The Island, part 3

The Island

Part 3

Addu Island

Maldives

12:05 AM

Alex was not there. The consciousness of Alex Kyznetsov lay cradled in the mind of the Crone Mother, kept like a sleeping babe. Her yellow, jaundiced eyes glowed sick and ephemeral within the dark skull of Alex. A long tongue flicked tiny, deadly fangs as she smiled.

The shadow demon, Succor-Beleth, faltered beneath the weight of its true name. It sputtered like a fire exposed to rain and hissed.

The Crone Mother held it in place with little more than the force of her gaze.

"You!" the shadowy avatar of the devil shrieked. "Death's companion! The Witch of the Black Forest! What business have you here?!"

"Speak my name, and know that you have no power over me," The Crone Mother continued.

The two mystical forces stared at one another. The shadow demon seethed with hatred while the creature speaking from within Alex radiated cool condemnation.

"Baba-Yaga, thrice damned!" The shadow demon screeched.

Alex felt her head nod and smiled sleepily. The Crone Mother worked her lips and voice like a puppet.

"Run," She told Succor-Beleth.

Like pressurized air escaping, the shadow demon fled the desecrated church, blasting through a fracture crack in the ceiling and blanketing into the darkness of the night. In seconds, The Crone Mother and her sleeping vessel were alone.

Surrounded by corpses and carnage, the eldritch entity sighed and picked her way across the church to a gilded hand mirror. With trembling fingers, She picked it up and observed the fair features of Alex, smiling as she touched her soft, plump lips and fair skin. The feel of her body was diamond strong, but an ancient weariness sat about the Crone Mother, and her shoulders sagged with fatigue. She looked upon her vessel, then spoke the words that would return her to consciousness.

"Baba-Yaga, whisper wind. Eat the children, full of sin. Rage within the dying light. Darkness comes, time of fright."

Her voice was old and cracked, devoid of the power of youth that flowed through Alex, and the Witch of the Black Forest sighed. She could feel herself settling as if into bed, slipping down into the darkness of her vessel, into the strong, flesh shell that kept her. The world around her grew hazy and incoherent, and The Crone Mother closed her eyes, surrendering them to their rightful owner. With a last gasp, she returned the lungs and heart to Alex Kyznetsov and sank into sublime rest.

Alex came to with a scream. She silenced it immediately, one hand over her mouth, and shot to her feet. Her vampiric instincts told her she was alone, but the smell of blood was too much. It was thick and murky and covered the tiny church in a film of red. Her wide eyes narrowed at the priest's corpse, and understanding dawned on her.

She held a cracked mirror in her hands.

"Baba-Yaga," Alex whispered.

No answer came from her dark passenger, but Alex knew that the ancient witch had helped her. Why was another matter entirely.

In an instant, Alex was out of the red church and rocketing through the island foliage, dipping into darkness for speed, a shadow made of purpose. No sooner had she exited the grisly scene, she heard a familiar voice in her ear.

"Alex?! Damned interference. Alex? Are you there?"

"Bruce," Alex responded. She slowed to a stop. "I was...held up."

There was a long pause.

"Yeah, I can imagine," Bruce said after a moment. He sounded weary. "Can you make it to the drop point? I think I'm done playing this things game."

Alex took a moment to check her vitals. She'd fed earlier and hadn't spent much energy.

"I can make it. Is secrecy important?" She asked.

There was another long pause and the sound of something sizzling.

"I'll put it like this. In about ten seconds, secrecy will be someone else's job," Bruce said.

The transmission ended.

Alex rose from the shadows. Her eyes flashed red, and her limbs swelled with power. She tensed, feeling the strong, hard earth beneath her, and then took off, her eyes trailing crimson light.

* * *

Bruce was aglow with power. A smoking summoning circle, freshly laser burned into the island earth, shone before him.

"Excellent work, Bruce," the diminutive voice of Sia Hellsing chimed in his ears. "I couldn't have done it better myself."

The little AI danced before his eyes before vanishing in a shower of luminescent sparks.

"Sanguine, this is Knight-Captain. The Island is an infernal entity. We have its true name and a Hellsing-guided summoning circle. Field Commander Alex is en-route. Permission to proceed?"

