by Norris Black
Tilting its head back, the creature let out a shrill scream I had become all too accustomed to that night. The cry was taken up over and over as a horde of the monsters boiled out of the darkness.
They came at us in a howling rush, light glinting off the daggers held in their hands. They were dressed in an assortment of ragged clothing—trousers and a torn shirt here, a blouse and skirt there. Much like the spiders in Rowe's doomed club, these monstrosities had begun life as something much more innocent, something in plentiful supply. After all, Crash City had no shortage of street urchins.
Say what you want about the Seraph, and trust me I have plenty to say, they're well-trained. The female soldier who had been so disapproving of the conduct of her superior officer, sprinted towards us from where she had been standing beside her now fallen companion. With the monsters nipping at her heels she reached her remaining squad mates and spun in time to meet the rush with her sword drawn. The three spread out to not be in each other's way, but still close enough to offer support if needed. They were an armed and armored wall across the whole width of the alley and, in a rare stroke of good luck, that wall was between me and our bloodthirsty attackers.
Scrambling to my feet I pulled the gun from my pocket just as the front of the wave crashed into the soldiers. The sound of the impact was deafening, screams and howls mixed with the dull thud of steel striking flesh. Sparks flew as daggers raked at armor. The giant soldier swung his sword like it was weightless, great one-handed sweeps slicing off arms and heads with equal ease. One of the severed limbs arced through the air, spraying blood as it went, before landing at my feet. It was a hideous sight. Someone had peeled flesh from fingers and bound the exposed bones to the handle of the ugly knife using rusty wire. My stomach lurched and I looked away, returning my attention to the battle unfolding in front of me.
The Seraph were poetry in motion, their pen one of slashing steel, their words written in blood splatters on stained asphalt and brick wall. They moved with more grace than should have been humanly possible. Every movement was fluid, and they killed or incapacitated any creatures straying too close with an economy as brutal as it was beautiful.
With a tight grip on the pistol I took aim, but there was no clear shot without risking hitting one of the soldiers. Shooting a Seraph in the back was not going to improve my situation any, especially when that Seraph was the only thing standing between me and a pack of fiendish street urchins intent on making a throw rug out of my innards. The gun warmed in my hands as the daemon inside urged me to violence.
One of the urchins, a snarl permanently etched on its mutilated doll-like face ducked under a swing from the female soldier and leaped upwards, knocking the helmet from her head. Seeing an opening it lunged in, mouth gaping wide to tear into her unprotected face. There was no thought, just reflex. Stepping forward I shot the monster between the eyes at point-blank range. Its face disappeared in a spray of blood and bone, the force from the bullet flinging its body away from the beleaguered soldier like a broken toy.
The Seraph's head, already moving away from the creature's attack, wrenched even more violently to the side in response to the deafening sound of a revolver going off less than a foot from her eardrum.
I winced, thinking back to my own recent experience at the nightclub. She glared at me while I mouthed the word 'sorry' and took several hasty steps backwards.
"Yessss!" screamed the daemon's voice in my ear, obviously pleased with being allowed to sow a little carnage.
"Parakas."
"What?"
"My name, it's Parakas. Being called 'the daemon' is a little insulting. What if I called you 'the fleshbag'?"
"Do you really want to do this now?" I hissed.
Red was now showing among the white of the Seraphs' armor. For every urchin they killed two more took its place, and the soldiers were beginning to slow as fatigue set in. More and more, attacks were finding a home in Seraph flesh.
The giant was the first to fall.
Two came at him at once. The first to reach the towering soldier made no effort to avoid his strike and instead took the blow in the side, folding itself around the blade. I saw their strategy too late, my warning shout coming as the second urchin leaped over its dying comrade had trapped the soldier's blade and lashed out, dagger ripping across the large man's face just below where the helmet's protection ended. The knife caught him mid yell, slicing through both cheeks along with the muscles attached to the lower jaw. He spun in a circle and I watched in horror as his tongue thrashed around in a mouth now opened impossibly wide. He let out a gurgling wet scream and fell to the ground. The urchin, a young boy with a bowl haircut, hopped on top of his convulsing body and threw its head back, letting out another of those awful cries. What I had originally taken for fangs were jagged chunks of metal jammed into empty tooth sockets.
