Major Demons Read online

  “Go.”

  Shadow was immediately attacked by three berserkers in training. They held his arms and the third one put him in a headlock. Sarah wound up and delivered an uppercut to his jaw. Shadow tasted a small amount of blood. He had bit his tongue. He shot an angry but amused look back at her.

  “Fight to win, right? We’re not friends in here.”

  Shadow spit blood from his mouth.

  “I see.”

  He pulled his arms together and the two demons holding his arms cracked skulls. There was a loud noise and they fell over, unconscious. Shadow jumped into the air and used the downward force to flip the third demon over his shoulder. He adjusted his positioning and came down on the demon’s throat with his elbow.

  Sarah was taking on two at once and Shadow decided to exploit this. She was expertly dodging their attacks and countering with kicks and punches. Shadow saw a brief opening and went for it. He delivered a roundhouse kick to her left side. Shadow a couple of her ribs crack and she stumbled but didn’t lose her footing. She charged him but he stepped out of the way and tripped her. She went down hard and Shadow finished off the two demons she was fighting. When Sarah got back to her feet, she realized what she needed to do.

  “None of us can win until Shadow goes down. We need to attack together.”

  Even in their enraged state, Sarah’s words made sense to the demons. They all stopped fighting and attacked Shadow. Shadow dodged as many of the incoming attacks as he could, but it was too much for even him. The last thing he saw before he lost control was Sarah charging at him. Shadow turned into a rage monster. He grew in size and ferocity and lost all control. He pounded several demons with his fists and squashed them. Sarah turned to run. The rage monster scooped her up into his massive fist and opened his mouth, ready to consume her.

  Adrenaline started clapping slowly. The rage monster turned to see that the berserker commander was wearing his armor and held Damnation in his right hand. The rage monster threw Sarah to the ground and went after Adrenaline. Adrenaline held his ground. As the rage monster punched, Adrenaline carefully aimed and struck back with Damnation. The rage monster started to bleed from a large gash in his hand. It made the monster even angrier. From somewhere deep within, Shadow’s mind turned back on and decided to take control. Rage and power were not the answers here.

  Shadow changed back to his normal form. Adrenaline looked confused.

  “You’re not going to keep coming at me as a rage monster?”

  “No. The tricks you’ve taught us are pretty cool and there’s definitely a time for them. Now is not one of those times. That’s my weapon and my armor. I can’t beat you as a rage monster without killing myself in the process. My mission is too important to let that happen. So now that I have a clear head, I know to do this.”

  Shadow held out his hand. Damnation began to shake. Adrenaline grabbed the weapon with both hands, but it sailed into the air and into Shadow’s open palm.

  “It was a trick I watched Azazel do once. I decided to learn it after he used it against me. No one can take Damnation away from me. It’s infused with my blood and it will always come back.”

  “So we have a stalemate then. I know what I’m wearing. This is the armor of Michael the Archangel. Even with Damnation, you won’t be able to kill me.”

  Shadow grinned.

  “We could always find out.”

  Adrenaline nodded.

  “Very well. Give me a moment to prepare a new weapon.”

  Adrenaline looked to one of his berserker demons and nodded. The berserker produced a staff wrapped in cloth. He unwrapped the cloth onto his hand and then tossed it to Adrenaline. Adrenaline pointed the staff at the fallen demons that Shadow had killed. Markings began to appear on the staff and glow a bright red. The souls of the demons left the remains of their corpses and joined with the staff. Adrenaline pointed his new weapon at Shadow.

  “Is that…”

  “It’s another berserker staff. We’ve been working on it since Nightmare stole the last one. If you defeat me, I will trade it to you in exchange for a promise.”

  “What promise?”

  “That’s not important right now. You haven’t defeated me.”

  Shadow held Damnation in his right hand and summoned ice in his left.

  “Let’s go then.”

