Moontide
Read Along Chapter 29
“You have to take their heads, or else they’ll stumble around terrorizing humans and bleeding their slime all over the place.”
Ronan stood with his knife in his hand. His hair fell across his face in sweaty strands and his chest heaved. He watched the other man, whom he’d met just the night before, from a short distance. One of the creatures started to pull itself up. It reached an almost kneeling position before Adam walked over to it and slashed through the air, severing its head in one quick motion.
Adam cleaned his blade off by wiping it in the sand then looked over his shoulder at Ronan.
“Don’t tell me, Captain. You left your sword in your other pants.”
Ronan just shook the hair out of his eyes, staggering a little without Cindy’s touch to bolster him. The effects of the blood fury had kept him strong during the fight, but now they were starting to wane.
“It was fortunate you showed up when you did,” Ronan said. “What the hell are those things?”
The other man was busy wiping his weapon off with a cloth he’d pulled out of his back pocket, polishing the metal to a high shine.
“They,” he pointed at the demon corpses with his machete, “are a bunch of assholes.”
Ronan’s patience was out.
“Where do they come from? They are not of this world.”
Adam sighed.
“These poor beasts are a creation of the old gods, the Titans, during their confinement beneath Tartarus. They’ve only surfaced in this realm recently.”
Ronan didn’t say anything, just held his gaze on the other man, waiting for him to go on.
Adam kicked at the sand with his boot.
“For amusement,” he said, “the ancients decided to try and create beings from drops of their own blood, mixed with the murky waters of the rivers that run through the deepest bowels of hell. These creatures you see here are the fruit of their experiments. They were never named, but in the business,” he smirked, “we call them the Miserians. Born of sorrow, misery and Titan blood. The Titans created these soulless beings then left them behind in Tartarus when their confinement ended.
But, now, they’ve found a way to slip through the cracks of the underworld and gain entry to the human realm somehow. I suspect they have been led here, but that’s another story. They seek emotions, mainly fear, to get any kind of satisfaction out of their miserable existence and the human race is currently their drug of choice. They steal the spirits they are lacking from their victims.”
Adam shook the cloth in his hand out and returned it to his pocket. He looked in the direction of the city strip and let out a weary breath. Again, Ronan had the feeling that this immortal should be known to him. In an instant, a scene of two warriors fighting side by side flashed before his eyes. He shook his head to clear the images away, disregarding them as a remnant of the blood fury.
“Another creation of the gods unleashed on earth to wreak havoc,” he said.
His voice sounded weak as the effects of his mortal curse slowly engulfed him.
Leaves rustled in the breeze and both men turned to look at the trees.
“Are you there cara?” Ronan called, scanning the patch of plant life he had seen Cindy scramble into during the fighting.
He started into the bushes just as he heard a feminine cry. He shook off his weakness and rushed toward Cindy with Adam right behind him.
They ran through broad leafed plants and Ronan yelled out in rage when he saw a demon on her. It was the first one that he’d stabbed after she’d blinded it with her flashing light. It was covering half of her body in its darkness. The thing’s claw-like fingers held her down, ripping into the fragile skin of her shoulders and arms. Ronan could see that her throat had a jagged gash that she was bleeding from. The Miserian reared up, looking back at him with its glowing eyes. If the creature had had a human face, it would have smiled in revenge. It turned back to Cindy and when its eyes centered on her chest, a white light started to glow beneath her skin. The demon swooped down on her, ready to devour her soul.
Ronan surged forward to rip the monster off of her. He tackled it, and with his last remaining strength, sliced through its neck with his knife, cutting through gristle and tendon until he’d relieved it of its head. He heaved the demon’s body away from him and turned to Cindy’s limp form. Stumbling closer, he sank down into the sand next to her too still body.
Her eyes were barely open, but she looked at him and mouthed his name as her hand came up to his chest. Her touch, as weakened as she was, still had the power to strengthen him. His eyes brightened again, just like all the other times she’d lent him her vitality this day. He scooped her up on his lap then brushed her wet hair away from her face. The light in her expression grew faint before her eyes went dim and closed. Ronan felt the life drain out of her body at the same time his own started to seep away again.
*Note: Oh, dear. That’s all I have to say. What do you think of all the excitement in this scene so far?