Bruce waited for his message to be processed. The iron lord looked up at the moon, then reached into his vest pocket and produced a cigar. With autonomous ease, Bruce clipped it, lit it, and brought it to his lips.

The moon shone down on him, a silver-white eye partially encased in darkness. The werewolves believed it to be a tremendous spirit.

"You've got the best seat in the house," Bruce grumbled, exhaling a cloud of smoke to the heavens.

A flash of red drew his attention, but before he could finish turning, Alex was at his side, silent as death. A crimson aura of speed surrounded the young vampire like a shroud, empowering her limbs and granting her battle focus. Her kind called it Blood Magik, and though Bruce understood how it worked, he'd never felt comfortable seeing it in action.

Now, he was grateful for the silent killer's support and power.

Bruce opened his mouth to greet her but stopped. In the flickering glow of the summoning circle, Alex had two shadows. Not the sway of a shadow moving, but two completely separate shadows. One mimicked her motions; the other did not.

The Knight-Captain pretended not to notice.

"Good to see you in one piece," Bruce joked, noting the blood on her stealth suit.

"This?" Alex asked, gesturing to it. "Not mine, thankfully. What is going on?"

Bruce held up a hand for silence. The words 'incoming transmission' flashed across his HUD.

"This is Knight-Captain," Bruce said.

"Permission to proceed," the dark, silken voice on the other end said.

Charlotte Sanguine, Bruce realized.

"Oh, and Bruce?" Charlotte asked.

"Yes, sir?"

Charlotte Sanguine's smile was audible.

"Finish it before sunrise," She said.

The transmission ended, and Bruce looked at Alex.

"Are you ready to end the night's festivities?" Bruce asked. "we're gonna call it out. Put an end to it, whatever it takes."

Alex nodded. Her hands were a blur, and then she was armed. Two long serrated combat knives flashed in the night.

Bruce took that as all the answer he needed. With a large sigh, the Knight-Captain centered his attention on the glowing circle before him.

Before he could force the words from his metal lips, a figure in a blue three-piece suit came sprinting through the foliage, bursting onto the sandy beach like a figure possessed.

"Wait! The manager shouted, barrelling towards Bruce. "Wait!"

Alex took a step back and looked to Bruce for orders. The Knight Captain glared at the onrushing man. With the sound of steel sliding on steel, his Horus Mark-V combat pistol slotted into his waiting hand, and he raised it, aiming.

The manager didn't stop.

Bruce squeezed the trigger, and the pistol jerked in his powerful hand. The gunshot was loud, and a second later, the manager dropped to his knees, a smoking hole in his head.

"Bruce?" Alex asked.

"Watch," Bruce replied.

The bullet had lodged in the back of the manager's brain and began to hum. It pulsed and radiated heat, spiking in temperature with a high-pitched whine. The manager's eyes glossed over, but his hands quested towards its head.

They never made it.

Inside, the explosive round reached its breaking point and blew, sending chunks of skull and brain matter cascading across the beach. Some of it landed in the summoning circle and instantly caught ablaze.

Alex shirked away instinctively from the flame, but Bruce stared in disgust as what remained of the body began to wriggle and pulse. The skin writhed; as though the body's entire skeletal structure had just dissolved into a pile of slopping, messy flesh.

"I name thee demon! Succor-Beleth! Pale Rider!" Bruce hollered.

Avalon roiled. The island shifted and trembled, caught in the grip of a sudden earthquake. The ocean around it boiled, and the temperate, pleasant island night became a roaring storm, bending back palm trees and ripping chunks of earth into the air.

Bruce's scorched summoning circle expanded suddenly, growing to encase the convulsing puddle of skin. Like a prison of light, the runes on the circle rose as energy beams to form a shell around the wretched entity. It bashed and howled, a discordant, wailing sound that grated against the soul.

Alex put her hands to her ears to block it out. She didn't understand what she saw, but the Crone Mother did. Something was about to happen. Something big.

"Succor-Beleth! I call on you! MANIFEST!" Bruce roared into the storm.

Lightning cracked from the heavens and struck the shell of light. A blinding, silent explosion stole the color from the world, and for several seconds, there was only white.

Then sound came rushing back; with it, a tidal wave of color.

