The Undoer (14 page)

Dean

I always thought the demons came here to run rampant, to cause havoc. But now I know they are controlled and organized. They have leaders, a hierarchy. This makes it worse than before.

As I stand there, chained to the floor, surveying my underground prison, I realize these aren’t mindless fiends bouncing from one stolen body to the next, but an army, directed and commanded by their leaders to overtake our world.

The demons fill the room, packed into corners, and they don’t seem to mind being jostled for space. Their savage smiles are wide and expectant as they gaze at me with what can only be described as hunger. Some are disembodied, their gray, sinewy arms and legs slithering and twisting like smoke.

Coem sits on his black, stone throne, gazing out over the horde, his expressions morphing from one moment to the next. Smiles. Frowns. Glares. He looks completely out of place in his dark, pinstriped business suit, despite the fact that he is their king.

I am court jester. And they won’t stop until my heart does.

My pulse pounds and my face grows hot. It becomes hard to breathe in this stuffy, overcrowded room, and I wonder stupidly if I’ve just developed asthma. My body continues to tremble as I begin to hyperventilate. I keep a constant strain on my chains in the hopes that they will miraculously release if I just pull hard enough, but my arms are cramping and shaky.

The scent of candle wax permeates the air, but instead of a calming balm, like it is in our church basement, the acidic fumes fill my nostrils and turn my stomach sour. The candles seem to grow and breathe with my terror, the room becoming brighter as I become more frightened.

When the doors at the back are closed and locked, my heart just about stops. It’s beginning. Silence reigns where there were once voices and a cacophony of laughter. The only sound I hear is the clinking of my chains and the ragged breaths I inhale.

“Welcome all, friends and fiends,” Coem says, still sitting casually on his throne. “Welcome to my home! For tonight’s entertainment, we have brought you… a Cazador! A killer of demons!”

The room erupts in a roar, their leering faces hateful, calling for my destruction. My eyes jerk to Coem’s. He knows who I am! Or who I’m supposed to be. Actual Cazadors are able to kill demons. So am I one really?

“I’m sorry,” I call, desperate to think of a way out of this. “I’m not whatever you just said. I don’t even know what a cazadory-thing is!”

The room grows quiet again.

“What’s that you say?” Brutus asks. He stands beside Coem’s throne with his meaty arms crossed over his chest. He raises one eyebrow in question.

My eyes water as my mind grasps at something intelligent to say.

“You say you are
not
a Cazador?” Coem repeats, leaning forward, his visage shifting from human form to beastly as he concentrates on my face.

“No, I’m not. I don’t even know what that is. I’m just a normal person.” The lie comes easily, which surprises me. I’ve never been a very good liar.

“Really?” Coem stands, his hands clasped behind his back as he makes his way calmly toward me, a slight smile adorning his handsome human face. “Mephistophilis!” he calls to Brutus. “Come here.”

When they stand side by side, Coem glances at his subordinate, his smile cold and his eyes narrow. I don’t know how to read this guy, but if I were Brutus, I wouldn’t trust him. He’d probably stick a shiv into your side when you’re not looking. I almost feel sorry for Brutus… until I grimace and the bruises on my face scream out.

“You said you caught a Cazador. Did you?”

Brutus’ gaze shifts between his commander and me. His eyebrows pull down into a worried scowl, but he sticks his chin out and holds his ground. “He is one. I know it. I ran into him and his partner when they were out hunting. They killed Nybbas right in front of me. He runs around town with the one they call The Jaguar.”

Coem looks Brutus up and down, taking his time to answer. His eyes seem to see right through him, assessing him, and I wonder if Brutus is coming up short. “Well, we shall test him, and then we will all know for sure.”

He turns back to me, still smiling. “Does that sound fair? Everyone came here tonight for the sole purpose of seeing a Cazador brought to his knees. It would be unfair to disappoint them. And you’re here to entertain us anyway.” He turns in a slow circle, his arms raised like a circus master. The audience shouts in agreement and cheers him on. “It’s settled then. We will put this boy to the test. If he is an imposter and not a Cazador, well… he’ll just be dead, which will be just as much fun. Weth! Come forward!”