Without breaking her rhythm, the female Seraph swung her sword in an arc, taking the offending creature’s head from its shoulders. She straddled the thrashing form of the giant soldier and drove her weapon down between his heaving shoulder blades, silencing his pained cries and providing the only mercy she could. As she pulled her sword free, another of the urchins barreled into her, knocking her down and stabbing at her.
There were only three more of the creatures left standing, the rest strewn from one end of the alley to the other in a wall of red bodies.
The remaining urchins harried the sergeant, darting in and out, hissing in frustration at every attack dodged or turned aside by metal plating. The officer was almost spent, and it was obvious it was taking everything he had to keep them at bay. The female Seraph cried out in pain as she grappled with the creature on the ground. I didn't have a clear shot at either, so I put the gun away and ran to where the downed soldier was struggling to keep metal fangs from her throat. Her armor was more red than white as blood leaked out from deep rents in the steel plating. So far, she had managed to avoid any fatal wounds, but without intervention it was only a matter of time before something final got through.
Looking around frantically I spied the Seraph's fallen sword nearby. Scooping it up I stood over the thrashing pair and tried to find an opening. It was impossible. Several times I tensed, ready to strike, but each time I held back as there was no way to be sure I would hit my urchin and not the struggling soldier.
"Fuck it." Closing my eyes, I plunged the sword down and felt it bite into flesh, then bone, then pavement. Screams echoed off the alley's walls and I cautiously peeked out of one eye before heaving a sigh of relief.
I had managed to pin one of the creature's arms down, and thankfully not one of the soldier's. I mean, I had a fifty-fifty chance there.
My attack gave her the opening she needed. She drew a dagger from her belt and slit the urchin's throat. Its ear-piercing scream changed to a breathy whistling sound, like steam escaping from a leaky pipe. The urchin collapsed and I shoved the now limp body off the Seraph.
The female soldier tried to stand but only made it partway to her feet before collapsing again. I reached down to help but a pained grunt from behind swung me around in time to see the sergeant fall to his knees. He had lost his helmet at some point during the battle and several of the armor plates on his vest had torn loose and were now scattered across the alleyway like broken dishes. Two of the three creatures lay dead at his feet, but the final one had buried a dagger through the sergeant's shoulder, the tip of it protruding out his back. With ferocious speed the urchin lunged in and bit the soldier in the face, steel teeth crunching through bone with a strength far beyond what it should have been capable of. With a click the teeth met and the urchin tore away the Seraph's nose and part of his left cheek in a spray of red gore. It pulled the dagger free from the sergeant's shoulder and rammed it forwards again, this time into the soldier's chest. Both arms of the urchin pumped furiously, stabbing the Seraph repeatedly in the chest and abdomen.
I had a shot now. Little good it would do the poor son of a bitch being hollowed ou
t with sharp blades. The first bullet hit the fiend in the side of the face, taking its nose off much like it had done to the sergeant. I'm not above a little poetic symmetry. The next two shots slammed into its legs. The sound of shattering kneecaps was audible even over the booming thunder of the handgun.
"I am Parakas!" came the scream in my ear, which I studiously ignored.
The injured urchin screamed again as it clawed its way towards me. Dagger points dug into asphalt as it pulled itself forward, teeth gnashed at air. Parakas' glee was infectious. It melded with my surging adrenaline until I couldn't tell where his feelings stopped and mine began. Smiling in delight, I lined up the next shot, anticipating the damage. The sweet, wonderful pain it would cause.
A hand dropped gripped shoulder and my thoughts went spinning. What was I just thinking about?
"Let me."
The remaining soldier had managed to regain her feet though it looked like a slight breeze would knock her right over again.
