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  He leapt over the body to the outside only to find all trace of the horde gone…and with them, Kelly.

  “They’d have cloaked as humans and blended into the passersby.” Ryan said, placing a hand on Geoffrey’s shoulder.

  Damnation. What was he to do now?

  Interlude 2

  The cosmic ether swirled like mist around him. Nathan Gray was home. Not that he lived here or would ever want to live here again. The ether was too far removed from humanity for his tastes. This was the realm of his parents. The place they lived, blissfully unattached from those beings they were responsible for—people who suffered each day from his parents’ neglect.

  The wall still held firm, dividing this portion of the cosmic ether into his side and hers. His father was in his workroom engrossed in some project that would, no doubt, bring him notoriety and followers. Nathan could only hope it didn’t involve too many deaths.

  Gaia was in her garden and seemed more approachable, so Nathan went to her first.

  “Mother.”

  Beautiful as a moon drenched night, the woman was also cold as a glacial expanse. Nathan expected little of his mother and usually received just that.

  “Nathan,” she answered, “It is so good to see you. It’s been an age since you visited.”

  It was a more pleasant welcome than he’d expected and it gave him an opening. “We need to talk.”

  The goddess seemed approachable which instantly put Nathan on his guard. The last time they’d spoken he’d been short with her. Demanding. He’d gotten what he’d wanted, the release of Geoffrey le Courte, and he’d had to give nothing in return. At least, nothing he hadn’t already planned to give.

  “Of course, we need to talk, darling boy, of course.” There was a twinkle in her eye as she looked at him. “But first let me show you what I’m working on. I’m really quite proud of it.”

  She held out her hand and a potted plant appeared in her palm out of the nothingness. “Do you know what this is?” She was smiling, almost beaming with pride.

  “No, mother,” Nathan answered. He’d have to humor her or he’d never be able to press his own agenda. “What is it?”

  He could have discovered the plant’s properties with a simple probe. But his mother would sense it and probably become annoyed with him. She would tell him in her own way, in her own time.

  “Well, you know that AIDS thing down there. Terrible, terrible business and all.”

  It was reassuring to know that she did look down on Earth occasionally and see real problems.

  “This,” she continued, “is the cure.”

  Nathan nodded and smiled. “Mother, that’s wonderful.”

  It really would be a wonderful thing but, with his mother involved, would people ever find it and use it. She tended to hide new creations away, content to wait centuries for their unearthing. He remembered how her creation of penicillin had taken over a thousand years to be discovered by humanity.

  “I’m really very excited about the whole thing.”

  Nathan knew he was being baited, but he played along. In the back of his mind he really did want to know. Maybe he could push the whole discovery process along. “So, where are you planting it?”

  Most likely in the heart of the Amazon jungle, an undiscovered oasis in the Sahara Desert, or the in the deepest part of the Mariana Trench, it would not have surprised him in the least.

  “There is this lovely glade in upstate Oregon, where I have quite a few herbalists working. I expect one of them will stumble across it yet this year.”

  That did take Nathan by surprised. Was his mother actually taking into account the needs of the human race? Was she starting to care?

  “Now Nathan, it was so good of you to visit, but I’m afraid I really must fly. There is this whole Israel thing that your father has made quite a mess of. I have decided to straighten that out next.” Nathan felt the light brush of a kiss on his cheek.

  “Mom, not again,” Nathan said, but she was already gone.

  While he agreed that the whole Israel thing was a mess, a chill ran up his spine at the thought of his mother mucking about there. The whole Gnostic fiasco was still causing waves. He’d conjectured long ago that the Middle East was probably just following along some major, thousand-year plan of his father’s and he knew better than to step into the middle of one of those.

  He sighed. His mother did tend to flit about from one thing to another. Hopefully she’d lose interest in the Middle East before too long. In any case he’d just have to catch up with her later. It was time to face his father.

