PARKER #2
Charging at Brutus, I dropped to my knees, sliding across the tile floor slicing at the back of his legs, while Lailah kicked out at him while clawing at his hold on her throat.
My attack hit home, getting him right at the knees chopping them off at the joint, toppling him over and releasing Lailah at the same time.
She rolled out of his reach and got to her feet coughing as I swung my staff and chopped off his head, watching as it rolled away from his body.
The oddest part of this whole thing was there was no blood at all coming from the body.
This just confirmed that the Higher-level demon had rotted the body from the inside out, until it was no longer human.
"No!" Lailah screamed, reaching out to something behind me.
Turning I found Phoebe in Mozog's arms, his hand holding her by the hair, neck exposed, with his mouth open as if he was going to tear out her throat.
Terror flooded my body at the thought of seeing Phoebe killed before my very eyes and unable to do anything about it.
Mozog met my gaze and slowly closed his mouth, pulling back from her skin.
"Oh my, could it be that you have feelings for this woman as well?
I suppose it would make sense for the man who is gifted with the element of heart to love more than one person at a time. "
"Don't listen to him Lailah, he's a demon he'll say anything to make you doubt me," I growled.
Lailah edged closer to me in a show of solidarity. "You don't have to warn me about that, I can feel his malice filling the room."
"So tell me…would you let this woman die to save your Lady Synergy?" Mozog taunted. "If you have no love for her, then leave her with me and I'll let the two of you leave right now, along with the other two we've captured."
"We are not going to make any deals with you," Lailah snapped. "We are all leaving here alive, including Phoebe."
Mozog gave Lailah a toothy smile that set me on edge, as the two remaining cloaked people stood behind him. "Is that so? What would you do if told you that you were too late and we already performed the ritual on her?"
"There's no way, it hasn't been long enough and I would have felt that much demonic energy going around this place," Lailah countered. "You’re stalling for some reason, which makes me think you don't have the other two of my men and you're trying to find them."
"I can see why the Dark Lord is so focused on you," Mozog commented as he handed Phoebe off to the two minions.
"Too bad that I don't agree with him that you'll be the perfect person for the Mother of All to live in.
This woman here would be a much better fit, you see, she has a darkness in her heart that the Mother would appreciate and be drawn to.
Yes, you are powerful, Lady Synergy, but there isn't an ounce of evil in you that we haven't put there ourselves. "
Both of us glanced at each other when we understood that Mozog had decided to use Phoebe for Lilith's host, going against the Dark Lord's plans. Now there was no doubt in my mind that we had to get Phoebe out of here and to safety. "We won't let you do this," I announced.
"Yes, I had a feeling you would feel that way about this. So, it seems that we will have to remove you while this happens.”
With a snap of his fingers, the room was filled with more possessed people with weapons.
But not the kind of guards we ran into earlier.
That alone made me think that Lailah was right about them not having caught the others and they needed the guards to look for them.
It also might be a ploy to keep us from killing them, seeing as they were normal looking people.
Seeing the guns in some of their hands, I was very glad that we tested the fact that Lailah's shields could also block bullets.
Otherwise, we would have zero chances of making it out of this alive.
I felt that warm comforting feeling of Lailah drawing on my power as she placed an individual shield around each of us and she manifested her sword and shield.
Grim determination to survive this filled me, along with the small hope that the others would find us in time to help.
Stepping closer to Lailah, I whispered, "let me deal with this, do what you can to stop them from doing the ritual."
"Parker, there is no way that you'll be able to handle all these people by yourself," she argued.
"You know we won't survive this without killing some of them, I can't let you suffer like that."
She looked at me, her crystal blue eyes hard. "How would having you suffer instead be any better? These people are lost and there is nothing we can do for them right now. It's better to let them pass on then to live as a puppet to a demon, causing them to do heinous things to others."
That was the last chance we had to discuss anything because they charged us.
The sound of guns going off in the room was deafening, along with the screaming of the woman rushing at us with knives and claws.
Lailah body checked a man coming at her with her shield, knocking him back into another, giving her some space as she dealt with another woman and her dagger.
The battle was of the likes I've never experienced before, other than in a video game, and that didn't come close to this.
The floor was getting slick with blood, making me realize that some of these people might not have been possessed long enough for their body to start deteriorating.
A large man tackled me, causing my feet to slide out from under me so I slammed onto the floor with a grunt.
"Parker!" Lailah yelled, seeing me go down.
I slammed my staff into the man's face, breaking his nose and stunning him long enough to roll him off of me. "I'm fine." I called out so she didn't try to help me.
Taking a second, I looked around the room and saw that we were holding our own but the fact that more people poured into the room didn't bode well for us.
I was getting tired and I knew Lailah must be as well.
She'd come a long way, but four months of training didn't prepare you for something like this.
Then I heard it, outside in the hall was the unmistakable roar that Micah used as he fought. We finally had help coming!
"Parker," Phoebe and Lailah both screamed.
Whipping my head around, I tried to see who was where, then I spotted Phoebe thrashing on the stone altar.
Mozog was straddling her with a slice in his arm bleeding over her everywhere, as he chanted god knows what.
Without hesitation, I used my staff to shove everyone around me out of the way and charged towards the altar, tackling Mozog so we both toppled off the altar and onto the floor.
Using my powers now that I had a hold of him, I filled the human brain with the fact that he was in the worst pain of his life, making him scream like he was being murdered which, in a way, he was.
The human mind can only handle so much pain before it shuts down and you pass out to protect yourself, which is exactly what happened after a few moments.
When I was sure he was out for the count, I crawled back to the altar and pulled Phoebe off it until she was curled up in my arms, sobbing.
"It's alright I've got you," I murmured as I stroked her hair. "I won't let them take you from me, I promise."
Another scream filled the room that I knew was Lailah's and in the next moment I too was in mind numbing pain.
It felt like my heart was being ripped out of my chest and then an audible crack, like a lightning bolt hitting the room, sounded.
I hadn't realized that I blacked out until I opened my eyes to see Phoebe looming over me grinning and laughing at me.
Her eyes were completely black and the blood that covered her face gave her a maniacal look.
"Look who just saved the Mother of All demons over the woman he swore to protect and love above all others. Do you know what you just did, oh gallant knight?" She purred as she stroked my face with a bloody hand, then leaned down so her lips brushed my ear as she spoke.
"You. Broke. Your. Oath."