This was the first solid look I had at her, and I was surprised to find she wasn't as tall as I had first thought, only a few inches taller than myself. I guess everyone looks tall when you're spread out flat on your back. Her hair had been shaved away on both sides and back, leaving only a white-blonde strip on the crest of her skull gathered into a tight and short braid. Brilliant green eyes flashed out of a youthful but hard-angled and fierce face. Red covered the left side of her face, pouring from a bloody furrow that ran from scalp to jawline. One of many souvenirs she’d taken this night.
She took a step toward the monster that had killed her commanding officer. It had ceased screaming and was now letting out a high-pitched mewling that set my teeth on edge. The Seraph stumbled and I slipped an arm around her to steady her. Even through the remains of her armor she was solid with muscle. It was like trying to hold up a statue. I felt blood soak into my shirt sleeve and knew she was badly hurt.
She coughed and crimson flecked her lips, speaking of some internal injury.
"Abomination," she snarled. "Grannon may have been a bastard, but he was one of ours, and the Seraph—" she coughed again—"the Seraph have no mercy for the likes of you." With those words she drove her heel down onto the urchin's small skull. A loud snap echoed in the tight confines of the alleyway and the creature's limbs started drumming against the hard ground. She lifted her boot and brought it down again, and again, and again. With each strike the urchin's thrashing grew weaker until it finally lay still.
She spat on the corpse. "Rot in whatever hell you came from," she said, the words laced with venom. Further back in the alley I spied a shape partially concealed in the shadows. It was taller than the urchins, the height of a man, and where they had been dressed in ragged street clothes this one wore a long and dark robe. Even as I saw it, the shadow turned and disappeared into the darkness.
Before I had a chance to alert the Seraph on my shoulder to it, her eyes rolled back, and she collapsed to the ground unconscious, taking me down with her.
Chapter 8
Dragging an unconscious body halfway across the city is not what I would call a pleasant experience. Neither was the reception I received when I finally reached my destination.
"What in the ever-bloody fuck is this!"
I winced at Mara's shrill tone. She only broke out language like that when she was extremely pissed off. Can't say as I blamed her.
"I thought you went to get your cat. This," she gestured to the unconscious form of the blonde Seraph currently wrapped up in my longcoat. "Is not a cat. And what happened to your shirt?"
Standing shirtless before her withering glare made me feel particularly vulnerable and I awkwardly crossed my arms over my chest before I just as awkwardly let them fall to my side again. After the attack in the alleyway I had stripped the soldier of what remained of her armor and bound her wounds with strips torn from my shirt. When I was finished, I could tell she was still in bad shape but at least her breathing had steadied. I briefly considered leaving her there for another Seraph patrol to find but there was no guarantee they'd discover her before something else did. Even if those wicked urchins were the last of the hunters scouring the night for me, there were many other predators, human and otherwise, infesting the darken streets. There was simply no way I could leave her to their not-so-tender mercies.
Wrapping her in my coat and using the remains of my shirt, along with some broken pieces of wood scavenged out of the nearby dumpster, I was able to fashion a makeshift stretcher. It took most of the night to make my way to Mara's place, Louie leading the way as if scouting for ambushes. By the time I reached the plaza I was breathing hard and covered in sweat. Mara must have been on the lookout because she met us at the entrance to her tower. At least I didn't have to drag the seraph up those stairs. Even without armor she was heavy.
"No, I got the cat, see? Louie's over there," I pointed to where the long-haired feline was laying on the ground, one leg kicked up in the air as he groomed himself. At the sound of his name he glanced up for a moment, ears twitching, before returning to his task having decided he'd misheard.
"Yes, that's the important part, the cat," she said, the sarcasm in her voice so thick you could spread it on a bun. "Not you showing up like you've taken up half-naked marathon running as a hobby with a blonde..." she paused, eyes narrowing as she took a closer look at my unexpected companion. "Seraph? You brought a fucking Seraph to my door?"
