Demon Games [4] by Steve Feasey Read Free Book Online Page A

this time. Their information had been wrong. This whole thing had been a waste of time.
    ‘Great,’ Trey said under his breath. ‘This is just typical. Bloody typical.’
    He turned on his heel and hurried back in the direction he’d just come, muttering under his breath. He needed to catch Dreck before he disappeared back to the Netherworld. Approaching the bend again, he stopped as the air seemed to thicken and push in on him. For a second it no longer felt as if he stood in the alleyway, but as if he was deep underwater – somewhere on the ocean bed, with millions of pounds of pressure weighing him down. There was a fizzing sound in his ears, and his vision began to fog, the world around him becoming indistinct and monochrome. There was a loud cracking sound over his left shoulder, and as he turned to see the source of the noise a huge head appeared, followed by a taloned hand that wrapped itself round his neck and dragged him through into the Netherworld.

 
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    Trey’s vision swam and he felt his legs almost give way beneath him.
    There were two of them. The first one, the one that had grabbed Trey and dragged him through the portal, was a Shadow Demon, and it regarded him balefully through eyes made up of densely packed clusters of black globes. The other demon was of a type that Trey had never seen before: it was a tail, gangly creature, covered in a grey skin composed of interconnected scales – like that of a snake’s. But it was the nether-creature’s fearsome head that startled the teenager as he caught sight of it in that first moment: large jagged outgrowths of bone jutted from its skull in all directions – a vicious-looking forest of osseous matter above a forehead dominated by a raised ridge of bone. Beneath this, the eyes were pig-like, set deep into the flesh of the creature’s face, and there was a mean, hungry look in them.
    The Shadow Demon threw Trey to the ground and stood at his feet, the other demon taking up a position behind his head. Trey glanced up at the creatures from his prone position, noting the threatening postures that they adopted, but he was unable to keep his eyes open as the world lurched sickeningly, spinning around him like a mad, tumbling vortex which made his stomach heave in response. He tried to get to his hands and knees, but even this proved almost impossible. He felt as if he’d just stepped off the longest and fastest roller coaster ride ever: it seemed as if nothing would remain still and the ground beneath him was revolving mercilessly. There was a terrible stench, a rank, putrescent stink that seemed to emanate from the earth itself. The smell and the awful dizziness were simply too much – Trey lowered his head and vomited on to the ground. The demons took great delight in the pathetic human’s discomfort, laughing uproariously at the sight.
    The demon standing behind Trey reached down and dragged him to his feet, cruelly digging its long black talons into the flesh of his arms. The world still spun, and Trey closed his eyes, swallowing the saliva that came unbidden into his mouth and battling against the urge to throw up again. The creature pushed the boy towards its companion and the two of them took pleasure in shoving Trey between them, laughing raucously each time he stumbled, his feet going in different directions as he struggled to stay upright. When he finally lost his footing, he fell sprawling to the ground again, where his face was reunited with the pool of vomit. The demons cackled, and the one with the skull shaped like a medieval morning star stepped forward and placed its foot on the side of Trey’s head, pressing down viciously and forcing the boy’s face further down into the fetid filth.
    Trey was vaguely aware that he needed to transform into his werewolf state and get away. But his brain was not functioning properly; it was too addled to do anything but try and halt the tumbling disorientation he was experiencing. He groaned as the demon