The blue glyphs.
They were etched onto the bullets as well, perhaps a sign that they had been enchanted by said priest though I couldn’t figure out the importance of that. Was it good luck? I pushed those thoughts away and filed them until ‘think about it later during your next shower.’ There were more emails to be read.
Four months ago, Brianna received a tip that one of the demon factions had plans to establish a major foothold in the city once members of their leadership found suitable hosts to possess. Four months ago… that was right around the time I got shot by the cops and admitted to the hospital. Follow-up emails said that most of the possessed in New York had at one point been treated at Lenox Hill Hospital and that someone there was actively searching for a host for one of their leaders. I opened the Excel file attachment that came with that email. It was a list of women admitted to the hospital, all of which were under consideration to be the host to this female demon leader, a succubus at that.
My gut chained up and sweat began to rain down my forehead as I read the list.
The first name listed?
Araya, Reika.
Further down the list?
Hartridge, Lexi.
I hoped whoever was feeding Brianna this information was getting paid well because they sent two more emails afterward, and one of them didn’t sound good. The first email revealed that all the women on the previous list had been discharged from the hospital and had tested negative for soul contamination… whatever the fuck that was. There were only two women on said list that remained in the hospital for treatment however their contacts were unable to gain any data. Two women, geez I wonder who those two could be? As if I didn’t already know the answer.
The final email from the source was a farewell message stating they had been compromised along with the rest of their contacts in the hospital and had to go underground—
Thump.
The front door had just opened and shut suddenly as multiple heavy footsteps pushed into the house. I closed the laptop quickly and leaped to a darkened corner, relying on my senses to work out what had happened. The footsteps kept on thumping, some clattered on the stairs leading up, and others remained on the main floor. There were at least two people inside, maybe a third?
The white beams of flashlight rays zigzagged throughout the halls, there were two beams of light, two people down on the main floor for sure. “Window is out over here,” a rough male voice called out from the living room.
“Someone probably broke in after realizing no one has been home for a while,” the second voice on the main floor replied.
I heard two sets of footsteps above me stomp about, four targets, two upstairs and two that entered the kitchen where I remained in its corner, hoping their flashlights didn’t shine on me. They stood before Brianna’s laptop and lifted it open as they left their flashlights on the table. It allowed me to get a better glimpse at whom they were, one man was tall and bulky, and the other was shorter and skinny. Both wore black fall coats with a black and grey toque overtop their head.
The bulky man winced at the laptop. “Laptop was left on…”
The skinny man stepped next to his partner. “What’s the battery life on it?”
“Ninety-eight-percent, must have been fully charged before she left.”
“Ninety-eight-percent … left, and on. She hasn’t been back in days, you sure it wasn’t plugged in?”
“If it was plugged in it would have been fully charged.” The bulky man searched around the table, reaching down, and touching the laptop’s power cord. “Yeah, the plug is cold, this thing hasn’t been charging in a while.”
Mister Skinny yanked his flashlight off the table, shining its light into the cupboards and moving away from the table. “Someone’s here, yo.”
Adrenaline started to pump through my body while my hands reached down to my katana.
The bulky man faced away from the laptop's screen focusing on his concerned partner. “What makes you think that?”
“Window’s out, expensive laptop still here, but on.”
Well shit, these guys were smarter than they sound.
“None of you guys turned on a laptop recently, right?” he called out.
“Naw, we haven’t gotten there,” a voice from upstairs yelled back.
There were four of them, and one of me. I needed to go full ninja on these guys.
“Check this out,” the bulky man said as he scrolled through the email list I left open. “Looks like the Irish didn’t know about Lexi.”
“Really?”
“They knew it came down to Reika and Lexi, and knew we were after Reika.”
“For fuck sakes! So, we ended up tipping them off?”
“Probably, but it’s not a total loss. Lucifer wants to push forward without her, I don’t think she’s on the payroll anymore if you catch my drift.”
“I don’t like the sound of that; Lucifer needs a second-in-command, ideally a major demon rather than a lesser.”
Two pairs of feet from above descended onto the main floor. More rays of light from their flashlights were bound to enter the kitchen, increasing my chances of a blown cover. Assuming mister skinny didn’t find me first of course, his conversation was serving as a nice distraction.
“Yeah, but that demon hunter bitch is in town, which means she’ll go after Reika and Lexi. I say let’s let her do that, less work for us until another from the Umbral comes to take her place—”
“Okay, quit the fucking chit chat guys,” a third voice called out from the main halls. “I want a full sweep of this place before we leave.” His voice was rough, like leather. It was enough to make the other two in the kitchen straighten their bodies, shut up, and act like they were busy searching.
I unsheathed my katana slowly. Gracefully and carefully I tiptoed across the ceramic-tiled floors while misters bulky and skinny patrolled, shining their lights outside, thinking I might have escaped into the backyard. The other two that came from the upper level were still making their rounds in the other rooms, they were cut off for the time being. I could kill them now, silently, without giving my position away to the others.