A tall, lithe woman rises from a red velvet seat along the front row of the far wall. I can see through her, so she must be a spirit only. Making no sound, she floats toward me, ethereal and beautiful. Her wide, blue eyes are the color of sapphires and long, blonde hair falls over her shoulders and down her back. When she stands before me, a soft smile graces her porcelain-hued face. She seems very angelic and out of place here.

Coem bows to her in a gentlemanly gesture. She nods her head to him, and then steps up to me.

“What is your name?” she asks as softly as a warm breeze. My eyes close, and I take a long, slow inhalation. She smells like cinnamon and apples, and I feel my muscles relax along with my anxiety, as though I’ve just been filled with a summer day. This woman doesn’t feel mean or cruel. She doesn’t seem like someone I should be afraid of. A small part of my brain screams for me not to fall for her enchantments, that she is more powerful than I can imagine, but I push those thoughts away and draw in another breath of apples.

“This is Weth,” Coem says before I can answer. “She is the highly revered and beloved demon of anger. You will see.” He steps back, the smile never leaving his face, and walks with sure steps back to his black throne. He rolls into his seat and rests his chin on his fist as he watches Weth work her magic.

Her gaze returns to me, and her eyes soften as she looks deeply into mine. She can’t possibly be a demon of anger. She is too calm and lovely, relaxed and serene. “Your name?”

“Dean,” I answer as she raises her hand to my face, tracing, feather light, the bruises on my cheeks.

“You are wounded.”

“Yes.”

Her hand cups my cheek and my eyes close, her fingers cool and healing. How is it possible that I can
feel
her when she doesn’t have a physical body? I have no idea, but I don’t question it.

“It must have been terrible, to be hurt in such a way. Mephistophilis is a horrible, wicked beast. He has no compulsion about causing pain.”

I feel a stirring with her words, and heat begins to well in my chest. She continues to speak, condemning the abominable Brutus for his scheming and physical abuse of me. Each sentence paints him as a darker, fouler creature than the last, and the fire in my belly grows to a burning flame.

“You should kill him,” she whispers in my ear, too softly for anyone else to hear. “You could do it, and I could help you. I hate him also. More than you could possibly know. You would be doing the world good.”

I feel the power in her words, and I believe her. I could do it… with her help. I could finally kill a demon. I could kill Brutus, and everyone would know that I really am a Cazador. It’s a dream come true in a way. Even though I love being a peacemaker and not a killer, there is a realization deep inside me that I am weak. I am inferior. It comes bursting to the surface, and shame fills me. I need to kill Brutus to prove I am strong. I am someone who can fight and win. I am someone Heidi will want!

Weth continues to strengthen the fire inside me until I am near bursting, straining on my chains, the veins in my arms and neck bulging with the effort. And yet… there is a microscopic piece of my mind that tells me this isn’t real.

But that doesn’t matter as she worms her way through my mind like a cancer. She keeps fanning the flames, and even though the emotions aren’t real, they
feel
real. She seems to read my mind as she stokes the embers of jealousy for Jag. Of his fearlessness, his fierceness. As my anger grows, so does another emotion. One I haven’t felt in a very long time.

Hate.

For Jag.

I know, deep in my heart, that I am every inch the jaguar that he is. I, too, can be ferocious, wild, and a terrible force to be reckoned with. With uninhibited abandon, I growl, searching for a victim. He stands along the side wall, ugly and vile, his arms crossed over his chest, his lips turned up into a half smile.

Mephistophilis.

I hate him too. More than I’ve ever hated anything in my life. Like a jagged crevice of magma exploding out of the earth, the raw enmity boils so forcefully that I can think of nothing else. I want to kill him. I
have
to kill him!

The very next second, when I open my mouth to shriek out my loathing for Brutus, Weth swirls, like a gray tornado of smoke, straight into my mouth and down my throat, burning her way to my lungs and stomach with the bite of dry ice.

