Rule One
The Cambion Chronicles 1.5
This story takes place during takes place at the same time as Reflections Upon the Anniversary of My Descent and has spoilers for that book. Can be read as a standalone.
Vex was late. Thaena gritted her teeth and checked her pearl-encrusted wristwatch. Hadn’t she stressed to the girl that this hunt was important? That its timing was crucial?
Thaena pulled out her phone. “Where are you?”
“Sorry!” Vex panted. “I’ll be there in about fifteen minutes.”
“We don’t have fifteen minutes,” Thaena reminded Vex, resentment fuming within her. “Stay clear. I’ll take care of this.”
Thaena clicked the red hang-up button on her cheap burner phone with nearly enough force to crack the plastic. She glanced at the Imperial Teahouse behind her, where they had planned to meet. She took a deep breath, getting her ever-present demon-infused anger under control. Training a new cambion sister was always a painful process. If they didn’t learn how to be subtle and competent, they would quickly perish. Vex had been lucky so far, but had already created several bloody messes that had distracted Thaena from pursuing her current quarry.
Whatever were you thinking when you chose her, Father? The girl won’t last the year, and you know that. Old guilt nagged at Thaena. All the young cambion sisters she’d trained and lost—
She forced herself to move. The longer she waited, the more chances were that things would go wrong. Who knew what would happen when insane cultists got out of hand? Or if the nephilim or other predators smelled trouble? At least Vex would be away from the front line for the immediate future.
Now, to get to work. Her pace quickened, and she tightened the belt on her designer purple trench coat, preparing for battle. Now she could focus on her mission without Vex underfoot.
In the distance, the jagged, crystalline ruins of Amberlight Palace loomed over the city like a curse. Each dawn and sunset, broken walls shone a burnished bronze. And while the historical societies and tourist boards preferred its proper name, everyone knew it as Darkmaw Castle.
It was Storm City’s most popular tourist attraction, and parking near it was impossible. Instead, Thaena took a bus to the top of the hill. Evening was close, and crowds surged, desperate to snap pictures of the castle’s twilight gleam. Strings of coloured lights illuminated the steep road, lending the scene a festive air. Small carts and stalls sold beer, street food, t-shirts, and fridge magnets. Security tape and plywood walls warned people from entering the construction site of the controversial new visitor centre and gift shop.
After she left the bus, Thaena pushed past hawkers trying to sell replicas of Darkmaw Castle or tiny effigies of the Nightmare Throne. Her rage boiled under her skin, and she focused on her breathing to keep her demon side in check. For now.
“This was where the Dark Emperor ruled the world from.” A tour guide pointed, his elven ears protruding from his flowing golden hair. “As we go to the Dread Causeway, you’ll see the slave pits to your left. Behind that are the orc troop barracks and black iron forges.” His group, a small crowd of bright featherdrakes - bird-like reptilians from the far-off continent of Saravel - whispered and chirped at each other in their musical language.
Slipping past the featherdrakes, Thaena sidestepped a family of orcs, trying not to wrinkle her nose at their heavy, musky scents.
“You must never forget the horrific slavery our ancestors endured at the hands of the Dark Emperor,” the pig-like orc matriarch lectured her fidgeting children. “No, Melongrass, you can’t buy a Nightmare Legionnaire toy. You will shame our forebears. No, I don’t care that it has glowing eyes. And Periwinkle, you can’t have Firepit Popcorn. We have healthy salad sandwiches.”
Using the family as cover, Thaena approached the yellow barriers that kept tourists away from the restricted areas. A security guard ogre in a pink high-vis vest ordered people back from the barriers. He stood nearly two and a half meters tall. Thick, overhanging browridges shielded his eyes. And he looked very hard to get past. Thaena searched the crowd, sensing the hate boiling in a loud, belligerent human. She gently incited his desire to be in the castle, and the man stomped forward. “Hey!” he shouted. “You can’t keep us out! I’m a citizen! I have a right to be here!”
