Kamiyo was holding on, but was bloody and battered. He had dropped his poker and was merely buying time now. Soon he would become too exhausted to dodge anymore, and the demons would tear him apart.
Hannah didn't know whether to watch her own death or the death of her friend, so she decided to close her eyes. But before she did, she saw one of the demons around Kamiyo fall.
But Kamiyo had been facing the other way.
Then another demon fell down, not dead, but badly hurt.
A thud-thud-thud sounded as rocks fell from the sky. Was it hailing? No, these rocks were too large. There were pieces of brick, too, and other chunks of masonry.
The demons were confused. Kamiyo gained some breathing room as they looked around, confused. He slumped to the ground, exhausted.
More rocks fell. Some struck the demons in the head and knocked them unconscious, others hit limbs and broke them.
What was going on?
A line of strangers broke from the tree-line—thirty or forty people at least.
Incredible.
The strangers each bore arms, some hurling rocks from large sacks, others chopping and hacking at demons with large knives and axes. They were methodical and uncowed, people who had faced demons before and learned how to shed their fear.
The demon army was taken completely by surprise. Their attackers delivered mortal wound after mortal wound, wasting no time in doing battle. It was chop-hack-move-on. Demons fell by the hundreds.
And then something magnificent happened.
The demons started to run away.
In an increasing wave, the demons melted into the forest. Many screamed out garbled words that sounded like pleas. The demons were afraid. Their will had been broken.
Hannah turned to Caligula who was visibly concerned. But not by the sight of the demon army routing. He was, instead, staring off across the lake. The frothing waters had begun to violently churn.
A huge hand broke the surface of the water and clawed towards the darkening sky.
One of the Fallen had arrived.
It was all over.
Hannah collapsed onto her side, knowing her life was ticking down in minutes. She would have just long enough to see the slaughter of her friends. The giant demon would emerge and step over the castle walls. It didn't matter that the demon army was retreating, for one giant unkillable beast would be enough to eradicate every soul inside the castle. It had all been for nothing.
The huge creature continued rising from the lake.
Caligula was enraged, bellowing curses at the lake while petulantly stomping his feet. “No! No, this is my victory. Why are you here? Who summoned you? Who? Leave here at once!”
Caligula wanted no part of whatever was coming through the gate, and it had consumed his attention entirely. It bought Hannah a modicum of pleasure in her final moments to know that the demons fought amongst themselves. Maybe they would be no different to humanity and would soon start killing each other.
Hannah’s eyelids grew heavy, and she felt herself drifting away. She felt the same calm, determined focus she always felt in battle, but this time, it was peaceful and warm. Wherever she was going would be okay. It would be better than the horrors of this world.
At first, she thought she was seeing things, hallucinating as her brain shut down. Her darkening vision detected movement at the edge of the lake, moving among the reeds. It was Nathan. The boy was pushing a boat out onto the water. A rope encircled his neck, fastened at the other end to a large paint can.
What is the boy doing?
But she knew.
Hannah smiled and closed her eyes.
53
NATHAN
Nathan hadn’t shot Jackie on purpose. Everyone thought he did it, but it wasn’t true. It didn’t mean he hadn’t killed her though. Of that he was guilty, whether he had meant it or not.
When he’d fled the castle that night, it was with the intention to run away. He was afraid. The demons would come, and he wanted to survive when they did. Kamiyo, Ted, and Hannah were the only ones at the camp with any clue about how to stay alive. They had all made it out there on the road, and he needed to learn to do the same. That had been all he’d wanted that night.
But when he’d stumbled across Hannah’s rifle, his plans changed. Suddenly, he asked himself the question of why he even wanted to survive so badly. Everyone hated him, not just now, but always. He’d never had any friends because he was so strange and morbid. He knew he was different. The bizarre and disturbing interested him more than it should have, but it wasn’t intentional. Something about death and suffering just drew him in, made him yearn for answers that might be lurking there beneath the surface. Death fascinated him—but that didn’t mean he wanted to be the cause of it. No way.
The only death he ever intended to cause that night was his own. Finding the rifle had seemed like a gift, a chance to make it all normal again. No more monsters or living in the woods with a bunch of people who hated him.
But it hadn’t been as easy as he’d thought. When he tried to put the barrel against his forehead and pull the trigger, he found it difficult to do. The weapon was heavy and kept tipping away from him.
Then Jackie had leapt out of the shadows, barking his name. He had flinched. The rifle fell away, and his finger clenched around the trigger. To this day, he didn’t understand how the freak-shot had occurred. The bullet could have gone in an infinite number of directions, but instead, it had struck Jackie right in the chest and killed her instantly.
Every night, he cried about what he had done.
Eventually, those tears had become too much.
Then came his latest miseries. Locked up by his camp mates, he had been left with nothing but silence and regret to keep him company. Then, today,
