The Hunter ascended to the courtyard in Xanatos' private elevator, leaving his victim bound and unconscious on the floor of his office. The early morning sunlight was pouring over the castle curtain wall at a weak angle, giving the courtyard a pinkish, dusky glow. The Hunter's cold eyes fell first upon the stone figures of Angela and Broadway. The Hunter let out a low, cruel laugh at his good fortune, finding his first victims away from the protection of the tower, almost as if left there as a gift for him. An unbroken soul might have seen the love and joy that was frozen in their faces and taken pity upon them, but the Hunter had no pity to give and raised Xanatos' laser cannon to shatter them.
Just as he pulled the trigger, he felt a strong grip on his throat and he was pulled suddenly to the ground, the laser beam firing off into the sky. Demona had seen his shadow passing against the glass of the conservatory and came into the courtyard to find him. The stealthy, silent shoes the fairy boy had given her allowed her to race behind him unheard. Turning at the first blow to his face, he fired the cannon again, into her stomach, blasting her to the stone floor, several paces away.
He got to his feet, crying out in a jubilant voice, certain he had destroyed his prey at last, but to his horror, he saw her rising from the stones, clutching at her middle. The dress she wore had a great gash with singed edges in it and a bit of blood stained its skirt, but there was no wound in the perfect flesh behind it. The Hunter fired again, striking her in the shoulder and neck, and the monster screamed in pain, but still she would not remain fallen. Full of rage and disgust, he approached her where she knelt, crippled with pain, but still glaring at him defiantly. She did nothing but sneer as he pressed the weapon into her chest, firing again point blank. This time there was no cry from her as the force of a blow that should have left her in pieces merely knocked her backward and temporarily disoriented her. Now his own frustrated scream of rage echoed across the empty, stone courtyard. A moment later, she was rolling to the side, gasping to draw breath from lungs that wouldn't cooperate, but still very much alive.
"T'is the very spawn of Satan I'm battling!" the man screamed in fury, "What will it take to kill you, Demon?!"
Demona's gasps turned into hoarse cackles of laughter.
"More than the likes of you!" she taunted, "Shoot me all you will, you weak, impotent man. You strike in vain, just as you've wasted the whole of your vile, worthless life seeking me. The Children of Oberon cursed me with immortality centuries ago. Destroying me is not within your power, nor will it ever be!"
Again, Canmore screamed in rage, and Demona took the opportunity to kick his leg out from under him, knocking him to the ground. She rolled quickly away, and scrambled to her feet, racing towards the corridor that led to the dining room. She knew that, unarmed and in her human form, she was at a complete disadvantage, and her best hope was to keep the madman occupied and coax him as far away from the helpless, sleeping gargoyles in the courtyard.
She ducked behind a high backed chair as the Hunter followed her. He scanned the room, finding her quickly and though she dodged away, she felt the burn of the laser graze her back as she toppled forward. Then, she felt the weight of the man on top of her as something tightened around her throat. Her fingers found some sort of cord, which he was quickly winding tighter in an attempt to strangle her. Realizing that she would be left unconscious and helpless in a moment, she grabbed the legs of the heavy chair in front of her and slammed it backwards against the Hunter's head. He released her enough that she could struggle out from under him, prying the cord from her neck. She glanced frantically around the room for anything she could use to fight the armed man.
She grabbed a heavy, silver candlestick from the side board and, dodging another blast from the cannon, she immediately charged him again, focusing her efforts on the arm that wielded the weapon. She was able to force him from his feet and they both fell to the ground. She brought the candlestick down with her full strength, aiming to shatter his shoulder so she could retrieve the laser, but the Hunter rolled just in time and it hit the floor, inches from his head.
Then they both leapt to their feet, and Demona ran toward the open archway into the corridor beyond, hoping to get to the stairs and perhaps lead him to another floor where she might have a greater advantage. The Hunter followed and fired again, missing her, but collapsing a large, illuminated, hardwood cabinet that filled the hallway with a display of a fine medieval tapestry as well as several artifacts and weapons. He turned the corner and fired again, hitting her and knocking her to the floor again.
The opportunity was there for him to deal a far more devastating blow, but the Hunter paused, having learned his lesson in part, and studied the wreckage from which two large swords, each with ornate handles, had fallen to the floor, along with a dagger with a matching sheath. Cunningly, he chose the short blade, removing the elaborate sheath to reveal a sharp and shining blade of iron.
"Fortune favors me today!" he snarled, "You say it is the Children of Oberon that have made you immortal and allow you to continue tormenting this world forever? But even their power is not invincible! I've read that their works can be foiled by iron."
He approached her as she struggled to regain her footing, pressing his knee into her back.
