What Doesn't Kill You...

Better Lucky Than Good

"You gave that silly child access to the Dark Grimoire?" Charlie folded her arms over her chest, ignoring Isabella's outraged protest. "Zephyriel, I'm disappointed in you. Especially, after this cheap shot." She held up her scarred hand. The dark curse's progress had been halted, but the mark still remained.

Zephyriel waved an intangible hand at her. " That curse was meant to corrupt and devour any being...immortal or not. Must have really cost you to stop the effects."

"Not as much as it'll cost you." Charlie smiled coldly. Reaching behind her, she drew a large scythe as if from thin air. It had been ages since she'd used it in combat, but she relished the opportunity to dust off her old skills. "There will be no banishment for you this time. Only death."

"I knew it wasn't going to work!" Isabella yelled at the demon shade.

Charlie glowered at Isabella. "But you first."

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Zephyriel watched the fight from the sidelines. Isabella wouldn't last long even with the Dark Grimoire. Charlie would soon make mince meat out of her with the death scythe. Only a high ranking demon such as himself could fully access the book's power. So far, she'd only been able to summon the weakest of his army. Corpse demons. Creatures who could only exist in this plane unless they possessed a dead body.

He laughed darkly to himself. Was he any better?

After his body had been destroyed, his disembodied spirit had been imprisoned in the darkest corner of Hell. Imprisoned and forgotten. Big mistake. His imprisonment had given him time to think. Time to plan. It had taken years to achieve, but it had finally happened. A necromancer had created the perfect vessel for him...by accident. Better lucky than good.

Zephyriel crossed the room, his ephemeral body passing easily through corpse demons and overturned pews. Damon was doing a decent job of holding off the corpse demons. He was no great warrior, but he wasn't hopeless. He'll do. All he needed was for Damon to die...again.

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Damon's arms ached fiercely as he brought the cricket bat down hard on a corpse grinning ghoulishly at his feet. Brain and gore splattered his clothes. He grimaced looking down at his trousers and narrowly missed having his throat ripped out by a corpse. Hazard jerked him back by his shirt collar.

"Pay attention!" Hazard snapped at him. She decapitated one corpse and kicked another back into the wall. "I'm not here to babysit you!"

Before Damon could retort, he was tackled to the ground.  He landed hard, his cricket bat slipping out of his hand. It slid across the floor and under a broken pew just out of reach. He scrambled across the floor. His fingers were a hairsbreadth away from the handle, when someone gripped his ankle and dragged him back.

Violet pinned him to the ground and grinned cruelly."I finally get why Charlie partnered you with me." Her eyes were glassy and blank. Isabella had dug deep into her mind and taken possession. "The only thing you've ever been good at is dying. So passive. So weak." He heard Isabella's words coming out of Violet's mouth. Words he'd heard himself years and many deaths ago.  "You always needed someone to lead you around. Isabella...Charlie...me...and now some demon bitch."

A blaze of fire roared overhead, knocking Violet off him. Damon sat up and stared at Hazard in open-mouthed shock. Flames licked the fingers of her right hand and a tracery of luminous tattoos decorated her face across the bridge of her nose. "That's Ms. Half-demon Bitch, to you!"

Still grinning malevolently, Violet drew her blessed blade. It glinted in the wavering candle light. "Looks like you found a new champion, Damon!"

"Don't kill her!" Damon shouted.

Hazard shot him a sour look. "Can I just say you really need to reevaluate the women in your life?"

Another tremor shook the church. The building groaned loudly, the walls seeming to bend inward. Zephyriel turned his head in surprise at Isabella. Stronger corpse demons were keeping Charlie at bay, while Isabella attempted an ambitious summoning. From the ever widening crack extending from one end of the church foundation to the other, it was going to be a successful summoning. The gap was widening rapidly shaking the building.

A loud curse caught his attention. Oh this was too easy. Between the tremors and the foundation splitting, Damon had lost his balance and cracked his skull on the corner of a broken pew. His limp body lay sprawled among the debris. Grinning from transparent ear to ear, Zephyriel knelt and thrust his hand through Damon's chest.

Damon was dead and the vessel was vacant.