Inner Demon: The Dark Bloods - Book I ✓

Chapter 36 - Pull of Caged Flames

36.

Pull of Caged Flames

 

Mundus felt his chest erupt with lava. The hot river oozed through the curved bones that was his ribcage and dripped down on his heart. He brought a hand up to his chest only to touch the rough wisp of tattered fabric.

“Mundus?” Cerus voice sounded far away. “Do you also…”

A new sensation vibrated through him. The lava was gone and replaced by a weaving piece of thread. It encircled his heart and started to pull. The direction was felt as clear as the tug of a hand on his own. She was calling him.

“Reyna’s whereabouts are known to me,” he abruptly said, interrupting a conversation Cerus and Erian had started.

The two demons stared at their prince. He was facing north, his hand hovering over his chest. Cerus and Erian glanced at each other, an unspoken sign wavering in their brief stares.

“Go then,” Cerus spoke to Mundus. “We can handle this. I can’t leave Flow alone here anyways. He hasn’t healed yet.”

Mundus gave him a queer look.

Erian pointed east. “You do not sense them? The demons that approach. They are Ram’s and mostly of the lower level.”

Mundus peered at the direction he indicated. Their approach was clear and unhidden. The tug at his heart grew faint with his attention drawn elsewhere, but it was still there. Mundus was definite in his belief that it would never completely fade away until he found Reyna.

“Master?” Lina’s voice buzzed unpleasantly in his head.

At the moment, I do not wish—

“But Master!”

Her interruption silenced him into shock. She had never interrupted him before. Even when scolded harshly or slapped severely she never intervened in anything Mundus said or did. She received all from him dutifully.

At the moment there was searing pulse from her, a bubbling worry. What Lina had to say was important enough that she interrupted the person she worshiped. However, within her urgency was also fear and it was making her hesitate.

“Master,” she spoke up softly and slowly. “Muh–Master. This one…this one—”

I shall not hear you speak, insolent Spirit! Mundus mentally snapped at her and she obeyed.

“I shall take off in search for Reyna,” he said out loud to his demonic companions, ignoring Lina’s growing apprehension. 

“I will remain here and help Cerus fight off these pathetic demons,” Erian said. The approaching demons were small, charging dots on the horizon. The urban isolation would provide more than appropriate room to quickly dispose of them.

Mundus grinned. “Though my desire to slay is great, I—”

“I’m going too.”

Another interruption. Two too many.

Mundus whirled to face the direction of the voice though he already knew who had spoken. A fully healed Dante stood with his sword in his hand over the spot where a few minutes ago had been his grave. His trim frame was as if new and much of that toned body was exposed through his torn clothes. The bottom half of his shirt was gone, the top almost too tattered to hang on his shoulders. His jeans were in better shape. One leg had a huge hole that exposed his knees and upper thigh. The other leg had become shorts.