Hell Is Coming (The Watcher's Series Book 1) (33 page)

So I tried, but my injuries were too severe. I couldn’t move. I tried again and still couldn’t do it.

My mother’s voice this time, stern and forceful. “Get up, Leia!”

On hearing her voice, a well of emotion opened up in me and with it, the Nephilim and demonic powers  began to build up, spreading throughout my body—healing me—but not just that, not just healing me,
transforming
me
…

I sat up.

The power in me got stronger by the second. A new form of energy, one I had never felt before—one consisting of Nephilim and demonic power mixed with raw human emotion—began to spread, coursing through every fiber of my being.

I got to my knees and the energy in me quickened.

Everything started happening very fast.

My insides contorted, my bones twisted and lengthened, my organs shifted to accommodate the changes that came over me.

I cried out when two wings burst  from my back, and then again when horns shot out from my skull, the sound of grinding and cracking bone in my ears as the horns grew in length.

What is happening to me?

What am I becoming?

I stood up and my body grew taller. I looked down at myself and saw that my skin had turned leathery and a light blue color. My hands turned to claws. I held them up in front of my face, inspecting the huge talons like they belonged to someone else.

What was I? A demon?

One thing was for sure. I was no longer me. I was no longer Leia Swanson. I was something else entirely. Leia was still in there somewhere, hidden deep within my new demon form, but she wasn’t in control.

The demon was.

I flung my arms out to the sides and roared into the blackened sky like a creature that had just emerged into the world for the first time. The wings on my back shot out, extending six feet either side of me and I rose from the ground with their effortless motions.

I was Demon Leia from that point on.

Demon Leia hovered ten feet in the air. It roared the name of Abigor, who stood facing the mouth of Hell, welcoming the demon spirits who flew out of it. The demon turned around to look at me and his face seemed astounded, like he was witnessing some kind of demonic miracle.

The demon in me roared again and flew towards Abigor with shocking speed. It swiped his head with strong talons as it flew past him before stopping in mid-air to look down on Hell’s architect, who roared back, black blood running down over his face.

Demon Leia continued to hover as Abigor ran forward and leaped into the air, one massive hand held back and ready to strike.

The demon who had taken over me remained calm. I don’t think it knew fear.

As Abigor launched himself into the air Demon Leia shot to the side and met him with a kick to the face that sent Abigor flying back to the ground. He landed with a
thump
on his back.

Demon Leia waited patiently, flapping huge wings to stay in the air. Just as Abigor got to his feet again, Demon Leia swooped in and clamped its massive hands over Abigor’s head, sinking talons into flesh. Abigor roared as Demon Leia flew upwards, taking him with it.

Abigor struggled but there was nothing he could do. Demon Leia flew high into the churning sky, lightning forking around it as it hovered so it could throw blow after blow into Abigor’s head, relentless in its violence, only wanting to destroy the demon it held by the head with one hand.

Abigor tried to fight back but he could hardly reach Demon Leia and he became ever more weakened by the blows he took. Demon Leia grabbed Abigor with both hands, turned him sideways, and flew down towards the ground, hurtling at great speed until it impaled Abigor on an iron cross below. Abigor roared as the cross went through his back and out his chest. He was stuck like a pig on a skewer, unable to move, but not dead.

Demon Leia flew over and picked up the Demon Blade I had dropped earlier. When it had the blade, it flew back and landed on the ground beside Abigor, who was still trying in vain to pull himself up of the cross that impaled him. Demon Leia watched him for a moment, savoring the victory.

“I said there was great power in you,” Abigor said, blood spluttering from his mouth. He was talking to me, not the demon, but neither of us cared. Demon Leia raised the sword and brought it down on Abigor’s neck, slicing his huge head off, which rolled away into the nearby lava, the orange eyes still glowing fiercely.

But the gates of Hell where still open and Hell was spilling out on to the earth.

Chapter 28

I knew the words that would close the gate; I made sure I memorized them when I read them in the book back at Frank’s cabin. So had Frank, but he was nowhere to be seen.

