Dark Urban Rising Box Set

9. Loyalty

9LoyaltyIt was after two in the afternoon before Billy and Tazia woke up. The sun was still shining, but now its dawn brightness was distorted by a persistent drizzle.

A small breeze caressed the skin on Tazia’s face and lifted her hair. As it passed over her head, it nudged heat into her upturned ear and buzzed lightly. Thinking it was a fly or other winged bug, she batted it away with her hand, her eyes still firmly shut.

The “bug” moved to Billy, who also tried swatting at it and then, giving up, rolled over abruptly to escape. He buried his face in Tazia’s back, hugging her close to him letting his hands stray just a little. As always, she pushed him away.

He persisted.

So did the bug.

It hovered just a few inches from both of them, buzzing urgently now, the sound intensifying, louder and louder, until it ricocheted off the walls.

Finally, Tazia hit out at both the bug and Billy. She missed the first, but made contact with Billy’s head just as he’d finally decided to sit up, still half asleep, and see what the noise was.

“Ow! What-did-ya-do-that-for?”

Tazia sat up, too. “Look!”

Joshua had returned and was zipping around the room as the white ball of energy he’d turned into earlier, bouncing from wall to wall.

Already out of bed, Billy raced to the computer and started to shovel code into the keyboard before he’d even taken a seat. Tazia hung back, chewing on her thumbnail and pacing by the windows. She was about to see her father and was terrified.

In short order, Billy gave the “run” command and then sat back, watching as the ball of light gradually disappeared and Joshua’s face reformed on the screen pixel by pixel.

“Hey, all. Hope you two weren’t getting too cozy in there.” His smirk glitched back to a straight face when Billy yawned, not yet awake enough for banter.

“Did you bring him with you, Josh?” Tazia spoke from her spot by the window, her eyes flicking between the room and the view outside. The jump down into the murky river below was starting to look mighty tempting to her. Several crows had collected on the balcony railing and gazed at her, squawking and flapping their wings as they settled. It seemed they were encouraging her to take the plunge.

Joshua’s reply brought her attention back. “Yeah. It wasn’t easy. Dude’s not that happy, Taz. Give him a moment to catch up—I travel a bit faster than him. Remember, you won’t have long, so talk quickly.”

As he finished speaking, the air on the other side of the room started to undulate. Sparks of red and black rode the waves, fracturing their form until it looked like a mass of spinning and seething liquid. A sulfurous smell rolled toward Billy and Tazia, making their eyes sting. They stepped back, gagging.

Through this fetid stew, the Abbot of Savoy rose from the floor. His shape slowly formed within the movement and light until he stood like a vague shadow in front of them. The sparks illuminated his body, first in one place and then another, filling in his outline and revealing his features.

Her fear forgotten, Tazia took a step forward to get a better view and gasped. Parts of her father’s image distorted while she looked at him. Sections of skin, hair, and strips of flesh split away from his form, revealing the bone underneath and leaving black blood trails behind. It all spun into the surrounding swirls of light and energy before attaching and reforming again. The effect was a slowly rotting corpse caught on film, fast-forwarded, rewound, and replayed over and over.

She gagged and quickly put a hand to her mouth. Was this what Hell did? The torment? The suffering? She’d never seen such a thing before.

The Abbot stood immobile, blinking slowly, adjusting to the surroundings. Any expression was fleeting before the effects of decomposition took hold.

In life he had been a severe but good-looking man. He resembled sixty, with short black hair streaked with gray and a slightly regal pointed beard, but now he was stripped of all character, and every one of his eight hundred years was visible.

At last, he looked in her direction. “Anastasia?”

His voice sounded very far away and Tazia stepped closer still, both transfixed and repelled at the sight of him. “Yes, father.” Her voice broke slightly.

For a moment they stared at each other before Joshua’s voice piped up from the computer screen, “Tick tock, dudes!”

It broke her trance, and she quickly explained her situation with the High Advocate, stumbling over her words often. Her father said nothing.

Shocked at his silence, Tazia waited. She'd expected anger, had seen it often enough for far less; the roar of disapproval that made his surroundings shake and his subjects run for cover. Here, now, he looked simply resigned, tired and broken. It was too much for her, she needed to get to him. She stumbled forward just as Billy reached her side. He pulled her back and squeezed her hand.

Her father looked on, obviously interested in this tall stranger who appeared to care so much for his daughter. “Who is this?”

“I’m William Nadig. Billy.” He spoke automatically, allowing Tazia a chance to recover herself.

The Abbot c****d his head to listen. The position encouraged the flesh on that side of his face to drop in thick swathes until the skull was visible. The bone glistened, white and wet, briefly reflecting the sparkling lights around him until the cycle of renewal started over and the flesh grew back again. All the while, though, he stared at Tazia.

Billy continued talking, not taking his eyes from the Abbot’s disintegrating face. “The angel said she needs Tazia ‘whole’ like she was when she was born—with her soul intact. That ink you put on her back, we need to get rid of it. Until we do that, the angel said you can’t be with your… Lord.”

“And you, child? Do you want to feel your soul again?” The Abbot’s voice whipped around the room, one minute beside her ear, and the next sounding miles away.

Not knowing the answer to the question, Tazia said, “I just want you to be happy, Father. But, you always told me angels could not be trusted…”

“She will have an ulterior motive, no doubt,” the Abbot replied. “But I am resigned to whatever Fate brings me now. I’ve had time to reflect. Time in Hell goes very slowly, child. I have lived a long life and enjoyed great power. Now, I am just like everyone else. Just Brother Stephen lost in a sea of demons…”

At that moment, there was a change in the atmosphere in the room. The lights seemed to recede and a low dark cloud rose from between the planks of the wooden floor and crept toward the Abbot. As the blackness intensified, Tazia recognized the familiar feeling from her long childhood years held underground. It was Hell coming to reclaim its property.