The midnight blue ocean churned as an infernal entity rose within the circle and merged with the surging sand. Trees around what remained of the summoning circle tore from the island, as though plucked by an otherworldly force and flew into the tornado of earth, breaking apart to form an enormous bark hide. Bonfire eyes crackled to life within the gigantic, shifting head of the creature, and it towered over the two Knights, rising from the very island itself. It clenched claws of thick trees and opened a leering maw of gnashing stone. Its bellow of challenge was the world crunching to ruin.

"Was this part of the plan?!" Alex screamed.

She dipped into darkness to avoid a pair of trees that flew by overhead, clobbering the demonic island and becoming one.

Bruce didn't answer. He stared with cold, seething hatred at the abomination before him and then put a hand to his ear to block out the noise. He reached out to command and felt the connection an instant later. Charlotte Sanguine was likely watching the entire event unfold through his eyes.

"Control," A voice on the other end said.

A Sanguine operator. Nameless. Faceless.

"Permission to let loose," Bruce asked.

The manifested demon tore free of the summoning circle. Bruce narrowed his eyes.

Next to him, Alex switched her knives to a golden pair gifted to her before the mission by the Sanguine Armory. The hilts were melted-down crucifixes, and the blades glinted majestically in the demon's firelight eyes.

Bruce felt a strange sensation, like a pinch to his ear, and then Charlotte Sanguine's commanding voice sounded in his head.

"Permission granted, within reason," Charlotte said. "You are allotted two cells, Bruce. We've jammed all other government satellites from view. The Island is yours. Make it pay."

Bruce smiled.

"I always do."

As Alex strafed to his side, Bruce called on the unholy alchemy that was his body and drew deep on the power reserves of a single power cell. His mighty body flared with energy, and his metallic skin took on an eerie, silver shine. His muscles swelled and grew more compact, and his steel eyes hardened. He shred free of his tactical vest as though the heavy material were paper.

Bruce retracted the Horus pistol into his enormous forearm and sprinted towards the rising monstrosity.

"Wait! What is the plan?" Alex called as Bruce sped past.

"No plan! Kill it with holy!" Bruce hollered over his shoulder.

A glowing bar, comprised of several interwoven smaller bars, appeared on the Knight-Captains spine, visible through his tattered muscle shirt. One of the bars, the one lowest on his back, drained a bit. It flickered, weaker than the others, and Alex surmised it was an energy tracker. Bruce was calling on supernal powers.

Alex watched with wide eyes as the manifested demon turned on Bruce, assessing the charging Knight. Bruce was fearless, drawing its total attention, and Alex took a step back to survey her opponent.

The demon was encased entirely in a surging hill of mud and palm tree armor. With blazing campfire eyes and a leering maw of stone, there wasn't a single weakness she could see.

"Damn," Alex muttered, her grip tightening on her blessed knives. "It doesn't have any weak spots!"

Her second shadow, the one belonging to The Crone Mother, Baba-Yaga, wagged a long, shaky finger at her.

"Every demon has a weakness, child," her voice, like rustling, dry leaves, whispered in her ear. "Remain perceptive. Trust your instincts."

Arm drawn back, Bruce launched into the air, a war-cry bellowing from his metal lips. The island was quick to react. It drew back an earthen appendage and battered into Bruce with the force of a small explosion. The Knight-Captain hit the ground hard but flipped with momentum and was back on his feet, sliding across the sand.

The demon's flaring eyes flicked to Alex, but she was gone, darting into the darkness of night as though it were a blanket. It roared in anger, but the vampire was nowhere to be found. Frustrated, it centered its attention on the rising Knight-Captain, just like Alex and Bruce wanted.

"You intend to face me? You?!" Succor-Beleth shouted, its voice a maelstrom of crashing rock.

Bruce stood tall against the monstrosity, his steel visage impassive. From the darkness to his left, Alex's voice floated.

"Why are you doing this?" Alex called over the rising storm. "What is the point?!"

Alex felt the sands shift beneath her feet and watched, spellbound, as Avalon came to a stop. Its posture shifted, and though the entity couldn't see her, she could feel its power roving through the night, piercing her soul and reading its contents. A strange, harmonic pulse sounded deep within her being, and she knew that Succor-Beleth could see everything.

Orphaned, alone. Lost.

