The Lamplighter (Lamplighter Saga Book 0) Page 3

  “Damn,” she swore to the sky. But no one answered. No one would. For all anyone who cared knew, she was still in the church. No one was coming to save her. “God damn it. I…I just wanted to help.”

  The stars watched, indifferent to her plight, as the fires closed in and ash fell around her. A mote of ash landed on her nose and, to her surprise, melted. She wiped the droplet away, then stared shocked at the snow falling upon her. A sudden, frigid gust blew down upon the house, extinguishing the flames and freezing the ruins. With the way clear, Pearl scrambled over the debris in front of the doorway, not questioning from where her snowy miracle had come. The demon roared outside, close enough to make the house tremble. Pearl drew her sword, but knew trying to fight the demon would get her killed.

  She rushed out of the house, making a beeline for the cover of the homes across the road, but the moment her foot hit the ground, it slid out from under her. She reached back to catch herself, but her hand slipped as well, dropping her onto her back, where she stayed as she glided the rest of the way. Ice, inches thick, covered the ground and every building. Reflected fire light set the whole town aglow. The demon, which sounded right on top of her a moment ago, had vanished from sight. Blanketed by ice and snow, the town slumbered in silence.

  “Pearl?!” Pearl’s father shouted down from a nearby rooftop, blade in one hand and a strange mist wrapped around the other. Cuts covered his body, and heat had warped the armor on his arms and legs. “Damn it all, you’re too much like your mother. What did I tel—TAKE COVER!“

  An explosive inferno tore the house in front of Pearl asunder, throwing her backwards amidst a storm of splinters. She crashed against the wall of the house behind her. From the epicenter of the blast, the demon emerged with a roar. Its pitch black scales, darker than shadows, absorbed the light of the fire around it. It wore a mask made of black iron bolted onto its face and extending up into three spear points like a trident. Though the mask had no holes for its eyes, Pearl felt its gaze upon her, and her breath escaped her body. Behind rows of sharp serpent’s teeth, within jaws large enough to swallow Pearl whole, fire burned red hot and savage. It reared its head back and opened its mouth, the flames within swirling together into a ball. Pearl’s mind went through the thoughts of standing up and running away, but her body failed to respond, fear holding her in place.

  A bolt of ice struck the side of the demon’s face, knocking its aim away from Pearl as it launched the fireball. The orb shot out like a giant cannon ball and blew away a house across the road with a ground-shaking explosion. The demon twisted back towards Pearl, but more ice bolts found their mark on its body. Frost built up over the demon until it trapped the demon within a block of ice. Pearl’s eyes followed the ice back to its source. From the rooftop he stood upon, her father held out his mist covered left hand, his palm trained on the demon.

  “That will hold it.” He pointed his left hand down as he jumped off the roof, and he slid down the ramp formed by the ice pouring from his palm. “But not for long. Get back to the church.”

  “Let me help you.” Pearl pointed to the mist hovering around his hand. “How are you—“

  He silenced her with a raised hand, and gestured to the block of ice holding the demon. The ice’s core glowed and the surface cracked. The demon fought to free itself. “Go. Quickly. I’ll cover you.”

  They only took a few steps before a large cracking sound struck their ears like a whip. Her father screamed something as ice poured from his hands, forming a curved wall in front of them. The demon’s breath crashed against the wall, flames flickering around the edges. Ice and fire met at a standstill, but, inch by inch, the wall melted, revealing more of the demon. Her father redirected his stream of ice towards the serpent’s mouth, but still the inferno crept towards them. A tongue of fire licked her father’s hand, and he screamed in pain. A wave of cold air erupted from his hands, knocking Pearl and himself off their feet, and throwing the demon into the house behind it. The building collapsed on top of it, burying it beneath a pile of lumber and stone.

  “Gods! Gggh my hands!” Hardened, popped blisters cratered the blackened flesh on her father’s hands, the mists surrounding them evaporated. He looked to Pearl, his eyes wide with terror. “You-agh-must flee now. My magic…I can’t…I can’t use it. And this town is as good as cinders.”

