Demon Singer (26 page)

Lyric got up and left the room.  

Acheron pulled herself out of Lyric's head and looked at her singer.  As always, even with the vacant expression in his eyes from being under the influence of the General, she was torn between wanting to love Him and wanting to twist his head off.  She wondered if the day would come when her love for him would cease to be enough to conquer the hate.

"
Lover," she sighed.  "What am I going to do with you?"  She looked out the window at the sunrise, watching purple and blue hills blush at the first caress of the morning.  The familiar sadness and sense of loss threatened to pull her deeper into her madness.  

Whatever sorrows plagued mankind, none could compare to enjoying all the glory that lies behind the third veil and rejecting it for shiny promises and sweet lies.  This Hell she existed in would be sweeter than all of earth's treasures if only the Voice would Sing to her here.  She looked back at her Singer, wondering again at the mystery of his song.  

She'd been wandering the edge of the pit, taunting the tortured souls in the fire.  Part of her psychotic logic was that the more she acclimated herself to it, the less traumatizing it would be when she faced final judgment and joined those screaming eternally.  As she cruelly conjured a glass of cold water and drank it before her audience of the damned, the screaming stopped.   

The sudden change shocked her so much she almost slipped into the bowels of the furnace.  It wasn't silence though.  A song flew through the air, simple, childlike and radiant.  The souls below her stared upward and she looked up to see a brilliant strand of light.  She'd been hunting in the Verge long enough to recognize the visible manifestation of a soul song.  Her jaw dropped at the ludicrous notion that it had just appeared in Hell all the way to the very edge of the pit itself.  Realizing the uniqueness of this event, she hurled herself at the gossamer line, expecting it to dissolve at her touch.  To her surprise, it not only held firm but also pulled her with amazing power out of Hell and across the Verge.  

She clung to the line fiercely, determined to follow it to its source.  A shadow rose up from the mists of the
forsaken valley just a hundred yards ahead of her.  She saw with alarm that the figure clung to her line and with rage, she raced toward it and engaged in one of the fiercest battles of her long existence.   The other fought savagely, but Acheron was one of hell's generals for very good reasons.  The battle lasted only a short while, and her opponent gave her a lovely scar that stubbornly remained beyond her natural ability to heal herself, but ultimately she was the victor.  Only to find herself standing before Lyric.  What a shock he was.  She'd seduced and destroyed men and women for millennia and never had she encountered a Soul Song the likes of his.  If there was any way, it had to be him.  Another sigh escaped her lips as she realized that if Lyric was to help her, she'd have to help him rescue his little pet.  What a pain.

"How long till you need gas?"

Lyric looked at his gas gauge.

"At least an hour."

Acheron settled back in the passenger seat and started planning.

* * *

Cadence looked around in confusion.  Where was he?  She searched the sea of unfamiliar faces starting to feel desperate.  Everything was wrong.  She fought the strange surge of panic that threatened to take up residence in her chest.  Forcing her way roughly through the crowd, she ignored the protests and cursing that followed her.  Each second without him was painful.  Nothing else mattered.  She had to find him. A large gnome blocked her path and grinned, his already wide features seemed about to split his face.

"You seem troubled little sister," his odd croaking voice was difficult to understand.  Cadence stopped short and glared at the salamander-like elemental. Her expression was very clear but the gnome chuckled.  "Let Giderg help, he can make you forget everything that vexes you."  A long fingered hand decked with bejeweled rings lifted to touch her face.  A flash of steel and the hand was on the ground.  Giderg's expression changed from lecherous to annoyed.  "He doesn't think you should be so unfriendly, little sister."  Cadence had already put her knife back and continued searching for the only man that mattered, Giderg already forgotten.

