Page 61 of Gladiator Moon

He laughs. “You need only to ask the rebelling prisoners.” The glowing channels winding through the chamber suddenly pulse a little brighter. “You may leave whenever you wish, Samantha. This is not your fight. Put down the sword and teleport home to your family.”

“And have my head catch on fire?”

“The spell is broken, Samantha. Baltazar undid it when he released all the prisoners and warriors. The little shit. Check with him if you don’t believe me.”

“Trust me, I will. And I thought only you could undo the spell.”

“Not quite. I provided the power to launch the spell and the power to maintain it. But wizards need to work the magic, cast the spells, so to speak. And Baltazar is our most powerful wizard.”

I glance up toward the glowing meat sphere, still suspended high above us. Images continue drifting across its mottled surface. It now depicts the throne room where the battle rages on. Warriors fall. Demons fall, too, but don’t quite die. Not without the Devil Killer to send them to their final resting place. Yes, this must be where the Dark One not only watches his palace and world, but all worlds. Including mine. So weird.

At present, the palace is shaking beneath the weight of a revolution. I watch Baltazar raise his hands and magically prop up a collapsing doorway while a group of frightened children race off to safety. Children.

“No deal,” I say. “Now you die.”

Chapter Twenty-eight

The Dark One studies me for a long moment.

“You would risk never seeing your own children again... for the children of strangers?”

“In a word, yes.”

He sighs and begins walking toward me, each step slow and deliberate, the chamber shuddering with each footfall. The crimson rivers within the cracks of the floor and walls brighten. I hold my ground, though I am actually hovering a few feet above the living floor, my sword before me, my wings flapping languidly.

“If I die,” he says, “then what replaces me?”

“Nothing for a little while.”

“But there will be another.”

“Yes, for as long as your world believes in such an entity.”

“Of course they do, especially since I do not remain hidden. So then, vampire, if another is coming to replace me, what’s the point of our fighting?” He stops perhaps twenty feet from me, close enough that I can feel the heat radiating from his oversized body. The Devil Killer hums softly in my hand, ready to kill. “I did not invent evil, Samantha Moon. I merely gave it an outlet, as ordained by a pre-set list of rules that I must abide by, ever since the mortals of this world summoned me from the Empty Realm. I live among them because of them. When I am gone, another will take my place.”

“True, but this other may not crave blood or demand participation in the Games.”

“But he could be far worse. We are talking about ultimate evil, Samantha Moon.”

“Then I will leave the Devil Killer for those who come after me. This sword is what keeps bastards like you in check.” I pause and hold the sword out before me. “It’s time. Prepare to be banished.”

My inner alarm blares as a ridge of black stone suddenly erupts between us like the edge of a gigantic blade. I fly up, my wings flapping hard just as the stone blade slices through the space my legs had occupied a heartbeat earlier. As I hover there in the darkness, the Dark One leaps.

He crosses the distance between us with astonishing speed. One moment he is standing twenty feet away. The next, his claws sweep toward my dangling legs. I avoid them just in time, flying higher, and bringing the Devil Killer downward into his hand. He roars in pain, drawing his hand back. The stab to the hand wouldn’t kill the Dark One. No. I would need to plunge the blade into his heart.

Meanwhile, the Dark One twists aside impossibly fast, almost as if he has wings, though I see none. He is somehow maneuvering in the air without them. I guess he can fly like Superman in his Chamber of Creation. I follow him, determined to end the madness. That is, until a gargantuan hand erupts from the floor beneath me, grabs hold of my legs and proceeds to smash me from side to side until it finally flings me aside. Somehow, I am able to hang onto my sword. Disoriented, hurting, I rise to a knee and rub my head. Yeah, that sucked.

“Lest you forget, Samantha Moon... I am the space you currently kneel upon. That hand? I created it with a simple thought.”

I leap to my feet. Then all the way up to my wings as more giant hands appear from the floor, reaching for me.

“You think your wings will keep you safe? Don’t you know that I can create anything in my sacred space? Including these!”

The darkness above me awakens; at first, it appears the shadows themselves are coming to life. Then, hundreds of leathery wings unfold all at once. They peel away from the ceiling like winged shards of coal, revealing creatures somewhere between bats and vultures. Their bodies are lean and midnight black, with hooked beaks, glowing red eyes, and long talons.

“Oh, come on!”

When the first wave reaches me, I slash the Devil Killer first one way, then the other. Like the demons, the winged creatures vanish in puffs of black smoke. But more keep coming. They wheel around the cavern in tight circles before diving at me again and again, forcing me to stay airborne and constantly moving and constantly slashing. For every one that disappears, two more unfold their wings and divebomb down from the darkness above.