  “Nathan,” his father said as he entered the workroom, “you have to see what I’m working on.”

  It had been over two hundred years since he’d even seen his father, yet there was no greeting, no asking how he was. Just look what I’m doing. Well, his father hadn’t changed.

  On the worktable sat a four-dimensional model of a large building. Three stories high, the massive steel and glass structure rested on an asphalt and concrete campus with various outbuildings and almost no vegetation. The big sign at the parking lot entrance read: Brotherhood of the Scarlet Cross AIDS Treatment Facility.

  “People will be so thankful to me for all the relief this facility will bring. Lots of prayers and praise as they visit loved ones in treatment.” His father looked smug.

  The building looked more like a shrine than a research facility—a monument to medical advancement. Then again, it seemed the way modern medicine was headed anyway. Why should this building be any different?

  “So, where is this structure being built?” Nathan asked, but he already suspected the answer. The war that continued to be waged between his mother and his father had become almost predictable.

  “There’s this small, under-used patch of forest in upstate Oregon that would be just perfect. The timber cutting permits will be secured within the week, and they’ll start clearing the space very shortly.” The gleam in the god’s eye told Nathan everything he needed to know. It would be useless but he felt the need to press the High Lord.

  “On the exact spot where mother has planted the cure for AIDS, you are constructing a treatment facility?”

  The High Lord waved his hand, dismissively.

  “Oh, that woman and her cures. Will she never learn that you gain nothing by curing diseases? A cure is so easily forgotten once implemented.

  “Just look at smallpox. Who today even thinks about smallpox being cured? In its day the disease was a wonderful source of prayer and worship. What good did the cure do her?

  “But a treatment? Now, that will bring them back again and again to relieve the suffering and pain. It will become a constant reminder of all I do for them. It’s no wonder your mother is losing worshipers. She gives them everything they want.”

  The High Lord chuckled, then his expression changed. “Drat that woman,” his father said. “Now she’s decided to meddle in the Middle East again.”

  Without even a goodbye, his father vanished.

  Nathan stood in the empty heavens and sighed.

  Mob, mafia, gang - that would be the best way to describe a demon lair. The Ballor lord would be Godfather (though god-forsaken would be closer to the truth). – Richard Webb, Arcanist Archivist, 1979

  Chapter 8

  Kelly awoke disoriented and with a pounding headache. She was lying on a cold, bare concrete floor. There was groaning around her. She forced open her eyes and saw the other women with her on the floor. Some she recognized as Templars she’d been fighting with at the old church.

  “Get up, you slugs.” The husky feminine voice held a tinge of contempt.

  Kelly’s mind and vision were still fogged. She had to fight to bring the female Ballor demon into focus. Next to the demon was a pile of clothing. It was then that Kelly realized that she and the other women had been stripped.

  “My lord is busy at the moment but my sons will be in to service you shortly,” the demon said with a laugh. “The boys so enjoy th
emselves in the harem. Welcome to your new life, ladies. Get used to it.”

  The demon gathered up the pile of clothing and headed for the door. “Maybe I’ll donate these to your little homeless shelter.” The Ballor was chuckling as she exited the room.

  It took everything Kelly had, to fight the after-effects of the Kolthas poison but there was some power she could draw on here. She sensed an arcane pool nearby. As she concentrated, her fist began to glow. It would probably not be enough to kill, but the next demon that came through that door would get everything she had. She’d be damned if she was going to go down without a fight.

  “Don’t.” A whispered word behind her and a hand on her shoulder caused her to pause her casting. “Don’t draw their attention to you. It will only make things worse. Everything will be okay.”

  Okay?? They were in a demon lair! Worse yet, a freaking demon harem, and momma demon was about to send her boys in to rape them! There was nothing okay here.

  Kelly’s study of the demon culture had given her intimate details of what went on in a demon harem. On paper it was interesting. In reality it was terrifying.

