Evil - Chapter 37
Forty minutes later, sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic for most of that time, Kimberly tapped the driver’s headrest.
This is a portal fantasy series with mythological roots and action-adventure tendencies. You can search through all my work on my website.
It's not easy being the Antichrist.
Anjelica’s mother never told her that she was a demon. Now, all she wants is her old life back, but that’s not possible for her. Not after what she’s seen.
Anjelica used to be a popular cheerleader with an awesome life, but that was before an evil cult of demons tried to use her blood to open a portal to Hell and start the Apocalypse.
She was rescued from that fate, barely, and because of the imminent threat to her life, her saviors ripped her from Los Angeles and brought her to a safe house in the middle of nowhere.
They said it was for her own good, but she would rather be dead than stuck in boring, old Bronard, Missouri. She was from the big city, so a sleepy, rural life wasn’t for her.
She longed for excitement.
So, when she met a young witch with a mysterious past who promised to show her everything she knew about opening portals and traveling between distant lands, they bonded immediately
I mean, what’s the worst that could happen, right?
It’s not like they would open an intergalactic gateway to another planet and get thrown into a brand, new world with no way to get back to Earth, right?
Join Anjelica in her own solo adventure and find out what happened to her immediately after the events in Magic.
“It’s just up ahead. We’ll walk from here. There’s a lot around the corner. Make a left. Third floor. Wait for us.”
The driver nodded, and Kimberly pulled me out of the car. We passed two dingy bars, which seemed to be the perfect place for demons to hide, but we didn’t stop at either of them. Instead, we walked toward a garden center on the corner. Inside, it smelled of roses and begonias, tulips and peonies. Rows of flowers were set up in the middle of the room, and bags of manure and mulch were stacked high along the walls, as well as equipment and machinery.
“Welcome,” a short woman with a lazy eye waved at us as we walked in. When she got a good look at Kimberly’s face, she growled. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m here to see the manager,” Kimberly replied. “I bought some flowers the other day, and they died when I threw them off a balcony. I don’t know what I’ve done wrong.”
“Not everyone has a green thumb.” The woman’s voice was now two octaves lower than it had been just moments ago. “We have a no refund policy, though, so you’re out of luck there.”
“Oh, I’m not here for me. I’m here because my friend has business with your boss.” She yanked me forward, and I slammed hard into the counter. “You told me to come back with one of your kind, and well, here you go.”
The woman sniffed the air. She spent a long time glaring at me, slowly moving her eyes down my body. It wasn’t sensual, and it wasn’t kind. She eyed me like a cow bound for slaughter. When she finished, she reached under her desk and pushed a button. A buzzer squawked at us, and the door to the back opened.
“It’s your funeral,” the woman said. “We won’t let you off so easy this time.”
“What happened last time?” I asked as we walked toward the back.
“Have you ever heard the term ‘pound of flesh’?” Kimberly asked.
“Of course,” I replied.
She pulled up her sleeve to reveal a gash in her arm. “They didn’t quite take that much.”
“That looks awful,” I said, stopping in my tracks. “We should go.”
Kimberly shook her head. “No. It’s fine. They just caught me off guard. I won’t let it happen again.”
In the hazy fog of the back room, four different demons stomped toward us from the long rows of plants. Their hideousness caught me off guard. I had only seen a handful of demons in my life, and these were mangled and deformed in ways the ones on Earth hadn’t been, as if they were an early prototype to a botched experiment.
“I thought I told you to leave and never come back!” a big, brown demon with huge teeth screamed. “Or wasn’t the price we forced you to pay enough?”
Kimberly held up her hands. “You told me not to come back without one of your kind to vouch for me.” She turned to me. “Gui’el’dek, meet Anjelica, my friend, who I really hope will vouch for me.”
Gui’el’dek moved close to me, sniffing. Without asking, he grabbed me on either side of my body and lifted me in the air.
“I think that’s more than enough,” I said. “Please put me down.”
The other three demons laughed, but Gui’el’dek set me back on the ground. “I’m sorry, but you must understand that many try to trick us into helping them, and we have become…more cautious over time.”
