by Fox Lancet
“Saliea! Now!” The roar finally shattered her shock. Her head snapped back to see the origin of the voice.
Syler’s eyes were nearly blinding. Red fire as bright as the sun. “We are under fire, retreat with the woman and vehicle, now!”
Saliea felt a strange cry fall from her mouth before she turned forward and gunned it.
Hunter felt drool slip from the corner of his mouth in anticipation as he pushed open the back doors of the van. The reaction was normal in Demon form. It was also more uncontrollable—a sputtering torrent of hungry salvia. In this form, it was a pathetic crawl that warmed the skin of his chin. He swiped the distraction away with the back of his hand. As light flooded in, he let two live grenades fall from each hand. The small black bombs skipped down the asphalt, their hard bodies rolling several yards down the line of trapped cars.
When his feet hit the pavement, they detonated like a trigger had been built into his boots. The destructive synchronicity pushed a wicked smile onto his face. Even with the rabid gunshots sounding beside him, he took the moment to appreciate the timing. He barely regarded Nefarion as his Lord dominated the nearby threat with an AK-47, restraint a distant memory.
He felt Syler’s presence behind him the same moment he heard the van screech away. Pulling the shotgun from his back, he noted the droves of people scurrying through the line of cars, away from the melee.
“Grenade,” Syler’s growl demanded. Hunter turned, tossing the explosive to him without question. The moment Syler caught it, he put it to his mouth, relieving the pin with his teeth before throwing it towards a group of police cars serving as a blockade for several cautious officers. Many dove from their position. The fire from the explosion consumed them.
Syler glanced back to Hunter, who smiled approvingly. A majority of the threat had been eliminated. The Demons were wanted, but they had been underestimated. Unless you were a foreign terrorist, many countries didn’t realize how easy it was to get militia-grade or illegal weapons.
As Syler and Hunter went to look for more targets, a familiar roar distracted their attention. A short bark from Syler followed as he lunged to the road to break Nefarion’s sudden fall. Hunter remained silent as he immediately gauged his Lord’s wound and followed its possible trajectory.
There was a squad car fifty yards out on the median and its driver had sidled his way to a row of charred vehicles closest to the Demons’ position. He was armed with a pump-action shotgun. One that needed to be reloaded. Hunter snarled before crouching and zeroing in on the assailant. Just as the man loaded the last shell, Hunter fell from the sky, ripped away the firearm, and snapped the man’s neck a second later.
After he finished the human, he looked back toward Syler and Nefarion. Lord Nefarion had blood draining from his torso. Syler pressed down on the wound while conversing with his Lord.
Hunter stood tall, about to walk toward them, when a bang sounded and a familiar sharp pain slid through his chest. The sensation flitted through his consciousness and he found himself stunned when he saw the ground reach up. He was not done. Hunter knew because he felt splinters course through his knees as they crushed into the pavement.
He had been shot. A pain he had come to know on a couple of occasions since entering this existence. One of the only reasons he knew he was not dead yet.
The assailant, gripping a silver handgun, had been covering the man with the shotgun from the other end of the civilian vehicle. A handgun bullet. Hunter picked up a foot, lending his weight to one knee and a booted foot. Instead of eyeing the partner with the handgun, he looked down at his chest to verify the bullet’s caliber.
“A fucking .22,” Hunter mumbled aloud before looking toward the gun’s wielder. “A fucking .22,” he repeated louder. Now he smiled when his eyes fell on the nervous partner of the fallen. He pushed to a stand, ignoring his own stagger as he stepped toward the officer. The man stood with wide eyes, gun pointed rigidly at Hunter. “Again. I dare you.” Hunter opened his arms, inviting the man to pull the trigger. Stepping forward again with no response from the man, Hunter roared. Finally the man pulled the trigger. The bullet cut through the air over Hunter’s shoulder as he crouched to lift a burnt vehicle from the asphalt. He shoved it into the air, his muscles screaming at the effort. The decimated hunk of metal flipped up past the remaining officer and landed upside down on a nearby vehicle, causing a metallic crash to rend the air. Debris flew past both of them. The officer cringed while Hunter continued his approach without flinching. Pieces of burnt metal glanced off his body, putting tears in his t-shirt and causing small bloody gashes where his skin was exposed.
