Light of Darkness Page 3

  Ira looks at me in shock. “In all of my years, I have never seen a purging so brutal.”

  I fall to all fours, coughing, unable to catch my breath. The ground is soaked in fresh blood. I look at my chest. There are two giant gashes across it, all the way down to my bone. “What have you done to me?”

  “I have done nothing. The wounds on your chest are self-inflicted. The effects of going against your true nature.”

  “You know nothing of my true nature.”

  “Oh really? I watched you stand before that woman and child and try to stop that which has already happened. What monster has such regrets?”

  “You know nothing!” I scream, snapping my head up, thrusting a wave of energy at the being.

  A wing appears in front of it, taking the brunt of my energy. The wing whips around, and Ira steps forward, putting his sword back to my neck. “How dare you, filthy creature.” This time he makes sure to draw blood.

  The being places its hand on Ira’s blade, moving it away. “Stay your blade, Ira.” It kneels to my level and gently caresses my forehead. “I’ll just have to dig deeper.” It palms my head.

  A tsunami of memories floods my mind. Screams ring loud in my ears as the bloody images speed by. I come to lying on the ground, in the pool of blood. I can’t feel my body, only the maddening pain. I laugh.

  “He mocks us!” Ira screams angrily.

  Calmly, the being lifts its arm in front of him. “Calm yourself, Ira,” it says sternly, weaving power into each word; its annoyance is evident. “He is merely on the brink of his mind.” It turns back to me, its hand still on my head. “Do you see it yet, Kross?”

  “All I see is blood,” I look up at Ira and smile, “and your pet’s head on a platter.”

  Ira’s grip on his sword tightens as he flutters his wings. The being turns and looks at Ira, quieting him instantly.

  It turns its gaze back on me. “Still you try to change what has happened and still you deny your true nature. One more time.” The being places its hand into the pool of blood. A strand of blood rises in front of me. It strikes me, burrowing into my skull. More pain and power wash over me.

  I open my eyes to a green-haired, crimson-skinned demon sitting on the floor across from me—my friend, Tanis. He rubs one of the many symbols etched into his skin. “Hey, Kross. You ready for this?” he asks.

  This? Oh no. The selection. “Wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t.”

  “Very true.” He ruffles his hair and chuckles. “You know, in all the years we’ve fought together in this war, I just realized that I’ve never asked: Are you for the war or against it?”

  “I’ve lost countless friends and my whole family to this war. I’ve been against it since the day I was born.”

  Tanis laughs. “Yeah, I had that feeling. Then why fight in the army, why go for the position of general?”

  “For a seat of power, where I’ll have enough influence to do something, or at least try.”

  Tanis stands, putting his hand on my shoulder. He looks at me with his one orange eye—which isn’t even his, but the beast’s that took his eyes in the first place. He smiles. “I’ve never had anything to really fight for besides my life, which you have saved countless times.” His eye color flickers blue for a split second before turning orange again. What was that? “But I’ll fight for you and that dream of yours. I’ll do my best to help it come true, but promise me something, Kross.”

  “What is it?”

  The smile leaves his face and sadness creeps in, but his eye is focused. “Promise me that no matter what happens today, you’ll never stop fighting to make that dream a reality.”

  The doors to the arena open. “I promise. Now let’s do this.”

  He and I walk to the center of the Black Coliseum, soon joined by the other eight participants.

  A decrepit old man sits in the booth, overseeing the whole arena. He steps out, scratching his white beard, his old green eyes looking over us. General Ra-Terin. A demon among demons, older than Beal and way more ruthless. “Welcome, young ones. You all have been recognized as potential candidates to take my place as general. Young, powerful demons, you’ve all made names for yourself within this great army, but there are so many of you that I cannot decide. So, I’ll let your skills do the choosing…now begin.”

  All the big names are here. Sline, the drake slayer, and Treva of the molten fumes, to name a couple. All of them are great, but Tanis and I are on a whole other level. Within minutes, Tanis, with his beast summoning, and I, with my energy manipulation, tear through the competition until it’s just the two of us.