Thief. Vagabond. Survivor.

Found. Abused. Betrayed.

Assembled. Consumed. Became.

"You have known suffering," the manifest demon rumbled. "You have been changed by grief, consumed by torment, yet you retain humanity. Despite your condition, humanity remains."

Bruce looked around for Alex, but he couldn't see her. She was nearby, he knew. The demon wasn't talking to him. The Knight-Captain shook the dirt from his shoulders and studied the twenty-foot-tall mound of living earth.

It climbed tall, exuding an aura of pride, and its cavernous maw rumbled. From deep within, the hellspawn's voice emerged.

"My summoning was botched by one of Lucifer's children, an ambitious youth named Riktor. His body became my imperfect vessel in the mortal world, and I rode that vessel until burnout," Succor-Beleth said.

Alex didn't understand why, but the demon was speaking to her, revealing the truth of its nature and origins as the Island. She could feel, in every fiber of her undead being, that this revelation was for her exclusively. Alex had asked, and Succor-Beleth answered. Whether that was because they knew his true name, or because it had read her soul, she knew not. In shadow, she watched, strafing closer; carefully.

"When Riktor could no longer contain my being, I knew that no mortal could. My summoner had possessed the blood of the First. If he could not sustain me, what could? The command came from Mephistopheles, of which I'm sure you have heard. Possess the island, the tempter of men told me. A person is temporary; a place is much more permanent."

Bruce had heard enough. His metal knuckles groaned with stress as he balled them into fists.

"You like being told what to do? How about this? Vacate the island voluntarily and return to Hell, or I'm going to send you there personally," Bruce demanded, stepping up to the enormous entity.

The island of Avalon pulsed with laughter. The uneven ground beneath the Knight-Captain began to shift and sway- pulled like the tide to the growing mass of Succor-Beleth. As a wave gathering to break, it swelled upwards, and Bruce prepared himself for the coming physical attack.

'Distance, child. Now!' The Crone Mother shouted suddenly in Alex's mind.

The vampire reacted instinctively, leaping back into the deep shadows of night and reappearing near the single road dominating the island. She could see a glow building in the maw of the horrid creature and a shiver of fear traced across her skin.

"Fire," Alex whispered.

As if on command, the island of Avalon keeled back and released a torrent of screaming flame and sand. Bruce had a second to raise his forearms to brace before an agonizing blaze engulfed his entire field of vision.

Alex watched in horror as a crackling, white-hot beam seared a line in the sands, cutting right over Bruce and carrying on, nearly to her. She threw herself to the ground to avoid the shrieking ray of death and rolled as it screamed nearby, carving a blazing trench in the island before finally peeling off.

In the silence that followed, Alex's predatory senses picked up the scent of fear amongst rising black clouds of smoke and the sound of screaming. She rose to her feet and followed the line of destruction with her eyes. It led straight to the hotel.

The elegant design of Avalon Hotel burned in the night, and the demons unwilling guests burned with it.

The fiend's cackle of elation was thunder in the night. It thrashed, gathering power for another salvo, but the sounds of the island had changed, and tragedy drifted near. Like the scent of blood to a shark, Succor-Beleth drew in the aura of suffering and knew that it had caused it.

Its campfire eyes widened in horror as the screams of the inhabitants of Avalon reached the manifested demon.

"No," It rumbled, gripping the earth as if in pain. "No!"

Furious, it centered its hellish gaze on the figure rising before it, and Alex put a hand to her mouth to suppress a gasp.

Bruce Carowitz, Knight-Captain of the Sanguis Custodes, rose to his feet. His body smoked and sizzled. His back to her, Bruce reached up and dug five metal fingers deep into his shoulder, then tore the blackened skin from his body. A shining, metal skeleton gleamed in the fire and moonlight, his electronic, green eyes pulsing with power.

The Knight-Captain's back was a shifting masterpiece of science and magic. A pair of jets began to manifest, spiraling together from parts stored deeper within Bruce's frame, merging and activating right before Alex's eyes.

Though she'd seen miracles thanks to Marcus Ashcroft, Alex had never seen anything like this.

Slowly, the manifested demon's gaze returned to Bruce.

"You," It said, crunching a titanic fist into a battering ram. "You should be dead."

