An angel’s road to hell

20. Of shadows, fights and a little bit of despair

Cassandra Pendragon

I didn’t freeze, nor did I hesitate. I dropped on all fours and kicked off with my legs as hard as I could. I felt a displacement of air and heard a “swish” from where my head had been. I shot  forward directly towards my brother and our guards. The guards were still frozen in their half-bow and Mordred was empty handed. While I was tumbling forwards I unfurled my wings. I had never tried to fly before, but there was no time like the present to learn something new. 20-meter long currents of energy raced through the still night air behind me and I managed to right myself in midair, gaining some height. While I hovered about 4 meters above the platform several things happened simultaneously.

My brother had thrown his sword, that had been the swishing sound I had heard. At first glance I thought he had gone completely off the rocker and attacked me out of the blue but when I took a closer look I realised that his sword had nailed a squirming shadow, roughly humanoid in shape with three tails attached to its back, to the platform. Where his sword pierced the flowing darkness, a faint reddish light appeared and I could smell sulphur and ozone.

From my vantage point I saw two blurred figures emerge behind Mordred and the guards, one gliding towards my weapon less brother and the other moving towards Henry and Robert. The bell within our palace started ringing and I saw a second shadow disappear from where I had been standing not two seconds ago. I couldn’t smell or hear them and when they didn’t move, I couldn’t see them either.

Without further thought I pushed myself through the air, closer towards Mordred and the guards. Adrenaline was pumping through my veins while I fought to remain airborne, simultaneously reaching with more and more of my wings to ensnare the two creeping shadows. I felt their essence burn wherever I could touch them, so I tried to overwhelm them quickly and then look for the third one. But I didn’t need to, it found me first.

While I locked its brethren in a web of energy it jumped me from behind. No idea how it had gotten up in the air without making a sound but I felt a surprisingly light weight crash into my back, followed by an agonisingly cold pain between my shoulder blades and the smell of blood and sulphur. I lost control of my wings and dropped to the ground. Surprisingly enough I still felt my legs and managed to control my landing. With a roll I got back up on my feet. I could still feel my wings, but the connection felt distorted, fuzzy, and I couldn’t move them deliberately anymore.

Where I had come down, a quivering mass of black with holes and gashes burned through, slowly dissolved into nothingness. To get on my back it had probably been forced to dive through my wings and hadn’t been able to dodge them all. Served it right, I felt blood trickle down my back and the cold slowly spread. I could feel numbness radiating out from where it had struck and the connection to my wings got weaker and weaker.

During my crash-landing the other two shadows had been able to free themselves, worse for wear with gashes and tears all over them, and had reached their targets, going to work. One gripped Robert, who had just straightened and was swinging his halberd around, from behind. With a wet crunch and a popping noise it tore off his head and launched it towards Henry. The body continued his swing with the halberd but toppled over after a second. The sudden movement had made Henry turn around and he was blinded by the bloody fountain gushing from his partner’s neck. The head hit him square in the face, I could see his neck bending backwards, the blood from his broken nose and the blood from the missile splattered all over his face, blinding him effectively. He collapsed on his back and the fiend rushed forwards, eager to finish the job.

The other one had missed its first attack. As soon as Mordred had thrown his sword, he had wheeled around, maybe he had felt a movement, maybe his instincts had saved him, whatever the reason, he had been able to face his opponent and narrowly dodge the reaching mass of darkness. He tried to jump back and disengage but the shadow followed his every move. I could see now that they were all vaguely kitsune in shape, with a varying number of tails. Dread settled over me when I remembered one of Greta’s lessons:

“Yes, a soul can live on without a vessel, but that existence is a punishment. Vile arts allow the practitioner to pull the soul from a living, breathing body and turn it into a mindless servant, bound to the caster’s will. Those perversions of life keep on existing until they fulfil the purpose their creator has charged them with or until they are destroyed for good, which is not an easy task. They are nigh immortal and can only be hurt by soul energy or an immense amount of life force. They can disrupt the natural flow of energy within everything they touch and use the energies of their victims to regenerate. Luckily, as far as I know, the ritual to create the “shadows of death” has been lost ages ago and this plague hasn’t descended on our continent in hundreds of years.”