Worse than that, my inner demon was in full control and it was just standing there staring at Abigor’s lifeless body. I was powerless to do anything when it lifted Abigor’s body from the iron cross and carried it over to the mouth of Hell. Demon Leia lifted the body above its head and threw it into the hole where it disappeared into the blazing orange light.

The demon then retrieved Abigor’s head before walking back over to the Hell entrance. I experienced the demon holding Abigor’s head aloft and say in a voice I didn’t recognize at all, “I won,” before tossing the disembodied head into the pits of Hell. It stood there after that, lava swirling around its feet while it laughed maniacally, revelling in its victory.

Deep down inside the demon, I tried to wrestle back some sort of control so I could at least get it to speak the words that would close the gates.

But I didn’t know how.

Through the ecstatic feelings of victory the demon experienced, my mom’s face flashed in its mind somewhere and it stopped laughing. Whatever part of me was left tapped into the emotions that accompanied the image of my mom, which seemed to work because the image got brighter. I remembered my mom’s voice when she told me to get up, until finally I felt some semblance of control return as I willed the demon to say the words.

“Abinsidi is diaboli, liberanos, Domine…” it growled.

It worked.

It just had to say the rest.

I forced my presence into the demon to gain more control until I made it speak again. “Ut Ecclesiam tuam secura tibifacias libertate servire…”

That was it. Just a few more words left to say and the gates would be closed.

From deep within the demon I willed myself to take control until finally I forced it to say the remaining words. “Terogamus, audi nos.”

Through the demon’s eyes I saw the blazing amber light that emitted from the hole in the ground lessen with each passing second before it disappeared altogether into the darkness. The iron gates shut back over the hole with a clang.

It was done.

Demon Leia stood looking around the cemetery at the aftermath. The sky above was still in turmoil but it was starting to clear, the maelstrom of dark clouds dispersing into the atmosphere.

On the ground, things wouldn’t be clearing so quickly. A shocking number of dead bodies were scattered all over the place, slumped against tombstones, splayed out on the ground, staining the grass red with blood.

The demon in me was emotionless as it took in the scenes of carnage. Even though Hell had come for just a short while, it had left its mark. Through the eyes of the demon I counted at least thirty bodies, all of them once demonized Nephilim kids. I dreaded to think what carnage had ensued outside the cemetery. A host of demons had escaped when the Hell Gate had been opened and they were still out there somewhere. But that wasn’t my concern. Josh was.

His body lay prone on the grass where I had killed him. A surge of emotion welled up in me that rocked even the demon in control. It gave a low growl of despair and then walked over to Josh’s body and stood looking down at him. His black T-shirt was ripped and sodden with blood from where my sword went in. His eyes were closed, his head tilting limply to the side.

I wanted to scream at the fact that I had killed my own brother but the demon had other ideas. While the human part of me writhed around in pain and loss, Demon Leia knelt down and lightly took Josh’s head in its huge clawed hands, almost completely covering it.

What the hell is it doing?

Baffled I could only look on as the demon continued to hold Josh’s head up while it seemed to whisper something in some ancient sounding language that I had never even heard before. A moment later I gasped inside the demon as a greenish light began to glow from its hands and around Josh’s head.  Some sort of energy flowed through the demon, a different kind of energy than the type I had felt before. This was not destructive energy; this was the energy of creation, the immortal energy of life itself that the demon was somehow able to channel.

Josh opened his eyes as soon as the demon took its hands away from his head.

The demon stood back as my brother blinked a few times and then sat up on the grass. His brown eyes widened when he saw the huge demon standing before him. I wanted to say it was me, his sister, but the demon wouldn’t speak.

Fear and confusion flashed across Josh’s face as he scrambled back away from me, from the demon. I had to return myself to normal. Demon Leia had served its purpose. It was time for Nephilim Leia to make an appearance again.