The gnome decided he wasn't ready to be forgotten and he sank into the ground.  Moving below Cadence, he reached up and opened the ground beneath her feet.  The warrior slid into the hole, pressed tight against the slimy gnome. Giderg had already grown back his missing appendage and was using it and its mate to read Cadence's body like a brail map.  The warrior couldn't move or breathe in the quiet earth and realized she was in a bad position.  Fighting her revulsion at the gnome's groping she considered her limited options.  The gnome could move through earth as if it was water, while she remained stuck fast.  She could feel the dirt move for him though and waited for his hand to near her own.  Her lungs were beginning to feel the strain but she ignored them.  There!  His hand passed hers and she was able to move her arm parallel to his in his wake, using her sense of touch to follow his motions.  He soon slid his hand over one of her knives, which she grabbed.  That same hand worked its way down her side to her derriere, and then left her body to prepare himself for her defilement.  Perfect.  Twisting her wrist, she shoved the sharp blade exactly where he didn't want it.  His reaction was loud and severe.  His thrashing loosened the earth around her enough for her to stretch her hands upward, she felt the air and hope surged in her chest even as sparks danced in front of her eyes from oxygen deprivation.  

Suddenly strong hands gripped hers and she was pulled free of the dirt.  Giderg came out behind her shrieking and rolling around on the ground, both hands covering his wound.  Cadence wondered if he could grow that back like he did his hand.

"Cadence, I was worried!"  Her rescuer smiled as he helped her to her feet.  Cadence smiled brightly back at him, at peace now that she was with him again. Rondeaux ordered Giderg executed while he put his arm around Cadence and helped her back to his tent.

23 DISCERNMENT

By the time Lyric had to get gas Acheron knew exactly what she was going to do.  It was going to suck, but desperate times and all that.

As soon as Lyric was out of the car Acheron punched him in the head hard enough to knock him out.  Picking him up, she tossed him over her shoulder like a sack of potatoes.  Walking a few hundred yards into the woods behind the gas station, she conjured up some sturdy rope and a satin gag, no need to be unkind.  Satisfied her Singer was secured she flitted back to move the car.  In a handful of minutes, she returned and looked at her Singer with affectionate loathing while she waited for him to awaken.

Eventually Lyric groaned in pain and rejoined the land of the living.  Acheron looked up from the rabbit she was torturing and beamed at Lyric.

"Good morning, Sunshine!"

Lyric struggled to focus on her before his eyes narrowed.  Acheron flowed to her feet.

"Now I'm going to take this gag off, and I'll ask you kindly not to sing.  Of course, if this were a motion picture you'd feel inclined to sing anyway and cause all sorts of fuss.  So I'll carefully layout what you can expect to happen here.  Cause me trouble and I'll kick you in the balls.  Clear?"

Lyric struggled violently against his bonds, but his demon strength seemed to be unequal to the task.  Acheron let him thrash about for a minute before pulling his gag down.  

"Lover, cut it out, I spelled those ropes.  You can't break them."

"What the hell is this, demon?"

"Demoness," Acheron corrected automatically. "You, my Love, are under the whammy of General Rondeaux, military mind behind Melody.  I'm fixing you."

Lyric looked genuinely confused.

"Rondeaux is dead, I poisoned him myself.  Let me go you crazy bitch!"

Lyric's head rocked and stars exploded behind his eyes from the force of Acheron's slap.

"Stop calling your girl names, Lyric, it's rude."

"I hate you."

"So I've heard.  Right now, I need you to focus on your training.  You have learned to listen and watch.  I've been inside your head.  If you would stop second-guessing yourself you'd discover your instincts are dead on... mostly.  Do you remember the Song of Discernment?"

An ugly red handprint decorated Lyric's cheek, he nodded slowly.

"Good, start dusting it off and consider the notion you have in that big brain of yours that not everything adds up right now.  You're going back to the last place you are wanted, to deliver an obviously bogus report at the command of a stranger.  All the while, leaving someone you've come to care for twisting in the wind.  Now, don't believe me, I don't care.  But at least get the straight scoop and sing that damn song."

