7 The Demon Within: Men and Monsters

"Please don't leave me" the soldier begged as he struggled to lift himself up.

"We were told to face our deaths with dignity. You bring shame to our master" said a fellow soldier who had known his injured comrade for virtually his entire life.

The winged abominations had butchered the soldiers entire team. The two men were now completely surrounded. The soldier who had left his injured, former friend was aware of how grim the situation was, and wanted to take as many of the monsters down as he could with his last breath.

"Over here, you abominations!" he shouted at the top of his lungs.

"What are you doing?" the injured man spluttered out.

"Going out in a way our master would be proud" the other soldier said as he lifted out a small bomb, powerful enough to take out several of the creatures.

"COME ON!" he shouted at three of the winged beasts who descended slowly towards him.

The demons wingspans were all over 30 feet long, whilst their bodies were all over eight feet long. Their skin was red and slimy, whilst their arms were far longer than their legs, and each of the three beasts had a long, forked tail. Their faces meanwhile had four green eyes, no nose and a massive mouth filled with razor sharp teeth.

The lead demon made a move towards the soldier who instantly raised his weapon and started to activate it. Whilst he was distracted however another one of the demons from the side managed to whip the bomb out of his hand with its tail.

As the soldier tried to reach for the weapon, the demon from the back pinned him to the ground, whilst the centre Demon flew towards the bomb, picked it up and threw it using its super strength several miles away before it exploded.

Now completely helpless the soldier understood his comrade's terror, but still tried to keep his cool as the monsters tore into him. The wounded soldier meanwhile who watched the gruesome sight from a short distance, pulled his gun out and said "May the Master forgive me!" before shooting himself to avoid the same fate.

"I've never needed a drink more than today." Kirsteen said to herself. "Vampires, zombies, demons." Even though Kirsteen didn't have anything waiting for her back in England, she knew she wanted out of this insane place as fast as possible. She had been working up the courage to try and ask the Professor for the last few hours to take her back. Lindsey hadn't said much to her when Kirsteen had asked about when they could take her home. Instead Lindsey would just brush her off, saying they had lots of work to do on the ship, until eventually Kirsteen got fed up.

The Professor meanwhile was searching through the library or rather what was left of it. Absolutely nothing had survived.

"I'm sorry Lindsey. That blasted demon has destroyed everything. I forgot how petty demons can be." The Professor said bitterly.

Lindsey was absolutely devastated. She had spent years building up her collection. It included the final copies of some classic works that had been lost in wars, migration to other worlds, and alien invasions. "I really should have made copies, or made them public to civilisations and colonies." Lindsey said. "I guess I just liked having the only copies of these masterpieces and now I've deprived future generations of classic literature."

"That damn demon, I hope he suffered." Lindsey shouted, almost in tears as she held the charred pages of one of her favourite books in her hands. She could still make out a tiny part of the title on the cover, but other than that it was burnt to a crisp.

Kirsteen heard Lindsey shouting from down the corridor and went to comfort her.

"I'm sorry. Who was it" Kirsteen said assuming that Lindsey and the Professor has lost someone to the Demon.

"My collection. That monster burned it all. I'd spent years building it up, that thing destroyed it. So much great literature, art, music now gone forever, and its my fault." Lindsey weeped.

"Are you serious" Kirsteen replied in anger. "All of those innocent people were torn to shreds by those monsters. That young girl Jenna. She looked up to me you know. She made me feel good about myself for the first time in a decade, and I let her down. I had to watch her get ripped apart. Alice, she told me about her mother Noella when you locked us up in that room. She told me how she couldn't bare the thought of Noella losing her only daughter, and never knowing what happened to her. Now that's happened, only its worse. Alice's mother will be waiting for the rest of her life, and you're whining about some fucking books! You're partly responsible! Feel guilty for that."

"Well" the Professor interjected. "Having listened to some of your music Miss Williamson, it doesn't surprise me that you have no appreciation for great art."

"Now you listen to me you creepy old." Kirsteen replied before Lindsey tried to break them up.

"Okay calm down the pair of you. Of course we regret what happened Kirsteen. We did all we could to save those people and if wasn't for us, you'd be dead. You could show a little gratitude."

"You're right, I'm, I'm sorry. It's just I, I don't belong here" Kirsteen replied. "Please just send me home where I can get pissed enough into thinking this was all just some fucked up dream."

"Well now seems like as good a time as any to tell you miss Williamson." The Professor said in a somewhat less arrogant tone than usual.

"I'm afraid that you can't go home."

"What do you mean?"

"According to the history books, when you were abducted you were never found. It has to stay that way." The Professor said coldly.

"I don't understand."

The Professor sighed which greatly irritated Kirsteen.