The demon seemed to sense my desire for normality. A few seconds after the thought crossed my mind the changes began, the same weird process as when I first transformed, but in reverse. The large wings on my back folded in and somehow retracted into my back again.  The horns on my head slide back in, my whole bone structure shifting as I was reduced to my normal height again. My claws retracted, my pointed teeth pulled back into my gums. The whole process only took a minute or so and then I was me again.

“Leia?” Josh looked at me in amazement. “Is that you?”

I smiled at my brother. “It’s me.”

“You’re naked.”

“Oh yeah.” That fact had escaped me. Not that I cared at that point. It seemed a bit ludicrous to feel embarrassed given everything that just happened, and it wasn’t like it was the first time my brother had seen me naked anyway. Still, I went to one of the dead bodies laying nearby, a young Nephilim girl with a missing left arm who had obviously bled to death. I silently apologised as I removed a T-shirt and pair of jeans from the girls corpse, as well as her boots. I put the clothes on and went back to Josh.

Josh was on his feet, checking himself over. The wound I had inflicted on him with the Demon Blade was gone. “How is this possible? I remember you killing me.”

 “You remember that, huh?” My face flushed.

“You didn’t have a choice. I was trying to kill you.” Tears formed in his eyes then. “I’m sorry.”

Tears fell from my eyes as well as I ran and threw my arms around him, a moment I had been waiting for since the day he disappeared. He hugged me back, his strong arms wrapping around me. “I can’t believe you’re alive,” I said.

He hugged me tighter. “Neither can I..”

We held  each other for a long time,  a huge smile on my face despite the tears. I had done it. I had saved my brother. There was plenty of time later to reflect on the messed up way I had actually done it.  I was just glad we were both alive.

Just then Frank and Eva came walking over the crest of a hill looking like two battle weary war veterans, a bit worse for wear and bloodied up but otherwise okay. I smiled, glad the two of them were still alive. “Hate to break this party up,” Frank said. “But we should get going. Every cop in the city is going to descend on this place and I don’t be around when they do.”

 There were dead bodies everywhere. How would we explain our presence here when the rest of the city was giving the cemetery a wide berth?

I let go of Josh and Eva came to focus her intense gaze on me. “I won’t ask how you managed to turn into a demon,” she said. “Are you alright?”

“You saw that, huh?”

“I think the whole city saw,” Frank said. “Two demons fighting a hundred feet in the air…kinda hard to miss.”

I saw Josh looking at Frank. “By the way,” I said. “Josh, this is Frank. Our uncle.”

Frank regarded Josh with some wariness. I didn’t blame him. They both shook hands anyway. “Thanks for looking after my sister,” Josh said. “And sorry for like, being a demon dick and all. I couldn’t help it.”

“Yeah, I know,” Frank said. “Buy me a drink, we’ll call it even.”

In the distance I heard sirens. “We have to go,” I said.

After I retrieved the Demon Blade (it was too powerful just to leave behind), the four of us made our way through the cemetery, looking sadly at the bodies of the Nephilim kids scattered all around. Josh especially seemed particularly affected. He had been with these kids, helped train them. He was one of them. I realized then that it would take a long time for Josh to come to terms with what happened to him, if he ever did. If
I
ever did. Though I knew it wasn’t over for me yet. I had more to do. I doubted it would ever be over me. I was in too deep and there was still the small matter of having traded my soul. Who knew how that would play out?

That all seemed far away though in that moment. The only thing I cared about was being with my brother, and with Frank and Eva. For better or worse, they were my family, the first real family I’d had in eleven years.

I smiled, feeling good about myself for the first time since the whole mess started. “First round’s on me,” I said.

Chapter 29

Two days later and I was sat by the edge of a small pool in the woods by Frank’s cabin. Bright afternoon sunshine reflected off the water as I sat with a sketch pad in my lap, making pencil drawings. The last drawing I did was of Demon Leia, or at least my impression of what I looked like when the demon took over. I had to admit I looked pretty damned badass as a demon, though the whole experience still disturbed me. I had no idea of how I managed to transform into that thing, or if I would be able to do it again, never mind bring someone back from the dead as I did with Josh.