“I get it,” I replied, smoothing out my clothes and trying to appear calm. “Maybe ask before you get that close next time, though. It’s common courtesy.”
“My apologies,” Gui’el’dek growled. “You must think me a cad. No matter, is it true that you vouch for this pixie, my sister?”
I nodded. “I vouch for her. She’s saved my life many times.”
Gui’el’dek turned to Kimberly. “Then I offer you my thanks. It is not often that a pixie protects our kind. They prefer to stick to the skies, while we prefer direct contact with our enemy.”
“And you think humanity is your enemy?” I asked.
“We only think everything is our enemy,” Gui’el’dek growled. “That is how we few are still alive. There are not many of my kind left on this planet. In fact, these are all the demons left on this planet, along with my sister out front and the handful of imps who are out on deliveries right now.”
“What about other magical creatures?” Kimberly asked. “You mentioned pixies. Are there fairy folk, too?”
Gui’el’dek grimaced. “I do not like being addressed by something so below me, but I will answer for our sister’s benefit. Magic is sparse on this planet, and that which does exist has been harvested by the king for his own means.”
“That’s what we’re here about,” I said. “The king. We have been told he has a weapon that can summon and trap a god and then harness their power to destroy his enemies.”
All of the demons grumbled and hissed before Gui’el’dek spoke again. “It’s true. For the past fifty years, the king has scoured the world for magic. When he came to us, it was for a favor, to help him channel the energy into one single device, for exactly the purpose you mentioned. We are gardeners, you must understand. When we left the underworld, we just wanted to make an honest way in the world, but the king was insistent.” Gui’el’dek touched his face. “He is so powerful, and we agreed to help him in return for him sparing us.”
“Sparing you?”
Gui’el’dek choked back a gasp. “Our job was to chase down what magic there was so that he might make his machine more powerful, and in return, he would not destroy our clan. We are not proud of the thing we did, but we do not regret it.”
“Wow,” I said. “I thought you were all powerful, fearsome demons, but here you are, just a bunch of wusses.”
“What did you say to me?” The demon’s face grew stern. “I let none talk to me that way, sister.”
“I have spent the last month trying to fight against the king, only to find out my own kin have helped him, and they did so because they were scared. Pathetic.”
Gui’el’dek lumbered forward. “I will give you one chance to apologize before I rip out your throat where you stand.”
Kimberly swung a dagger from the back of her pants and held it to his throat. “Try it, and I will end you.”
Gui’el’dek took a swing at Kimberly, who ducked easily to avoid it, and the other three demons were on us at once.
“I don’t want to fight,” Kimberly said, breaking free of the mayhem. “But you won’t catch me unprepared like last time, and trust me, I am very capable of taking out four exiled demons at once. Please, just stop. I don’t think anyone wants the king to capture a god.”
“And why not?” Gui’el’dek spat the words. “Pan abandoned us. Baron Samedi discarded us. Why should we care if this place burns?”
“Hello!” I shouted. “Because you live here…and…so do plants?”
Gui’el’dek cocked his head in question.
“Yeah, I mean, you wouldn’t want plants to burn, would you?”
He thought for a moment before letting out a low chuckle. “Fair point, little one. You are wiser than you look.”
“I get that a lot. Now, believe me when I say that if the king gets this weapon functioning, then everything, including plants, will burn. Help us stop it, and we will save everyone…and everything…in this world.”
Gui’el’dek stepped back and held up his hands. There was a tiny trickle of blue blood from where Kimberly had pressed the knife against him, but it didn’t seem to faze him in the slightest. “I am only a part in this, you understand. However, I once delivered some items to a woman who claimed to be the architect of the device. I will give you the address, sister, if you promise to end this.”
I nodded. “I promise to do my best. I am only one person, though.”
“I have learned that one person can destroy the world. Maybe one person can save it, too.”
“I hope so.”
This is a portal fantasy series with mythological roots and action-adventure tendencies. You can search through all my work on my website.