  “But the church?” Pearl stumbled over her words, shaken by the sight of her father so injured and vulnerable. “You said it would protect—“

  “A lie, Pearl. A trick Father Alexander used in the town’s early days,” he growled. He glared at his hands. His fingers twitched, then bent into hook shapes. “Before the Lamplighters…before the candles. If they saw what I could do, they would burn me at the stake. Even when I’m trying to save them.”

  The demon twisted and shook the ruins of the house off its body. It roared to the forest, and the cries and howls of innumerable demons awaiting beyond the trees surrounding the town answered. So many…Too many… Pearl’s fear kept her on the ground next to her father. He shouted at her to run, but she couldn’t respond. The demon rose up, its head drawn back. It hesitated, torn between Pearl and her injured father. Its gaze settled on him, then snapped back to her. It opened its jaws, and shot forwards towards Pearl, an arrow burning with hellfire.

  Time crawled and sprinted through the next few moments. A strong hand gripped Pearl’s shoulder and threw her backwards. Her father stood up between her and the demon, standing straight and with head high. His charred right hand held his lantern out towards the demon. Jaws snapped, bones cracked, and flesh tore. Pearl’s father wavered and stumbled, then collapsed backwards into Pearl’s lap. The serpent demon shrieked, whipping its head around, coiling its body tight then flailing and tumbling around, as if trying to escape the grasp of some invisible hand. Fire spilled out of its mouth. Flaming jets launched scales off its body. The demon rose and roared one last time before the inferno within it erupted and consumed it. A wave of air so hot Pearl thought it had burned her face and charred her hair crashed over her. As explosive as it raged to life, the firestorm died away with a whisper. Nothing of the demon remained, save the smothering earth where it had stood.

  Stunned near speechless, Pearl could only ask, “How?”

  “The Fire of God,” her father coughed. His body shook in her arms. “An antithesis of the Khaous. Doesn’t quite agree with them. But it was a costly gambit. We no longer have the lantern’s protective light and…” He stared at the bloody stump of his arm in silence. Then his body shook words from him. “The Khaous, the demons, will be swarming the town any minute now. Killing their leader bought us their hesitation. Hierarchies are new among them, worthy of study. If only…Pearl, find your horse and ride to Theseus. The cross on the church will point the way.”

  “But father—“

  “I cannot be saved. It is too far to carry me and I will only slow the horse. You must live. I do this out of love…as I’ve done so much else…” He stared into her eyes and smiled. “No father wants to see his child hurt, and will doing anything to protect them. But it’s pointless because inevitably it is your path to choose. It will be scary. Who you are now will not be the person you are tomorrow. But if you stay true to yourself, the path ahead will make itself known. I’m…sorry I won’t be here to see it.”

  His burnt left hand reached up to touch her hair. He saw his grotesque hand, and lowered it again. “You have your mother’s eyes, and her hair.”

  He grew heavier in her arms. His mouth moved, but no words came out. His eyelids fought to stay open, but the weight of death pulled them shut. Tears fell from Pearl’s eyes onto his face, and Pearl wiped them away in hurry. She lifted him from her lap, placed him onto the ground, and covered him with his cloak. “I love you, father. Good…good bye.”

  A loud shriek from the forest told her to leave. Heart aching and tears blinding her, Pearl ran back to Nocturn. As she ran through the town square, she noticed the townspeople had shut the doors to th
e church. Had they even waited for Pearl and her father to return? The rustling of the restless demons around the town sped her to the back of the church. She raised her lantern and found the carving of the cross. Back pressed against the wall, she ran straight forward until she found her horse. Despite the demon cries, Nocturn had remained and she thanked him for it. Pearl hopped onto the saddle and cut the horse free with a swing of her sword. A yelp and a strike of her heels sent her steed into a full gallop.

  Shadows rushed past them as they rode into the black of the forest. Pearl raised her lantern, illuminating the darkness around her. Demons of various shape and size swarmed into the town, ignoring her in favor of the prey packed together like hens in a coop. Pearl lowered her head and kept her eyes forward. Focusing on the path before almost kept the victory cries of the demons and the mortified screams of their victims out of her mind.

