Page 35 of Helsing: Demon Slayer (The Dragon’s Paladins #1)
Within moments, he heard Dianne’s quiet breathing and knew she’d fallen asleep. It reassured him to know that he made her feel secure enough to do that, and some of his own tension at the tenebrous Sword of Damocles hanging over them drained from him.
It didn’t last. It was almost as if letting down his guard with Dianne let the daemons in.
The change was almost imperceptible at first—a subtle shift in the hum of the Defender’s engine.
Ryan tensed, glancing toward the faintly glowing dashboard.
András, sitting rigid in the front passenger seat, opened his eyes suddenly, his hands still pressed against the dashboard.
The harmonic energy he’d been channeling flared briefly, casting eerie shadows around the cabin before dimming again.
The young warfighter Edvard, new to the Elioud cause, glanced between his superior officers and the opaque windows, his gaze tight with worry but edged with calculation.
“What’s wrong?” Ryan asked, keeping his voice low so as not to wake Dianne.
András didn’t answer immediately. He tilted his head, as if listening to something far away. His jaw clenched, and he let out a slow, measured breath. “They’re closer.”
Ryan’s stomach sank. He shifted slightly, pulling the thermal blanket higher over Dianne’s sleeping form, and peered out the window again.
Night pressed against the glass, thick and suffocating.
It felt almost alive, a heavy presence that made the skin of his neck tighten all the way to his temples where it drilled into his brain.
“Define ‘closer,’” he said, his voice tight.
András turned his head just enough for Ryan to catch the faint glow in his eyes, a sign of the Elioud ’s heightened awareness. “Close enough to taste our fear.”
The words hit like a punch to the gut. Before Ryan could respond, a sharp, grating noise pierced the night—metallic and shrill, like claws dragging across the Defender’s roof. The vehicle shuddered violently, throwing Dianne against him. Her eyes flew open, wide with terror.
“What–what’s happening?” she asked, clutching at him.
“Stay down,” Ryan said, his tone brooking no argument. He pressed her closer, his own heart pounding as the noise intensified. It wasn’t just claws now; it was a cacophony of scraping, hissing, and a low, harsh growl that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere all at once.
András snarled back and struggled, as if wrestling with an invisible force, his face twisting in effort.
The air hung heavy with the scent of ozone.
Sparks emitted from his fingers and the tips of his hair, while acrid smoke drifted to obscure his face.
The console lights and the headlights wavered erratically, dimming and brightening as if power surged and receded with the battle.
Next to him, Beta struggled to maintain control of the Defender, a shimmering dance of colored light linking her to her husband.
The vehicle lurched forward, the engine groaning as if under immense pressure.
Outside, faint, shadowy shapes flitted just beyond the range of the flickering headlights—twisted, insectile forms that moved too quickly to be clearly seen.
Ryan tightened his grip on Dianne. His mind raced, calculating options, but there was nowhere to go, no way to fight back. The Locusts were here, and he could feel the malevolent presence of their master, the Dark Angel of the Abyss, like a boulder crushing his chest.
Against reason, he said, “We have to—” But his words were cut off by a deafening crack as something heavy slammed onto the hood of the Defender.
András shouted, a visceral cry for victory against an overwhelming foe to keep the vehicle running. Ryan had never seen the giant Elioud so stretched to the limits, not even in the Elioud ’ s epic battle against the kulsheder and a host of daemonia last December.
Beta swerved violently, narrowly avoiding the edge of a steep drop into the blackness below.
Ryan’s world contracted to two thoughts: keep Dianne safe and survive long enough for the intervention he didn’t know he was hoping for.
Outside the SUV’s windows, dimly lit sky pulsed as if the black heart of an enormous monster beat in irregular contraction.
Forks of sickly green and amber rent the air around the armored vehicle, which had once seemed so sturdy.
In between flashes, Ryan glimpsed trees swaying in a mighty wind.
The Defender itself slid sideways while Beta wrangled the steering wheel to keep it on the road.
And then a brutal rhythmic chant began unlike anything he’d ever heard before.
No, scratch that. It sounded like an Army march, a Gregorian chant, and a dark club-dance mix rolled into one stomach-churning choral assault. A low, unholy voice led a deep male choir in a call-and-response that raked down his spine and raised his hair.
