Demon Games [4] Read online

  But Philippa had been different. She’d agreed to swap with the Ashnon so that it could help locate and destroy the demon responsible for the death of her father – the same demon that had possessed her own body for a time. That possession had rewired something in the girl’s brain, and during her stay in the Netherworld she’d started to see through the Ashnon’s mirage. As a result she had been exposed to the real dangers of the Netherworld.

  Philippa had gone AWOL from the protective custody provided by the demon, and now she was a captive.

  ‘If Philippa were dead,’ the Ashnon said, ‘I could no longer inhabit this body. The link between Philippa and this body is maintained for as long as she is alive.’

  ‘Thank goodness,’ Alexa said.

  ‘That all depends,’ the Ashnon said in a small voice. ‘There are a whole lot of things worse than death for a human in this place.’

  Alexa turned to look at the illusory image outside again, her mind swimming with thoughts and concerns for the girl.

  ‘We almost always have it raining heavily outside,’ the Ashnon explained.’We don’t want our guests suddenly getting the urge to take a stroll in the New York sunshine.’

  ‘It’s very impressive. I’ve never seen magic this powerful and on this scale before.’

  The Ashnon shrugged its shoulders.

  Alexa closed her eyes again, her lips moving silently. When she opened them, the Waldorf Astoria was gone.

  She took a deep breath and turned to the demon. ‘You’re certain that this demon lord, Molok, has captured Philippa?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why? What does he want her for?’

  ‘Molok is a collector. He likes to capture and keep humans. The concept is not that dissimilar to the zoos that you people have, except that the demon lord makes no pretence of being interested in the welfare and survival of his menagerie. The more the humans seem to suffer, the happier Molok is.’

  ‘We have to get her out of there.’

  The Ashnon held its hands out. ‘Stop right there. There is no we in this. I have to get her back; you have to return to the human realm. I have kept my side of the agreement and allowed you to see the place that she was taken from.’ It stopped, as if collecting itself.’No, I think the best thing to do is for you to go straight back to the human realm, and—’

  ‘I’m not going back without Philippa.’

  ‘Lucien and I go back a long way, but I’m not going to risk incurring his wrath by allowing you to get involved in all this.’

  ‘I’m involved already. And how do you think he’s going to react when he finds out that you allowed a young girl – a young girl my father had sworn to keep safe – to be taken by a demon lord from under your very nose?’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘Yes, ah.’

  The Ashnon shook its head.’You know, I didn’t ask for any of this. I only did this as a favour to your father.’

  ‘That and the chance to trap and kill one of your enemies: the Necrotroph – let’s not forget that.’

  The Ashnon waved this away. It stared at Alexa, puffing out its cheeks. ‘Why will you not just go home and leave this to me? You shouldn’t be here.’

  ‘I told you, I’m not leaving without Philippa.’

  ‘How? Even if we could get access to his palace, I don’t suppose that Molok is going to give up the latest addition to his collection just because you and I ask him to.’

  ‘Then we’ll have to think of a way of persuading him, won’t we? Alexa said.

  7

  ‘Here?’ Trey said, peering down the alleyway between the buildings. The passageway connected the road that he, Tom and Dreck were on with another, which ran alongside the towering office block to their left. There was a bend in the middle, obscuring the far end from sight. On any weekday this part of the City of London would have been teeming with workers, but neither the roads nor the passage were busy now; this part of the capital was almost deserted at weekends, the office staff and dealers fleeing the city to their houses in the suburbs or second homes by the sea. They’d hardly encountered another living soul on their taxi ride here.

  The sun was slipping behind the horizon somewhere up ahead, the last glints of its light bouncing off the mirrored windows of the Gherkin building, which loomed up into the London skyline behind them. Its light did little to illuminate the alleyway, which was growing gloomier by the second in the lengthening shadows of the office buildings.

  They’d waited all day for sunset, reasoning that the demons would not risk snatching a human in broad daylight even in an out-of-the-way location like this. So they’d paced around the apartment, visiting the office downstairs to ensure that the hell-hole was still active and poring over maps of the area.

