Demon Lord 6: Garnet Tongue Goddess (19 page)

“How very blue of you.”

“Don’t hate me because I’m beautiful. By the way, I have radio-controlled land mines buried around here and I’ll be watching from the window.”  He pulled a silver box from a pocket.  The detonator was the size of a matchbox, with a red button on it and a stubby antennae.

“So leave already,” I shouted.   “Everyone does, sooner or later.”

He pocketed the box but didn’t leave right away.  He stared at me for several moments as time slipped out of joint, becoming elastic.  His face lost emotion.  I had the sense that he was seeing something other than me and the damn tree.

Finally, he said, “There’s a difference between me and your parents.”

“Yeah, you’re alive.”  Back then I believed what he’d told me; that they’d died in a car crash, leaving him to raise me.

“Not just that,” he said.  “Unlike your parents, I’ll be back for you.  Unless you fall and die and wolves eat you.  I am an ancient Atlantean demon, very powerful, hard to kill.  I intend to live forever.”

“So?”

“So I’ll always be in your life, whether you like it or not.”

I glared in appreciation.  “Don’t do me no favors.”

1

NINETEEN

“Everyone is disposable

until proven useful to me.”

                                                 —
Caine Deathwalker

A day and night passed with no problems.  That let me know a hell of a lot more trouble was coming than I’d anticipated—or the naga wasn’t as stupid as I’d thought and he’d slithered off to lick his wounds, and maybe get laid.

Bet the ghost lights won’t try to kill his fun.

If an attack were on the way, I had twenty demons with battle experience on hand.  That should be enough for this situation.  I could have brought more muscle, but that would be draining my wallet dangerously. 

I’d told the extra security to stay close.  Spread too thin, we’d be picked off one at a time.  I had Shiva handling external security: eight guys including her.  Six demons were sleeping, resting up for the night shift.  That left four in the first floor halls, and three getting brunch in the cafeteria. 

Holy was in the second floor command center, accessing the cameras around the property.  I’d brought along a demon geek for tech backup, swiped from the War Room.  He didn’t count as a warrior and wasn’t getting combat pay.  He also didn’t dare complain.  I didn’t remember his name; just called him Bobble-Head because his head always seemed to be in motion, even when seated in front of a monitor.  He was thin as a rail and had a permanent forward slouch.  I considered calling him Vulture instead.  If his neck were just a little longer…

I stood behind Holy, wearing my new zombie-apocalypse suit, breaking it in.  The black helmet and tinted visor I’d left in my room.  She kept looking over her shoulder at me—dazzled by my coolness, no doubt.  Finally, it got on my nerves.

“What?” I said.  “Never seen a crimson cod-piece?”  I hadn’t yet got around to painting that part of the suit black.

“Why am I stuck in here?  I’m a soldier.  I have mad combat skills—damn it—that are being wasted.”

“You are what I say you are, unless you’re going to leave the clan and join the circus.”

Her eyes widened.  “What am I, a knife-thrower?  This is because I slept with Christie and you’re pissed off.”

“It would piss anyone off.  I had her first.  You could have at least invited me to the shower.  I have mad soap skills you know, you selfish bitch.”

She stood and came around her chair to face me.  Her eyes blazed, a hard pink glow.  Threads of electric fire lifted her hair into a cloud.  Micro-jags of lightning played over her pink top and black leggings, wreathing arms and legs.  Her sneakers were pink as well, with pale blue laces.  “You are really starting to piss me off, you know?”

Bobble-Head ducked a little lower, keeping his eyes on the monitor like a good boy.

I met her stare with a harder one.  “Don’t make your issues my problem.  You won’t like my solutions.”  I turned and walked to the door, half expecting her to hit me with a lightning bolt.  I was out the door and several steps down the outer hall when my dragon hearing picked up her defiant mutter. 

“I’m not scared of you.”

I stopped to listen.

Bobble-Head said, “You ought to watch it.  He’s gotten better, but a lot of us still remember the Night of the Red Moon.  You weren’t with the clan then, you don’t know…”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Holy asked.

“They say he turned the moon red with the blood of angels, that the dead walked, and the wolves fell to his demon sword like drunken poodles.  Hell opened wide to swallow the city.  They say he beat the fallen legions of the abyss and ripped the city free of the slavering maw of Death.  The vamps and dragons tread carefully around him.  The fey run when he says boo.”