  Adrenaline struck as soon as the words had left Shadow’s mouth. He hit Shadow twice across the face with his new berserker staff and then hit him hard under the jaw with an uppercut. Shadow flew backwards through the air. When he landed, he felt dizzy. He could see three Adrenalines approaching him and couldn’t focus the image into one. Adrenaline raised the berserker staff over his head and swung down hard. Shadow brought Damnation up to meet the attack, but wasn’t ready for Adrenaline’s follow-up. Adrenaline spun and hit Shadow hard in the back of the head with the berserker staff. Shadow went down. He tried to push himself up, but Adrenaline kicked him hard in the ribs. He went down again. When Shadow looked up at Adrenaline, Adrenaline swung down forcefully with the berserker staff. Shadow blacked out.

  CHAPTER 38

  The nephilim slowly made their way towards the plane crash. Hypnos and Thanatos carried their father on a stretcher Lilith had conjured from a spell in her book. Lilith carried Lucia and Steam formed water into different balloon animal-like formations to keep the infant entertained. Lucia smiled and tried to grab at the water animals.

  As the group made their way towards the fallen plane, a large explosion sent them all flying backwards into the air. Lucia went sailing out of her mother’s arms, but Steam caught her. She started to cry and Steam attempted to calm her. Lilith got to her feet, drew her whip, and lit it on fire.

  “Who’s there?”

  A demon stepped into view. He wore a black hat that was tilted down to hide his face, a black trench coat, and held what appeared to be a rocket launcher over his shoulder.

  “These are my souls. You guys can find somewhere else to scavenge.”

  Lilith shook her head.

  “Steam brought down the plane. These are our souls. My father is injured and my daughter is hungry. You have one chance to leave.”

  “You don’t know who I am, do ya?”

  “No. I don’t much care, either. I’ve killed too many demons to remember all of their names. That’s a ‘no’ to my offer to walk away then?”

  “I ain’t a demon, lady. Well… not all demon. I got a little angel in me. That’s how I’m able to make my trench coat do this…”

  The stranger tucked the rocket launcher in his trench coat. The weapon disappeared inside and seemed to no longer exist. He pulled two swords out of his trench coat.

  “I’m known as Weapon. I collect a lot of things. I store them all in my coat. Most of my collection is weapons. For instance, I’ll add your whip to my collection after I kill you. It looks like it’s made of sturdy stuff.”

  “I’m Lilith, the daughter of Samael and Vixen. You don’t want to piss me off. I’m friends with Shadow.”

  The stranger waved one of his swords around, pointing at the other nephilim.

  “Which one of them is Shadow? I’ll kill him, too.”

  “You’ve seriously never heard of Shadow?”

  “No. I’m starting to think I know your little friend over there, though.”

  Weapon pointed one of his blades at Steam.

  “He’s run off with a couple of my scores before. I hate thieves. I’ll be adding his head to my collection.”

  Hypnos was checking Samael for any further injuries from the explosion. Thanatos was focused on Weapon. He ran at Weapon, ducked under the blades as he swung them, and placed his palm on Weapon’s forehead. Weapon staggered backwards a few steps and then fell to the ground. Thanatos picked up one of Weapon’s blades and brought it up to kill him.

  “No!”

  Thanatos looked at his half-sister with a confused expression.

  “We shouldn’t go around killing nephilim if we can help it.�
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  Thanatos threw the sword hard into the ground near Weapon’s head and stomped off. Hypnos cautiously approached his sister.

  “Honestly, I’m really surprised Thanatos listened to you. You may want to be a little less forceful with him. I know he’s strange, but he’s also very powerful.”

  Lilith raised both eyebrows.

  “So you were fine with what he was about to do?”

  “Yes. We don’t know this guy and he attacked us. I’d say that’s enough to justify putting someone down for good. Explain to me why you don’t agree.”

  “Shadow is going to need help. This war is a problem for all of us. Angels, demons, nephilim, and humans. We didn’t kill Steam and he’s been alright so far. We need the nephilim on our side. We never should have hunted them.”

  “We never did, Lilith. You did.”

  Lilith looked at the ground.

  “I know. I regret it. I’m trying to make up for it. Shadow needs all the help he can get.”

