Nothing To Fear ....

It Stops Now

      The demon shrieked in agony and disbelief as the woman slammed the object into its mouth, past the filthy, jagged teeth, almost into the back of its throat. It lashed out, backhanding her with enough force to send her sprawling to the ground several feet away, and then reached to remove the object which was causing it so much pain. But as it did, its rage was replaced by a rising sense of frustration when its hands suddenly refused to cooperate, and wouldn't allow it to remove the thing from its mouth.

      As it looked frantically around the cavern, hoping to make some of the lesser demons notice its peril, and come to assist, a voice suddenly reverberated through its mind:

      NO! No more, it stops now!

     Glancing around, it locked eyes with one of the males, who had separated himself from the others, and was sidling along the wall. Almost instantly, a look of enlightenment crossed his features, and he shouted "The host is fighting against it! Keep going, guys, it's now or never!"

      In that moment, the demon was forced to acknowledge that it had made a pair of critical errors. The first was in forcing the humans to act; by abducting the males, and seeking to revitalize itself through the defiant one, it had pushed the woman, and likely several of the others, beyond the reach of its tricks, driven by anger and vengeance. They could easily see beyond whatever illusions it put forth, and set aside their fear, which made them almost as dangerously unpredictable as its own kind.

      Secondly, it had allowed itself to become complacent, and overconfident in its control of the host. It had been so long since his consciousness had done more than toss up the occasional random memory, that it had nearly managed to convince itself that he had been completely eradicated, but in reality, he had merely been biding his time, waiting for an opportunity such as this. 

      It attempted to impose its will over that of Gregory Horton, but the searing pain in its throat made it difficult to focus, and his voice again echoed through the mind that they shared:

      NO! I am not going to let you do to someone else what you did to me! You lied, and you hurt innocent people, and you robbed me of my life. My grandfather died trying to send you back where you belong! It needs to end here!

      The creature's eyes darted around the poorly-lighted area, and it saw that the darker-skinned male had made his way to the center of the circle, joining the wizard and the dark female, adding his voice to the painful chant, while the flame-haired woman crouched next to something which emitted a noise which made it feel as though its teeth were vibrating in its skull, and which seemed to disorient the smaller spider-demons, causing them to move erratically, stumbling and colliding with the walls, debris, and each other. This made it pitifully easy for the others to use the weapons they carried to whittle their numbers down, and begin to tip the balance in their favor.

      A sudden loud report rang out, and it spun around to see that the lone male had fired his weapon into the head of the subordinate creature who was restraining the designated host, allowing him to pull himself free and scramble toward the unconscious form of the woman who had caused it such grievous torment. The lesser demon loosed its acidic spittle at the bearded man, who dove out of the way and fired again, striking the thing in the abdomen, causing it to drop to the floor, with acrid steam rising into the air. He took careful aim, and fired another round into the creature's head, finally causing it to evaporate, leaving only a few traces of its phosphorescent blood on the dirt. 

      The demon shook its head, desperately trying to dislodge the brush from its mouth, which was beginning to char and blister from prolonged contact with the consecrated necklace, wisps of smoke seeping out past its thin, almost nonexistent lips. It was also beginning to feel the effects of the non-stop chanting of the wizard and his sycophants, maintaining its hold on the host body by sheer force of will. It was becoming increasingly difficult to do, though, and when the woman raised something above her head, it realized how badly it had underestimated this particular group of humans as it recognized the item for what it actually was.

      The thing that the woman so confidently brandished was a powerful magic item, a blessed lantern, designed specifically to trap its kind, and hold them indefinitely, without even the limited degree of freedom afforded by its prior entrapment. The lantern would keep it in eternal isolation, unless someone chose to release it, or to put forth the effort to banish it back to its own plane of existence, which was almost as unappealing, as there were few creatures suitable to feed upon there, and a banishment automatically meant it could not return to this realm for at least five hundred years, as humans marked the passage of time.

      This realization caused the demon to redouble its effort to overcome Greg Horton's will, and when its fingers relaxed enough to flex once more, it moved to remove the brush from its throat, but was interrupted by a burning pain in its right hand, which began to spray reeking black blood onto the cavern floor. It stared incredulously at the last woman, who wore a fierce grimace on her face, realizing that she had shot two of the fingers from its hand. 

      "Not going to happen, you bastard," she stated evenly, using her free hand to push her long, dark hair out of her eyes. "I think that needs to stay right where it is until they finish."

        Looking frantically around the ice-cold cavern for an escape route, hoping to give itself time to regroup and recover, the abomination found itself surrounded on all sides by the troublesome humans, who all held weapons, and whose eyes all displayed the same hot anger. Or almost all, it realized, as it glanced at the two who had gathered by the prone female. The muscular bearded man crouched beside her, while the one whose form it had hoped to take sat on the cold floor, with her head in his lap, and these two stared almost unblinkingly in its direction, with such calm, icy rage evident in their faces that it felt a sudden stab of unease.

      "Finish it, Crane," the taller man said. "Send this sonofabitch back to hell where it belongs."

      "Better yet, since it enjoys hurting people so much, send it somewhere it can feel the same kind of suffering," the defiant one snarled. "Some place where it can be just as afraid as it wants us to be."

      The demon was driven to its knees as the bearded man, and both women, joined the others in pronouncing the words of the ritual. It whimpered in defeat as it felt itself being pulled from the host, and was finally able to shriek, as it felt itself being sucked into the horrible, fearsome lantern, toward whatever fate awaited it there.

      And for the first time in its long existence, Aksu, the Bringer-of-Nightmares, knew the true meaning of fear.