Bruce cracked his neck from side to side and began to jog.

"Yeah," He said. "I get that a lot."

With a fiery explosion, the jets Bruce conjured roared to life, and the Knight-Captain kicked off, rocketing towards the demon of shifting sand and palm trees.

From the shadows, Alex watched. Her mind reeled from what she'd seen. The wails of the dying faded away, replaced by choking, then silence, and Alex studied the demon. Though its giant, earthen form betrayed little, there was sorrow in its sluggish movements. Its fury at being challenged was a flaw to exploit.

It cared for the inhabitants of the island. That was its true weakness.

The manifested demon and Bruce fought. His metal body absorbed punishment again and again, and always Bruce got back up. With a clang of fists and the scream of jets, Bruce dove back in.

Power surged through his enchanted limbs, and Bruce delivered a punch that sent the demon of sand, stone, and wood reeling back several feet. Surprise decorated its nightmare features, but Bruce wasn't done. An aura of determination radiated from him, and he cocked back his piston arm for a colossal haymaker.

"Open wide," Bruce said.

As his fist connected with the demon's massive jaw, his arm released a pressurized surge of holy water that sent the top-heavy manifestation form blasting back. Smoke spat and sizzled from the monster's disintegrating head, and it crashed into the surrounding ocean with a feral, panicked shriek.

The demon's colossal body dissolved as the salty ocean water consumed it. Slopping swaths of its mountainous form broke off and crashed into the frothing sea as it plunged and panicked. With a wild roar, the living island hurled itself back to shore, frantically, gathering sand and stone to replenish what was lost.

Its terror was palpable, and the Sanguine Knights could taste it.

'Fear,' The Crone Mother whispered in her host's mind.

Falling from the sky, Bruce landed on the shore with an iron thud. His powerful, metal frame absorbed the blow, and he rose autonomously, dropping into a combat stance.

Alex whistled low in appreciation of Bruce's monstrous strength. She'd heard the stories; everyone who worked for the Sanguine Government had, but seeing Bruce in action with her own eyes was something else.

'He might be stronger than Dakota,' Alex thought to herself.

A sound from behind drew her attention, and Alex turned, peering into the darkness of Avalon. Her vampire eyes pierced the night effortlessly, but what she saw gave her pause.

Behind her, marching in quiet, shambling droves, the trapped, lost people of the island gathered in legion. Like light to flies, they came for the fire burning in the manifested demon's eyes. The scent of blood was heavy on the air, and there was something else too- something sickly sweet and rotten.

'Decay,' The Crone Mother said quietly.

Her eldritch passenger was correct. Alex found her eyes drawn to lethal wounds on the mumbling horde and puddles of brackish blood left behind in their wake. Their hearts beat slow and sluggish, a sound entirely unappealing to Alex, and her lips curled in disgust.

'This is horrible,' Alex thought. 'These people should have died long ago. They dance past exhaustion and harm one another for pleasure. Death would be a mercy.'

The legion fixed its attention firmly on Bruce and the island abomination. Their glassy eyes hardly flitted in Alex's direction, and when they did, they saw only darkness. Alex wrapped the night tighter about herself and reached behind her for a pouch on her waist. Deftly, she reached inside until her hand closed around a small, metal, circular object.

She drew it out with a surge of adrenaline. In her mind, Baba-Yaga hissed with pleasure.

'A gift from the watchers,' The Crone Mother cackled. 'Delicious, modern violence.'

Alex said nothing. She could feel the secondary emotions of her patron surging through her like electricity, and she shuddered, drawing on her power. The blood she'd drunk earlier lit within like kindling. Her limbs flexed with tremendous, otherworldly capability- a death knell for demons.

With a gentle click, Alex brought the holy hand grenade she'd borrowed from the Sanguine Armory to life. It lit from within with a soft white glow and pulsed in her hand with a divine warmth. It could kill her and everyone she loved in a single blast.

The world around Alex slowed as she burst into motion. Time stood still, unable to match the speed of the empowered vampire. Bruce was a rising mass of metal, sizzling in the night. She passed him in a blur, slowing just enough to be registered by his Ashtech eyes.