  “Jane, Kelly, move toward the back of the room.” It was the woman who had spoken to her before, moving to stand in front of her now. “The Ballor tend to be lazy and will probably just grab the woman closest to the door. We’ll give you as much time as possible.”

  The woman gently pushed Kelly toward the back wall, then took up a position at the closest point to the door. Kelly clearly saw the terror in her eyes. This woman had been here before. She knew what she was in for. As the woman turned to face her fate, the door once again flew open.

  A Ballor Lord strode in confidently. His evil, lust-filled grin had hatred and disgust fisting in Kelly’s stomach. Grabbing the woman’s arm, he dragged her from the room. Kelly closed her eyes but she couldn’t block out the sounds of the cold metallic clunk of the door closing and the woman’s terrified screams beyond it.

  * * *

  Geoffrey had surprised himself with the speed at which he had jumped into the back seat of the big black automobile when it had pulled into the parking lot of the old church. Without a second thought, he’d seated himself and slammed shut the door. His fear was still there but he also knew that this would be the fastest way to reach Kelly. In that moment, she was more important than his fears.

  Ryan Chamberlain sat in the front passenger seat, checking a strange hand-held device and directing the driver as the dozen black vehicles sped through the city.

  “Each Templar has been injected with a tracer,” Ryan explained. “This unit will lead us right to the demon lair. We have had great success lately finding some of the local lairs by letting our people get captured. As far as I know the demons haven’t caught on to our tactics yet.”

  “But Kelly has no such tracer,” Geoffrey reminded him. The fear knotting his stomach had him wondering how Kelly had come to mean so much to him in such a short time.

  “She should be with the others. I’m picking up all their signals and they have not been separated.”

  On the outskirts of town, the group turned on to a private drive that led into a large estate on the lakefront. The building was stately and spoke of old money—lots of old money. This demon lord was living high. But that wasn’t surprising. A Ballor Lord’s extended life and conscienceless activities tended to amass huge amounts of wealth for the demon.

  The vehicle train stopped and Ryan sent what he called a team of snipers into the surrounding woodlands. Through the trees, Geoffrey spotted a massive estate. Soon afterward, a series of thwips sounded, then the men returned to report the outer guards had been taken care of. Geoffrey noted that these Templars had attached a small cylinder to the end of their weapons which appeared to make the weapons extremely quiet.

  Geoffrey had been in demon lairs before, hundreds of years ago, but his guess was that not much had changed. The outer and more accessible rooms would be filled with the lesser demon types. They would have to fight their way through this force to reach the Ballor Lord. The more powerful demon lords could control hundreds of minor demons. Hopefully they had decimated this particular horde in the battle at the old church, but surely there would be guards to face inside the large structure. The outer rooms would be protecting the sanctuary of the Ballor where they would find the demon lord, his lady, and family. Behind the main chamber, and only accessible by going through it, would be the slave quarters and harem. That is where Kelly and the other women would most likely be.

  Human slaves of the Ballor had a hard life. Male slaves, and women not of child-bearing age, were underfed and worked long hard hours for their Ballor masters. They were also tortured and molested by the demons. Rarely did a male slave live longer than a year in captivity as they were literally worked to death.

  While better fed and cared for, a younger female slave’s lot was much worse. From all the information he had gathered over his years of demon hunting, he’d formed a very clear picture of the strange mating habits of the demon lords. After crossing over to our world, the Ballor had discovered that breeding with human females produced what were now known as the lesser demon types.

  Male Ballor were insatiable and would amass as many female slaves as possible. These poor women would be repeatedly raped by the Ballor lord and his sons, forced to bear offspring continually. The pregnancy was painful for the women. Each minor demon would be born intensely loyal to his Ballor sire and mature to battle readiness in less than two years’ time. In this way the Ballor lord would always have a continuous stream of soldiers at his disposal.

  That Kelly could be, at this moment, in a Ballor harem; sent chills down his spine. How could he have let her be taken? He should never have left her side.