“I’m sorry, sir, but the Tourist Board doesn’t allow people–”
“I’m no tourist!” the man snapped. “I’m a citizen! I have the right to see my country’s history! Why you–”
With the security guard distracted, Thaena vaulted over the barriers and vanished into the labyrinthine, shattered ruins. The cracked walls towered above her, gray as smoked glass during the day and honey-colored in the burgeoning twilight. Over two thousand years old, they were resistant to every pickaxe, explosive, and construction machine that modern technology offered. According to folklore, the fortifications had stood perfectly intact until they’d become damaged at the end of the age of magic, in the final war against the Dark Emperor.
Afternoon light glistened on the faceted walls as Thaena slipped through an ancient crevice. Some parts of the structure were perfect surfaces of slick glass, while others were riven with thousands of tiny cracks like a shattered windscreen. Thaena was familiar with the site’s layout; she had been here in the 1970s when infiltrating the Blackravens. In those days, one could go to the Nightmare Throne and touch it. Now, nearly forty years later, there were ropes, plastic barriers, and ticket collectors in the way.
Following an old pathway, Thaena descended to the castle’s basement levels. Here, the smoked-glass walls were undamaged, shaped by lost magic.
Thaena discarded her human mask as she walked through corridors. Her dark skin reddened into crimson scales, and she shook her hair free as curling horns erupted from her skull. Stripping away her mortal visage was painful, but good, like tearing off a loose-sticking plaster. She rolled up the sleeves of her designer coat as she heard the muffled voices in the distance.
“Oh, Dark Emperor. Know that we are your willing faithful. Our prayers will open the way for you to return from Thargul, Netherworld, Abode of Demons…”
The cultists. Pathetic as always.
A group of youths in black robes gathered in a wide hall shaped like the innards of a hollow egg. They carried homemade banners with a horned skull on them, surmounted by crossed blades. All of them stood around a grotesque arrangement of three butchered bodies. Thaena’s claws manifested briefly when she saw two of the corpses belonged to young women.
“All we ask,” a crimson-painted youth intoned, “is that you give us your power.”
Yet asking nicely wasn’t the way to get a demon’s vestige. Thaena knew; she had one herself.
Thaena considered her tactics. This chamber was deep beneath the castle, where the guards wouldn’t find it, and where the reek of dead flesh, or the cries of the dying would not draw attention. She had to break up this party while keeping the barriers between the mortal and supernatural worlds intact. Maybe a curse to panic them, and then…
Soft footsteps echoed behind her. In the same instant, a hellblade sizzled into existence, close to her throat. Thaena tensed as a huge, blue-skinned cambion loomed over her. Tiny goat horns poked out of a shock of white hair on his forehead.
“Hello, Ral.” Thaena kept herself statue-still. “I was watching your little play.”
Ral hissed, “Get away from my followers.”
“You and your patron are being manipulated by a demon called the Weaver of Fragments.” Thaena let her voice carry into the hall beyond, drawing the attention of the robed cultists. If subtlety was no longer on the table, it was time for an audience. “You’re being used, Ral, to cause trouble and chaos. And not for your benefit.”
Ral spat on the floor. “I’m opening the hearts and weak minds of today’s mewling youths to the true king of the netherworld! Come, my children!”
The cultists abandoned their ritual and surrounded their cambion leader. Some wielded pistols, others waved blood-stained knives, or fists.
“A much-disputed title.” Thaena said. “Don’t you understand? You’re being twisted into breaking Rule One. If we’re not careful, the nephilim will—”
Ral laughed. “Who cares? Time to break it all down. I’m going to shock the world into wakefulness, shatter the boundaries between the Gold and the Indigo—” As he ranted, the closeness of his blade to Thaena’s neck widened. In that same instance, Thaena ducked away and summoned her own hellblade, Bitterthorn. She whirled the two-handed longsword around with an intimidating display of skill, leaving a wake of blood-red light trailing in the air. The cultists gulped and pulled away.
Not caring about the lack of his minions’ mettle, Ral raised his own sword quickly and blocked her blow. The hellblades clashed, and dark energy swirled about them.