  Almost.

  Chapter　3

  ‘When comes the twilight hour, woe onto any soul among those trees.” This was the warning the village elders often spoke to discourage children from wandering into the forest. But the children knew to stay in the village. No one escaped childhood without catching a glimpse of a demon stalking just beyond the tree line.

  Pearl remembered the woman holding the babe as their house fell upon them and gripped the reins tighter to stop herself from becoming sick. As the horse leapt over yet another fallen tree, Pearl recalled another saying, something her father had told her. ‘When they’re not hunting, the demons have little concern for subtlety. The destruction left in their wake will always mark their paths.’ This deep in the woods, few trees stood unscathed, scarred by tooth and claw if they stood at all. Moonlight through the thinning foliage illuminated the well beaten path she traveled alone.

  It had taken an hour of riding before Pearl could no longer hear the screams coming from New Bethlehem. A matter of distance, she prayed. The realization she needed those screams frightened her more than the idea of a town with no one left to scream. Undistracted, the demons’ focus would shift to the lone rider deep in their territory. Pearl urged Nocturn to run faster, as drew her sword and scanned the trees around her. The passive and unmoving shadows of the forest now followed her.

  A clicking sound coming from the creaking branches above and to her left broke the silence. She raised her lantern towards the sounds and they faded as the demon fled from the light. Despite it all, this reassured Pearl and a smile slipped onto her face. In time, the clicking returned, now accompanied by snorting and growling and the rumbling of a hundred feet. Demons pursued her on either side, but with the lantern too close to her face, Pearl could only make out their vague shapes. They followed as close as they could, the lantern’s glow warding them off.

  A commotion among the demons to Pearl’s left forced her horse to veer right off the path it alone knew. After a minute, she heard nothing on her left side, but felt something watching her from the darkness. The clicking above her grew louder and overtook her. A demon leapt out of the trees ahead of her, a giant lizard with obsidian skin, its tongue whipping out of its mouth as it prepared to strike Pearl with it. She tried to steer the horse out of the way, but it refused to leave the course it had just corrected. The demon’s tongue shot out at her like a spear, a burst of wind brushing past her as it missed her. Pearl raised her sword, ready to attack.

  A whisper fell on Pearl and sent a shiver down her spine. Pressure wrapped around her head, squeezing so tight, she thought it might collapse in on itself. The whispering continued and bore into her mind as a cacophony of sounds no human could replicate. Pearl’s own thoughts scattered, and colors and spikes of anger, despair, and glee replaced them. The world around her changed colors, sometimes shifting into black and white. Something lived in and ruled the in-between. Long, slender fingers dragged through her mind. A storm of strange geometry surrounded her and the immensity threatened to break through the bulwarks of her sanity.

  Pearl blinked, then looked around. The horse had traveled further into the forest, and trees now choked the path, forcing the steed to avoid them with subtle turns. She tried to get her bearings. Her hands had a death grip on the reins. Her sword hung sheathed on her waist, her lantern on the opposite side. Something had ripped away the small bags of her possessions her father had packed. Everything had changed, as if she had ridden for several minutes, but mere seconds had passed. Thinking back, the image of a pale scarecrow dressed in black flashed into her mind. Something pressed against the back of her head, and crooked thoughts crept into her head like worms and shook her entire body. The dark, incomprehensible whispers slipped off her like fingers running through her hair, and she realized the shaking came from the ground, powerful tremors in regular intervals, like footsteps.

  A scan of the treeline failed to reveal the source. Movement out of the corner of her eye made her look to her right, yet she saw nothing. The ground shook again and a nest of startled birds took flight from a tree behind her. Pearl’s eyes followed them up, when she noticed something in the distance above the treetops. It seemed as though a mountain had appeared in the middle of the forest, but as she watched, she saw it sway back and forth in time with the tremors. A terrified prayer escaped her lips as a whisper, then she screamed at her horse. “Faster. We have to go faster.”