"You can't change history. You make history. For instance if you were to travel backwards in time and stop a great war that devastated your planet from happening, then you'd create a time paradox, as there'd be no war to inspire you to go back so wouldn't, but if you didn't go back, there would be nothing to stop the war, so then you would and on and on it goes. A paradox like this eats away at the universe, traps people, planets, races to relive the same moments over and over again. We'd be creating a paradox with the future we have already visited where you were lost."

"I don't understand though, didn't you change history by saving me? If I'm supposed to have died on that godforsaken ship."

"I never said died, just that you didn't get home. I'm sorry Kirsteen but you absolutely can not go home."

"What if you bring me back in secret and I go into hiding."

"No I'm afraid not. There's still a risk. We have two options. Either we find you another time and place to live. The ship will monitor if you can be slotted in there without interfering. That could take years however, if we even find you a place. Or you'll just have to stay with us."

Those words filled Kirsteen with horror.

"You're joking. Surely you're joking!"

"I'm not thrilled about this either Miss Williamson, but I don't see any other choices."

"I am not staying on this ship, not another minute."

Suddenly the ship came to a halt.

"Ah we've landed somewhere. Come on." The Professor said almost ignoring Kirsteen's pleas. Kirsteen turned to Lindsey.

"Please I know you're not like him, he's, he's not human. That guy from the future was right about him. You have to tell that creepy old Professor that I don't belong here."

Kirsteen could see however Lindsey wasn't going to tell her anything different before she even opened her mouth. "I'm sorry Kirsteen, it's"

"I don't want to hear some time travel bullshit. I want you to take me home."

"I can't" Lindsey said firmly. Kirsteen still didn't accept it and followed the Professor down the hall.

The Professor was preparing to use magic to teleport to whatever world they had landed near below. The planet was not in the ships memory banks.

"I do so love visiting a new world for the first time." The Professor chuckled.

"Excuse me" Kirsteen shouted much to the Professor annoyance.

"We hadn't finished talking."

"We had. Well at least anything of any relevance. I am sorry Miss Williamson I really am. Believe you me if I could I would take you back home in an instant. I can't, it's as simple as that. Maybe we can find somewhere nice and peaceful for you to live. Until then you're stuck here with us."

Kirsteen knew deep down that he was right, but she didn't want to believe it yet.

"Why don't you come with us in exploring this new planet." The Professor asked sincerely.

"What" Lindsey said in shock?

"You want her to go exploring some alien world? She's just a pop singer?" Lindsey protested.

"Hey I helped you against those zombies." Kirsteen protested, not sure why she did.

"Yes I know, I just meant that it's not fair to put someone untrained and inexperienced through this kind of mission."

"How is she ever going to learn otherwise? It's like I said, she could be with us for a long time. We might never find a world she is supposed to settle on? You want her just to be cooped up in this ship all the time. That'd drive anyone mad. Even more so now that our collection is gone."

"I want to go down". Kirsteen said, much to Lindsey's surprise.

"You're not getting rid of me, at any point until you take me home." Kirsteen said firmly which made the Professor roll his eyes in response. "Also" she continued. "If anything happens to the pair of you I want to know. I don't just want to be left rotting on this ship for the rest of my life."

The Professor smiled. "Smart woman. Trust me you'll get used to this in time." The vampire prepared the spell that would send them to this new unidentified world. The magic that brought them there would make sure that they could breath, regardless of the atmosphere.

Before Kirsteen could even prepare for the magic to work, in a flash she found herself on a strange new alien landscape.

The landscape ahead was dark and seemingly barren. There was nothing but scorched rocks ahead.

"Not quite what I was hoping for, for our new recruits first planet." The Professor said with a hint of regret.

"I'm not a recruit" Kirsteen snapped, with the Professor once again ignoring her as went on to explore ahead.

"Remember Miss Williamson, we can only teleport back up on the exact location we arrived in when there is no one up there working the controls. You'll always be able to sense where it is regardless." The Professor said as he went on ahead.

"How do you put up with him." Kirsteen asked.

"Well he has his good points. For a vampire he's not so bad."

"So he actually is a, never mind it's not so unbelievable I suppose after everything that's happened. Still, how did you end up with him? You seem somewhat normal." Kirsteen asked.

"It was a long time ago. He helped during my darkest time. Fighting monsters, saving people, I was doing that long before I met the Professor."

"How Long?"

"Before my son was born"

Kirsteen felt she shouldn't push it any further after that revelation. The look on Lindsey's face said it all.

The Professor meanwhile had climbed up a nearby hill to get a better look at the landscape. To his shock he could see scores and scores of dead bodies littered ahead on a huge field over the other side of the hill. "Looks like we've landed in the middle of a bloody war" the Professor thought to himself.

As he looked round to let the two women know what he had seen, the Professor saw a gigantic winged Demon hovering above Lindsey and Kirsteen, who were completely unaware.

Before he could shout out to them, the creature swooped in with a lightening speed and landed on Lindsey, grabbing her in its enormous claws.

To Be Continued