My heart skipped a beat as I realised what must have happened. The emperor had turned a part of the second family into shadows and tasked them with an attack on my family. Judging from the alarm bell I heard, there were probably more than just the four who made my life miserable at the moment. I didn’t have the time to panic though, I needed to act. Mordred’s weapon and the spark of transcendent energy within would finish the one pinned to the platform off, but it’d take time. My other attacker had already been reduced to dust which left me with two opponents. I couldn’t control my wings but I could still swing them like whips. Grabbing a bunch of energy torrents in each hand, I made a decision. I didn’t think I could save Henry, he was already on the ground and the shadow loomed over him, ready to strike.

Honestly, he wasn’t my brother, so even if I could see a way to protect him, I wouldn’t. I struck out with the living bands of light in my hands and tried to hit the one going after Mordred. The numbness in my back made my movements clumsy and clipped, not to mention that I had never used whips before. The one saving grace was the sheer amount of energy torrents I had at my disposal. Of my 33 wings only 3 found their target but they immediately curled around the shadow, cutting through its essence and filling the night with the smell of sulphur and ozone. I threw myself backwards to drag it along, but my back gave out and I crumbled to the ground, all I had managed was a light tuck that threw it off balance. That had been enough though, barely. Mordred had gained a little space and pulled an iridescent red dagger from his clothes, which he immediately threw at the writhing shadow.

Meanwhile Henry’s attacker bore down on him, covering his face and torso in squirming darkness. I heard a blood curdling scream which abruptly cut off. When the shadow moved away, all that was left of Henry was a pair of legs and a slowly rotting mass of flesh and bones. Golden and red trails of energy shot out from the corpse and flowed into the remnant of a kitsune I might have known personally before. Its wounds were closing and when the smell of rotten flesh finally reached me, it was as good as new. Bile rose in my throat and I had to fight against an overwhelming urge to simply run away. I knew it was stupid but I had to close my eyes for a moment to suppress my emotions. Not necessarily the most healthy course of action, but it sure beats losing control in a fight and dying.

When I opened my eyes again I saw Mordred’s dagger flying through the air, a crimson trail behind it. It’s mark was only a few feet away and I was sure he was going to hit. At the last moment I could feel the shadow’s form quiver against my wings as it tried to collapse into the surrounding darkness. I wasn’t going to have any of it and pulled with all the strength I had left. Like razor wires my wings cut through his from and kept it corporal. The dagger hit and with an eerie wail the shadow vanished, sucked into the dagger. My wings slopped uselessly to the ground. The last assailant had followed the exchange while he devoured Henry’s essence and disappeared into the night.

For a moment the stench of decay, the ringing alarm bell and our heavy breathing were the only disturbances of a star-lit night. I tried to get back on my feet, but my legs were just as numb as my wings had been before. The cold was spreading and I could feel it getting closer and closer to my heart. I didn’t want to find out what would happen if it got there.

I reached for my back pocket and already cried: “Mephisto” while I still fumbled to get the coin out. My world turned red in a haze of torment. I could feel the chains, the contract with Mephisto had put around my soul, tighten and start to suffocate the very essence of my being. Crap, I hadn’t gotten permission to disclose his existence to Mordred. With every passing moment the pressure mounted and I could feel the first cracks forming on my soul. If I had still been in control of all my faculties, I would have tried to cut the damn chains out of me then and there, but I couldn’t move my wings, not even a little. My world turned dark and i felt like I was buried under a mountain without space to breath or think. It was worse than every injury I had sustained previously, the pain from my soul being torn to shreds cut me off from everything else. I screamed in agony, everything that was left was the faint hope that I couldn’t survive this for long.

Just about when I felt my consciousness waver and soothing oblivion beckon, I heard an agitated shout and felt a light touch on my shoulder: “it’s fine, demons be damned! I give her permission, you hear! She can tell whomever she wants, just stop!” And with that, the pain vanished, leaving behind a soothing cold and numbness. With a grown I opened my eyes just in time to grab Mephisto’s hand on my shoulder and pull him to the ground besides me.

