bryon with a slight accent. 
Irish
,
s
he thinks. 

“Yeah, I broke a nail.”

Geryon tilts his
bald
head.  “Looks like you broke a few.”

Glancing at the dried blood and dirt that coat his hands, Bryon shrugs.  “I need a manicure.  Think you could set that up for me, big guy?”

“I’ll get right on that.  After all, you want to look pretty for your funeral.”

Keely swallows the lump in her throat as Geryon takes a step closer to Bryon’
s cell
and
hangs the lantern from a thick rusted road spike hammered into the wall.
  He has to be in reaching distance.  What is Bryon waiting on?  An invitation?

“This one right here is especially in need of work.  I’ll ask them to save it just for you,” Bryon says with a smile as he holds up his middle finger.

Geryon smiles back
.  “You think you’re a pretty funny guy, don’t you?”

“Well, I don’t want to brag…”

“You know what’s really funny?” Geryon a
sks, taking another step toward
the cell.

“Your face?”

Continuing
as if he didn’t hear Bryon
, Geryon
says,
“When they’re killing you slowly, in front of your friends, and you start crying a
nd begging for it to stop. 
That’s when I’ll be laughing.”
  He towers before Bryon in an unnerving way.  Keely wonders if they should revise their plan.

“You know what’s even funnier than that?” 
Bryon keeps his hand on the bar
and kicks the bottom out hard, making contact with Geryon’s genitals.  It makes an audible thwack as the air rushes out of the big man. 
Out of sheer instinct,
he bends
to grab himself and
Bryon brings the bar up, slamming it
into the underside of Geryon’
s chin.  His head snaps back;
a terrible cracking sounds from his neck.  Bryon flips the
bar and brings it down on the D
emon’s head, knocking him out. 
He falls to the
ground and Bryon smiles wickedly as he whispers
,
“
The bigger
they are…
”
  The adrenaline rushes through him.  With one last twirl of his weapon,
Bryon stabs the bar into Geryon’s chest, causing him to explod
e into a whirlwind of white salt
.  The large key ring clatters to the floor.
  “The harder they fall.”

Using the very handy cell bar, Bryon pulls the
ring to him and shakes the salt
from the keys.  The second
key
frees him
.  “Now that’s funny.”  H
e moves to Keely’s cell.

“Hurry up.  We need to move,” Lila calls.

Br
yon is covered in the white salt
, and beneath that, days of dirt.  Keely doesn’t care.  As soon as the lock turns, she is out the door and hugging Bryon tightly, tha
nkful he’
s alive, that she’s alive.  Grateful for his bravery.
  His hands pull her against him and those feelings she’s been struggling with take over.  She turns her face into his neck.  Press
es
her lips against his skin.  As soon as she does this, she pu
lls away, ignoring the expression on Bryon’s face.  This isn’t the time to be deciphering their feelings.

B
ryon’s body is rigid as he peers down at her, i
t’s the first look he’s gotten
of
Keely, and he gasps.  He hadn’t expected her to be so battered, so bloody.  Her face is bruised and swollen.  “Oh, Kiem.” 
His fingers shake as he reaches for her cheek.

“I’m fine.  Let’s go.”

Bryon is angered all over
again
when he gets to Lila’s cell and sees her obviously broken nose
.  She is drenched in blood as well and almost as dirty as he is.  “Lila, what happened?”

“I ran into a wall.”  She brushes past him and retrieves the lantern.

From anyone else, Bryon would have assumed ‘I ran into a wall,’ meant
,
‘I got beat up,’ but from L
ila, he believes this is precisely
what happened
.  H
e can’t help but laugh. 

“No
, no.  No
t funny, and
not now, Bry.
  Nice job by the way.
”

Bryon nods his head at her in thanks.

Keely skims her surroundings.  Looks from cell to cell.  “This place is a dungeon.  Like a real live,
actual
dungeon.”

Lifting the lamp, Lila moves in a circle taking in the eight small cells.  “These ar
e old.  How didn’t we know this
existed?”

“We’re not in the tunnels under Pandora.  We can’t be,” Keely thinks aloud.

“No, we’re not.  You’re right.  We must have passed over at some point,” Bryon says.

“
Passed over where?”  Keely feels her heart beating faster suddenly. 

“Demon realm.”  Bryon runs a filthy hand through his hair feeling defeated.

“Which means there is no Calvary coming.  We’re on our own here,” Lila states.  In one of the co
olest moves Keely has ever seen
—
Bryon’s rec
ent display excluded—L
ila turns and kicks the cell bar on the ground.  It flies up in the air and she catches it, spinning it like a baton.  “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

“If we’re in a Demon realm, isn’
t there going to be, umm,
Demons?” Keely asks
.  Her feet feel glued to the spot in which she stands.  Can she really face more of these creatures?  When is
it going to stop?

Observing
the alarm
on her face, Bryon
decides to take
her hand.  With a slight tug he moves her forward.  “Yes, but we have no other choice.  They may not even bother us if we don’t bother them.  Most Demons only care about themselves.  It’s like…walking through a bad part of town.  Just keep your head down and move fast.”

With a
tired
laugh, Lila adds, “And if the local gang gives us any shit, we kick their asses.”

Walking quickly through the dark tunnel, Keely can’t seem to shake the feeling she is in a haunted house, just waiting for the monste
rs to jump out.  The orange light
that illuminates their way is both reassuring and eerie.  She wonders how the sons of Angels can be so horrible.  “
T
here aren’t a lot of Demons
though
, right?”

Lila laughs and Bryon nearly stops walking as he gazes at Keely incredulously
.  “
They
have us
outnumber
ed
by far
,” Bryon says raising a brow.
 

“But there are only twenty-two, right?”

Now Bryon does stop.  “Originally, yes.”
  He rubs his neck while he thinks of the best way to explain this.  “People assume that when a person dies, they either go to Heaven, or the
y go to Hell.”  He looks around
and begins moving again as he talks.  “Things are not that black and white.  It’s easier to think that way, but it doesn’t make it true.  See, it’s like how for years, everyone tho
ught the world was flat, then
discovered
it
to be round.  Or how they thought the sun rotated around the world, then one day, someone realized the opposite was true and there were actually even more planets tha
t orbited it.  There are things
worse than Demons.  Things that mated with Demons, and they spawned children, then those children mated, and they spawned children.  You understand?  Ther
e are still some Originals left and they’
re
extremely
powerful
, but there are billions of lesser Demons.  Probably more.  On Earth, people die all the time.  Demons are harder to kill, and when they do die, they just end up back in Hell.”

“So what’s the point in killing them?”

“It’s believed that when you go to Heaven or Hell, you go without a body.  Only your soul.  I’ve h
ad a lot of contact with Demons
and they are flesh and blood, and
they are
soulless.  Now how can you only be a soul if you haven’t even got one?
But, I think that when they’re killed and sent
back to Hell, they’
re
stuck there
, no longer able to travel the realms
.
  That’s why it’s important to kill them and not wound them.
”

“How can you tell the difference?”

“
Hidden in the sand
, they’re wounded
.  Salt of the Earth
, they’re dead
.”

“You know that’s not always easy to distinguish?  Like when you’re under attack.”

“Eventually, you get the hang of it.”

“So why does God allow them to exist?”
 

“
I can’t answer that. 
You know how scientists thought the atom was the smallest
amount of any substance, but then someone looked inside and discovered there was actually a nucleus made up of even smaller protons, neutrons, and electrons?”