"An iron blade, provided to me by fate!" he hissed in a triumphant, bloodthirsty tone as he seized a fist full of her crimson hair and drew her aching, spinning head up from the floor. Before she could realize what he meant to do, she felt the cold blade tear through her throat, depriving her of even the ability to cry out in pain as he sawed away. A true hunter, beheading his kill. Her own warm blood trickled down her chest from where the blade had entered, and her body shook with a sickening snap as the Hunter triumphantly forced it through her spine, but the dagger left no damage where it passed through her. The Hunter's victorious expression changed to horror as her pale hands reached up and seized his wrists with a strength that was not that of her true form, but still, eerily unhuman.
The man bellowed incoherently with rage and dragged her to her feet, forcing her back into the corridor and dragging her into the courtyard, where he dropped her on the stones. Maniacally, he searched the courtyard for anything that would help. A weapon, or a clue as to how the monster might be finally destroyed for good.
"Help me," he whispered desperately in his madness, as if he expected the aid of some invisible being that seemed to have abandoned him, "Where is the answer?"
His eyes fell at last, on the firepit, situated in a corner of the courtyard. It was the size of a large table, encircled by a thick wall of stones, with a flat surface on top, wide enough that both the Xanatos family and the clan could gather around it comfortably during cooler months. Now it stood clean and empty, the firewood stacked away under a nearby awning. The Hunter's gaze seethed with bloodlust at the sight of it.
"If you will not die by the sword," he declared, "You will certainly perish by flame." He left her, still gasping and retching at the taste of her own blood in her throat and lungs, and began to build a fire.
The pit was designed with a gas pyrolite, so once the Hunter had filled the stone pit with firewood, it took only the flip of a switch and a few moments to ignite it. The Hunter took the twine that had bound the bundles of wood and returned to Demona, the dagger still in his hand. He drew her awkwardly to her feet, and struggled with her to the edge of the pit, where he began to bind her hands behind her.
"Enough of this!" she growled, and using all the strength she could muster from her human form, she tossed the man over her shoulder and directly only the pile of enflamed wood that the Hunter had meant for her .
Screaming in pain and fear, the Hunter rolled away from the flames and scrambled over the wall of the firepit, onto the stone courtyard floor, where he grasped his arms and shoulder where they had been seriously burned. Demona sprang fully upright, and approached the Hunter where he knelt with angry, weeping blisters appearing through the charred holes in his clothes. She grabbed him by the shoulder, pulling him to his feet, only to punch him in the stomach so he fell again.
"Get up," she ordered and she kicked him repeatedly until he rolled over and sat upright. His eyes filled with both defiance and fear as he crept away from her until he found his back pressed against the stone wall of the fire pit. She leant over him, lifting him by the front of his shirt, and pinning him backward over the edge, until his head was only inches from open flame.
Somehow in his fear and pain, he seemed to have forgotten about the dagger in his own hand, but she hadn't. She took his hand in her grip, but instead of prying the dagger from it, she raised it over his head, forcing him to hold it into the flames and keeping it there until the heat traveled through it and scalded his palm.
"No blow will crush me," she informed him bitterly as he writhed pitifully in her grasp, "No blade will cut me."
She pulled his trembling hand from the flames and forced him to press the blade of the dagger flat against her own bare shoulder, grimacing as it seared her flesh. She then wrenched the dagger from his scalded hand until it clanged to the ground. The blistering burn on her shoulder was already disappearing into her pale skin.
"And, as you can see, no flame will consume me," she continued, "Do you honestly dare to think that there is some way to destroy me that centuries of your ancestors, that I myself in my despair, have never thought to try? You will never kill me, Hunter. You're a fool to continue this farce. Are you now satisfied?"
His eyes filled with despair, but he nodded his defeat. Grabbing the rope he had meant to bind her with, she tied his arms behind him, then forced him to his feet.
"Move!" she ordered, directing him past the stone forms of Ophelia and Linnet, and back toward the corridor. There she shoved him dismissively to the ground and secured him against a post that supported the arched entrance to the corridor. Then from among the shattered glass and broken artifacts of the destroyed cabinet where he had abandoned it, she retrieved the laser, and pointed it at him.
The Hunter stared at her, waiting. Demona glared at him with contempt, but she didn't fire.
"What are you waiting for?" he demanded in frustration.
"I'm sorry," she retorted mockingly, "Did you have somewhere else to be?"
"I have failed my mission, my father, my brother, and all human kind," he gasped, still suffering the pain of his burns, "What is left for me but death?"