  Our fight feels like an eternity, attacking and countering one another. Parrying me, he finds an opening and pins me against the wall.

  “Good one,” I say, holding his hand.

  “Thanks. I didn’t think I was getting past your guard. It seems that you’ve gotten a little rusty in your leave of duty,” he says, breathing hard.

  General Ra-Terin’s booming voice echoes throughout the Coliseum. “Good, good. Now prove to me that you would do anything for this position, for your lord.” He lets the order hang heavy in the air before adding, “Kill him.”

  Tanis, kill me? He wouldn’t. We are like brothers, through thick and thin. I feel his body grow more tense. His eye grows cold, emotionless. He exhales.

  “Sorry, Kross, but your dream ends here.”

  A symbol on his arm starts to glow, and the skin splits, tearing open to reveal the claw of a beast underneath. He tries to thrust the claw into my chest, but I push it out of the way. I escape his grasp, moving to a more open part of the arena. As he makes his way toward me more symbols on his body begin to shine. Monsters begin to pour from him and they rush toward me.

  For five long minutes, we fight with our lives on the line. Tanis is a tactical genius. He has beasts for every occasion, but summoning like this takes too much stamina, which I have an abundance of. I kill the last of his creatures and look over to him. He’s so worn out that he can barely keep himself up. With a deep breath, he starts to chant. Here it comes—his trump card. He opens the socket of the missing eye. Black ichor streams from it and down his face. As it hits the ground with a hiss, flames erupt from it. They spread across the arena, surrounding me. From behind me, there’s a roar. I turn and the fire shifts, changing shape until it resembles a dragon. It rises above me, smoke billowing from its mouth. Tanis’s most powerful creature: the black flame dragon. I rush forward. Everything gets hazy.

  The heat waves fade, and my vision clears. I stand over the dead dragon, soaked in sweat, completely exhausted. I jump off its body, barely hanging on to consciousness. From out of the smoke, Tanis rushes at me in a blur of speed. His body is now a medley of monster parts: his chimera form. He lunges at me for a killing blow. I try to move, but my body won’t respond. I can’t dodge it. I’m going to die. Promise me that no matter what happens today, you’ll fight to make that dream a reality. Tanis is inches from me when everything goes black.

  I come to, out of breath. There’s blood everywhere, all over the ground, on my claws and body. I look down to see my friend’s lifeless body. “Wh-what happened?”

  From a cloud of darkness, General Ra-Terin appears next to me. “Right before your friend was about to take your life, you vanished. Then, gashes began to appear on his body, one after the other, spilling blood everywhere until he lay dying. Now, you’ve reappeared. What a glorious sight. I haven’t seen such a display of artful killing since the days of the ancients. I love it.”

  Not again. “What have I done?”

  He lays his hand on my shoulder, laughing. “You have just proven to me that you are worthy of being called General.”

  His words die away, and I’m pulled back to the real world, my scream muffled by the blood in my mouth. An overwhelming sadness wells up from the depths of my very soul. I can’t help but cry. “I’m sorry…I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to.”

  “His tears are no longer blood. He has been pu
rged,” Ira says with pure amazement.

  “Kross,” the being says, lifting my head. I look at it as my eyes burn from the tears. The golden light surrounding it melts away, revealing a beautiful, fair-skinned woman with shimmering silver hair and imperial golden eyes. She’s smiling at me. “Can you see my form?” I nod, still crying. “Your eyes are no longer clouded by the pain of your soul.”

  “But…Tanis. I killed him.”

  “He did fall by your hands, but for a cause greater than himself. He chose that fate for your dream. For the end of the war. You know this to be true.” She kneels next to me and caresses my face. “Now, I ask you. For your friend’s sacrifice, are you ready to keep the promise you made long ago?”

  I strain to get up but cough up blood instead, staining her golden robes. “Yes.”

  A smile spreads across her face, and it’s like watching the sun rise. “I am pleased to hear that.” She stands, turning toward Ira. She looks in three directions, at the blades driven into the ground, shakes her head and sighs. “These three warriors. They are the offspring of angels and men—Nephilim. They are unsanctioned and young, but their power is equal to that of a garrison of soldiers. They will aid you. Come, Ira, our work here is done.”

