Chapter 25: The Devil Deals the Cards, Part 5

Chris sighed as the swaying of the carriage woke him up again. There was no way to sleep, but there was also no way to stay awake for long. He was too tired. It hadn't been an easy decision.

He knew that he had essentially turned his back on his surname and deprived his wife and children of countless privileges. But, with everything that had happened, he didn't want them to become his next victims.

It was common sense. It was natural for the people you loved most, but that hadn't made the decision any easier. However, now it was decided. He couldn't go back even if he crawled before his father and begged with his forehead on the ground, wagging his tail like a dog.

Now he had to face the consequences, good or bad.

It was afternoon. The evening sun still filtered through the windows and between the curtains. Even if night had fallen, it wouldn't have been easier for them to fall asleep. The plural was intentional, of course.

None of them had slept well, especially the little ones. Chris hadn't wanted to take them to the mansion in the first place, but that was the stupid rule of the Wright family conference. There were no exceptions for those who weren't of legal age, although they didn't count for anything anyway. Well, nobody's children participate, but...

It was nonsense and a waste of time. At least he had gotten that out of the way.

He looked into his wife's eyes. They were half-closed; she almost seemed asleep. Almost.

The little ones were in the same compartment, obviously, so it wasn't the best time to ask, to show weakness, doubt. Parents should be a rock for children in difficult times. They had plenty of time to grow up, mature, and realize that they were far from infallible. But...

He couldn't help it.

"Do you think we did the right thing?"

"I think we should have done it a long, long time ago," Valeria replied.

She often made him feel like an idiot by making everything seem so simple with just a few words. Chris sighed. She was right, as usual. This had been the trigger, but they should have left the Wright family a long time ago. He couldn't say it had only brought them problems.

Obviously, the lifestyle he led wouldn't have been possible without the achievements of his father and grandparents, the fortune they had amassed, but...

It was hard to say it had been worth it.

"The only good thing that came out of being born into this family was meeting you," Chris said, reaching out to take Valeria's hand.

She simply smiled, accepting, returning the squeeze.

She looked tired. She looked fed up with everything. She looked fearful, but fortunately that was over; they had left the mansion and all their fears behind. Yes, the only thing to regret was not having done it sooner.

An impact shook the entire carriage. Chris lurched forward. Valeria stopped him, putting a hand on his chest, and grabbed Claire while Chris reached out to prevent Ada from falling off the seat.

A stop too abrupt. What exactly had happened?

"Coachman..."

A horrible scream that chilled his blood shook the afternoon air. It was as if he had been transported to a completely different place that was the same, yet entirely different. In an instant, the light lost its brightness, or the shadows grew darker. In any case, a transformation had occurred that couldn't be undone.

"Be careful."

"Yes, yes. Stay in the carriage."

"Dad..."

"Right now, I'll be right back."

Chris stumbled out of the carriage.

Why were his legs shaking so much? Surely the driver had just crashed into a fallen tree in the middle of the road, maybe he had been distracted, drunk, half-blind from alcohol, maybe just asleep for a moment, losing control, maybe many things but the fact is that nothing had to happen.

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But something was happening and the coachman was there but the head was nowhere to be found.

Chris stepped back and crashed into the carriage suddenly as if it had changed places as if he hadn't known from the beginning that it had been there all the time and he had no idea what the coachman's name was another of the bad habits of the Wright family taking servants for granted seeing them as furniture.

Now he was no longer furniture.

He was nothing.

Just a piece of meat.

And they soon...

What?

The shadows had come to life. Three girls approached him. Under the moonlight, one might have believed they were the product of his feverish imagination and indescribable fear. But it wasn't night. It was afternoon and there was still a long time before the sun would set.

They seemed unreal, but in a completely different way. They weren't normal girls, of course, dark, sunken eyes, claws instead of nails.

Dresses made of human skin.

He vaguely understood thanks to the education he had received from the best private tutors in the kingdom.

That was an Acheri, a demon.

That's what countless lessons about demons, about the adversary, about Evil told him.

But Satan was in the cage and the infernal hordes should be sleeping with him, as they had done for the last six hundred years. Common sense told him that nothing made sense. Useless.

"What's happening?"