When the officer unfolded to regain his bearings, Hunter’s shadow consumed him. The man squinted up at his form, his weaponless arm up in defense.
“I would tell you to next time shoot me with something that may hinder me, but for you, there will not be a next time.” Hunter claimed the man’s malleable neck in his large grasp, squeezing unmercifully as he lifted him off the ground. “I cannot wait to kill you all,” he managed through clenched teeth and a smile, locking his knuckles until he heard bone cracking. The man’s eyes watched him just before the killing blow then jerked to the sky as if to beg for salvation just before his last tight exhalation escaped.
Hunter dropped the body and felt gravel skin his knees for the second time before he realized he was propped up from the ground by only his elbows. He blinked heavily. Tired drool seeped from his lips as he stared at the shadowed road before him.
“Why do you grovel, Hunter?”
The sound of his most revered cohort assisted in focusing his thoughts. Then his vision. He sealed in a breath and pushed. His face burned with the action, but he did not release the exertion until he heard metal clink beneath him. When he saw the smashed bullet rolling under him, he forced himself to stand. Weakly, he turned to Syler.
“I do not grovel. I merely fight the damage inflicted upon me.” Hunter sneered, bringing a hand under his shirt to brush it past the gunshot wound in his chest.
Syler was about to respond when Hunter interrupted.
“Do not forget, fiend, that our Lord was just injured by a much larger bullet than myself and if you mean to insult me for my injury, you will also be insulting him.” Hunter dragged in a ragged breath and walked heavily past Syler.
“Saliea. Where is Saliea?” Nefarion pushed his human form off the pavement with staggering effort. His attention was locked in the direction of the van that sat motionless several yards away. There was no movement. “Saliea,” Nefarion shouted and took a step forward. He barely stopped himself from falling. Frustrated, he roared wordlessly. “Syler, you are not injured, go and find her.”
Syler jogged past his Lord without question.
Hunter stepped close to Nefarion, who grabbed his shoulder for support while pressing the tattered shirt against his wound with his other hand. A small beeping had Hunter looking about. Nefarion’s attention was too rapt on Syler’s back to pay any other heed.
“Lord Nefarion, you are ringing.” Hunter looked over at him, his eyes glancing up and down his Lord’s form.
“What?” Nefarion snarled, momentarily lost before registering the statement. “Ah,” he rasped, reaching into his left pocket. Sliding his thumb across the touch-screen, he stepped away from Hunter, seeming to regain some strength.
“Yes?” he asked after dispelling the tone of the device. Hunter only watched him for a moment before turning his gaze in the direction Syler had gone. With a final glance toward Nefarion, who seemed strong enough now on his own, he followed his cohort.
Explosions sounded behind her, but she didn’t have the luxury of turning back to watch the destruction, she had to keep her eyes on the blond scrambling off the pavement ahead of her. Gunshots and shouts echoed off the trees. It all seemed further away than just a handful of yards behind her.
Saliea wasn’t much of a runner, but she figured her panic would urge her hard enough. Though the doctor’s fear would pro
bably push her equally as hard.
Once out of sight from the road, Saliea deigned to call after the woman. “Come back here!” she shouted before another giant boom rent through the trees. The blond doctor stole a glance over her shoulder without slowing, until she tripped from not looking where she was going. Saliea lunged and screeched when the woman tore her feet from Saliea’s grip. The woman made only gasping noises as she struggled back to her feet.
Before the woman could take two steps, a loud gunshot had her freezing in place. Bark crumbled from a tiny hole in the stout tree beside her.
“Enough, let’s go. Time’s-a-wasting.” Saliea closed the distance between them with a casual gait. When she was in reach, she wrenched the back of the woman’s shirt into a tight grip and pulled her violently back toward the road. The woman grunted with the action.