  “Wait,” I order, barely able to stay awake. “Tell me, are you the Creator?”

  “No,” she says, her back still to me. “My name is Anima. I am what humans consider to be God, but, truly, I am just a servant to the one greater than everything. Farewell, Kross, may we meet again.” In a flash of light, she vanishes, and all that’s left is Ira and me.

  He laughs. “To think that you, Shadow, the wraith himself, could be cleansed,” he says, walking up to me. He grabs me by the neck and lifts me off the ground. “You’re lucky. If it were up to me, you and your kind would be wiped from existence.”

  “Luckily, it’s not,” I say weakly.

  He drops me. I land like a pile of rocks. “May we never meet again. If we do, I will end you.” With a flap of his wings, he vanishes in a flash of light and so does the barrier.

  The girls continue to kneel and chant. I shut my eyes, trying to bear this pain. Pushing it as far back in my mind as I can manage, my senses boom out over the battlefield. Everything comes into focus: the smell of blood, texture of the grass, the light sway of the trees in the wind, and the power radiating from the Nephilim.

  “Is he dead?” asks the one called Arianna. Her voice is light, with a bit of bass to it—kind of pretty.

  “I hope so,” Ricilia, the leader, states. Her armor clatters as she stands. She extracts her sword from the ground and moves toward me with caution. Her every step is light, almost silent, but I can feel her drawing near.

  The spot on my face where Anima had placed her hand begins to burn, reacting to the Nephilim’s energy. Like wildfire, the feeling spreads throughout my being. The pain rushes to the forefront of my mind as my body begins to twist and bend back into place.

  “He’s healing?” Ricilia’s surprise is clear in her tone.

  “What’s going on? He shouldn’t be healing; he should be dead!” exclaims Paulina.

  Ricilia stops just shy of me. “Why aren’t you dead?” she asks, her deep voice laced with disgust. I open eyes to see her blade at my neck. The pure energy emanating from it makes my skin crawl. “Answer me,” she demands, shoving the blade closer to my throat.

  Slowly, my muscles reconnect and my strength returns. Relief takes hold of me, and I’m able to take a full breath. I roll over onto my back and sit up. She pulls back ready to swing her sword. I prepare to shuffle out of the way, only to realize the feeling has yet to return to my limbs. I brace myself. Just before her blade reaches my neck and cleaves my head off, it vanishes, turning to smoke. We look at the hilt of her sword in awe. I look up to her, and she jumps back into a defensive stance with the bladeless hilt. Sensation returns to my legs and arms. Finally. Shakily, I stand, wiping away the caked-on blood. The head Nephilim looks at me in utter shock.

  “Was he always that young?” asks Paulina.

  “He’s actually kind of handsome,” says Arianna.

  “Hold your tongue, Arianna,” Ricilia orders. Her blade returns, materializing out of thin air, and she readies herself to strike once again.

  The tension in the air is thick between the four of us. I slick back my blood-dampened hair, and the girls flinch. I bow my head to them. “Please, allow me to introduce myself. My name is Damien Kross, fifth general of the demon army, who you know as Shadow. The mission assigned to me by General Beal was to kill the light army’s recon team that had been snooping around demon territory,” I explain.

  “We, too, are part of that recon team, so why don’t you kill us now?” asks Paulina, her sword at the ready.

  “To kill you three wouldn’t be of any use to me.” I try to step forward but slip on the blood-stained grass.

  Arianna chuckles as I almost fall, but their leader just sets a cold gaze upon me. “While you were inside the barrier, I could hear you talking over our chanting; to whom were you talking?” she asks.

  “I was talking to the Angel of Judgment, Ira, and his superior, Anima.” At the mention of Anima’s name, they move their hands from head to abdomen, then from left shoulder to right—signum crucis. “It was she who purged me, revealed to me my true mission in this war.”

  “Oh, and what would this mission be?” Arianna asks, her voice light and intrigued.

