Page 4 of Tales of a Monstrous Heart
It roared, wings slapping sharply behind it, fanning the ravenous flames as they began to climb up the only tapestry still pinned to damp stone. The remaining woodworm-eaten bookcases crashed down in the force of the demonic wind, covering Finneaus in a cloud of dust and ash as heavy volumes hit the damaged floor beside him. There was a terrible splintering as the unstable floor broke apart to form a deep hole. He squealed, clawing at the slanted floorboards, but slid into the dusty abyss with a scream.
‘Finneaus !’ I rushed for him but the creature emerged from the cloud of centuries-old grime and lunged.
I blindly sent out a blast of magic, but as with all dark creatures, the longer they existed, the more they learned, and the dark fiend was learning too quickly about its prey.
About me.
I only managed to catch it on its shoulder, the bone cracking out of place as it darted past my panicked, sloppy spell. It crashed into the old fireplace, bricks crumbling down around it. The room shook with the impact, almost sending me to my knees.
‘Finneaus !’ I coughed the dust from my lungs, leaning over the edge of the opening to find his prone form below, moaning as planks of wood and old plaster covered him. He’d landed on a settee in what looked to be a common room one floor beneath the library.
Clearly, bigoted fools had all the bloody luck in the world.
‘Bastard,’ I hissed under my breath, allowing myself the mere moment of relief that I hadn’t accidently been involved in the demonic murder of a councilman’s son.
The rest of the fireplace crumbled with a worrying crash. I turned, just as the creature’s scaled tail whipped for my head. I ducked out of its path, hearing the impact as it cut through the wall behind me and showered me in sharp brick shards.
I darted beyond its reach, rolling the wild flames of my magic between my palms, as the thing scuttled towards me, belly low to the ground.
I summoned more fire against my palms, illuminating the room in a fierce lavender glow, making the other fire in the room roar in unity. The sharp features of the demon grew all the more horrifying in my magics light, before I threw the fireball outwards, hitting the creature’s sinuous wing, searing a hole through the dark flesh. The fiend screamed, mangled wing sagging as it turned sharply in defence.
The potency of the spell left me breathless, too distracted to notice the long serpent-like tail strike. It caught my side, throwing me across the room. I crashed into the table, shattering it into large splinters. The impact winded me as Irolled across the rubble-covered floor. The creature was on top of me in seconds. Its jaw opened with a screech, flashing razorlike teeth as the back of its throat began to glow with demonic black fire.
I wedged my forearm beneath its leathery chin, deadly teeth gleaming in the light of my magic. I grunted and kicked to keep it at bay as I reached blindly into my enchanted bag at my hip, digging past books and papers, feeling the warm hilt of my father’s sword. I wrenched it free, the blade materialising upon recognition of its true heir. The gold gleaming, long and lethal.
I drove the blade up, plunging it into the creature’s throat. Its flesh sizzled and melted around the steel, dark gunk running down my hand, pungent and rotten.
The fiend tore itself back, retching black smoke and glutinous dark blood. It howled, wings beating wildly, as it rose clumsily, high into the darkness of the vaulted stone ceiling, claws catching on the remains of a rusted chandelier above.
It perched there as that sulphuric stench of its blood made bile burn the back of my throat. It shook its head, jaw snapping open wider than before, revealing where I’d maimed it as black sour blood rained down. There was a deafening shriek, followed by a cracking and twisting of limbs as its head began to split into two.
The chaos of duality.The words of Insidious Theory came to my mind, a warning lost in time.
I turned to see where the cursed compendium had fallen and spotted it beneath a collapsed side table. I rolled, got my trembling knees beneath me and ran, skidding to a halt to stand over the book, ignoring the horrid burning sensation that came over my skin from being anywhere near the forsaken metal that covered it.
The pages were yellow with age, the symbols inverted and twisted. Ancient scripture with dark intent for only the darkest creatures to feast upon. An Insidious beast.
Unable to be killed, only contained.
The demon roared; the ominous cracking continuing as the chandelier groaned under its weight. I cast my father’s sword aside, allowing the more potent gift he’d given me to flow through my veins and materialise in my hands.
Fluid flames of indigo, sapphire and lavender twisted between my fingers as ancient words echoed through my mind. That’s all magic was, a turbulent dance between knowledge and imagination. A song in the blood awaiting command.
Nothing is stronger than your will.My father’s words whispered in my memory.
No, it wasn’t.
I let my chaos free, aiming the fire skyward with a scream of exertion, heating the chandelier from beneath. It glowed molten red, the creature shrieked, trying to pull away, but it was instantly trapped within the liquid metal that stuck to its flesh.
Kysillian fire. Pure and beyond the corruption of dark magic.
The fiend tried to pull away, wings flapping harshly, but the harder it fought, the more the metal fused to it. Two heads screaming as black smoke curled around it, as it tried to change. Tried to shrink to escape.
My arms trembled from the weight of my spell until another backdraught from the fiend’s fight sent me tumbling backwards, almost extinguishing my flames.
The ceiling groaned, plaster beginning to rain down before the chain of the chandelier snapped, crashing down in a tangled burning mess. I covered my head as sharp debris struck myback and shoulders, curling into a ball, panting as dirt and debris coated my tongue.
Only when the trembling of the weakened floor stopped did I look up, squinting through the dust to see the creature thrashing inside a newly formed metal cage of the chandelier’s remains, still glowing red, the beast now no bigger than a small bird to try and avoid the molten bars.