“That jerk?” Holy said.

“I’ve heard it said that he hides a demonic genus under that bad attitude.  Those that underestimate him don’t usually live to regret it.  You were going to throw lightning at him, right, and thought better of it?”

“Well, yeah.”

“He’s killed a lot of storm fey assassins that tried the same thing.  He’s on a whole other level from us.” 

All of that was nice to hear, but a lot of it was bullshit, too.  Still, if I ever needed a press release typed up, Bobble-Head was the one to call. 

I took the stairs to the first floor and went to the cafeteria.  Three demons were hanging out, plates of food in front of them.  One demon was organic metal with an extra set of arms.  Another was a walking pile of obsidian stones.  Stone grinded on stone with every movement he made.  The third demon was well-known to me; Stygis.  His blue foil suit was mirror bright around the shoulders, reflecting the light of his blue-fire hair.  His eyes were orange coals under his jutting brow.  His nose was a blunt, wide blade of an appendage, his mouth a slash in his yellow face.  An assortment of bladed weapons were hung all over him like Christmas ornaments. 

The idle chatter died as I arrived, but no one sprang to salute or anything.  These were seasoned troops.  They knew not to betray their officers when enemy eyes might be watching by regular or magical means. 

I went to the kitchen and helped myself to a bottle of Blue Moon beer.  Whoever had stocked up knew enough to buy oranges.  I sliced an orange into thin wedges, opened the bottle, squeezed some juice in, and dropped the crinkled wedge in: my version of brunch.

I dropped into a chair and put my feet up.  Stygis left the others and took a seat opposite of me.  He leaned in and put both elbows on the table.  The knuckles of one yellow hand rapped the table twice like a customer summoning the attention of a waiter.  “So when are these snake bastards showing up?”

I shrugged.  Thorn came into the room.  I waved her over.  “Here’s the person to ask.”

He looked at the pointy-eared fey girl in her razor-slashed jeans and black crop-top tee.  “An intel source?”

“For now.”  It was well known that for years, I’d run the Intel Unit of the clan and had overseen our Special Ops.  I nodded.

Thorn stopped just out of reach, her eyes dancing with the light of fey mischief.  “They’re coming.”

The other conversations in the room died.  Everyone listened.

Thorn said. “They’re coming up through the foundation of the secret temple, under the chapel.  There’s a door that’s been sealed off from the school.  They’ll be bursting through in a few minutes.  A second, larger group of naga will be coming over the hill from the lake.”

I stood and faced a wall-mounted cameras.  “Holy!  Call the sleepers.  Get them up and head to the back of the property.  Bring the guards out front into the building.  Those here will intercept the group from the chapel.”

Stygis was on his feet, a fucking huge battle ax clenched in one big fist.  The light of battle shone in his eyes.

I jerked a thumb toward the exit.  “Go out the door and down the corridor to the left.  Look for double doors with a chain and padlock.  And have fun.”

He grinned hugely.  “On it.”  He gestured to the other demons present.  “Let’s go, guys.”  They all thundered out, eager to kill.

I gave Thorn my full attention.  “Anything special I need to be doing?”

“Just keep me alive.”

“That’s high on my list of priorities,” I said.

“I’m going up to the monitor room.  I’ll be back down when it’s over.”

“Then I’ll find something to keep me busy.” I summoned my Storm PX4 semi-automatics from the ether.  Clips full of mf-tipped rounds, the weapons popped into my hands, safeties off.  I made my own explosive rounds.  Mercury fulminate does a lot more damage than a regular bullet.  The last step must always be to magically
bless
the jackets so the rounds don’t blow up in the gun upon firing.

I headed for the hall, chasing after Stygis and his pals.  I caught up to them outside the chained double doors of the chapel.  The enemy hadn’t yet broke through.  As we waited, several of the demons from the front of the property came up behind me.  One was a raptor-beaked humanoid with bronze feathers on arms and a cockatoo crest on his head.  His eyes were dark stones tinted with smears of red.  He cackled and breathed out a little fire. 