Everything stops as she barrels into the depths of me, my arms and legs stiffening and becoming frigid and immobile. I can’t move, let alone think straight or understand what is happening. Ice fills my veins, and I shiver uncontrollably.

A cramp grips me around the middle, like a knife has slashed across my abdomen and my innards are falling out. Weth is cutting me apart from the inside out. I fall to my knees, retching. Weth explodes back out of me like the rancid vomit she is.

I fell for her lies completely. I believed her ugly words and hate-filled sentiments. I felt the hatred growing in me like a solid oak tree, its roots digging deep into my soul. And I
liked
it. It had made me feel powerful. Vengeful. Righteous.

The grayness of Weth slowly molds back into the form of a woman, and she pulls herself from the floor, weak and spent, barely able to support herself.

“Well?” Coem asks, his eyebrows raised in question when she doesn’t answer immediately.

“He… is not… possessable… at this time.” She stumbles back to her chair, no longer with the grace and elegance she previously exhibited. “Some innate element repels me.”

“Hmm. Interesting.” Coem taps his lips, thinking and staring at me. I fall to the floor, exhausted. As soon as Weth leaves my body, so does the frigid coldness and intense anger. I just want to lie down and die. Never have I felt so tired. Okay, maybe I felt this way after getting beaten up, but still, this is pretty bad too.

“Please, just let me go. I don’t know what you want.”

“I don’t think so.” Coem flicks his wrist at someone on the opposite side of the room and I don’t bother to look at who it is. What’s the point? A gray man walks, or floats, up to me, his mouth a black, jagged line. Like all gray men, his eyes are black slits of endless darkness. This is no soul. It’s a fragment, the bare pieces of a damaged spirit, and the only way it will ever feel complete is to meld with another body.

Without thought, my body recoils. My fear of this being is greater than the others so far. This is the kind of demon I see every night when Jag and I go hunting. These are the intruders of the bodies we are forced to kill. This is the face of evil in my nightmares.

His dark maw stretches unnaturally into a grimace. A migraine begins, and I resist a sob of hopelessness as I try to stand. I will not go down without a fight.

This gray man doesn’t speak, but Brutus does. He calls out across the room, “Vi-dar, Vi-dar, Vi-dar.” The crowd joins in, chanting the demon’s name. Again and again, the words throb through the room like a mantra, weakening me and strengthening him.

Vidar places one giant hand on the top of my head. His fingers are so long that they reach all the way to the top of my neck. Our faces are only inches apart, his eyes fathomless pits of misery. I cry out when his fingers begin to squeeze. My knees give out and I fall, crying out when it feels like a nail is being shoved through my left eye socket.

I’ve had migraines off and on my whole life, but this is a pressure without source. An ache that hurts everywhere at once. My neck crackles as I try to wrench away. He presses harder, the agony increasing, and I’m sure my skull will be crushed. Screaming fills my ears, and then I realize it’s me. My breathing comes in hitches and I grab for the gray man’s hand, but he’s as wispy as Weth and I can’t get a grip.

I’m growing numb, and I thank God for this miraculous reprieve. When I open my eyes, I learn the truth. Vidar has let go of me and stands facing Coem, bowing slowly. He walks back to his place along the wall, never saying a word the entire time. I’d felt intimately connected to him, as though he could read my thoughts and memories. How is it possible to be violated in such a way? Could this fiend see into my soul and know my secrets? Will he now go after my friends who are my family?

I can’t let that happen. I can’t let them break me. I have to find a way out. Jag and the others might not be able to find me, and if they can’t, then what? I realize in that moment that it’s up to me. I’ll have to save myself.

“It looks as though you are a difficult body to inhabit,” Coem states, rising to his feet and strolling over to crouch beside me. I lie on the floor, the cement cool beneath my palms. I don’t care what Coem or anyone else thinks. My mind finds it almost impossible to comprehend this horrifying experience.