“What do you want of me?” Rather than struggle, she tried fitfully to keep up with Saliea, but her efforts were fruitless and the short journey back was awkward and uncomfortable in Saliea’s unrelenting grasp.
Just as they came to the break in the trees, Syler appeared. He was shirtless and blood marred his pale skin in patches. His left hand was particularly covered in the same blood. None of it seemed to be his own. Saliea briefly observed him as she approached. Some of his black hair dangled across his eyes while the rest fell around his head to his shoulders, creating a dark halo, stark against the whiteness of his skin. Unlike Hunter and Nefarion, he was clean of tattoos or piercings. Regardless, he still had a menacing air about him that was easily assisted by his daunting height and muscular form.
“Saliea.” He had stopped and looked down his nose at the two women with his silent black eyes as they passed.
“Syler,” Saliea replied without breaking pace. A moment later, she reached the road where she next encountered Hunter. He sneered at her like he almost always did when they made eye contact. There was a small hole in his shirt and dirt smudged his hands and one side of his face. The patch of long hair that he kept to a short oval on the top of his head swung over his right eye and swept at his nose and chin. Saliea stopped and dragged the woman around to the front of her, pushing her toward Hunter at the same time. As she released the woman, she brought up her gun-wielding hand and slammed the handle down on the back of the doctor’s head, sending her unconscious body sprawling into Hunter’s arms.
“Your charge, Hunter,” she nearly spat his name and continued on past him. “Nefarion,” she murmured. She jogged the rest of the way to meet him. With a bloodied shirt pressed to his stomach, he held his phone to his ear, but on contact with Saliea, he closed it and slid it into his pocket. She ignored his wound, knowing that if he was standing, he was fine. He snaked a hand around her waist and bent to kiss her, grimacing at the pain in his gut.
“We have to hurry. It won’t be long before more trouble comes,” she stated, looking up at him. He nodded in response.
“In the van,” he commanded, looking up at his soldiers. Without question, everyone filed back into the van. Saliea took her place behind the wheel and sped off down the empty highway. It was time to get rid of the van.
“Something has happened,” Nefarion announced once they were driving again. A small smile pulled at the corner of his mouth, causing Hunter and Syler to glance at each other curiously. “Apparently Hunter has impregnated the young woman, Whiskey.”
“Impossible,” Syler blurted without pause for consideration. Hunter laughed, going as far as to stomp one of his booted feet against the floor of the van. Syler’s reaction seemed to fuel his laughter. The deep-throated amusement infected the small space quickly. Nefarion chuckled softly and Saliea giggled while Syler glared disdainfully at his cohort. “Why do you always have to cause such a ruckus everywhere you tread? There is always a fucking mess of shit in your wake, Hunter!”
Hunter’s laughter paled slightly as his eyes went wide, knowing when Syler began to swear, he meant business. Syler pressed his back against the cold metal of the van wall and stared straight ahead at nothing, seething.
“Syler, calm yourself. This may be good news.” Nefarion’s robust voice finally settled Hunter’s laughter completely. Syler kept his eyes forward, but his jaw tightened at the statement.
With a cocked brow, Hunter asked, “How so, my Lord?”
“Well, I cannot know for sure until she gives birth, but this just further proves that we can prevail on this planet. Humans do not grow from their dead like ours do. They do not rely on a sparse, unreliable waterfall to replenish their population. They breed.” He hesitated slightly on the new term. “And it would seem that the threshold of the gate allows us to breed with the humans of this world.”
“Guess I’ll need to teach you boys about condoms,” Saliea quipped over her shoulder. The Demons looked at each other in confusion, including Syler. Hunter was the first to look thoughtful.
“Condoms. Yes, they come in little square packages, if I am correct in my recollection. They are used to cover a man’s part during the act of fucking. Though, I am not certain the purpose. Whiskey did not explain that part.”
“Wait, you used a condom with this Whiskey chick and you still knocked her up?”
“I suppose.” Hunter looked irritated, as if he was not fully understanding and it bothered him.
“Well, she is a stripper, she could be lying. The daddy could probably be anyone.”
