The Day of Legion (28 page)

David heard a quiet voice in his head, Luke’s voice. He looked around, but could no longer see Luke in the room.

“David, this is the last demon Legion will use. This one has served them for thousands of years, and is incredibly strong from its service. Only he has the power to bring the twelve chosen demons to the table. Don’t do anything; stay in the light and believe that whatever happens, is supposed to happen.”

The demon stopped suddenly. Keeping still, it turned its head completely around. It lifted its hood and looked directly at David. It was the most evil thing he had ever seen.

The beast had no eyes, only empty sockets. They were puckered dry at the edges. Its skin was that of a snake, scaly, and covered in slime. Its mouth hung open at the edges, but was closed in the middle. Its scalp was covered in sores, oozing foul-smelling pus, and blood ran down its face.

The beast reached up and rubbed its chin. Its long black fingers were covered in rotting skin. It looked at David and smiled, exposing a foul mouth full of drying blood.

“You will be mine, light bearer, just like your precious Patricia will be when Legion has finished with her. Ooh, her skin is salty and soft against my lips.”

David ran at the demon. It opened its mouth so wide, the top lip covered its eye sockets and the bottom lip sagged against its chest. A scream came from within the beast, so loudly the sound wave knocked David onto the floor. He landed on the candles, knocking some over, extinguishing some.

When he got to his feet the beast was gone. The table and chairs remained empty, but the black mist still hovered.

A furious vibration filled the room. The temperature soared, then plummeted just as quickly. The black mist grew thicker, blocking his view.

As the mist slowly dissipated, he saw something which would scar his mind as long he lived: Twelve demons sat in the chairs at the table, chairs once occupied by light-bearers, members of his family, now with the ancient books in front of these monsters.

All twelve stared at the center of the table, where a small orb of blackness spun, floating just above the surface. The orb was blacker than complete darkness. It was small as a soccer ball, but David sensed it was the most powerfully-evil thing he would ever see. Somewhere inside, he knew it was an unbelievably tiny piece of the darkness itself, feeding the demons the power they needed to complete their plan.

The demons were naked, with no hair at all, and their skin was transparent. David could see the deep red of their muscles under the skin, pulsing with each heartbeat.

They had no ears or noses. The tight skin stretched over their skulls. Their mouths were large with thin, tight lips. Their eyes were small, set close together. Their irises were transparent.

David could not see whether they were male or female. They had no sexual organs or breasts. Their bodies glistened in the candle light, sweating foul-smelling droplets. They had human-like hands and feet; and David got the sense they would change and integrate, unnoticed, into humanity.

The black orb disappeared, and the demons turned their attention to the empty chair. They appeared unaware David was in the room. He felt they were not yet strong enough to see into the light, where he stood.

Behind the vacant chair, an obviously female demon appeared. She looked ancient, and perhaps was human once. Her skin was covered in lumps like skin cancer. A large hunch on her back pushed her head and neck downwards. Long, greasy hair hung lifeless. Her upper body was naked, exposing stretched breasts; her lower body was covered with black sackcloth.

What David saw next made him struggle for breath. Sucking on her nipple was a baby boy, its white skin shining brightly. Its feet had turned black like a demon, and the blackness appeared to be spreading very slowly up his legs.

The baby choked slightly and threw up a small amount of the demon’s milk. It was thick and red, like blood. She smiled at it, a revolting, toothless smile, and stroked its face with her bony fingers. The demons around the table were excited and couldn’t take their eyes off the child and its surrogate mother.

One of the demons spoke, its voice deep and strong, in a language David could not understand. He looked at the others around the table and smiled. Then the demon saw him in the candlelight.

Rage crossed its face immediately. Its features became distorted, aggressive. It growled at him, confusing the others. Their sight had not yet become as good and they couldn’t see into the light.

They looked around unseeing, relying on the demon who had vision to protect them from what they could not yet see. They shouted angrily for the demon to destroy the feeble light-bearer they sensed in the room. They were still unable to get up from their chairs.

The stronger demon stood and approached David more quickly than he could follow. It wrapped a large, scaly hand around his throat and lifted him off the ground. The grip was cold and tight and he choked in the vice-like grip.

The demon looked him straight in the eye and delighted in his choking. It studied him with its white eyes. It licked its lips, then laughed when he saw the fear on David’s face.

He lowered him to the ground gently and whispered something to himself. David felt himself rooted to the spot, unable to move. The demon walked back to the table and sat down.

He spoke to the others in English so David could understand. “He is the father of our savior. Let him watch the undoing of his kind, then we shall devour his soul along with the rest.”

While the other demons laughed, David looked at his baby. It cried in the arms of the she-devil and tried to struggle. It knew it didn’t belong in her arms.

The stronger demon slammed the table with his fists. “Hurry up, you old slut!” he screamed. “How much longer do we wait for this baby to be ready? We are royalty, and are degraded sitting weakly at this table!”

The she-demon bowed her head, obviously scared of the other. She held the baby over her head and screeched. The other demons followed it with their eyes, now strong enough to see. It appeared to David they were all holding their breath.

The female began to chant in a deep, guttural rhythm. Outside, the blackest clouds to ever darken the sky above the sanctuary formed. The wind became furious, knocking over trees that had stood for hundreds of years. One after another they fell. The ground shook and groaned. The earth opened up, swallowing the three cabins and the stone foundations of the monastery. Dust flew high in the air.

The darkness was awakening from its slumber, and began releasing its pent-up anger and rage on all mankind. The air became heavy and dry, hot and rancid.