  I stand tall, keeping my eyes on the head Nephilim. “For the sake of everyone—human, angel, and demon alike—I must bring an end to this war.”

  Ricilia’s severe, feminine features harden further as her eyes narrow. “Lies, all lies!” she screams, sprinting toward me. Her sword flares to life with a blinding white flame.

  I stand my ground and concentrate on the white haze floating just above the ground—the remains of my armor—taking hold of it with my energy. The haze engulfs me just as Ricilia’s blazing sword appears next to me, just missing my face. I take a hold of it. The smoke condenses around me, once again forming my claws and the rest of my armor. Her eyes are wide, filled with surprise as I hold her still-burning blade in my claw.

  “I don’t want to hurt you,” I tell her.

  I release her weapon. She jumps back and prepares to retaliate. With one step forward, I’m in her guard. Placing a hand on her breastplate, I push her away from me. She goes flying back across the field, slamming into a tree. Whoa, I glance down at my hand. I hadn’t meant to push her that hard.

  “Ricilia!” her two comrades scream, running past me to her side.

  She pushes them away, bracing herself on the tree. She is clearly shaken. I’m guessing no one has ever deflected her so easily. Then again, for reasons unknown, I’ve never felt stronger. “Please, forgive me. Like I said before, I mean you no harm.” They just stare at me—trying to judge my intentions, no doubt. My claws vanish as I kneel. “I mean you no harm.”

  Arianna lowers her guard slightly. “Why are you doing this?”

  “In this life, we are given only one chance, but by the graces of Anima, I have been given a second, and I’m not going to waste it.”

  After a second, Arianna sheaths her sword. “I believe his words to be true.”

  “Arianna!” the others exclaim.

  “He knows of Anima. No demon should know of her existence or has ever seen her and lived. That should be enough proof his word is true,” she says, stepping closer. She kneels before me, looking me in the eye. “I’ve heard a demon’s armor is an extension of themselves. It is said you can tell what kind of being they are by the make. But I like to pay closer attention to the eyes of the armor, for they are truly the windows to the soul. Yours were as red as the blood that covers the ground, but now they are as blue as the sky above—a true sign of your newfound purity. I will help in your mission any way I can.” She grazes my face with her fingertips, a small smile gracing her face.

  At her touch, my helm vanishes. Her hand is soft and comfortin
g like Anima’s. Tears run down my face. “Arianna, you are a saint. Thank you.”

  “I am a woman of God before I am a warrior.” She offers her hand. I take it, and she helps me up.

  Paulina sheaths her blade. “I can’t hold my sword to him any longer.”

  “Paulina,” Ricilia says, surprise in her voice.

  “Don’t give me that, Ricilia; I know you feel the truth behind his words and see it in his tears. Kross, I, too, will help.” She looks back to Ricilia, giving her a nod of encouragement.

  Ricilia scoffs. “So be it,” she says reluctantly.

  “So, tell us, Kross, do you have a plan to end this war?” Arianna asks, gripping my hand a bit. I look at it, and she pulls away from me, her cheeks a rosy pink.

  Now that everything is said and done, I have no clue of what I’m going to do. I have only been a general for a short time, and Beal still doesn’t care much for me, so using my rank isn’t an option. “What to do, what to do?” I ask myself out loud, when an idea hits me.

  An orb of energy forms within my hand, which I extend, palm up. A small, 3-D map appears over it: the layout of the demon territory. Five points appear on the map. The Nephilim surround me, eyeing the map. “What are these?” Ricilia asks, indicating the points.

  “Strategically placed outposts that protect the central headquarters from harm.”

  “Okay, why do we care?”

  “How do you think Beal knew you guys were in the territory, or in which area?” They look at me, but don’t offer any explanations. “There’s an invisible barrier between these points that monitor the movement in and out of the territory.”

  I look at Ricilia, then to the others. I notice flaws all over the place—in the way they move, the way they stand and hold on their blades. They’ve never been formally trained, but they’re all I’ve got. “We’re going to destroy the outposts. Get rid of the armor and we can easily take the heart.”

  “Good idea, but what of the generals?” Paulina asks.