“Your form is poor.” Thaena sidestepped Ral’s lunge and cut at his wrist.
“That was to put you off guard!” Ral licked at the blood spurting from his arm with a long, serpentine tongue. The wound sealed over. He stabbed at her again, and Thaena gracefully stepped back, as longswords were more effective when you had room to maneuver them. Ral closed in, and his swordsmanship measurably improved, as promised. A quick glance at the cultists showed them hanging back; good. The fewer people Thaena had to murder, the better.
Thaena struck out with a few probing thrusts, and Ral blocked them with a few simple guards. How would he handle more complex swordplay? Thaena feinted to the left. Ral fell for the ploy, overextending himself trying to block a cut that was no longer there. Instead, Thaena slashed at his right side and sliced his chest. Blood seeped through his pale shirt. “Finished holding back?”
With a growl, Ral pressed forward, using his greater size and bulk to push Thaena into a retreat. As they circled, a familiar prickle of infernal energy rippled across Thaena's consciousness; Vex had arrived. Somehow the inexperienced cambion had tracked Thaena through the labyrinth of Darkmaw Castle. How? No matter; young cambions were not known for being predictable.
A heartbeat later, the sickening crunch of broken bones filled the air. With a snarl, the young cambion launched herself at the cultists.
The girl had lost control of her demonic nature. Again!
Frantically, Thaena shoved Ral away with a ferocious kick. Vex stood in her crimson-scaled cambion form, covered in blood, swinging a hellhammer around in a wide arc that crunched into the bodies of the cultists with berserk fury.
“Vex, no!” Thaena cried. She had drilled Vex on how to kill opponents quickly and neatly. And the girl was not doing it.
A sharp flare of energy blazed behind Thaena, and then cooled as rapidly as it had come. Ral had vanished.
Gritting her teeth, Thaena focused once more on her cambion sister. At least she was shaking off her fury. Vex blinked as self-awareness crept back into her expression. Her cambion form resembled Thaena’s: red-scaled, with curving sheep’s horns, twisting free from her mass of dark, coiled hair. Her serpentine yellow eyes widened in horror. Thaena tried to imagine what it would be like to see this violence anew. Blood spatter covered the crystalline walls like abstract art. Corpses littered the floor, swimming in a sanguine sea. Vex sniffed the air, tracking through gore, a faint growl emanating from her throat as she sought her quarry.
“He’s gone,” Thaena explained.
“I’ll chase after him!” Vex whipped her head back and forth.
“No point.” Thaena pointed to where a small smear of red smoke dissipated into nothingness. “Sense that? Ral has opened a rent to the Netherworld. We won’t be able to follow.” She cleared her throat. “He used his followers to cover his escape.”
Steeling herself, Thaena regarded her little sister. “And you’ve just broken Rule One.”
“‘Don’t make a mess,” Vex repeated, once more staring at the surrounding bodies. Like her excessive violence was finally sinking in.
“You know why that’s important,” Thaena tried to give the girl a simple version, omitting Father’s ongoing feud with the Weaver, stirred up by that messy affair on Kataphedios decades earlier. “We need to keep the barrier between the supernatural and mortal worlds intact. Making a mess draws the wrong sort of attention. You’ll have predators after you. Self-righteous preservers, arrogant nephilim who only care about the angels’ endless rules for everything, and other cambions pissed that you’ve turned up the heat and complicated their intrigues.”
Vex’s face remained suspiciously blank. Thaena hoped she was listening. “Ral’s cult is deliberately stirring this up, heedless of the consequences. We have to be better than they are. Show them that the laws of Hell are there for a reason and not to be trifled with. Let’s clean this up.”
Vex’s face fell, and she stared at the blood spray around her as if seeing it for the first time. “But how?”
Thaena drummed her fingers against her thigh, trying to think of the best way of disposing of eight dead bodies at Storm City’s favorite tourist destination.
“Master, sorry I’m late!”
A young man clad in sagging tracksuit pants staggered into the crystalline hall, a beer can in one hand. A horned skull tattoo covered his hairy chest.