Next to him was a hot babe in a black pantsuit with a butter-amber colored tie.  The suit had a sleeve in the ass that allowed a red scorpion tail to poke out.  The tip of her tail was barbed.  The barb seemed to be made of glass, emitting a cold green radiance.  Her skin was the color of café mocha foam, her eyes like chocolate diamonds.  She saw me glancing at the barb which curved up to hang just behind her shoulder. 

She said, “I had it magically transformed to shoot laser beams.  It taps my lifeforce.  I’m a professional sniper so I’ll work from the back, giving you cover.”

“I hope you’re a good shot,” I said.

She gave me a wink.  “Honey, I’m good at everything I do, especially being bad.  When this is all over, maybe I’ll let you buy me a drink.”

The air got very cold.  Izumi passed the scorpion demon, coming up beside me.  Izumi smiled coldly at her rival.  “He’s got other plans.  He just doesn’t know it.”

Demon-girl shrugged.  “Another time, perhaps.”

Getting ready, I warmed my
Dragon Flame
tattoo.  Pain came, the price for my magic.  It felt like my feet were being filleted and the open wound salted.  The sensation ghosted away.  Heat shimmered just below my skin.  Fire danced at my fingertips.  The sensations of damage ghosted away.

Izumi turned to me.  She stared down at my private parts.  “Don’t you ever give them a rest?” 

“Is it my fault my sheer animal magnetism dominates any woman within range.”

She leaned in and kissed me, frosting my lips.  “Yes, it is.  Like my kimono?  It’s new.”  She wore a pale blue silk kimono with oversized white snowflakes flurrying across it.   The obi wound around her waist was robin-egg blue. 

My breath was white mist as I spoke.  “Looks nice on you, but then everything does.”

She smiled and kissed me again.  The world moved.  No, my mistake.  That was the double doors shredding off the hinges as two bone-white naga warriors crashed through.  I had the impression of male torsos glued onto sea serpent bodies.  They had vestigial fins.  The hands holding tridents were webbed.  These were a sea snake type of naga—probably lived in the nearby lake.  They also had friggin’ wings.  With feathers.  These were the high caste naga, the royalty of their kind.  What they were doing in this hell-hole, I didn’t know.

With their long scaly bodies spilling into the hall, slithering in loops that slammed everywhere, there wasn’t enough space for a fight, but we did our best.  My guns fired together in bursts, until I couldn’t risk shooting anymore, due to the likelihood of friendly fire. 

On her snake, Izumi was humped further down the hall, past the scorpion-girl whose green laser barb flashed, firing, slashing snake coils, leaving cauterized wounds behind.  The section of snake Izumi rode iced-over.  She had a spike of ice in one hand, jabbing it deep into her snake.  The icicle was crimson with frosted blood and gore.

Stygis vanished from sight, go after the other snake.  His battle ax kept up a rhythmic
whack, whack, whack!
   This was in counter point to the obsidian demon whose blows added a few
thuds
and a
thoomb
.  Somehow, the cockatoo demon had forced his way into the chapel.  Smoke thickened the air, blowing into the hall.  I smelled roasting snake and burnt feathers.  I figured we had little time before the whole place went up in flames.

“Izumi,” I called.  “Ice the walls.  Let’s see if we can stop the fire here.”

“On it,” she yelled.

One of the naga lost his head.  It went tumbling through the air, falling, getting kicked away.  This didn’t stop the bodies from thrashings.  Though dead, the snakes’ nervous systems were in utter denial.  It might take them a while to settle down, so we couldn’t relax.

A section of wooden wall shattered next to me as an outside naga forced a new entrance into the building.  Framed in the hole, was the bald black man I’d messed with before.  His lower body rippled away: a white belly and dusty green and brown scales on his sides and back.  Hate burned in his eyes.  The tendons of his neck were tight and well defined.  His muscles bulged, glistening with sweat.  His too-white were bared, as were mine.

I’m happy to see you, too.

I emptied my magazines, guns bucking in my hands, spitting mercury fulminate bullets that cratered and shredded his flesh.  The pits were five-inches deep, quickly welling with blood.  Coils of his lower snake body whipped around me.  My last shot punched into his face, taking off most of his head.  An improvement, I’d say.

And then I held my breath, enduring the squeeze of his coils, knowing I couldn’t release my breath without them tightening, pulverizing my lungs, crushing bones.  Only my half-dragon toughness and my high-pain threshold kept me from death.