  The demon stood high above the trees, and wielded one in its hands like a club. Its black flesh made it indistinguishable from the night sky, if not for the moon’s glow and the bright stars. With its head plopped between its shoulders without a neck in between, it looked more like a mountain. A mouth, filled with jagged, pointed teeth, stretched across its gluttonous belly. The back of the mouth glowed like a dying furnace, and smoke seeped from the corners. Its eyes, two small black dots on its head, were locked on Pearl. She didn’t know where it had come from or how it had seen her through the trees, but it followed her, gaining on her with each slow, heavy step, and growing as it drew closer.

  At her command, the horse had sped up, but not enough to put distance between them and the demon. She could now hear the trees splintering under the giant’s earth-shaking steps and the crunch of the ground beneath its weight. She felt the rush of air around the demon’s tree-club as the demon swung it back and forth. The sounds of restless demons brought the forest to life. They waited for the giant to make the kill, so they might fight over the scraps. The hordes surrounded her on every side, forcing her forward and leaving no other avenue of escape.

  A speck of light shone through the trees ahead of her, and a faint glow hovered above the trees. So close, she refused to die now. Deafening noise crashed against her from all sides. Demons pushed against one another, growling and snapping at each other in impatience, drawing closer to Pearl, but not so close as to get in the giant’s way. Trees snapped like twigs behind her. She kept her eye on the light growing with each gallop, and focused on nothing else. A cleared route before her revealed a wall of trees woven together by their branches and roots, separated at their trunks by a space wide enough to squeeze a reaching arm through. The trees directly in front of her bent out of the way, forming an opening large enough for a horse to jump through. Light from the wall of trees pouring into the forest.

  “Good boy,” Pearl whispered, before crying out and snapping the reins. The earth trembled with hellish force as the giant’s circular foot crashed down a stride away, putting them well within swinging distance of its tree-club. Nocturn let loose whatever reserves of strength he had left, bolting forward so fast, Pearl almost fell backwards out of her saddle. The other demons swarming after her, flowing into the cleared path like a dark flood, realizing their giant brother wouldn’t catch the steed and its rider.

  The knot in Pearl’s stomach erupted as a scream as the horse leapt through the gap and the wave of demons crashed into the wall of trees. The horse’s landing threw Pearl from her saddle and she rolled to break her fall, the soft grass making the tumble more forgiving. As she laid on it, exhaustion washed over her body, but she couldn
’t rest with the demons right behind her. The giant demon reached the tree wall and grabbed the trees to uproot them like weeds.

  The sound of a gunshot cracked like a whip, silencing all else, and a beam of light stretched out from behind Pearl to the giant’s no-neck. On contact, the light blew off the demon’s upper torso and head, leaving behind a circular wound in its chest. Its arms clung to its body on sinew of flesh and the fire in its stomach-mouth went dark, until the giant demon dispersed like a mountain of black dust in the wind. The beam of light continued through the demon and twinkled like a star before fading into the night’s abyss.

  “Damn it.” A growl came from behind Pearl, followed by the sound of wood hitting the ground and snapping. She turned and gaped at the lone house in middle of the forest, shining with gold light from window, a beacon in dark nowhere. Two chimneys rose on opposite ends of the roof, with a glass orb, with what looked like a small sun inside it, propped up by a metal pole between them. Besides these differences, and its second floor, the house was designed like a stone and wood house of New Bethlehem. A man stood in the doorway, his features silhouetted by the light behind them, a broken rifle at his feet. “Damn thing always breaks after the first shot.”

  As Pearl moved up the hill away from the demons, the man drew a pistol from his belt and pointed it into Pearl’s face. “And what the hell are you doing here?”

  Before Pearl could answer, he leaned forward and took a closer look. “Who the hell are you?”

  He was a head-and-a-half taller than her, with broad shoulders and a jaw of chiseled stone. The gray scruff of his unshaven face and the peppering over his trimmed hair hinted at his age..

  “Theseus?” she asked, but he didn’t hear her. He grabbed her shoulder and whipped her around to look at the forest.

  “Eyes forward. They’ll be breaching the trees soon,” he told her without looking at her.