Thaena gave a wintry smile. Before the cultist noticed his slaughtered companions and the blood about him, she strode towards him. Ral had taught his cult to revere cambions, and at her approach, the man sank to his knees. “Uh, dark mistress…” he gasped. “Uh…”
“Silence,” Thaena ordered and slid a psychic knife into the man’s mind. It was disgusting; perhaps Vex had been right when she attacked the cultists. This man wanted young girls beneath him, screaming away and begging for mercy. She played with his desires, creating the image of a girl skipping along a forest path. “I’ll give you what you want,” Thaena whispered. She’d have to take a long bath after inflaming his filthy cravings. “But first, you’re going to help us dispose of these bodies at the construction site.”
Including yours...
Thaena drove through the early morning streets. Her mission: a failure. Ral had escaped, and while the cultists had been disposed of, there would always be more as long as Ral could tempt and trick them into service.
“You’re mad at me.” Vex slumped in the passenger seat. Both cambions had shifted back into their human forms. Vex had pulled a hoodie over her face, avoiding eye contact with Thaena.
“I’m not. But you have to be more subtle.” Thaena’s fingers tightly gripped the steering wheel. “Stay out of this mission. I’ll track Ral.” She studied the rearview mirror, where a vehicle followed them so closely that she could make out his features: a smug, elven man with long, pale hair that flowed over his shoulders. Hadn’t he been at the castle earlier? Oh no, it had to be a nephilim. How annoying. This dramatic appearance was close as she’d get to an official warning from the nephilim that she and her intrigues were hammering at the borders between the supernatural and mundane worlds. The servants of the angels were polite and law-abiding before they struck you.
Vex was silent for a bit, then said, “Listen. Father said that Ral’s demon has Marton’s soul. If we can get Ral’s vestige, he can force a trade. Please, let me help you—”
Thaena suppressed the impulse to roll her eyes. Cultists had murdered Vex’s boyfriend and left her for dead. That incident had driven the girl to make a pact with their patron. Except the young man had been a worthless piece of lying trash, and Thaena hated every second of Vex’s ongoing obsession with him. Most conversations were Marton this, and Marton that, and what a wonderful person he’d been despite the mountain of evidence to the contrary. Such as the boy concealing his involvement with a group of Dark-worshipping cultists, which had ultimately led to his demise.
Thaena didn’t care about rescuing Marton’s soul from Hell; he was exactly where he belonged.
Still, Vex was young. She’d get over it. Hopefully soon. Not wanting to endure a barrage of shouting from Vex in defense of the dead boyfriend’s dubious character, Thaena tried another tack. “You’re not ready for it.” She pointed in the rear-view mirror at the car following them. “We’re being followed, and the smug look on that elf’s face tells me he’s a nephilim. A person with an angel’s vestige. A predator, giving us a warning. We were lucky this time. But if you’re not careful, a neph will kill you for breaking Rule One. Don’t hunt until you’re ready.”
Rule One: Don’t Make a Mess. The first law of the Indigo World—the supernatural community that hid within the cracks of the mundane Golden World. Thaena had tried to drum Rule One into Vex’s head; if the girl learned anything, it had to be that. The barrier between the two worlds was a living remnant of ancient power, and it was like a sleeping dragon. Most of the time, the barriers were quiescent, but too much magic in an area or overt supernatural activity that encroached upon the Golden World could breach the barriers and cause terrible things to happen. Monsters might slip through from another dimension. Towns and people who existed the previous day may not exist the next. And while the nephilim guarded the barriers, they gave the supernatural factions a chance to clean up their own mess; something everyone preferred to do before the angelic hit squads got involved.
“My powers aren’t like yours,” Vex said. “I can’t mess with their minds the way you do.”
“Be as subtle as you can be,” Thaena suggested. “You don’t want Father to take his vestige from you. He’ll be forgiving while you’re learning, but up to a point.”
She checked the rear-view mirror again, but the nephilim was gone. Arrogant show-off.
“I could lose my vestige?” Vex peered out at her, wide-eyed. “How?”