  The Templar force, skilled in their craft, emptied from the caravan and went immediately on the offensive. This was no police force, handcuffed by rules and regulations. This was a death squad and the demons were their targets.

  They covered the back entrances and entered quietly through the open front door. Geoffrey was one of the first to enter. In the entry a young man, naked and skeletally thin, was polishing an expensive-looking carved wooden table. A Kolthas demon stood over him with a whip raised to strike. A hail of gunfire ended the demon’s existence. The young man was helped up and taken to safety outside as the bulk of the assault group moved quietly into the mansion. Cold and efficient, the Templar team began to move methodically through the complex, their silenced firearms rarely drawing attention from demons outside the room they were clearing.

  Room by room they moved—silent and deadly. A large kitchen facility yielded three more dead demons and five more slaves. The emaciated men were escorted out of the house to where the Templars were setting up a triage station.

  They next encountered a great-room area that contained over a score of the lesser demons. A cry went up and alarms began to blare throughout the complex. The Templar force cleared the room with few injuries of their own then hurried on. There was no longer a reason for stealth. Orders were shouted as boots pounded the flooring.

  They found no sign of the women anywhere on the upper floors, but rescued more slaves—five men and three old women. This meant that the main Ballor quarters and the harem would be on the building’s basement level, not an unusual arrangement for a demon lair.

  Fueled by his anger and fears, Geoffrey led the attack down the stairway. At the bottom he ordered the group to split up and cover more ground in the large estate basement. He chose a hallway at random and plunged on.

  No longer surprised that Kelly was foremost in his thoughts, he search for any trace of her, accepting that, in his short time back on Earth, she’d become precious to him—his friend and something more. Something he’d need to ponder once he found her.

  Ignoring the opulence of the basement living area, he hacked demon after demon with his sword, blasting his way through doors with beams of divine energy when necessary, looking for the Ballor Lord, the slave quart
ers, and Kelly.

  “We found them commander,” came a voice behind him. “This way.”

  He was led through a series of doorways to a great chamber that reminded Geoffrey of a throne room of old. Exquisite paintings hung on the walls next to large, flat panel video displays. Ornate objects of every kind cast in gold and silver, studded with precious stones, rested on expensive tables and shelves. Large stone sculptures decorated nooks in the wall. The furniture in the room was of the highest quality and craftsmanship and included four large padded chairs on a raised dais. To three of these chairs were tied the Ballor lord, his lady and one of his sons. The fourth throne stood ominously empty.

  The huge orange skinned, scaled creatures had reptilian heads with long horns sticking out of their foreheads, long taloned claws, and great, purple, bat-like wings. The lord, his lady and son struggled at the bonds that held them while glaring at the assembled knights.

  An older, white-haired knight was casting an orb of power around the Ballor lord while questioning him. After a few tense moments the interrogator sighed. “I’m sorry commander, this one has no knowledge of the whereabouts of the Demon Gate.”

  That brought Geoffrey up short. He’d been so intent on rescuing Kelly, he’d almost forgotten about his quest to find and destroy the gate. Obviously, Ryan Chamberlain had not.

  “Damn,” Ryan said, “I had hoped a Ballor with this much fortune and power would be better connected.”

  “We’ve located the slave quarters,” came a shout from a doorway to Geoffrey’s right.

  That’s where Kelly had to be. He prayed she’d be alright. He started to move toward the doorway.

  “Then it looks like our work here is almost done,” Ryan said.

  Geoffrey stopped, casting an angry glare at the three Ballor demons. “Surely you don’t leave the Ballor alive?”

  How did these modern Templars deal with defeated demon lords?

  “Well, yes and no,” Ryan answered with a smile. “We leave the Ballor to the slaves. Their fate is put purely in the hands of those they’ve abused. Now, I may be wrong, but I don’t recall any time that the slaves took mercy on them. I suppose there could always be a first time.”