  “You can start by treating Thanatos like you treat me. I know. He has no idea how to do things properly. He’s odd… but that doesn’t mean you can just keep treating him like that. Why do you keep doing that?”

  “Because I’m afraid of him. I don’t know how to…”

  “Lilith, do you trust me?”

  “Of course, Hypnos. I just can’t…”

  “Take my word for it. He wants to protect you. He wants you to be safe. You have no reason to fear him. I know he was probably… off… when he was sent to bring you to us. There was no good way to approach that situation, though. We weren’t sure if we could trust Leech. From what you tell me about him, we should have. It would have saved us a lot of time and a bunch of problems.”

  “Fine. I’ll try.”

  Lilith went to Steam and took Lucia from his arms. She walked in the direction she had seen Thanatos going.

  Thanatos was sitting on a rock. He had no idea how he had messed up this time, but it had clearly pissed off his sister. He searched his brain for how he could have done it differently. The search came up empty. He had killed before and Lilith had never objected. He pulled a mirror out from his cloak and looked at his reflection, but couldn’t bring himself to laugh.

  “Thanatos?”

  Thanatos looked up. Lilith was standing there with his niece. He looked back down.

  “We should have killed that guy. I don’t want him to hurt the baby.”

  “Do you want to hold her?”

  Thanatos gave her an awestruck look. He excitedly shook his head yes. Lilith cautiously placed Lucia in Thanatos’s arms. He gently rocked her back and forth.

  “Do you think she’ll like my mirror?”

  Thanatos shifted Lucia into his left arm and looked in his mirror. He laughed at his reflection and then handed it to Lucia. She looked at herself and giggled. Lilith couldn’t help but smile.

  CHAPTER 39

  Gangrene’s mind quickly reviewed all of the exits he had seen on his way up. He kept his scythe pointed at Astaroth and White Death pointed at Nightmare.

  “We can still walk away from this. No one has done anything that we can’t overlook yet. I’m leaving. We can resume discussions at some other time. I won’t keep going after…”

  Nightmare continued to slowly walk towards Gangrene with a smile on his face. It made him uneasy and he moved White Death up so it was pointed at Nightmare’s head.

  “Stop moving. I can kill you if I have to.”

  Nightmare laughed.

  “I doubt it. Regardless, you can’t kill both of us. We need your army, Gangrene.”

  “I guess it’s a good thing I brought them with me then. They’re surrounding this place as we speak.”

  Nightmare laughed again.

  “No they aren’t. Who do you think you’re trying to lie to? I’m the major demon of lies.”

  Astaroth slowly pulled back her scythe and moved it over her shoulder with both hands, readying a strike. Gangrene saw the move out of the corner of his eye.

  “None of that. I’m serious. I’ll kill you.”

  Astaroth swung her scythe. Gangrene reacted instantly. He fired White Death right as Nightmare started running towards him and then brought his scythe up to block Astaroth’s attack. He then aimed White Death at Astaroth, praying he had hit Nightmare and stopped him in his tracks.

  “Well I guess we’re past any point of reconciliation. So…”

  Gangrene fired White Death at Astaroth’s head. She threw a glass bottle in the path of the bullet. The bottle shattered and smoke started to flow into the room. Within seconds, Gangrene was having trouble seeing anything more than a few feet in front of him. He scanned his surroundings, but saw no trace of Nightmare or Astaroth. He kept White Death and his scythe ready.

  “That was very s-s-s-stupid.”

  Astaroth hissed out the final word. Gangrene saw a dark, snake-like form slither in front of him. He took a shot with White Death, but the shadow was already gone.

  “Have you ever been hunted by a s-s-s-snake before?”

  Gangrene could sense Astaroth slithering behind him. He turned and swung with his scythe. Nothing was there.

  “S-s-s-silly little demon.”

  “Show yourself. You’re fighting like a coward.”

  “Are you s-s-s-scared?”

