Fire Angels

Chapter 25 Part 4 What is Smazor's True Name?

Then just as suddenly it was gone as if hell's door had slammed shut on them. I raced out of the pillars towards the dais into an unearthly quiet.

The dais was covered in altars and people chained to altars, squirming on them or huddled terrified around the sides. The red clad figure of Darmen Stalker stood on the steps of the dais. Before him stood Dally shouting defiance at him, while the purposeful guards closed in around her.

As the first guard lunged to grab her, she threw a bolt of power at him. She still hadn't got the hang of it, for the power of it threw her back out of the encircling guards. She landed on her feet and came staggering back towards me.

Stalker had lurched back under Dally's blow. He looked terribly surprised. The guards looked surprised to, but that was because they saw me. Instantly, some took to their heels and others drew their swords and came at me.

A shout leapt mightily out of my throat. I gathered myself, let out a surge of power and threw it along the room knocking them all over one by one and then knocking them over again till they lay still. I had seen them do terrible things to others. I felt no shame at harming them now.

Meanwhile Darmen Stalker was muttering something. It was only when he shouted "Come I command you!" that I realized that he'd been speaking out the demons names or at least what he thought was the demons name. Now we would see if Bedazzer was speaking truth.

There was no response and he began muttering again this time louder. I turned towards him. He must be stopped. Even though he obviously could not command those demons, they might still hear his cries for help and come to his aid.

But even as I turned, Dally was racing towards him again.

"This is for my mother, Tasha Holyhands," she shrieked as she flung another bolt of power out of her fingers.

"Come I command you," shouted Stalker, as the red light of power obliterated him from my sight and he fell backwards under the blast.

I was running towards the dais as Stalker staggered up beside one of the altars. He was changing, shriveling away. His beautiful face was beginning to look like a nasty brown sponge; his body became stooping and sticklike. His voice came out in a kind hoarse croak.

I readied a surge of power, but as I did so, Dally leapt on him. She had a huge knife in her hand and she was stabbing him, stabbing him and screaming in frenzy. Blood spurted out of him. His arms scrabbled at her, but she clung on to him like a small savage baby.

Stalker collapsed under her. The pair of them disappeared behind an altar.

I reached the dais and sprang up the stairs, slipping through the blood on the floor. Dally was crouched over a heap behind one of the altars. She was still screaming and stabbing, though now the knife made only a dry rustling as it hit Stalker's body. His spirit had definitely been released from its fleshy cage and well after its time from the look of the wrinkled old man's body that lay at Dally's feet.

"Stop," I cried, pulling Dally up and off him and squeezing the knife from her hand. It fell to the ground but I did not hear it clatter. Instead I heard a sound that must have been going for sometime - a kind of distant yowling, squealing sound, sharp as nails on stone. I heard a distant thudding too; or rather I felt it as a vibration through my bare feet. I thought suddenly of demons and the labyrinth of dark halls below us filled with statues and carved pillars - pillars that held up the floor of this chamber.

All the prisoners who were chained crouching to the foot of the altar let out a terrified cry.

Dally had gone limp in my arms. I shook her and she stirred.