Lyric resisted her logic.  Something
was
wrong, he knew it, but he could not fathom what it was.  Her words were sensible, but all the best lies are.  Still, the discernment song came straight out of the Score.  There was no way Acheron could twist it.

Closing his eyes, Lyric called to mind the music and prepared as best as he could.  Tied to a tree wasn't exactly ideal for vocal production, but Lomong had forced endless hours of practice in the most ridiculous and uncomfortable positions.  Lyric had never appreciated that before.

The song began, ancient words that had been penned into the Score of Creation by the Composer Himself.  As the music flowed from Lyric he kept his eyes closed and turned his thoughts to the mission given him by the man who served Melody.  

* * *

Cadence stopped dead in her tracks and stared in shock at the handsome man at the head of the column in front of hers.  Those who followed her began to stop but she waved them on, looking around as though for the first time.  

Rondeaux was leading his troops down a mountainside headed for an ocean of bodies.  Beyond them, an actual ocean.  Cadence blanched and terror threatened to destroy her sanity.  The ocean, it terrified her.  Why?  Shuddering, she forced herself to calm down and focus on the enemy. She experienced something akin to awe as she tried to grasp the number of soldiers she was looking at. Turning around she saw thousands more following in her footsteps.   There were too many. No one could stand against a force this size.

Looking back down at Rondeaux, she saw him looking at her.  Even from two hundred yards away, she could feel his influence as he raised his hand and called to her.

Cadence slipped away into the rocks and quickly made her way back the direction she'd come from, putting as much distance between her and that terrifying body of water as quickly as possible. Besides, there was no way she was going to give Rondeaux an opportunity to kidnap her mind again.

Turning east, she headed for Lyric.

* * *

In his memory, silver words hung in the air, floating between him and the man, glittering on a cloud that hid the man's face.  The man.  Who was the man?  The man had told him Rondeaux was dead, that Lyric had seen it happen.  But Lyric hadn't seen it, he'd just been told by those words.  Silver words that floated like dust motes caught in a sunbeam. Beautiful words, like being able to see poetry.  He wanted to believe them.  He
had
to believe them, but the song wouldn't let him.  As the truth began to cut through the mist, the words began to tarnish and fall.  With increasing speed, the fog let go of his head.  There weren't a few thousand rag tag bums wanting a fight.  Melody had an army.  A huge army that boasted hundreds of thousands of healthy, disciplined men and women eager to die for a cause they believed in.  The man with the words, it was Rondeaux, he saw that now.  Cadence was in danger and Lyric was driving in the opposite direction.  

Still singing, Lyric opened his eyes and focused on Acheron. She watched as the lights came on in Lyric's mind.  Nodding in satisfaction she poofed his restraints out of existence.  A flutter across their tie held a trace of sadness and she looked sharply at Lyric who was staring at her intently, as though seeing something unexpected.

"There's more to you..." He said softly.

"What?"

Lyric shook his head briefly, the sadness dissipated.

"Nothing. We have to go back!"

"I know," Acheron sighed, then wrinkled her nose in disgust.  She turned to look behind Lyric.

"Not just yet."  A familiar voice came from behind them.  The Keylac, in his impeccable suit, stepped from the trees. He looked completely comfortable, as though nine hundred dollar suits were standard attire for tromping through the woods.  "So glad I found you here."

Acheron rolled her eyes in disgust.

"What do you want, Lackey?"

The Keylac smiled his perfect smile, unfazed by Acheron's dig.  Pulling an envelope from his jacket pocket, he offered it to Lyric who made no move to accept it.

"Next payment.  This needs to be delivered to the High Master of the Soul Singers Guild.  Since you’re headed that way anyway it shouldn’t be too far out of your way."  He gestured for Lyric to take the envelope.  The Singer remained unmoving.

"Cadence has been taken by Rondeaux.  I have no idea where she is, or how to find her.  That is painful for me.  I would never abandon a friend like that.  You haven't kept up your end of the deal, why should I keep up mine?"