Still unable to move, David watched as the demons delighted in the sounds around them. They could sense their brethren watching, feel the excitement of the darkness as it rumbled through the ground.

Suddenly the ceiling vanished, ripped off its supports and thrown miles into the distance. The walls pushed outwards, leaving them in a huge open pit. David could see the sky and the increasing storm. Lightning struck the earth all around hundreds of times, far as the eye could see. Wind ripped at his body and the hot air seared his nostrils and lungs.

He could feel the light watching from a distance, unable to prevent the coming of the darkness: that was man’s job. David kept his eyes on his baby, held high over the demon’s head.

Luke appeared behind the strongest demon, surrounded by a glow of white light. With a wave, the books in front of each demon opened up. The thick leather covers exposed many pages. The demons’ eyes widened as they saw for the first time the writings of the light-bearers—the secret texts no demon had ever seen. The knowledge of the light laid out in front of them hypnotized them, each one reveling in the power the writings gave them.

Luke used the few seconds the demons’ attention was diverted to get to the female. She saw him and screamed. She pulled the baby into her flaccid breasts and held on. The baby cried, its legs and feet completely black from the evil flowing through his veins.

She hissed at him and scratched him with her fingernails. She grabbed his hair and pulled, shrieking at the demons mesmerized by the books of light.

Luke placed his palm against her face and spoke to her in the language of the darkness. She froze, confused and frightened. She could sense his power, but didn’t know why he could speak their language. He was an unknown quantity to them, with an equal balance of darkness and light in his soul.

He snatched the baby from her. She fell backwards to the ground in front of him. He held his palm toward her. A vibrating white light surrounded her, and she screamed. Her arms and legs flailed helplessly as the light of his soul entered her, burning her to ashes. His knowledge and ancestry gave him the ability to connect directly to her essence. She withered and died, her ashes blown away in the hurricane-strength wind.

The demons, now powerful and strong, leapt from their chairs, at last able to move on the earth. They kicked their chairs away and charged Luke.

He held his ground, holding the baby firmly in his arms. He saw its eyes were a pale shade of pink; not yet completely corrupted. The baby would become fully the tool of evil only by being placed in the chair set aside for the darkness.

A brief thought flickered through Luke’s mind. It was ironic that the light had caused its own demise by inviting the darkness to its table all those years ago; the darkness at the table would be the death of them all.

The demons circled him, staring in anger. Each of them could wipe him from the face of the earth, but he firmly held their treasure. Its safety was paramount.

One of them spoke and the earth trembled. The wind was a tornado around the huge pit, but the voice was clear. “There is a piece of us within you. We invite you to our table. Bring me the child and join us—or perish.”

Luke shouted back, his voice barely audible, “No! This child belongs to the light!”

The demon wasted no time. He struck Luke down with a simple thought. Luke was lifted from the ground, his body torn in half. Flesh discarded, his soul remained floating where his body had been. It glowed in the dying light.

Another demon drew Luke’s soul toward it, and absorbed Luke’s energy into itself. Luke screamed in agony, but had no strength to resist and disappeared into the abyss of the demon’s spirit.

David, still unable to move, could only watch. He saw his baby fall to the ground, and Clara scamper to it from the bushes like a wild animal. She laid herself over the crying boy to protect it, still attempting to gain favor.

She looked up pitifully at them as they approached, but they ignored her. One demon reached through her and lifted the baby by its leg, holding it high above its head like a trophy.

The other demons stared at the child. This was their key to walking the earth, the key to man’s corruption, the power of the darkness combined with corrupted light. It was all within their grasp. They went to the table, where only the vacant chair remained in place. One of them pulled the chair out, and the demon holding the baby began chanting, inviting the servants of the darkness to direct their energy to the chair they thought they had lost forever.

David’s heart broke. His eyes were fixed on his son; nothing else mattered now. The battle was forgotten, the demons were cast from his mind, the light a distant memory. The love for his child and the need to protect it surged through him.

He became angry, which fueled the love for his son—in the hands of demons, held upside down like a slaughtered animal, crying and afraid. He drew on all of his strength, but was unable to move. He concentrated on his baby, feeling love well up inside him.

The bonds that held him melted away, and then he could move; first his hands and arms, then his hips and finally his feet pulled free. He found himself running at the demons, who were lowering the child onto the chair.

David knew what he was about to do would destroy him. He could already sense the eternity of suffering his actions would bring upon himself. He also knew he would still die if he stopped, and the demons would rule with his son until the balance could be made to shift again. He knew he would not be judged by the light if he surrendered. The unconditional love of the light was letting him choose.

David quickly pushed his way through to the chair and sat down before the demon could finish lowering his son to it. He grasped his child and held it to his chest. The baby stopped crying and curled into him. They felt each other’s warmth and a sense of belonging. For one brief moment, David experienced the magic of a father holding his son for the first time.

The demons screamed and snatched at the baby. They pulled at the chair and tried to attack David, but the power now in his body was too strong; neither he nor the chair was moved. The darkness had concentrated all of its power into the chair, giving the occupant the sovereignty of earth.

David’s eyes met his son’s, and he smiled. He was oblivious to the storm raging around the pit and the demons’ attempts to strike him. The baby grasped his thumb and closed his eyes.

David placed his son on the table. He arched his back as the pain shot through him. He felt fully immersed in the darkness now and the black intensity filled his soul. He took into himself all the pain that mankind was to experience, the death and destruction and evil in the world. He was dragged into the depths of the darkness, where he would spend eternity. He heard the screams he would never escape from, felt the coldness of the demons who would punish him forever.