  Nightmare jumped out from the smoke and swung at Gangrene. Gangrene blocked the attack with the barrel of White Death, but Nightmare kicked him hard. Gangrene flew backwards across the room and dropped his weapons when he hit the wall. Astaroth sprung out from the smoke, lunging at Gangrene’s neck with her fangs. Gangrene scrambled for his weapons. His hand locked onto something and he swung it hard at the springing snake. He didn’t score a perfect hit, but his scythe’s blade lodged in Astaroth’s neck. Gangrene could feel White Death with his left foot. He put his foot under the gun, kicked it into the air, and grabbed it. Before Astaroth could struggle free from his scythe, Gangrene fired White Death and blew off her head. Nightmare emerged from the smoke and saw Astaroth’s headless corpse. His scythe and eyes started glowing red.

  “What did you do?”

  Gangrene attempted to ready his weapons to keep Nightmare back, but Nightmare punched him hard in the face. Gangrene could hear his nose break and warm blood came gushing out of his nostrils. Nightmare struck again with his fist. Gangrene blocked the attack, but Nightmare followed it up with a swing from the butt of his scythe to Gangrene’s chin. Gangrene knew Nightmare’s scythe had been fused with the berserker staff and he knew that Nightmare was angry enough that he would continue to fight, even past death, until Gangrene was put down. He knew he had no other option. He had to run. Nightmare attacked again. Gangrene brought White Death up and fired. He didn’t wait to see the aftermath. He turned and ran. Nightmare followed.

  “Gangrene doesn’t leave this place! Capture him and bring him back here!”

  Gangrene was nearly to the entrance when he felt something wrap around his leg. He turned and saw a demon sorcerer and the chain he had conjured. It was slowly winding its way up Gangrene’s leg and had reached his knee. Gangrene turned and fired White Death. The shot missed, but it distracted the sorcerer. Gangrene hacked at the chain with his scythe. The scythe cut cleanly through the chain. He ran out the entrance.

  When Gangrene made it outside, he almost wished he was back inside. He was staring at the combined forces of Nightmare and Astaroth. This was a no-win situation. He knew he was going to die. He wiped the blood from under his nose with his sleeve and readied his weapons to face them. Gangrene was going to go down fighting.

  “That’s what happens when you stick your nose in where it doesn’t belong.”

  Gangrene turned and saw Raven grinning at him. She handed him a piece of cloth, which he tore, rolled up, and stuck up his nostrils to stop the bleeding.

  “So you couldn’t just let me come here and die, huh? You’re getting way too attached, babe. I’m not sure if I’m ok with this.”

  Raven
punched him playfully in the shoulder and then walked past him. Gangrene saw that she had brought his entire army with her.

  “I don’t really care what you’re ok with. I wanted you and now you’re mine. Deal with it.”

  Raven pointed at the combined armies of Nightmare and Astaroth.

  “Kill the motherfuckers who injured your general!”

  Gangrene’s army charged. Raven and Gangrene charged with them. Nightmare ran out of his headquarters with an enraged look on his face.

  “Kill Gangrene! He doesn’t leave this place alive!”

  One of the demons in Astaroth’s army looked confused.

  “Where is General Astaroth?”

  Nightmare pulled a knife from his belt and threw it. It landed in the demon’s throat. He fell over and bled into the sand. Nightmare didn’t wait for anyone else to question his commands. He ran at Gangrene and attacked.

  CHAPTER 40

  Shadow sat straight up and held out his hand, willing Damnation to fly into his open palm. He heard something moving around in the sand next to him. He looked down and saw his scythe with all of his armor. He was in no immediate danger. When he laid back down, he realized what a terrible headache he had.

  Sarah entered the tent and saw Shadow with his hand over his forehead.

  “Didn’t know it was possible for you to get your ass kicked.”

  “It isn’t. The guy had my armor and tried to take my weapon. I was basically fighting a less powerful version of myself after wasting a significant amount of energy on beating up the rest of you.”

  “So it’s a loss with an asterisk next to it in the record book? A loss is a loss, Shadow.”

  “Did I… what happened when…”

  Shadow closed his eyes, hoping that he could form the question he needed to ask.

  “What did I do when I became a rage monster?”

  “You don’t remember?”