Page 65 of Chaos Demons

His eyes flashed wide with fear.

“No, please!” he begged, thankfully coming to the logical conclusion that he was outmatched and I would kill him if I had to. “I’ll end this. I promise.”

He raised his stick-thin arms in a limp defense, but I kept my sword up, the tip digging into his flesh and drawing a bead of blood.

“Then why don’t I see any of those zompires racing back here?” I asked.

“It’ll take some time for them to return,” Nari hissed.

“You have a minute, or I start cutting off limbs.” I didn’t want those corpses causing any more damage or destruction. I also didn’t want to give him any time to escape, or for Melinoe to come to his aid.

“Fuck, she’s nasty,” Ramsey breathed.

Nari’s grey complexion went bone white. “Yes, of course, I can summon them, but it’ll take a moment!”

“One minute,” I repeated, easing my sword back a bit and letting the bead of blood roll down his neck.

Nari collapsed into a sitting position, squeezed his eyes shut, and clenched his jaw in concentration.

“I may be able to help with this,” said a new voice, and I glanced over my shoulder to see that dark-skinned man I’d met outside Ramsey’s suite. What was his name?

“Anubis?”

The tall, lanky man nodded. He looked haggard and weak and leaned heavily on a tree nearby. One eye still on Nari, I went to Anubis, laid a hand on his arm, and refreshed him. He only had a few physical wounds, but he was exhausted and addled, probably a victim of Melinoe’s mental attacks.

Anubis stood straighter. “Thank you. I have some domain over corpses, so I’ll help them to return.”

I nodded to him as he too sat and concentrated. Then, a moment later, the cemetery around us was filled with milling, confused, clearly listless, but still walking corpses.

Nari blinked his eyes open. “They’re back and peaceful. Is that good enough?”

I gave him my driest look.

Did he really think having a bunch of zompires roaming around the cemetery was acceptable? Jeez. Barest minimum effort buddy.

“I’ll return them to their graves,” Anubis said before I could threaten Nari again. “But, Nari, you must give up all control over them. Release them to rest.”

Nari looked from me to Anubis. I nodded, indicating that would be the daemon’s best course of action — because I sure as hell didn’t trust Nari to finish the job.

“Do it,” I told him.

Nari sighed, and with that exhalation, all the dead dropped… dead, once again.

Finally!

“Now,” I spat. “Someone do something with him before I kill him.”

Ramsey and Fen rushed around me to restrain Nari, and I stormed over to where the others were fighting Melinoe. They’d managed to take out all of the nightmare monsters, but Melinoe was still strong and she was holding her own against the three of them, neither side able to gain an advantage.

One down. One to go.

Yet she seemed to possess a greater resolve. If I couldn’t threaten her, like I had with Nari, I was going to have to subdue her… or kill her.

And given my current mood, with everything she’d put me through over the past weeks, killing was definitely on the table.

“Give up or die.” My tone was flat and I meant every word.

The fight paused as everyone waited for her answer.

---