Thaena thought of Damiana’s body, lying dead in the ruins. She didn’t answer. Her fingers tightened on the steering wheel.
Time passed. And while Thaena focused on tracking Ral, part of her mind simmered with worry over her new sister. Young cambions were terrible to train. They could barely control their demon-infused anger. They didn’t listen. They knew everything. All you could really do was train them as much as they could stand, then point them in the right direction until they slowed down, or died. Vex was off hunting her boyfriend’s killers, stalking the city’s dark places like a prowling tiger. All Thaena could do was sit back and wait, like a nervous parent.
Anyway, it was good that Thaena didn’t have to focus immediately on Vex. She had to find Ral, and where his cult was. He must have had a more capable accomplice, or otherwise Thaena’s sources would have detected him by now. Thaena sat in a comfortable chair in her expensive hotel room, studying her notes and a printed surveillance photograph of Ral in his pot-bellied ogre form.
And then the reek of infernal energy filled the air, and cold sweat covered Thaena’s skin as the hotel room around her shifted into the tiled palace of her youth. A familiar, dry heat filled the room, and she inhaled the saffron incense she associated with her childhood.
Father was coming to visit. Not in the flesh, of course, as her patron demon could never leave Thargul; but he could manifest in Thaena’s presence when she stood on resonant ground. This hotel had been the site of a massacre once during the National Strength regime, and that specter of violence still lingered in the building’s structure.
The white plaster walls transformed into an open portico with pillars. Rather than flower-patterned carpet, mosaics on the floor depicted ancestral heroes strangling lions and brandishing spears. The bar fridge became a large, inset fishpond, and reflected Thaena’s dark-haired form.
“Father.” Thaena rose to her feet as the man strode into the room, wearing a royal turban with a peacock feather and long gold-trimmed robes. While he appeared as her biological father, he was not.
“How are you and your sister going with your pursuit of the Iron Legate?” Father threw a crust into the pond, breaking the mirror-like surface. Phantom goldfish with veil-like tails broke the surface of the water. “You must eliminate Ral as soon as possible. If this is not done, the nephilim will target us rather than any direct minion of the Weaver.”
“I’m working on it.” Thaena folded her arms.
Father made a show of looking around the room. “I do not see your sister here.”
“Vex isn’t ready.”
Father gave her a stern glare. Screams echoed at the back of Thaena’s mind. Her mother and sister wailed. This was part of being a cambion. The infernal energy of the netherworld hurt and always found fresh ways to torment her.
“Appointing a cambion isn’t like placing an ad in the paper.” Red lights sparked deep in Father’s dark eye sockets. “It requires a single moment of resonance through the Veil.” He snapped his fingers. “A mortal near death, heart filled with rage and vengeance. Surely you haven’t forgotten the circumstances of our pact?”
Thaena clenched her fists. The infernal essence about her surged. The memories of her own pact were never far away. Her family had been shot and tossed into a pit, her aunt dragged by soldiers into the trees, and Thaena herself had been left to die amongst the broken corpses. Only a demon had answered her prayers for aid. “Of course not.”
“But Vex is good at what she does. Especially in the current age. She’s my blunt hammer; you’re my fine chisel.” Father threw another crust into the pond. “Or at least Vex will be when she can control herself.”
“She needs to stay alive long enough for her to learn,” Thaena grated, unable to keep the anger from her tone. “Because all my other sisters are dead.”
Oh, Father had always said he hadn’t been able to prevent the demise of his lost daughters. And cambions lived short, violent lives before they learned to survive in a world that hated vengeance-dealing bounty hunters. Yet the deaths of Damiana, Misery, Anlace, and Glaive hurt. And a trickle of resentment haunted Thaena. Surely Father could have done more?
Could she?
His soft voice cut into her thoughts. “She won’t learn her trade if you shelter her.”
“But—”
“She’ll seek trouble anyway,” Father threw a last crust into the pond. “She’s impulsive, and there’ll be many times when you can’t keep her away from danger. Training could mean the difference between her foolishness and continued survival.”
“Yes, Father.”