I approached, sizing up my two victims with my katana ready to draw blood, my inner beast was waiting in anticipation for the mayhem to start. I resisted the urge to use my talents. Screaming mooks flailing their burning bodies around would only draw unwanted attention, besides I needed one of them alive, I had a few questions that needed to be asked. Questions that I wouldn’t be able to ask if they ran away screaming or stood their ground and fought only for me to kill them too.
The single bullet I had examined earlier was still on the table. Perfect.
I flicked the bullet down the hall after ensuring my talents didn’t leave their mark on it, blinking wasn’t on my game plan, not yet at least. The single bullet hit the floor with a loud ding, ding noise. Everyone heard it, and everyone directed their flashlights to it, slowly approaching to investigate.
I hid underneath the table and waited for misters skinny and bulky to leave the kitchen. The skinny one took too long to leave. It was just the two of us as I rose from the shadows, covered his mouth, and pushed my blade into his back. I watched with a grin as my katana sprung out from his chest, dripping red with blood that trickled onto the floor. His body shook, he tried to cry out in pain, but my hand denied him that chance.
I dragged him back into the kitchen away from its entrance and any flashlights, leaving behind a trail of freshly spilt blood on the floor. There was still life in his body as blood oozed away, so I cut upward, slicing away at the flesh on his back and chest, cutting into the bones of his rib cage, dicing whatever vital organs my katana came across in the process.
My inner beast? It loved it. It was almost an orgasmic experience for it.
His unmoving corpse plopped onto the floor. I grabbed his toque and slid it across my blade, wiping it clean for the next kill.
There was an item on his body that caught my eye a
s I stepped over him. A necklace hung around his neck with an inverted pentagram on it. I put it in my pocket, officially starting a new hobby, keeping score of my kills against these assholes.
“She got rats in this place or something?” the bulky one spoke.
“Must be, I don’t see shit.”
I peeked out into the hall where the three began to fan out, oblivious that they were down a body. It was only a matter of time before someone called out to him and realized what was up, they all, except one, needed to be dead before that happened. Who the lucky one was that got to live I hadn’t quite figured out, probably the leather-voice one. He sounded like their leader, and leaders always knew more than their underlings. The only problem was I didn’t know who he was. The bulky one wasn’t, that part I knew, but what of the other two? One of them was the leader.
I need to get him to speak.
And I had just the plan.
I returned to the kitchen, found a roll of paper towel, and kicked it out into the open space before the three. My talents did the rest, setting the roll of paper on fire. The sudden burst of flames before their feet freaked them out, they all jumped up and cursed including mister leather voice whose back was facing the entrance to the living room.
I made a mental note not to kill his ass while they stamped out the flames, their bodies fully alert, and knowing someone with talents was fucking with them. I needed to act quickly.
I hurled my katana at mister bulky, it twirled through the air like helicopter propellers making whiffing sounds in the process. I stood and watched as the edge of the blade sunk into the side of his leg, splitting it open, right down to the bone.
My body blinked next to my katana, its hilt was firmly back in my hands as I swung it around, making rapid strikes and slashes. Mister bulky’s head rolled on the floor, jets of warm blood squirted everywhere like a broken shower faucet. His partner, let’s call him mister nameless, his body fell to his knees looking frightened at the stumps on his wrists where his hands seconds earlier had been connected, his blood added to the growing red puddle around my feet.
He screamed like a bitch, my cover was blown, but that was okay. Leather voice wasn’t going anywhere. A swift horizontal cleave sliced open mister nameless’ throat, ending his screams permanently. As I strode over to leather voice, a coat of flames enveloped my body and ignited my katana, creating a path of light in a once-darkened house.
My inner evil was unleashed, it was a fucking fabulous feeling.
He backpedaled as his trembling hands rose, signaling his surrender. I aimed my flaming katana at his face, between his eyes to be exact. Its heat slowly seared the flesh on top of his nose. “Talk. Now,” I demanded.
“Fuck you.”
My free hand cupped a fireball the size of a softball. I tossed and caught it repeatedly, reminding him who had the power. “If you have nothing to say then you’re useless to me, like your useless friends.”
“And you’re useless to the revolution,” he said, and threw his body to the floor. I could have ended him right there but held back. I needed to know what was in his head, and Jim was pretty good at extracting such details.
That was my first mistake of the night.
I looked down at him as the light from my flames revealed his presence like a burning fireplace. He removed a drained syringe from his body, discarded it, and rolled onto his back, waving his hands in the air like he was offering worship.
“My soul is corrupted, I give my body to you,” he chanted. “Lord Lucifer.”
Then came my second mistake of the night, not taking his head off when I had the chance.
Chapter Fourteen
Leather voice didn’t have a leathery voice anymore.
It became ruthless, demonic. Like an insane maniac that had escaped from a mental institution from the depths of hell.
His body burst into flames, the same type that encircled my body. A shock wave pushed away from his body, throwing me back a good eight feet as he got up. The carpet below me caught on fire, much like the walls and ceilings next to leather voice.
No, he wasn’t the same man anymore, he was possessed. I stood up and held my katana toward him and grinned. “Welcome back, Lucifer.”