  Tom stared into the dim passageway, his forehead creased with deep lines. Trey watched him, knowing how much the Irishman hated the plan, and especially hated knowing that he would not be able to accompany Trey on this trip. ‘I don’t like it,’ Tom muttered under his breath.’I don’t like this one little bit.’

  Trey reached out and gently punched his shoulder, causing the older man turn and face him.

  ‘It’ll be fine, Tom.’

  ‘Oh yeah, great,’ the Irishman replied, his voice dripping with sarcasm. ‘I’m just expected to stand around here and watch you walk down there on your own, not knowing who or what you’re going to encounter.’

  A smile touched Trey’s lips, and he held his friend’s eyes with his own. ‘I know how much you want to go with me, and I know that you’ll be beating yourself up about this the whole time that I’m away. But if it’s dangerous for me, a lycanthrope, to go, how much more dangerous would it be for you?’

  ‘But you won’t be in your werewolf form when they snatch you. Who knows what this bunch of sickos has planned for their prey?’

  ‘As soon as I’m dragged through the portal, I’ll Change. Besides, I’ll be fine – I have my bodyguard with me.’ He motioned with his head in the direction of Dreck.

  Tom stared at the diminutive figure, who was standing a short distance away from them, and shook his head. ‘This whole venture has got bloody disaster written all over it,’ he mumbled under his breath. ‘No sign of Lucien, Alexa disappearing off like some eejit, no way to make a safe portal, and I have to stay here, sitting on my hands, unable to do a damned thing about any of it.’

  In spite of the nerves he was feeling, Trey couldn’t help but smile. He had rarely seen Tom in such a state, and knew that for a man who thrived under pressure and who prided himself on being able to command any situation, the inability to take charge of what was about to happen was almost too much to for him to bear.

  ‘There isn’t another person on this earth that I’d rather have going with me, Tom, you know that,’ Trey said. ‘But at least I stand a chance over there. You’d be a sitting duck in the Netherworld, and no amount of guns and explosives would keep you safe for long.’

  The Irishman took another deep breath, and when he looked back at the teenager his eyes traced Trey’s face, taking the boy in as if seeing him in a new light. ‘When did you get all grown up and sensible?’

  ‘A case of having to. Besides, I’ve had good teachers.’

  Tom reached forward and ruffled Trey’s hair. With another look over the boy’s shoulder in the direction of Dreck, he took hold of Trey’s elbow, gently pulling him forward and dropping his voice. ‘I’ve got something for you.’

  Fishing inside his trouser pocket, he pulled out a mobile phone. It was one of the latest models. ‘Take it,’ he said, nodding at the device.

  Trey shook his head. ‘It’s all right, I’ve got my own, thanks. Besides, I don’t think that I’ll get a good signal where I’m going, do you?’

  ‘This isn’t for making calls,’ the Irishman said. ‘Look.’ He brushed his thumb across the screen and it was transformed into what looked like one of those images Trey had seen in war films of a radar locator. A line circled around a central point. As it passed th
e top of the screen a red dot flared, slowly fading as the line swept round, before reappearing again.

  ‘What’s the red dot?’ Trey asked

  ‘Dreck,’ Tom answered. ‘This thing scans an area of about fifty metres in every direction and tells you if there are any nether-creatures in the vicinity.’

  ‘Cool.’

  ‘It was put together by our techies. It uses some form of magic and doesn’t need batteries of any kind.’

  ‘How does it—’

  ‘I wouldn’t have a clue,’ Tom said, cutting Trey off. ‘Technology or magic – it’s all mumbo-jumbo to the likes of me, lad.’ He nodded in the direction of the device again. ‘In addition to being a handy little locator, if you press these two together-’ he indicated two small buttons on either side of the device – ‘it sends out a distress signal, which our technical gurus assure me will somehow cross between the realms and alert us here that you’re in serious danger.’ He shook his head and frowned down at the thing in his hand. ‘I hope it works.’ He handed it over to Trey, who gave him his own mobile in return.

  ‘Look after that for me,’ the teenager said, putting the new device in his pocket.

  Tom straightened up and called for Dreck to come over and join them. He turned to Trey. ‘As soon as you’re through and you Change, you’re to get away from whoever or whatever set this hell-hole up, OK? No heroics. Just scarper.’