“And you’ll need a shadowbox,” Father said. “I have promised Vex her betrothed’s soul for Ral’s vestige.”
“Did you?” Thaena kept her face blank. There was Father again, manipulating them. Like he always did, which was why she never completely trusted him. Not after the incident with Damiana.
Father gave a sharp nod. Then his presence faded and the screams in her head silenced, as Thaena stood alone in her hotel room.
Thaena bit her lip. It was one thing for Father to tell her to involve Vex, and it would be another to reel in the prickly, cocksure young woman and give her clear instructions. After all, the girl had failed at Darkmaw Palace, and how would she deal with a more complex investigation? She continued her stay at the hotel, researching and calling upon her contacts, until one night, her phone rang. Thaena stared at the number for a few seconds and then answered. “Vex.”
“Okay, don’t get angry, but I’ve infiltrated Ral’s cult.”
Thaena gave a sharp intake of breath.
“You what…”
“Oh yeah. I got in by doing a few break-and-enter jobs for Malefia. She’s the real cult leader, and she organizes everything for Ral, and–”
“You’ve captured her?” Thaena leaned forward, impressed.
“Uh, er, no.” Vex paused for a few moments. “It got a bit… messy. Let’s just say she won’t be organizing things again for a while.”
Thaena bit her lip. Having Ral’s right-hand woman alive would have been a great asset to their cause.
“But I have another cultist helping me,” Vex continued. “She’s going to set up a party in a few days for the rest of the cult. It’ll be in a farmhouse on the outskirts of town. Ral will be there. So, if you can get to the farmhouse, we can take down Ral. You get his vestige to Demon Dad, and then I get Marton back.”
A faint moan echoed in the call's background. “Oh, uh, and I need some help with a cleanup. I could set it on fire, but it’s in an apartment block. What would you suggest?”
Thaena should have given the girl more credit. Infiltrating Ral’s cult was a success, even if it sounded like the entire affair had ended bloodily. “What’s your address?”
On the night of the party, Thaena drove to the isolated farmhouse in the country. Perfect for cults who wanted a low profile. She parked several kilometers away and snuck toward the building. Seven cars and five motorbikes were outside. The moon was dark, but the stars were a brilliant trail of light against the ebon sky, bisected by the thin planetary ring that girdled the sky to the north.
As she hiked through the thigh-high grass, a flash of headlights drew her attention. A black SUV sat parked down the road.
It had to be the nephilim. Watching her. Prepared to call in a violent host of their fellows if there were going to be violations of Rule One. Their duties were varied, but they liked systems more than people, and keeping the supernatural world separated from the mundane, lest the borders crumble and strange horrors emerge. The last time Thaena’s business had entwined nephilim and their precious barriers, events had almost ended in disaster. Her jaw clenched. Everyone had their part to play in the Indigo World, and yet the nephilim irritated her. For years, she had kept things clean, she had followed the rules, and yet here she was being singled out by some overzealous border guard. She was being punished for Ral’s misdemeanors, and it stung. “It’s under control,” Thaena mouthed at the distant watcher. She walked around the building and slipped through a back window. The chanting of the cultists echoed throughout the house.
Hiding in a darkened bedroom, she drew a strand of dark power, preparing a spell to confuse the cultists, when a hellblade’s tip pricked her between the shoulders. “There you are,” Ral’s footsteps echoed behind her. “You’ve no idea how much I’ll enjoy this.”
Why hadn’t she sensed him? Or the surge of infernal energy when he summoned his hellblade? Aloud, she said, “I want to sort this out diplomatically. There’s a nephilim outside. Leave, and we’ll pursue our intrigues another time.”
“No,” he hissed. “I’m going to do what I want, whenever I want. Neither you nor some feather-licking nephilim will get in my way.”
“You don’t understand,” Thaena whispered. “The Weaver is using you to incite the nephilim. If they get involved, it will cause problems for cambions everywhere. Including you. Tell me about who you’re working with, the Weaver’s agent, and—”
Ral snorted. “I don’t care about the nephs and their rules. Time for some fun. I’m going to make a great big mess.” He grinned like a little boy. “And everyone will have a ticket for a front-row seat.”