While everyone had been focused on me for a second, the last shadow had materialised close to his squirming companion, nailed to the platform. It had pulled out the blade and directly turned around to attack. My now freed assailant dematerialised and appeared above Robert’s corpse. Without a sound it pulled the same energies out of the body the other one had used to regenerate from its burns and the gaping hole in its chest closed while Robert turned into rotting goo.

I managed to drag Mephisto out of harms way, but the humongous sword still bit into his shoulder on the way down. Sparks erupted from the wound, as if the strike had hit glowing iron, and the transcendent speck of energy in the cross guard lit up in a malevolent purple light. Mephisto cried out on his way down, and I could see his figure starting to flicker when he hit the floor with a heavy thud. Master of magics my ass!

I still felt disorientated and slightly dizzy, my thoughts wandered and I couldn’t help but feel curious what task those poor souls had been set on. They had attacked the guards and Mephisto as well, after all. I was dragged back to reality by a roar. My idiot brother had decided to tackle the shadow who swung the huge sword around like it was a twig, and rammed into it with a war cry, driving it away from the tangled mess of limbs that were me and Mephisto and knocking the sword out of its hand. I struggled to get up, but my legs wouldn’t obey me properly and the weight of my demonic mentor on my chest didn’t make it any easier. He wasn’t heavy and not even corporal the whole time, but he still pinned me down for good. Up close I could see purple light dance under his skin and gravitate towards his head and centre. If I didn’t want to witness the final death of a demon, I would have to do something, quickly. My eyes feverishly roamed over the training grounds but the sight wasn’t helpful.

Mordred and one shadow were locked in hand to hand combat, but I could tell the difference in strength immediately. Each blow of the creature made my brother tremble like a leave in the wind while his punches simply glanced off his opponent. The only thing keeping him alive was his agility. The other one had finished absorbing Robert’s energy and silently turned towards Mephisto and me. His hands elongated into claws, which reflected the silvery light and looked deadly sharp like black diamond as it stormed towards us. With a yell I reached for Mordred’s sword on the ground and just barely got my fingers around the hilt. It was much too heavy for me to swing, let alone that I laid prone on the ground, but I managed to slam the cross guard against one of Mephisto’s horns, crushing the gem in the middle.

With a small explosion of glass-like shards that tore into my side and blew the sword from my grip, a whirlwind of purple energy formed and dispersed within a moment. The energy within Mephisto was gone with it, most likely returned to its true owner but I couldn’t care less at the moment. I just hoped that Mephisto could somehow save our tails.

As the claws cut through the night, aimed for Mephisto’s head, I could feel his weight settle steadily onto me, the flickering had stopped. Without missing a beat he rolled off of me and clapped his hands together with a guttural exclamation in the demon tongue: “Barrier!” Around us a translucent dome of golden energy rose into the air and the charging shadow slammed straight into it without a moment to spare. The impact sent ripples all over our refuge but it remained in place and with a bang the shadow was thrown backwards, his front smouldering and starting to slowly disintegrate. Mephisto didn’t give it any time to recover and pointed his outstretched hand at the fiend. A spear of reddish light shot from his fingers, passing harmlessly through the barrier. It slammed into the shadow’s head and ignited its body. I hadn’t heard one of them make a sound before, but as it started to burn, I could hear a high-pitched shriek that made me grind my teeth and cover my ears. Like a human torch the walking mass of red and golden flames tumbled backwards a few steps before it dropped and vanished into sparks of gold and red light. I was about to congratulate myself wholeheartedly when I heard a muffled scream from behind.

While I turned around sluggishly Mephisto had already jumped into action. With a wave of his hand he conjured a flaming band of golden light that flew towards the last attacker. When I had finally flipped myself over I saw the shadow completely wrapped in Mephisto’s magic, smoke was rising from its body and it gradually dwindled away until nothing remained but a band of golden light, hovering before my brother’s form on the ground. Mordred had finally been too slow and the shadow had managed to land a blow on his right leg. The bone had shattered and he had collapsed in front of his attacker just a step out of my reach. But before his assailant could finish the job, Mephisto’s spell had put an end to his ambitions for good. Silence returned to the training grounds, only broken by the painful gasps of my brother and me. After a second I managed to mumble:

“I’m…pant… sorry, but I…need help. I think…I have been poisoned.”