  OK.’

  ‘I mean it,’ Tom said menacingly.

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Have you got your amulet on?’

  Trey’s hand felt for the small silver pendant that hung round his neck on a heavy chain. ‘I never take it off, Tom. You know that.’

  He thought about how, during his recent trip to Canada, he had done just that. He had foolishly chosen to discard the amulet he inherited from his father, a charm that gave Trey supreme control over his lycanthrope powers, stopping him becoming nothing more than a savage killing machine. He would never make that mistake again.

  Dreck was beside them now. ‘Ready?’ the Irishman asked the diminutive guide.

  Dreck nodded. ‘I’ll wait until I see Trey disappear round the bend down there.’ He motioned with his head in the direction of the alley behind him. ‘I’ll count to sixty to ensure that he’s gone, and then I’ll relocate.’ He looked at Trey. ‘I should reappear very close to you in the Netherworld so we can make our escape together.’

  ‘And what I’ve just said to the lad here goes for you too, Dreck,’ Tom said. ‘No playing silly buggers – get together and get away as quickly as possible.’

  The Irishman held his hand out to Trey, and when the teenager took it he found himself pulled forward and wrapped in the big man’s arms, the air squeezed out of his lungs by the Irishman’s affectionate bear hug. When Tom let go, he turned his head away, hiding the emotion on his face from the boy.

  ‘I’ll be off then,’ Trey said. He gave one last nod to each of them, turned on his heel, and started down the alleyway.

  It was colder than it had been on the street. A wind snaked its way between the buildings, stirring up dust and grime so that Trey had to screw his eyes up. Back at the apartment they’d studied maps of the area, placing a self-adhesive dot at the precise point where they believed the trap had been set up. As Trey approached the bend in the alley his heart began to hammer in his chest. He walked on, ignoring the sensation that his knees had been turned to jelly.

  He recognized fear: it had become a constant companion of his lately.

  Get a grip, Trey, he told himself, resisting the urge to look back at Tom and Dreck, knowing that they would be watching him from the alley’s entrance.

  He rounded the bend and slowed down, his legs seemingly unwilling to respond to the signals being sent from his brain to keep going.

  Any second now, he thought, narrowing his eyes and hunching his shoulders in anticipation of the ambush. An uncomfortable sensation had grown in his chest, and it occurred to him that he’d been holding his breath. He opened his mouth, exhaled and took a deep lungful of air, forcing his feet to keep moving forward. After twenty or so strides the alleyway straightened again, and he stopped, turning to look back at the dog-leg with a frown.

  It hadn’t worked. The hell-hole was either not there at all or was inactive at this time. Their information had been wrong. This whole thing had been a waste of time.

  ‘Great,’ Trey said under his breath. ‘This is just typical. Bloody typical.’

  He turned on his heel and hurried back in the direction he’d just come, muttering under his breath. He needed to catch Dreck before he disappeared back to the Netherworld. Approaching the bend again, he stopped as the air seemed to thicken and push in on him. For a second it no longer felt as if he stood in the alleyway, but as if he was deep underwater – somewhere on the ocean bed, with millions of pounds of pressure weighing him down. There was a fizzing sound in his ears, and his vision began to fog, the world around him becoming indistinct and monochrome. There was a loud cracking sound over his left shoulder, and as he turned to see the source of the noise a huge head appeared, followed by a taloned hand that wrapped itself round his neck and dragged him through into the Netherworld.

  8

  Trey’s vision swam and he felt his legs almost give way beneath him.

  There were two of them. The first one, the one that had grabbed Trey and dragged him through the portal, was a Shadow Demon, and it regarded him balefully through eyes made up of densely packed clusters of black globes. The other demon was of a type that Trey had never seen before: it was a tail, gangly creature, covered in a grey skin composed of interconnected scales – like that of a snake’s. But it was the nether-creature’s fearsome head that startled the teenager as he caught sight of it in that first moment: large jagged outgrowths of bone jutted from its skull in all directions – a vicious-looking forest of osseous matter above a forehead dominated by a raised ridge of bone. Beneath this, the eyes were pig-like, set deep into the flesh of the creature’s face, and there was a mean, hungry look in them.