The effect on Billy was startling.

He stared directly into the darkness as though listening to something she could not hear. He straightened his body so that he appeared taller and more solid somehow, stronger even. The moment passed quickly, and he became animated once again, but now, all trepidation was gone as he faced the Abbot.

“You cheeky bugger!” He waggled a finger at him as if he was telling off a little child. “You nearly had me!”

He turned back to Tazia. “He’s having you on, love. Can’t you see it? He desperately wants your help, but doesn’t want to let you think you have power over him, so he’s doing this ‘poor me’ impression. You deceitful bastard! You don’t fool me for one second!”

There was a low rumble as the blackness started to gather at the Abbot’s feet and circle him. The cloud carried within it sparks of red, and the distant sound of crackling flames could be heard.

“It seems as if you ran into the arms of the first man to offer assistance, Anastasia. It is a shame you did not choose more wisely. This one can only offer side-show magic with his imprisoned necromancing monkey.” He slapped the rebuke at her, the disappointment sounding all too familiar.

Billy stepped forward, bristling, but Joshua piped up again. “Whoa! Can we tone down the testosterone and get on with it? He’s not going to last much longer!”

The black smoke circled higher around the legs of the Abbot, picking up speed and fanning the flames below. The air in the room suddenly felt under pressure.

The Abbot spoke directly to Tazia. “There is no magic that will break the spell on your back. Only an act of great sacrifice will free your soul from its bounds.” He added, “Understand, my child, souls crush spirit. It was holding you back, keeping you a mewling infant far too long. I had to take action. I wanted your peace and your obedience. In return, I gave you freedom from its confines!”

The blackness had risen to his waist and the smell of burning flesh rose on the waves of heat, which rolled toward them, as the fire below caught hold.

Tazia was locked in a battle between pulling her father free and her own fear of being burned. She stepped forward, but Billy pulled her back. She had never seen him so intense and angry.

“Who can perform this act of sacrifice? Can it be me? Can I die for her?” Billy’s eyes glowed white against the blackness of the room.

The Abbot smiled, all flesh burned away, just grinning teeth set in bone jaws. “Oh, the hero! The Prince! Anastasia, you have a Prince to serve you!”

Next to Tazia, Billy’s breath heaved and through the connection of their hands she felt his body tremble.

“No, my Prince, killing yourself for my girl will achieve nothing. It would not be an act of true sacrifice. Life means nothing to you, William.”

Billy dropped Tazia’s hand like a stone.

“The sacrifice must be one in which the maker will suffer an extreme loss when it is gone. For him to give up something or someone he prizes above all things. Something for which he will carry the guilt of that loss into the next world.” The flames licked at his shoulders, and his eye sockets danced red.

He shouted over the roar. “Conn O’Cuinn is one such man. He has devoted more than three hundred years to free his country from the influence of its oppressors. If he gives that Cause up for you, Anastasia, your soul will be freed.”

As the flames covered his head, his last shout whipped around them. “Do not fail me, child!”

Then he was gone, and just the sound of their ragged breaths clawing at the thin air remained.

Tazia threw open the sliding doors to the terrace and took some deep breaths before returning, leaving them wide to allow the fresh afternoon air to flow inside to replenish the oxygen the fire had gobbled up.

Five minutes went by before Tazia found her voice. “How do we find out about this ‘Conn O’Cuinn’?”

As though released, Billy moved stiffly back to the computer and sat down, avoiding eye contact with her.

She moved to the seat beside him and squeezed his leg, offering silent reassurance. He returned the touch lightly before continuing to type.

He’d started by doing a straight Google search for “Conn O’Cuinn.” The results numbered thousands, but none made sense.

“Josh, can you help? They'll be a listing somewhere. It'll take me too long. Can you find it? Going by his name alone, I’m assuming if this bloke is serving a country, it’ll be Ireland.” Billy looked exhausted. Since the Abbot had disappeared, his movements were stilted, his lids heavy over bloodshot eyes.

Joshua was surprisingly agreeable. “Sure. By the way, I never once took you to be a prince, in case you were wondering.” He winked before disappearing pixel by pixel again and crossed to the big processor he’d been contained in earlier.

The classified British Army records he brought back with him listed a demon called Conn O’Cuinn. He was a Soldier, undoubtedly the toughest of the four demon pure-breed types: loyal, with steel-like bones and regenerative powers that challenged even a vampire’s.

“They also have a ‘Core’ demon inside them—pure primitive, animal-type dude. Lethal!” Joshua said, sounding almost gleeful. The listing also confirmed that Conn O’Cuinn was currently living in Detroit running an Irish club and was on the top of Most Wanted lists the world over.

Billy and Tazia looked at each other. Tazia knew about Soldier demons, of course. It had been Soldiers that had almost single-handedly driven the vampires back underground during the Demon War. More recently, she’d come up against them while gun-running. They hadn’t bothered her. She mostly focused on her own business, while they tended to be part of a larger unit, fighting for a purpose that wasn’t hers.

“What if I go pay him a visit? Record what I see? Might help us get a feel for the guy.” Joshua said.

“And in return?” Billy asked.

“The Mac.”

Billy still looked exhausted. “Whatever,” he said, and ran the code for the second time.

While Joshua was whizzing his way to Detroit, Tazia retrieved two beers from the fridge and cracked them open with a vampire-shaped bottle opener she fetched from the kitchen drawer. The teeth of the little Dracula dug so deep into the bottle caps they wouldn’t let go, and she had to pry each one free. She knew just how they felt.