Tainted Blood . Amy Blankenship

toward the self-deluded power source he had discovered.

      Yes, self-deluded was the perfect term for this power. It felt very confident, sure of its claim in the darkness and Craven approached it almost happily. He walked down the sidewalk taking in the silent screams of agony, and the pain that accompanied it.

      The few females he encountered walked past him, giving him longing looks but keeping their distance… almost falling off the edge of the sidewalk into traffic, or nearly pressing their backs against the walls of the buildings.

      The males were no different except their expressions were anything but longing. Fear and hatred seemed to flow from their very pores when they looked at him. He’d learned long ago that mortal women thought he was beautiful and the men were jealous of that fact. Craven felt nothing for the living… necromancers rarely bothered with a soul that was still attached to its body or a body that was still alive.

      As distasteful as it was, Craven now paid attention so he could find the master demons that controlled the living. They were not to be taken lightly because their armies could also become a threat to his own territory in the future.

      Reaching an intersection, Craven stood on the edge of the sidewalk watching the traffic lights for a moment. A deep gurgle caught his attention, blocking out the sounds of the morning traffic, and he turned his head toward the sound. His eyes glowed with excitement for the fight that was to come. He followed the sound of a human whimpering with fear knowing it would lead him to his target.

      When he walked down a short walkway leading between two buildings, he stepped into a parking lot where a dense fog had settled, trapped between the buildings. People were gathered in a loose circle in the middle of the lot watching a struggle of some kind taking place.

      Just a glance at them told Craven the humans had been possessed by shadow demons. Their souls were still intact but the demons had taken them over. Again Craven mentally shook his head at human weaknesses. Weaving his way among the possessed humans, Craven stopped just outside the inner circle to watch as a shadow demon forced its way into the mouth of a human female.

      The woman was dressed in some kind of skirt suit with her belongings scattered on the ground around her. The demon had worked its way so far in that only the tail end of its black glittering cloud was sticking out, wriggling back and forth. Craven had concluded correctly that the shadow demons were working together to find victims… and from the looks of it, their numbers were growing rapidly.

      He tilted his head to the side in fascination when the woman’s body started twitching violently from the intrusion. As her struggles against the inevitable slowly ceased, her eyes rolled into the back of her head leaving only the whites visible for a moment before returning to normal… complete possession.

      Craven’s lips hinted at a knowing smile and he completely suppressed his power when he felt the real threat approaching at a rapid pace. A long stretch of glittering shadow came around the corner of one of the buildings in full daylight. It was as he’d thought. This demon was a shadow master… but even shadows had a weakness he could exploit.

      The shadow pooled on the ground next to the woman’s feet looking like a puddle of thick tar. It sloshed thickly for a moment before a humanoid shape began to rise up out of it. The shadow seemed to drip from the form before it finally stabilized revealing a tall, dark-skinned man. His head was shaved close, no hair on his entire body that Craven could see except a Fu Manchu mustache on his face.

      The shadow master walked over to the woman, his black knee-length dashiki and charwal pants flowing around his legs. The neckline of the dashiki was ornately decorated with red and golden thread leaving him with little need for jewelry, however a large golden medallion hung from his neck and a single gold hoop earring was pierced through his left ear.

      He looked down at the woman and narrowed his midnight black eyes. “Who do you belong to?” the shadow master asked, his voice a deep baritone.

      The woman’s mouth opened and closed a few times before her voice finally decided to work properly.

      “I belong to you… Master,” she stated in a confused voice.

      “Very good, now rise up and serve me.”

      The woman slowly regained her feet with jerky movements as though she weren’t used to the body she inhabited. In a way it was a completely accurate description. When a human was under complete possession, at first the shadow demon inside of them could not fully control the most basic of bodily functions.

      “What is it you desire of me?” the lady asked her voice almost normal but still a little dazed.

      Craven chuckled darkly already growing tired of the foreplay. In a condescending voice he answered the woman’s question, “He wants you to go find unsuspecting men and bring them here so they can also be possessed and his pathetic army will grow.”

      Both the woman and the demon turned their heads in his direction to look at Craven. He tilted his head to the side when the possessed humans also turned toward him. Their eyes abruptly began to cloud over, going from dull grey to blacker than pitch in a matter of a few seconds.

      The shadow master was looking at him like he was a piece of easy prey and Craven resisted the urge to laugh again. How little they knew. He waited patiently as the humans started slowly walking toward him. When the first hand grasped hold of his shoulder, Craven tossed his head back and opened his arms wide. A tidal wave of souls began streaming out from his body and straight through the humans… emerging from the possessed with the shadow demons in their grasp.

      Craven felt no sympathy for the humans who had fallen under the shadow master’s possession… releasing them from those who would eventually try to invade his territory was merely a side effect of removing their possession. He took notice that the shadow master had enough intelligence to stay in his human form where the souls could not touch him.

      “Very impressive necromancer,” the shadow master murmured in his thick accent. “But you only delay the inevitable.”

      Craven smirked, “Very true, perhaps I should just kill you and be done with it.”

      The shadow master growled deep in his chest and ran at Craven. He twisted to the side to avoid one fist, then to the other side to avoid the second.

      “Too slow,” Craven mocked. When the demon spun his leg toward Craven’s head, Craven bent backwards so the strike sailed directly above him. Using the momentum of leaning back, Craven flipped onto his hands and swung both feet up in a somersault, landing a double kick to the master’s chin.

      Craven flipped back to his feet just as the shadow master regained his own footing. A thin trickle of thick, black liquid trailed from the corner of his mouth onto the front of his dashiki.

      “So you can bleed,” Craven taunted. It wasn’t his fault the shadow master was scared to change back into his other form. He would beat this demon either way.

      The man spit on the ground and glared with unfathomable rage. He knew this necromancer wanted his territory and he refused to back down. He lived by his own code… a demon that backs down is a demon that deserves to die.

      “I won’t let you!” the shadow master growled and came at him again. Only this time Craven didn’t dodge. When the demon came within arm’s reach, Craven’s fist flashed forward burying itself in the demon’s chest.

      They both stood there staring at one another, one with shocked surprise on his face, the other with a smug expression of triumph. Craven pulled his fist from the demon’s chest and stepped back. A hole remained showing the inky blackness inside the human façade the demon had claimed.

      A human scream erupted from one of the women followed by the sound of feet hitting the pavement. The humans couldn’t see the shadow master for what he really was, nor could they see Craven as a demon. What they saw was two men having a street fight and one punching a hole in the other one’s chest.

      Craven smiled sardonically, “You lose.”

      The shadow master staggered back a few steps and looked down