Was it Valeria's voice, his children's voice, or his own? In this situation, all three would sound equally shrill.

In this situation, he didn't have a solid idea of anything. To be sure his feet were touching the ground, even, he would have to look down.

"Run! Get out of here!"

Of that he was very sure, Chris shouted at the top of his lungs his desperate desire, even knowing, deep in his heart, that it was already too late. That his wife, as usual, was absolutely right. They should have left a long, long time ago, but it was too, too late.

Valeria came out of the carriage, carrying their children. That was the wake-up call Chris needed. He couldn't succumb to fear and despair, his wife didn't have her hands free, so the applications of her magic were limited to a certain extent. It wasn't as if she couldn't defend herself, but still

There was plenty of earth wherever he looked. One of the advantages of his specialty, although with progress it was vanishing, with each forest felled, each city that extended where nature once was, but what mattered is that here and now he was powerful. He wasn't even thinking about surviving, just buying time.

He raised the earth, making it rain on his enemies, to sweep them away, to bury them, to give them no respite.

It served no purpose, not in the least, the Acheri, those damned demons, passed through the earth as if it wasn't there.

One of them went for him, cornering him, the other, of course, went for his wife and children. Chris lamented (too late, like everything about this hell) having paid so much attention to business lessons, when what he should have really focused on were magic lessons.

He wasn't particularly powerful or talented, but maybe he could have changed the situation.

That's what he thought when the Acheri's claws dug into his chest, pushing him against the carriage. Chris opened his mouth to scream and nothing came out, not the slightest sound, only blood falling like a waterfall. Blood was falling from his mouth and the large hole in his chest.

The Acheri raised its other claw to finish the job. Its eyes were black from corner to corner. It had no eyes. Not really.

If he couldn't affect these creatures, at least he could... affect himself. He used magic to create a pillar of earth that shot from the ground, passed through the Acheri before it could finish him off, hitting him right in the chest.

And it moved him.

It made him fly and overturned the carriage, making it fall on one of those monsters. It was as useless as everything he had tried so far. Like a ghost, the upper half of the Acheri protruded from the carriage, and continued walking towards his family as if nothing had happened.

So much effort just to temporarily escape the demon's grip. It was approaching him as he lay on the ground. Because his legs were shaking. His legs were failing him. Even if he managed to get to his feet, he knew he wouldn't last long.

Not with a fucking hole in his chest.

Not when his organs were pressing against the wound, threatening to escape.

Not when there was so much damn blood.

He would slip, even if he managed to get to his feet, to lean on the carriage, he would slip and wouldn't get far.

Like his family now lost in the forest to throw off the demons.

They had gone into a place full of obstacles against enemies who could simply walk through them, after all.

Chris crawled forward, reaching out as if he could touch her, as if he could reach and change what was already written. Valeria was keeping them at bay with her magic, but he knew that wouldn't last long.

They would catch her, tear them all apart.

They had already disappeared into the forest, along with all the demons, except the one that was playing with him, so he wouldn't have to see what would happen. At most he would hear the screams. Although, of course, that was no kind of consolation, neither hot nor cold. The only hope he had left to cling to was to be the first to die, but he couldn't even be sure of that.

That Acheri seemed to want to play with its food.

His suspicions were confirmed in the next instant. Instead of ripping out his heart, cutting his throat, crushing his head, instead of the thousands of ways it could have killed him instantly, what it did was slash his chest again.

The pain almost provided him with the mercy of making him lose consciousness.

Of course, that would be too good to be true. It only left his mind blank for a few seconds. Ironically, in that state where he felt out of his body, he understood everything, the pieces fell into place suddenly, no, as if they had always been there.

Satan was still in his cage, but he wasn't the only monster he had learned about.

If the demons were active again, that had to mean that the Antichrist had risen.

Fear and despair abandoned him. Relief passed through his body like a painkiller, even.

Better to die here than for his family to have to go through a repetition of the dark age spoken of in history books.

They had made a good decision in leaving.

Leaving this world that would soon be ruined, that is.

The Acheri's claw fell like the executioner's guillotine and Chris received it with a smile on his face like the innocent child he was several decades ago.

The Devil Deals the Cards, Part 5: END