He marched her into the front living room of the farm, where a mix of people from different walks of life cut their arms and smeared blood over their faces.
“This is an enemy!” Ral’s hellblade appeared, pulsing with a grisly red light. “Hold her!”
Cultists came forward, eager to grab and pull at Thaena. She gritted her teeth. Her claws slid free of her fingertips, and with an effort, she retracted them. The only way to get rid of the idiots was to unleash herself. Creating a bloody mess and risking the intervention of the nephilim. They seized her by her arms, holding her. Their eyes gleamed with devout madness.
The air hung heavy with infernal magic, so it was easy for her to draw off a faint strand, to incite the followers into dissent. “When do you think you’ll obtain your promised power, children?” Thaena projected her voice. “Have you got anything from your beloved Iron Legate?”
Ral knocked her violently to the floor, where she crumpled. Her stomach clenched and her vision swam. He must have hammered her with a curse.
Ral’s followers jumped back, gasping in surprise at the sudden violence. Thaena struggled to pull herself up.
“These weaklings obey me,” Ral snarled. “Shut up and be sacrificed, you—”
“Excuse me,” a familiar voice interrupted.
Thaena looked upwards, her vision blurring, at the young woman in the tracksuit behind Ral.
“What?” Ral grunted, just as something heavy crunched into his flesh.
Trying to throw off Ral’s curse, Thaena clambered to her feet. The room rocked, as if she were on a storm-tossed ship.
Ral, his back to her, faced off against Vex. She had assumed her red-scaled cambion form and summoned her hellhammer. And while blood dripped from its blunt end, Ral was still up.
“Whab the fub?” Ral growled, with his attention fully on Vex. A second later, he called forth his own basket-hilted weapon.
And stabbed outwards.
Fury galvanized Thaena. No, not Vex. Not another dead sister. She would be alone in the world again, because she’d failed her latest student like she’d failed all the others.
Ral’s back faced Thaena, like a gift offering.
With a surge of agony, she summoned her hellblade. In one smooth motion, she stabbed Ral through the heart from behind. Next, she sidestepped around him, and then slashed his neck open.
Ral collapsed to the floor, clawing at his throat.
Vex held her wrist tight. Blood pumped through her clenched fingers. Wounded, but alive. The girl’s cambion regeneration would soon seal the wound.
Thaena cut off Ral’s head. “Thank you.” Thaena told her sister, exhaling with relief. “That was a timely distraction.”
And then two of the cultists lunged forward. Thaena sighed inwardly and shifted into a stance, her blade ready to strike.
“Don’t kill them!” Vex shouted and scrambled to her feet.
An improvement on her previous response to the cultists, Thaena noted. The girl had matured.
One cultist charged, Thaena knocked him to the ground with a kick, sending him sprawling. “What do you think we should do?” She whipped her sword through the air. The cultists shuffled back, gasping. Time to see if Vex could deal with the mob, without resorting to murder.
“Did you hear what the blue guy said?” Vex kicked Ral’s corpse, her attention on their audience. “He called you mewling, puking losers. And that’s all you are to the Dark Emperor. Pathetic saps and puppets to help him escape Thargul. I want you to go home. Post on the darknet that you’ve seen real demons!” She pointed her clawed hand at them. “Tell everyone that we demons all think of you as stupid losers. There’s no reward. Only violence and suckitude.”
Thaena inhaled the crowd’s confusion and tasted their desires to hug dogs, play video games, visit family. Ral had trained them to revere cambions, as supposed agents of the ‘Dark Emperor’, when in reality, Thargul was a mass of scheming demons. And while Hell craved the souls of the wicked, these people weren’t there. Yet. Thaena pushed at the cultist’s desire for warmth and familiarity, inflaming it. “Go home!” she commanded in a ringing voice.
The crowd shuffled outside to their vehicles, some bandaging their cuts with bloody t-shirts. An ogre woman approached them, twisting her hands together. “Dark mistresses,” she begged.