Her boots hardly touched the sand as she ran. Alex dashed through the long, deep shadows, emerging in the silhouette of the demonic island. With practiced movements, she sprinted up the mountainous leg, tearing little footholds in its sandy hide. Alex hurled herself through the trees of its chest and into the night sky, kicking from the island into a waiting blanket of stars.

For a moment, Alex Kyznetsov hung there, an angel of darkness, the pulsing grenade of blessed death suspended in the air like a halo. She held it tight in one hand and aimed.

Below her, the monstrous entity reeled. It grasped futilely for the tiny thing that had just sprinted up its body and launched into the air. Within, Succor-Beleth raged, and the churning, stone gullet of its island avatar opened, bugling a stony challenge.

Alex was more than happy to answer. The power she'd been channeling coalesced in her arms, and she threw the glowing hand grenade just as it emitted a helpful, warning beep.

"Blessed be," Bruce grumbled.

The tiny metal sphere of light grew brighter and brighter as it fell, rocketing through the night sky like a shooting star. Down into the stone maw of the colossal demon island, it shot- vanishing from sight. Alex spiraled through the air and dipped into the crashing ocean waves behind the demon just as a blinding flash of light turned night into day.

Even from below the waves, Alex could tell the effect was brutal.

The gathered sand and palm tree form burst open. Campfire smoke billowed from the collapsing things burning chest. Chunks of heated rock and wood shot across the island of Avalon, felling members of the spellbound horde as they stumbled steadily towards the site of the conflict.

From the darkness of the water, Alex slipped into shadow. The world become one of possibility, and she moved through it until she found the mighty silhouette she was looking for. One hand on his back to let him know it was her, Alex stepped from behind Bruce and back into the world of light and motion.

"Sanguine didn't authorize the use of holy hand grenades," Bruce grumbled, smiling wryly despite himself. "How did you get that?"

Alex smiled coyly and crossed her arms.

"Trade secret, and besides, you know what they say. Better to ask forgiveness than permission."

Bruce grunted.

"Can't argue with that."

The demonic manifestation of living island was falling apart. Its campfire eyes flashed wild as it clawed at itself in an effort to stay together.

"Let's put this thing to rest," Bruce said, striding towards it.

The Knight-Captain cocked his fist, reloading another pressurized, holy water punch, and his arm crackled with power.

Succor-Beleth moaned futilely, but his sand and tree form was failing. Like a top-heavy toddler, the massive skull tilted toward Bruce, who caught it in one hand and held it there. Bruce looked deep into the smoking eyes, nodded to himself, and drove his empowered fist through the skull, blasting chunks of palm tree into the night.

The resounding boom shook the island. Demonic speech, a language both guttural and strangely beautiful, tumbled from its sloping maw. Alex didn't understand it, but her passenger did, though what meaning Baba-Yaga gleamed, she kept to herself.

Bruce lifted what remained of the things collapsing head and raised his fist.

"How long are we gonna do this? Don't you want to leave with some dignity!" He hollered, preparing to strike.

Alex drew a world of darkness about her shoulders and slipped into invisibility like one donning a night robe. Her blades flashed in the night, and she spun them into a combat stance. On instinct, she turned within, sensing the Crone Mother. Her dark matron wagged a finger 'no' and, in her mind, whispered, came the word "watch."

The Crone Mother had always been there for her. Without hesitation, Alex remained hidden, her keen eyes trained on the shifting monstrosity. Whatever was about to happen, her dark passenger wanted her to witness.

Like a used carapace, the sand and stone conjured body of Succor-Beleth split open. Light and music spilled forth as if from a different dimension, and something unquestionably beautiful stepped into the world.

On cloven hooves, Succor-Beleth set foot proper on Earth. He stared at Bruce impassively, with eyes of black sunlight. A twisted halo of undulating energy circled its head. Gently, as if coming to terms with his magnificence, the infernal lord spread two sets of flaming wings and extended its arms toward the Knight-Captain lovingly. The demon's face was perfect and radiant, but its dark eyes flashed with apocalyptic power.

Alex could feel those eyes as they passed over her, pushing, probing. A cool hand on her shoulder let her know that she was not alone, and together, Alex and the Crone Mother remained hidden, cloaked in night.

Anger settled over the dark lord like a setting sun, and the infernal noble sneered.

To be continued....

Alex and Bruce will return in The Island 4