I really wished she'd stop emphasizing words like that. Each one felt like a flung dagger.
She sucked in her breath as she noticed the blood seeping through the bandage on the Seraph's head. Pulling back my coat she discovered the Seraph's many other wounds.
"What in the hells did you do this poor girl?"
Before I could come to my own defense Mara flung up a hand to quiet me, "Later. This needs to be dealt with first." With a word that jangled harshly in my ears Mara and the Seraph dissolved into a fine mist that swept up the stairwell and out of sight, leaving behind nothing but my battered longcoat.
Picking it up and settling it on my shoulders, I sighed. "Well Louie, I guess you and I are taking the stairs after all."
Silence. Looking around I found the cat was gone as well. Mara must have included him in the spell. Even distracted with a bleeding out Seraph on her hands, she knew how to make a point. With a groan I started up the steps.
I didn't have as much trouble finding the door to her receiving room this time. Whatever wychery darkness I had encountered on my last visit no longer in evidence. Mara had the Seraph stretched out on the oak table and was in the process of cutting off the final remnants of the white uniform the soldier wore beneath her armor. Red-faced, I averted my eyes and took to fervently studying anything in the room not lying naked on a table.
That's when I spotted the wolf.
He was about the height of a large horse but much broader across the chest. Dark gray fur with streaks of black covered his body, and he had a pair of lambent yellow eyes that I had last seen staring at me from a darkened hallway. Garm, that was the name Mara had said.
He was laying down, his massive head resting on the floor between a set of equally massive paws. A high-pitched whine caught my attention and I realized with some amazement that he was in a submissive posture. My surprise was doubled when I saw who he was being submissive too. Louie stood, stiff-legged and back straight, his tail as fluffy as I had ever seen, staring Garm down. The wolf whined again and averted its gaze. The big feline, content the proper pecking order had been established, plopped down, and began to enthusiastically groom himself again.
Behind me I could hear Mara muttering words in a language I didn't understand, and which made my head hurt if I paid too close of attention to them. Now and then I would hear a soft clang as she dropped some tool or another into a water-filled silver bowl at her elbow.
"So... he's big. How often do you have to take him for walks? I imagine you wouldn't want him having an accident up here. I mean, that'd be a lot of
shit, you'd need a shovel or something..." I trailed off. I tend to yammer when I'm nervous.
"Tell me what happened," said Mara. She knew me well and was giving me an outlet for my pent-up worry. I appreciated that.
I gave her the rundown, omitting some less glamorous moments such as my acrobatic entry into my office. For a moment, I considered not telling her about Parakas. Consorting with a daemon is not the kind of thing you brag about, but I suspected she already knew at least a little about him and, at this point in time, I needed the best advice I could get.
By the time I completed my tale, Mara had finished up her surgery and had covered the Seraph's body in a white linen bed cover. I still avoided looking directly at the table, a single glance was enough to see that under all that armor the soldier was muscular but still quite feminine, and the thin sheet left little to the imagination.
Mara retreated to her favorite cushion, dropping the blood-stained apron she had been wearing into a pile on the floor. Taking my own place on what I've now dubbed as 'the ruffian pillow', I looked around hopefully for another glass of whiskey, but in that, I was to be disappointed.
"So, let me get this straight. In the span of twenty-four hours you've been kidnapped by a murderous crime lord, attacked by some sort of magical monsters the like of which no one in this city has seen before, twice, seemingly befriended a daemon trapped inside a gun and ended this incredible steak by dragging a bleeding and unconscious Seraph soldier to my home. Did I miss anything?"
"Well, there was that guy who could freeze time. You know, the smokey one," I said, swirling my hands through the air in demonstration before dropping them in my lap again. I really could've used a drink right then.
"Oh yes, of course, how could I forget that." Mara had sarcasm down to an art form.
"Look, what do you want me to say? I didn't ask for any of this, whatever this is. I was just trying to get some breakfast." A long-drawn-out silence reigned before I finally broke it. "Will she live?"