He gave me an odd glare and then sprinted at me, hurling fireballs. I countered, displaying my marvelous katana-wielding blade dance. His talents were impressive, he managed to dodge every swing of my blade while continuing to hit me with his useless elemental attacks by tossing fire at me. Guess he forgot that fire can’t harm me, much like how my fire elemental talents can’t harm him.
He made a dart into the kitchen; physical damage was the only thing that was going to take me down and he knew it. The kitchen had knives in cupboards, Glocks on the counter, a shotgun near the oven and shells and bullets on the table. I had to stop him before it was too late. I leaped and tackled him as he entered the kitchen, our bodies smashed into the table, knocking it and the laptop over in the process. Dozens of boxes of bullets and shotgun shells launched into the air, the contents of those boxes rained down upon us thumping painfully with each hit.
His hands worked fast to grab me and toss me off his body like a ragdoll, of course I lost my blade during the struggle, a blade that might end up in his hands. We both leaped up to our feet and eyed the grounded katana simultaneously. A race to see who could grab the hilt first ensued, neither of us won.
The back of my heel crashed against his jaw, the blow sending him to the ground again. He countered by using his legs to make me trip and fall, the back of my head landed first. I ended up seeing stars for five or six seconds. As I came to, I heard a click-click sound.
A gun had been cocked.
Son of a bitch was fast.
My beast told me to roll, so I did. I had no idea where he was, where the gun was aimed. I just rolled and rolled and rolled on the floor, zigzag lines of flames appeared in my wake setting the kitchen ablaze along with the rest of the house.
Bang.
Bang.
Bang.
Bang.
My rolling kept me alive long enough to see the laptop and its flicking screen. I grabbed and tossed it, blinking to where it landed, away from his line of sight. His aim shifted about, not knowing where I had appeared, my aim and eyesight returned to my katana.
I had seconds to get it back into my hands, seconds to use it to create the flame shield that protected me from Emily, back during the encounter on the subway. I charged toward it, slid on the floor, keeping my head low from the new hail of bullets that came at me. I felt the comforting feel of the hilt in my hands again, my inner beast assured me I’d be safe at that point.
It was right.
A pillar of blue flames rose up around me, and once again I had no control over it as I moved my blade to splat away nine melted bullets that passed through the shield.
Every wall, floor, and ceiling burned uncontrollably in the house, red, orange, and gold colors of light shining across my face. I stood ready as if I were a contender about to step into the boxing ring. In one corner, me with my flaming katana, the other him reloading his pistol, as the smoke alarm blared.
He gave the shotgun in the corner a nice long stare and made a run to it.
He extended his hand in a desperate act to grab onto it, so I made a swift vertical cleave, removing his arm. The blood from his new wound splashed across mister skinny whose body remained on the floor, still bleeding out.
I delivered a second, follow-up slash, across his chest, and his blood sprayed across my face, a face that didn’t flinch when I got a nice glimpse of his insides. And I mean a nice glimpse, my slash damn near sliced him in half across the chest.
I collected his necklace then looked at the house as the flames raged on. The fire department was likely on their way. I needed to make my next move before people started asking questions as to how I could remain inside unaffected. But first things first, I needed to collect the rest of my spoils of combat. I reentered the hallways snatching
the necklaces away from the bodies of misters bulky and nameless.
A shotgun cocked.
I turned.
Mister skinny stood before the entrance of the kitchen with the shotgun in hand and his insides dangling out from his chest.
What the fucking fuck.
How was he alive?
How was he able to withstand all the heat and flames given his mortal wound?
Questions that would have to be asked later; as in when I’m not staring down the barrel of a shotgun pointed at my head. He fired, prompting me to throw my katana, it spiraled and landed next to the flaming staircase. I blinked next to it seconds before the second shotgun blast was destined to hit me.
He charged over to my newly teleported spot, blasting shot after shot off in my general direction. It was too risky to try and recover my blade, I needed to keep moving, and I needed to not get shot. I had no control over the flame shield, that was up to my beast, and something told me it wasn’t up for using that talent again, it was probably a once per battle sort of deal.
I ran upstairs amidst the twelve-gauge busting its roaring noises behind me. Mister skinny laughed with each shot, he too sounded… demonic. Shit, he was possessed. Lucifer must have jumped bodies after I did him in. As I got to the top floor, I looked about and wondered what the hell was I thinking? There wasn’t much in terms of an escape. The floors were slowly coming apart thanks to the flames ripping it up, chunks of the ceiling slumped down, burning slabs of wood dangled back and forth. I needed a weapon and fast, as my adversary’s footsteps thumped against the steps of the burning stairs.
Brianna’s bedroom.
I looked down the hall and saw it, and it was burning like the rest of the house, hopefully those medieval weapons inside were still intact. I ran past the fallen debris, fires, smoke, and heat waves toward her room. I stopped briefly, having felt the floor beneath me tremble, and then give away. What remained of my path to her room crumbled into a burning mess that crashed into the floor of the kitchen below.
Kiss of the Demon Girl Page 11