He caught the words libera tenebrae and tenebrae vincit . He didn’t know much Latin, but he knew tenebrae meant darkness and vincit meant conquers.
He had a bad feeling about this.
The turbulence abruptly halted. The night sky brightened into a surreal sepia-toned landscape to reveal a massive, obsidian creature with wicked spurs and spikes protruding from its head, thorax and abdomen.
That wasn’t the disturbing thing about this locust.
It was the human head wearing a crown.
Abaddon, Dark Angel of the Abyss, stood on the mountain highway before them.
The Defender skidded to a halt, its headlights catching the gleaming obsidian of Abaddon’s armor and the horrifying crown-topped human head.
Behind him, the rhythmic chant reached a crescendo, fueling a surge of blackened locusts that spilled across the road in a writhing tide.
They swarmed toward the SUV, their wings emitting sharp, metallic clicks that pierced the night like daggers.
András snarled, launching himself from the vehicle before Ryan could react, his harmonic energy igniting in a radiant arc as he slammed his palm into the ground.
The force sent shockwaves through the writhing mass, scattering the Locusts momentarily, their screeches blending with the chant as if enraged.
Beta followed without hesitation, the shimmering bond between her and András intensifying to a blinding brilliance as she joined the fray.
Edvard dropped to a knee behind an open door of the Defender, his tactical gear flaring in response to the harmonic threat.
He launched a swarm of gnats, the nanodrones that Miró had created as a force multiplier against a larger number of enemy combatants.
They locked onto the multi-modal harmonic frequencies of the Locusts, bombing them with stinging harmonic rain designed to disorient.
Ryan protected Dianne instinctively as the swarm closed in again, forcing him to scramble for something—anything—that might hold the daemon locusts at bay.
His chainmail flared into brilliance, shielding both him and Dianne in dense protective harmonics.
He scarcely had time to note that the chainmail’s strength had far exceeded its designed limits before Abaddon took a single step forward, his voice booming over the din.
“Bring them to me!” Abaddon’s funereal voice echoed around the windswept mountains. The Locusts shifted direction almost as one, their focus now locked onto the Defender. The chant transformed, turning throaty and violent, each word striking Ryan like a hammer to the chest.
The vehicle trembled as the swarm battered against its exterior, the windshield spiderwebbing under the relentless assault.
Ryan braced himself, adrenaline surging as he prepared to fight—for Dianne, for the team, for survival—knowing full well that even Demon Slayer wasn’t enough against the Angel of the Abyss but refusing to let that stop him.
The Defender’s occupants braced for the worst as Abaddon’s towering form loomed, his obsidian armor glinting in the flickering green and amber light.
The rhythmic chant of the Locusts became unbearable, reverberating in the bones, each syllable heralding doom.
The Locusts surged forward, their spiked forms like a relentless tide of oil.
And then, cutting through the chaos, came a new sound—a commanding chorus that rose like a beacon and echoed from the surrounding slopes.
The deep, resonant power of Gregorian chants filled the air, piercing the oppressive gloom.
It was not the soul-crushing chant of Abaddon’s horde, but a harmony suffused with strength and light.
At the sound, the Locusts abruptly halted, screeching in agony, their heads thrown back and their maws gaping.
From the ridge above the road, they appeared—twelve mounted donats in black tactical gear, their modern armor gleaming with harmonic sigils.
At the center rode Elias Klum, his steely gaze fixed on the battle, the white cross of the Order emblazoned over his breastplate.
The donats bore harmonic shields that glowed faintly, their chant gauntlets emitting bursts of pure light with every verse they uttered.
Blade-like ribbons of radiant energy unfurled from their bracers, rippling and snapping like living strands of polychromatic lightning.
Behind Elias rode a mid-twenties male who bore a strong resemblance to Olivia and Dianne, Michael Markham, whom Dianne had called a ‘tech-finance bro.’ Olivia and Dianne’s younger brother still wore the rumpled polo and khakis he’d traveled in, now overlaid with a shimmering tunic.
He looked dazed but determined, gripping his mount’s reins with one hand.
At his hip hung a mysterious shining orb and tucked in his belt was a chant gauntlet, far too advanced for him to understand, but carried, nonetheless.