"Well, let's go," Samuel said as he jumped down into the tunnel. Hunter and Lyra quickly followed him.
After I helped Kathy and Sabrina down, I took the lead with Hunter. It was rough progress for the first half hour, as a lot of the rooms underneath the old castle and connecting halls were collapsed or blocked. But once we got deep enough and found the secret tunnels that I remembered as a child we started to make good progress.
We reached the first of the outer chambers when I felt a strong wave of demonic energy reach us, then I sensed the demons behind it. At that moment I knew that the Hellmouth had reopened. For a few seconds I felt overwhelmed by it, I wanted nothing more than to cast off my humanity and embrace the pure evil beast that dwelled within my soul. But when I looked back behind me and saw my angel and felt her love and the love of my daughter, I had all the strength that I needed. I would not let the demon control me.
I looked at the worried faces of Samuel and Sabrina behind me, "Time for Plan B. We're going to fight our way, room to room, until we reach the Hellmouth and then I am going to seal it for good. Sam ready your sword, it's time for Doom's Blade to eat its fill. Kathy, Sabrina I need you two to cover our backs and blast anything that gets past us. Lyra, I need you to protect the two of them and guard the rear flank. This is going to be a tough fight, but I know that we can do this. The first wave is almost here, everyone stay close."
There were two loud thumps against the heavy wooden door opposite us and on the third thump the door came crashing down. Whatever creature stepped through that door I have no idea what it was. Hunter's Blaster, my arcane blast, Sabrina's mystical bolts, a jet of flame from Samuel and a blast of light from Kathy hit it at once. Blowing it and the two creatures behind it into small unidentifiable pieces of ooze. The fight was on to a good start.
Over the next few minutes we quickly advanced closer to our objective. We cleared out one room at a time, slaying whatever hell spawned creatures that where in our way. The six of us worked surprisingly well together, despite the fact that this was the first time that Sabrina and her husband fought along side of Hunter and myself. We quickly formed a useful system in battling the enemy. Hunter and I took the lead, advancing forward at a steady pace, and any creature we encountered we would either kill outright or disable it so Samuel and Lyra could easily finish it off.
We had just accessed the ancient stone spiral staircase that connected the Nazi laboratories beneath the castle to the ancient catacombs far underground, when we were swarmed by a wave of winged demons. There were at least a hundred of them, but it felt like a thousand as they flew up at us form the chamber below. They where imps, one of the lowest forms of demons.
They were about a foot to a foot and half tall and had three feet-wide bat-like wings. But the most important thing about them was their two-feet long poisonous tail. Because once you were stung by one of them you would either die out-right or fall into a deep coma-like sleep. If you died they would animate you as living corpse or plant their eggs inside you to spawn more of them. If you went unconscious they would try to take hold of your mind and take possession of your soul. Either way it was best not to get stung.
Hunter and myself were most likely immune to their venom, but the others were not, and they did have other ways to attack us. Imps are known for their ability to create illusions and breath forth a small blast of fire or frost. Plus by sheer numbers they could overwhelm us.
Hunter had already hosted his omega blaster and was spinning around slicing at the flying pests as quickly as he could; his Katana was striking one down with every hit. But even with his deadly skill, dozens were getting past him to strike at me. I didn't want to waste any time in casting a spell, to do so would let too many of them get past me and attack the others, so I evoked the demonic powers that dwell within me. My hands burst into blue-white flames as I let loose with bolts of hellfire incinerating any of the bastard creatures that I hit.
Behind me, my son-in-law was struggling with one wrapped around his arm, as he swung his sword at several more of them. At the same time Lyra was leaping and dancing on her hindquarters swatting at them like a cat trying to catch a bird. Meanwhile the two ladies in the back were working together as a team preventing any of them from getting past them. Sabrina was standing behind a protective wall of magical energy and was shooting forth strands of spider webs from her hands that were very successfully entangling the demonic creatures. While Kathy, who had surrounded herself with protective aura of solid light, was carefully taking aim and killing them with a laser like beam of blue light that she released from her finger tip.
The only good thing about fighting demons and Hell-spawn is that when you kill them they usually dissolved into small piles of slime or piles of ash. If not, we would have been waist deep in them by now. We kept fighting like that for several long minutes until finally the swarm slowed down enough for me to cast a spell. I summon the Artic Wind; a freezing blast of sub-zero wind filled the passageway in front of me and the staircase down and most likely the chamber below. It instantly coated anyone and everything in several inches of ice. Anything that did not freeze to death was now encased in a block of ice, including Hunter.
But I knew that he would be unharmed, for his father was the Nordic god of hunting and winter, and as such Hunter was immune to the cold and could withstand any subzero temperature. In fact his personal lair is somewhere down in Antarctica carved into the frozen rock. That's where he keeps half-a-dozen of his favorites as well as any sex slaves that he is training. He tells me that he likes keeping them there because he knows that they won't try to escape by running off.
Hunter was already starting to flex his muscles and shatter the ice that was imprisoning him as I started my next spell, the Burning Sunbeams of Ra. I released the potent ancient Egyptian spell and had the glowing ball of burning sunlight slowly float down to the chamber below, knowing that anything that survived the frost would now be burnt to a crisp. Also it would de-ice the stairs so would could descend them without worry of slipping and falling.
Once I made sure that everyone was safe and the area secure, we slowly descended the wide stone staircase. When we reached the bottom I knew that we had reached the final chamber. Before us stood two large bronze doors that were slightly ajar, letting a soft glowing green light seep into the room. The doors were over nine feet tall and about four feet wide, every inch of them covered in demonic carvings.
I took a moment to assess everyone's condition. I was unhurt but was beginning to feel the fatigue of using so much of my magic. Lyra, aside from being covered in demon gore, seemed unhurt. Hunter had a deep set of claw marks down his left arm but those were already beginning to heal. Samuel looked exhausted and was walking with a limp. My daughter and Kathy also showed signs of fatigue but appeared unharmed.
"Samuel, you and the girls stay here and cover me and Hunter from the doorway. If things go bad, get everyone to the surface and have the Huntsmen collapse the tunnels."
"Father, we're not going to leave you behind. We're going to finish this."
"Alright then, but if things go bad, I may not be able to defend all of you. Lets do this, Hunter are you ready?"
"Hell, YES! I haven't had this much fun since we killed that vampire queen in Egypt. I'll go through the door first and take down the first few dozen, try to clear you a path."
I nodded to him as we stepped towards the door. With his katana in one hand and the Omega Blaster in the other he kicked opened the door and we charged in. Instead of a horde of demons facing him, the room appeared to be empty.
The room was a large round chamber a hundred feet across, with a large black pentagram shaped altar in its very center. A column of greenish fire burst from the center of the altar, thick raw energy coming up from the Hellmouth.
We slowly advanced into the chamber and when we got thirty feet in, I saw her, a small child sitting on the floor leaning against the altar, the same altar on which I was conceived. She looked to be an innocent blond girl no older than 7 years old; she wore a bright pink dress and sat softly singing to a doll in her arms. But when she looked up at me, I saw the look of pure unmitigated evil in her eyes. "Goody, Goody, someone to play with!!" she said with glee as she flew across the room slamming into Hunter and knocking him back against the wall. He hit the wall so hard, he did not get back up.
I saw Lyra and Samuel start to charge the child, but she quickly lashed out with lighting like energy, knocking them both backwards into Sabrina and Kathy. The four of them went down in a pile of limbs.
"I'll play with you later. Right now I want to play with my brother!"
"Stay back, this is my fight!" I shouted back to the others as I saw Sabrina's angry face rise above the others. I conjured a protective wall of energy, sealing them in the room beyond.