Vex raised her hammer, a mad grin spitting her face like a threat. “Got nothing for you.”
“Go home!” Thaena repeated, her eyes blazing red. The woman sprinted after her colleagues, whimpering.
Thaena relaxed as the stupid cultists fled; perhaps, once her enchantment wore off, they would seek the Indigo World again, but at least she’d have some respite from her nephilim stalkers. And then she saw the expectant look on Vex’s face, like a little girl desperate for the thing she wanted most.
Oh, that was right. Getting Ral’s vestige to Father, so he could do something about that worthless boyfriend. Still, once this was settled, Vex could focus on more important things.
Like survival.
Thaena crouched by Ral’s body, removing a small casket made of bone and silver from her jacket. Opening it, she held it close to the immobile form.
“Is that how we trap his vestige?” Vex kicked Ral’s corpse and then leapt back as dark purple radiance surrounded him.
The amethyst glow flowed into Thaena’s vessel. Thaena snapped the lid shut.
“What’s that?” Vex asked.
“A shadowbox. It can hold souls and vestiges.” The casket vibrated as the soul fragment within struggled like a flapping bird. “I’m sure Father can use it to persuade Ral’s patron to stop creating these stupid cults.”
Deprived of its demonic vestige, Ral’s corpse was now that of an overweight, middle-aged ogre with a fringe of blood-soaked hair.
“Was I more subtle this time?” Vex’s eyes were wide, hands twisted tight in front of her.
“Yes,” Thaena admitted.
“We need to get that box to Demon Dad.” Vex hopped from one foot to the other.
Thaena wished the girl would be more respectful towards their patron. They’d be a laughingstock if other cambions heard.
Enough infernal energy had bled into the room, making it easier to rend her way to Thargul. She tossed the box into Hell itself, concentrating and sending a short command for her hellbeast, Jasmine, to collect the item and deliver it to Father. With a single gesture, she sealed the rent.
“That’s it?” Vex asked after a long pause.
“That’s it. He’s got it.” The girl could finally move on from that wretched boyfriend. Thaena looked around the room. “Now let’s get rid of the body.”
“Uh, can we send it to Thargul?” Vex wondered. “No one seems to do that.”
“Because it would be most unwise,” Thaena explained. “Physical matter doesn’t translate well to other dimensions. And worse, you might create an unimaginable monster. No, we do this properly.” She frowned at the blood dripping from the girl’s wound. “Bind that, and then we’ll move Ral to the center of the room.” As they moved the body, grunting, she asked, “How did you find his group?”
“Social media,” Vex tugged the corpse across the floor. “On the darknet.”
“I could do with a lesson on what that is,” Thaena admitted. “Especially if it’s a new tool I can use against these pathetic groups.”
“I’ll show you after.” Vex’s yellow eyes gleamed. “Uh, what is the clean-up plan, exactly?”
“A nice fire.” Thaena savored her anticipation of the cleansing flames.
After tidying up, Thaena drove to the highway. Smoke coiled in the air behind her. The nephilim followed in his vehicle, almost tailgating. His superior grin flashed in the rear-view mirror, and then he took the next intersection. Taking delight in being as irritating as possible. At least he was indicating that he was satisfied with Thaena’s handling of the situation. Less work for him to do, she supposed.
“Is that the neph?” Vex twisted around in the passenger seat.
“Yes. Happy, for now, that Rule One remains intact. As for other matters, I always center myself in the mortal world after a job for Father. Interested in going to a violin recital tomorrow? We’ll have dinner at the Eastern Paradise’s Oyster Bar.”
“How about we go to Blitz Burgers?” Vex countered. “And see the latest Darkblade movie.”
“All right,” Thaena agreed. She’d barely spent any time with Vex that wasn’t related to either killing things or training her in the arts of death. “I haven’t had a ‘burger’ before. What would you suggest?”
Enjoy this story? Check The Demon's Peace to read more about Thaena, and Reflections Upon the Anniversary of My Descent for more Vex. Both are standalones, set at different time periods, and can be read independently of each other.
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