4
The Dark
"In an isolated environment, chaos only increases. Human souls were meant to mingle. But as hunters, we are alone in nearly every sense of the word. 'So are the hermits and the holy men,' some may argue. 'Why worry?' Because hermits and holy men do not hunt and kill demons. Be ever-mindful of discipline, especially in the midst of hatred. We must hold on to the idea of humanity most carefully when we fight. Hold on tightly. And pray that we will come out of the dark, again."
Li Xia
Click.
Click.
Clickclick.
Clickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclick.
The traps Iona had set inside Adria's hut sprang urgently to life just before the wall came down under the weight of the surging dead. She pulled Leah out of the way and hurled her bodily back toward the path to town, whipping out a large knife and flipping it into the greedy mouth of a bloated corpse before it could grab her. The creature stumbled and fell, the blade protruding from the back of its neck.
"Now," she said, feeling a burning in her eyes that had nothing to do with the dust from the collapse of the hut, "now. Call for your Wretched Mothers. I would very much like to meet them."
Wrenching the knife from the jaws of the corpse, Iona spun and used the momentum to rip another one open from groin to jaw. Entrails fell out wetly and without ceremony, entangling the feet of the shambling creatures on either side of it. The knife was moving again, slitting throats so deeply that dead heads rocked back far enough for their weight to tear the remainder of the skin and sinew apart. The heads dropped to the ground, and the bodies followed.
Is Leah gone yet, has she started running—
Darkness. Quiet. A sense of calm, as hatred took hold of her. Leah disappeared from Iona's mind, replaced by the HUNT and the KILL, and all the bloody things in between, all the wrongs, all the years and people lost to her because of the things that lurked in dark places. That was all right. Iona lurked there, too, now. Iona liked dark places. It was better than being alone. Hunting and killing was better than being alone. Being with your enemies was better than being alone.
"CALL FOR YOUR MOTHERS!" she shrieked, barely hearing herself over the pounding in her ears. The pounding of her heart. The pounding of blood.
She danced into the mob, feeling the shadowy tendrils of the special powers inside her, the ones even Li Xia did not have, awaken and stretch. She vaulted through them, leaving a trail of flame in her wake. The corpses screamed as they caught fire, blundering into each other and spreading the damage among themselves. Iona liked that. She liked it very much. But it wasn't enough.
Capering like an acrobat, she shot a shadowy chain from one of her crossbows while shooting an explosive bola from another. Those entangled in the enchanted chain burned in the fire, unable to free themselves as it spread across the grass. The ones who caught the bola became red mist. Iona disappeared in a whirl of shadow and reappeared behind a massive, hulking grotesque. The obscene smell coming off of him did not distract her. She tossed caltrops at his feet and danced away, waiting for him to give chase. When he tried, the caltrops opened with a clicking sound and pierced his feet, leaving him to bellow out his last wheezes while she filled him with bolts. His body trembled, then exploded violently, releasing a swarm of wriggling eels that made for her with astonishing speed, their blind heads lifted in anticipation as they scented the air for her taste.
But the demon hunter had already lain down a spike trap, and she dispatched them with relish as they writhed, impaled on it.
A retching sound caught her attention just then, and she spun herself into shadow again, swirling toward that sound. It was a feminine form, gaunt, rotting, thoroughly dead, with long, matted hair, but the creature's eyes were full of deadly malice. This, she knew at last, was what she had smelled when she had first arrived. The greasy smell of old malice. The smell of the Wretched Mothers.
Her window of clarity fogged again, and her heart leaped. This was THE TARGET. Iona's eyes were so fixed on her that she only dimly registered that there were two doubles behind her, forming a triangle. She smiled. All of them. They were all there. She could take care of them all at once. Here. Now.
The Wretched Mothers clutched at their bellies with gnarled claws and vomited. Where the stuff hit the ground, more corpses formed, brought to life by the venomous bile of their mothers. Brought to life because of their malice—
NO NO NO EXCUSES THERE IS NO 'BECAUSE'.
—it was the injustice—
KILL!
Iona killed.
She killed them all.
After a time, she came back to herself, nodding a little against a gravestone. She had walked so far to get to Tristram. So much ground covered, and no sleep allowed upon arrival. It was reckless. But it was also necessary. People had been dying.
"Not anymore," Iona muttered to herself, feeling tears on her face, as she always did after a trip into the Dark, into the depths of her hatred. It was a deep place, and her feet had never yet touched the bottom of it. It was hard to believe a person could carry so much hatred within them and not drown in it. But she managed.
"Isla." The word came out like an apology. I pollute myself like this for you.
But that was not entirely true. I do it for myself, as well. I do it because I lived and you didn't, even though we were identical, Isla, IDENTICAL, and no one could tell us apart, not even our own parents!
Until we opened our mouths, Isla's solemn voice seemed to retort softly. Then, strangers could tell us apart.
"Uhhhhn." Iona rubbed savagely at her face, ridding herself of the tears. Cain. Deckard Cain. That was the priority. She had to save him. She had promised Isla.
She knocked her head against the gravestone in frustration. Come out of it, Iona. You promised Leah. Isla is dead.
Something about the Wretched Mothers had gotten to her. Iona had killed them very quickly. She had faced far more dangerous foes many times over. But something…there had been something radiating from their minds that had wrought havoc with hers. Her eyes burned with hellfire because she had looked into the mind of a demon, and Seen. Now that she knew how, she could do it to any of them, if she dared. Part of her had done so, with the Wretched Mothers, as her hatred burned her discipline away. What had she seen?
Malice.
She began running to the Cathedral doors.
Not just malice. Malice was the aftereffect. It was injustice. Injustice.
The key Leah had given her was in the lock, and she spun it, hearing the tumblers like bells.
Injustice.
She had felt sympathy for the injustice these dead matrons felt about their existence. Inner rage at the discovery of her traitorous sympathy had followed. Then, the slaughter, and the blackness, and the rebirth of her consciousness in a blur of tears, wanting Isla with all of her heart. Wanting to reach over and hold her twin sister's hand, and be complete.
Iona kicked the doors open, shooting the scattered dead without stopping to think about it. No more would rise. The militia only had mopping up to do, now. Once down, they would stay down. She leaned over the gaping hole in the floor, more of a crater, really, feeling the warmth of the blue light of the Star wash over her. Cleansing her.
She had not expected this. The feel of the Star's passage was not evil. It was pure and gentle, and when she looked into it with enough concentration, she felt a sense of sacrifice so profound that it brought tears to her eyes again. She had to get to its source. And she had to get to Deckard Cain. The two were wrapped up together, that she knew in her heart, now, as well as her mind. Without one, the other could not be complete. Just as it was with the candle-maker's black-haired daughters.
"I'm coming," she whispered. Then she said it louder, calling down into the brightness.
"I'm coming! Cain! Hold on! I'm here!"
She leaped over the edge, into the light, her tears like raindrops as she fell with them.
And she smiled.