“Saliea, slow down. You are not considering the fact that we do not understand all of this world yet. And some of what you are saying makes no sense to us: ‘knocked her up,’ ‘daddy,’ ‘stripper’.” Nefarion pulled the bloodied cloth from his stomach, investigated the wound, and threw the rag floor. Just as Saliea was about to respond, Syler began to speak, his eyes still looking fixedly forward.
“Daddy: sire, father, male, sperm donor. Knocked her up: impregnated her, planted his seed, made her pregnant. Stripper: one who removes his or her clothes for money but that does not allow his or herself to be touched…unless he or she concedes, like in Whiskey’s case. She enjoyed the company of this reckless beast so allowed him to have her…sexually. Perhaps the condom, which prevents disease and pregnancy, was faulty or because we are not completely human does not apply to our seed. If that may be the case, her child may not be fully human.”
“Syler, the modern human encyclopedia. You’re almost as good as Wikipedia.” Saliea sniggered as she pulled the van off the highway onto a rural exit.
“Impressive, Syler. And that last part is imperative. This is why I am interested in returning to this woman soon. She does not want to give birth to it in a human hospital because she fears it will not be fully human and they will take it. She claims it is already growing faster in her womb than a normal human child and that it has already made impossible connections with her, making her do things she never would have done of her own accord.”
“How long do you think until she gives birth? Does she have any idea?” Saliea asked, watching the terrain closely in search of an ideal ditching spot for their vehicle.
“She believes it to be very soon. This is an imperative event that I would like to be present for and watch from the beginning,” Nefarion replied.
“What if it ends up stronger than you all?” Saliea wondered.
“Highly unlikely,” Syler interjected. “As feeble as your species is compared to our kind confined to the human form, it is most probable that the child will have only half of each of its parents. Hunter’s seed will lend it our strength, but the mother’s egg will dilute that power. It will be stronger than a human, but not as strong as a Demon. At least, that is what I would theorize based on the outcome of the Slecktics of Trissana.” Syler spotted a pile of discarded t-shirts between the front seats and snagged one, donning it tersely.
“Slecktics?” Saliea glanced briefly at Syler in the rearview mirror.
“They are a disreputable creature in our world whose blood was born of a mixture between that of a Demon’s and a creature called a Setic, which no lo
nger exists to avoid any further abominations. We have yet to annihilate all Slecktics since they have sided with our enemy for protection,” Nefarion answered.
“Slecktics do not have our strength. What makes you so sure a human-Demon child would receive that quality and not merely night vision and resistance to highly mortal wounds like a Slecktic?” Hunter threw his booted-feet up on the bench across from him. Folding his arms across his chest, he eyed Syler as if he had for once found a hole in his logic.
“Because, as much I hate to acknowledge it out loud, humans are by far a better candidate to mix with Demon blood than Setics ever were. They were loathsome, disgusting creatures, hence the very pathetic characteristics they did receive of us: they received not our intelligence, speed, strength, or diligence. Setics had no redeeming qualities to combine with ours. At least humans are a highly intelligent, innovative, and stubborn race. Their tenacity for survival and need to be the best will compliment some of our attributes, hopefully creating…” Syler paused. “Well, more of what we are right now: physically stronger humans with a bloody agenda.” He finished his thought by bestowing his audience with the rare appearance of a pleased smile.
Nefarion chortled before coughing and holding his healing wound. “You make too much sense sometimes, Syler,” Nefarion said with a smile.
“Nerd is what they would call him on this planet,” Hunter chided, giving his cohort a half-grin.
“Alright, there’s a little bridge over there, I think that would be a good spot to hide the van and start moving on foot.” Saliea pointed through a grove of Aspen trees at an old cement bridge slung across a trickling stream. “You guys think you can manage moving some of those trees so we can get the van under the bridge?”
“Yes, we can do that. Soldiers.” Nefarion was the first to exit the back of the van, inviting Hunter and Syler to join him. Saliea waited in the van while the Demons tore several trees up by the root to create a make-shift road to the underside of the bridge. It looked like they were picking over-sized flowers and Saliea couldn’t help but smile for it.