  The Shadow Demon threw Trey to the ground and stood at his feet, the other demon taking up a position behind his head. Trey glanced up at the creatures from his prone position, noting the threatening postures that they adopted, but he was unable to keep his eyes open as the world lurched sickeningly, spinning around him like a mad, tumbling vortex which made his stomach heave in response. He tried to get to his hands and knees, but even this proved almost impossible. He felt as if he’d just stepped off the longest and fastest roller coaster ride ever: it seemed as if nothing would remain still and the ground beneath him was revolving mercilessly. There was a terrible stench, a rank, putrescent stink that seemed to emanate from the earth itself. The smell and the awful dizziness were simply too much – Trey lowered his head and vomited on to the ground. The demons took great delight in the pathetic human’s discomfort, laughing uproariously at the sight.

  The demon standing behind Trey reached down and dragged him to his feet, cruelly digging its long black talons into the flesh of his arms. The world still spun, and Trey closed his eyes, swallowing the saliva that came unbidden into his mouth and battling against the urge to throw up again. The creature pushed the boy towards its companion and the two of them took pleasure in shoving Trey between them, laughing raucously each time he stumbled, his feet going in different directions as he struggled to stay upright. When he finally lost his footing, he fell sprawling to the ground again, where his face was reunited with the pool of vomit. The demons cackled, and the one with the skull shaped like a medieval morning star stepped forward and placed its foot on the side of Trey’s head, pressing down viciously and forcing the boy’s face further down into the fetid filth.

  Trey was vaguely aware that he needed to transform into his werewolf state and get away. But his brain was not functioning properly; it was too addled to do anything but try and halt the tumbling disorientation he was experiencing. He groaned as the demon ground its foot into h
is cheekbone.

  The voice was clear and loud, cutting across the screeching laughter of the demons. ‘That’s enough,’ it said. ‘Let him up.’

  There was something about the voice that struck a chord with Trey, but he was unable to work out what it was.

  The laughter died away, but the foot stayed firmly planted where it was.

  ‘Stay out of this,’ the Shadow Demon hissed. ‘This is none of your business. He’s ours.’

  ‘Actually he’s mine. Now let him up.’

  Trey could feel the spinning world begin to slow down. His equilibrium began slowly to return, and he took a deep breath, grimacing at the stink that filled his nostrils. He composed himself, thankful for the respite that he had been afforded by the arrival of the newcomer.

  ‘And what are you going to do, hmmm?’ snarled the creature with its foot on him. ‘You fancy your chances, do you? Two against one?’

  Trey let out the breath he’d been holding and opened one eye, thankful that the world had finally stopped its helter-skelter antics.

  The werewolf’s transformation took the demon by surprise. It shouted out in astonishment as the head beneath its foot suddenly and dramatically changed in size. The demon stepped back, its eyes widening as it watched the huge seven-foot werewolf leap to its feet. The lycanthrope shot out a great clawed hand, which encircled the demon’s throat in a vice-like grip, the nether-creature managing a strangled, ‘Glerph!’ as its feet left the floor.

  Out of the corner of his eye Trey saw the Shadow Demon move off at incredible speed. He turned his head to see it charging a small creature, no bigger than a child, and was surprised to see the diminutive nether-creature standing its ground, planting its feet and eyeing the onrushing attacker calmly. Trey knew that it was Dreck.

  In this world Dreck was small and chubby. Short legs and a pot belly, together with a moon-face, made Trey think of Buddha sculptures he’d seen in oriental gift shops. The large round eyes set in the front of Dreck’s face never wavered as the much larger Shadow Demon crossed the ground towards him. But something was happening to Dreck: he appeared to be holding his breath, concentrating hard and straining, the veins at his temples bulging with the effort. Trey was reminded of a boy at his old school who would do something similar – hold his breath and strain until his face was a livid shade of purple. And sure enough Dreck’s skin was also changing colour; from the dull pumice grey that Trey had first seen, it was turning red – a deep fiery red that made the creature seem to glow.