Chapter Thirty-one
I reappear next to the spinning meat orb.
A bellow of anger erupts from deeper in the chamber as the Dark One saw me disappear or saw Baltazar’s sudden appearance.
No doubt, the devil knew where I had gone to and what I was up to.
Either way, I needed to act quickly before he turned the air into magma or something.
Meanwhile, the dark orb was far uglier up close than I would have believed, covered in crepe skin and hundreds of thick pulsating red veins that reminded me of glowing snakes.
The beating sounds were louder up here—thunderously loud, in fact.
“No!” booms the Dark One’s voice from seemingly everywhere. “I’m not ready to die!”
I hesitate, which would have been a mistake had I done so even a beat longer. Already, the air shimmers around me with the beginnings of another crazy attack, likely another legion of demons.
Is it really my place to kill this thing?
I consider the question for all of a nanosecond.
Technically, the Dark One isn’t my problem, though he certainly made himself my problem when he had me kidnapped.
And a growing part of me suspects I was sought out for this very reason.
I was exactly the right person to wield the Devil Killer, having wielded another version of it back on my own world.
Pretty sure I’ve been manipulated from the beginning.
Still, I don’t agree with the ruthless way these Games are conducted. And haven’t I already killed, like, a bajillion demons? What’s one more bad guy?
Besides, the Devil Killer wants him dead. I swear the sword is pulling me toward the Dark One’s beating heart.
Yeah. Enough is enough.
This is for the next mom torn from her family. The next person kidnapped from another world and forced to kill for someone else’s entertainment. Someone who doesn’t have access to a Devil Killer. Someone who won’t be able to fight her way home.
I beat my wings hard before the creatures forming around me can fully take shape. Holding the Devil Killer before me like a knight lowering his lance, I dive headfirst toward the giant heart.
The tip of the blade pierces the outer shell of what looks like a thick, leathery membrane. The blade sinks perhaps six inches before refusing to go any farther. I blink, confused. What could stop the Devil Killer? Was this not the Dark One’s heart?
The ‘heart’ contracts violently around the sword. I grunt as I tighten both hands around the hilt. It feels as though the weapon has suddenly become embedded in solid rock. I pull once. Nothing. I pull again with all my strength. The Devil Killer doesn’t move so much as a fraction of an inch.
The heart continues beating, louder than ever. Every thunderous beat slams through me like a giant’s fist, rattling my bones and making my vision blur. The immense black heart convulses beneath me, its thick crimson veins swelling until they now resemble tree saplings.
The Dark One’s voice echoes everywhere: “No!”
Except this isn’t going in as easy as I thought it would. There was no puff of black smoke like with his demons or bats or tentacles. This heart was resisting, fighting for its life.
Around me, the chamber suddenly lurches.
The floor buckles far below. The walls crumble.
Great chunks fall from the ceiling, narrowly missing me.
More black hands burst from every surface at once, clawing at me.
Tendrils whip down through the air. The demon birds return in a frenzy, diving from every shadow with screeches of pure fury.
The Devil Killer, now radiating angel light along the blade, inches deeper into the pulsating black flesh. Suddenly, the glow along blade intensifies as the light pumps directly into the dark heart. Soon, it spreads outward from the wound in thin, irradiate veins.
At first, there are only a few such veins. Then dozens. Then hundreds.
White-gold energy races away from the black heart and outward into the surrounding chamber, following pathways I hadn’t known were there.
Walls illuminate. Tendrils blaze. Even the bucking floor beneath me pulses with brilliant light, as though angel fire has entered the Dark One’s bloodstream and is spreading through every part of him. Which I have no doubt it has.
The Dark One roars. This time, there’s no mistaking it. He’s in agony.
“I made this place!” he cries out from everywhere. “I shaped every stone! Every creature beyond these walls bows before my will!”
“That’s the problem,” I say, straining to shove the sword even deeper. I plant both my Reeboks against the pulsing surface and flap my wings hard, driving the sword in even deeper. Finally, the Devil Killer moves. This time, all the way to the handle.
The Dark One screams, his cry filling the crumbling space completely, coming from everywhere at once. No longer does he sound like an all-powerful ruler of the Underworld. He sounds ancient and tired. And frightened.
The white light surges throughout the heart. Everywhere it passes, the beating muscle changes and seems to collapse in on itself.
Above, the monstrous tendrils shrivel in the light, withdrawing back into the ceiling. The demon birds simply vanish as though they never possessed any true substance to begin with. The grabbing hands disperse as well, melting back into the floor.
The heartbeat falters, its rhythm stumbling...
“I...” whispers the Dark One from seemingly right next to my ear. “I am tired.”
“Must take a lot of work running an evil empire.”
“I never saw myself as evil, Samantha. I just performed a role. A role I never asked for.”
“I know, pal. But it’s time for you to go. You’ve hurt a lot of innocent people.”
“I... I remember...” he says, his voice softer.
I frown. “Remember what?”
“What I was before...” He looks around the chamber, almost as if seeing it for the first time. “I was happy, Sam. I was good, And then, I found myself in this place... and I was so very different. I hated everyone.”
“Well, you’re about to go home.”
“To the Creator?”
“I believe so.”
“I’m afraid.”
“Maybe the Creator will be lenient with you.”
“No, no. I do not deserve it.”
His words hang between us. For just a moment, I don’t hear the entity behind eons of endless slaughter.
I hear a creature who had been consumed by the role forced upon him.
Compassion tugs at me as it always does.
But compassion only goes so far. I need only to think of little Salt Creek fighting for her life...
and the endless blood pumping into the disgusting rubbery teat.
So much blood, so much death...
I give the Devil Killer one last shove and twist. “Sorry, pal. It’s time to go.”
The heart splits in half. Brilliant white-gold light bursts out, blazing like a newborn star. The two halves drop to the convulsing floor below, where the Dark One lays face first, unmoving. Dead and dissolving before my eyes.