Demona looked away from him in disgust. She couldn't tolerate his words, or even the sight of him, and though the true reason why gnawed at her, she couldn't stand to dwell on it. If she hoped to end the Hunter's curse that day, she had to remain focused.
"Perhaps it does not have to be that way," she replied softly, reaching into a small pouch on her belt that now contained Old Felix's enchanted stone. She drew it out, showing it to him.
"It is possible to make amends and put an end to this vendetta before it destroys us all," she continued, "This gem has the power to heal your brother so he can walk again. I have to be the one to use it, but I can save him. If you will let me."
The burned and defeated Hunter stared at her with such an cryptic expression, Demona wondered if she ought to try explaining it again after smacking him back into reality first, but then he began to laugh, coldly and eerily.
"Save him?" he asked, his maniacal laughter rising in pitch and volume until he was practically screaming, "Save him?! My brother is dead!"
"Dead?" Demona repeated in dismay, staring at the wretched Hunter who seemed to be having a complete mental breakdown before her.
"Aye, dead!" he repeated, continuing to laugh, "Dead to me first, and now dead to this world!"
"What do you mean?" she urged, feeling a sickening horror in the pit of her stomach, "What have you done?"
"They were both traitors!" he replied, his voice suddenly transforming into a contemptuous hiss, "You could never understand! They were everything to me. After you murdered our father, they were like a mother and father to me, but they betrayed me! They had to die!"
"You've killed your own siblings?" she accused, even as speaking the words out loud sickened her.
"They betrayed us! They betrayed the Canmore family!" he screamed, even as tears flowed from his face, "I had to do it. It wasn't my fault! That Detective Maza convinced them that I was the enemy. She wanted them to turn me in to protect you and your demon race! If it wasn't for her, they would never have turned against me! If it wasn't for you, they'd still be alive!"
Demona backed away from him, feeling nauseous and defeated. She turned and steadied herself against the hardwood wall of the destroyed display cabinet. She no longer cared what happened to the Hunter. She only knew that she couldn't stand to look at him another moment.
"Then it was all for nothing," she whispered sorrowfully.
In a sudden rage, she hurled the magical healing stone and the laser through the archway where they clattered out into the bright sunshine. Felix's healing gem caught the light and shimmered radiantly as if signaling a reason to hope, but Demona didn't see it. In disgust and despair, she slowly sank to the floor and let her head rest on her arms.
She closed her eyes and imagined it was night. The stone floor and the archway above her was the same, but the stones beneath her claws were warmed not by the risen sun, but by a peat fire glowing in the courtyard, and the combined hiss of millions of human voices and machines became the more comforting sounds of the wind and the sea. In her distress, she tightly wrapped her own wings around herself and curled her tail around her feet so she could fidget with the tip of it. As she crouched there alone, she heard the flutter of two great wings in the wind and the soft sound of talons scraping the stones. She sensed him crouching beside her and she felt his touch on her shoulder. She knew he was there, but she didn't raise her head to look, as she knew this would break the spell and return her to the turmoil of reality.
"Who did I think I was kidding?" she whispered in her pain, "Old Felix knew all along that I was never going to be worthy of that stone and that I would never break this curse. He told me as much, but I was too foolish to listen. You can't just walk away from the kind of things I've done, like everything is going to be fine. The only difference between the Hunter and myself is that you were strong enough to stop me from destroying everything I love. I'm no better than he, so why should I be spared the curse that was put on me?"
Her tears spilled over her arm, but she let them fall without opening her eyes.
"I'm sorry, my Love," she wept, "I promised I would never become this monster, but I failed you. I wanted so much to make it right, to believe it could be made right, but now it seems I've failed again. Oh, why did you take the trouble to pull me from the darkness if I could never be saved? Why should I be saved if I will never be strong enough to save you from the Hunter's curse?"
She felt him leaning in to her and heard his low and gentle voice,
"My angel, you've forgotten what I promised you. If you live for those you love, that love can and will save you. But you must shun fear and rage."
"How can anyone shun fear and rage when the world is so full of sorrow and outrage?"
"You are equal to it," he assured her earnestly, "Be brave. Be strong."
"No," she replied sorrowfully, "I'm not strong enough. Not alone."
"But you are not alone," he insisted, "Remember, you and I are one, now and forever."
Demona held her eyes closed, despite the tears flowing from them. Slowly, she reached for her shoulder, where she felt his touch, but her hand found nothing there but the loose flaps of fabric from her shredded dress. She blinked her eyes open to the unwelcome summer sun and gasped. The Hunter had gotten free of his bonds and stealthily found a sword among the wreckage of the cabinet. Now he stood over Demona and, with all the force he could muster, plunged it through her abdomen, pinning her body to the heavy wooden plank behind her.