by Lucia Ashta
“Maybe you won’t think it’s so fun once I start decimating you and your crew.” I took a single step toward him.
“Oh, no matter what the outcome, I’ll think it’s fun. That’s one of the great advantages of being like me.”
I believed him. Even if the death and destruction were of his own team, he’d still get off on it because he enjoyed suffering no matter how it came about.
“However, my dear Katsumi, I do think you’ll find yourself vastly outnumbered and outpowered. Perhaps there’s a certain beauty to you finally going down with your lover at your side.... A modern Romeo and Juliet even. Only no one will record your story. You and he will die and no one will know why. Oh, of course we’ll make up some wild story to satisfy the quaint little imagination of humans, and they’ll eat it up, just like they always do.”
I took another step toward him, light katanas blazing. He didn’t flinch. He didn’t even look, as if what I pointed at him were no more concerning than a bubble wand.
He looked away from me, as if pondering, toward the upper balcony. But I understood him and his ways better—at least, I knew the ways of his kind. There might have been something up there, some threat he was verifying was in place. I wanted to turn around to check, but I wouldn’t. No matter what the skin walker said or how he tried to distract me, the game was already afoot. Everything he said and did was a play in his game.
In this vast room, the greatest danger I’d seen so far was he.
“I’m thinking...”—he drew his words out, a master at the dramatic pause—“a lovers’ quarrel. The two of you came here, duked it out, and killed each other. A tragic story with a tragic end.” He returned his attention to me. His eyes were an indeterminate color, all dizzying swirls. With me he didn’t bother to hide who he was; he didn’t concern himself with making his eyes appear fully human. “What do you think?”
He rubbed his chin. “Yes, you’re right,” he said, though I hadn’t said a thing. “Too over the top, I agree. But then, is there really such a thing? When this life you humans lead is all an elaborate ruse to cover up what’s really going on, why hold back? People will buy whatever I sell them. I could spin it as a random act of violence, a devastating murder of two lovers, a robbery gone wrong, anything at all I want.”
His body language shifted. The change was slight but it signaled he was nearly through with his charade.
“The more I think of it, the more I like it. Someone like you deserves to go out with some embellishment. There are so few like you left in this world. I think I’ll miss you once you’re gone. I’ll miss the challenge. Everything about this is so easy.” He sighed. “Humans just allow us to waltz in and lead the dance. We’re the puppeteers and they’re the marionettes.”
“Sorry that manipulating an entire race is boring to you.”
“Why, how kind of you to say. Thank you. Yes, it is so boring. If I’m to be honest, I can barely stand being among you humans anymore.”
“You’re incapable of being honest. And if you hate us so much, why don’t you just go and leave us all alone?”
In a flash, the pretense dropped from his face, and he looked less human. He snarled and moved toward me. “Because I’m not allowed to leave. Like you, I have a purpose to fulfill.”
I wasn’t going to ask. His purpose blazed across his face, as clear as if he’d spoken it. Today, right now, his purpose was to kill me and make me pay for all the demons I’d wiped from Earth.
I took another step toward him. His lips bared perfect, straight, white teeth. His pupils nearly obliterated the jittery movement of his irises, and his skin stretched into a thin layer across bones and tissue, as if his inner demon were straining to rip through the façade.
The less human he looked, the more the adrenaline pumped through me, and the more I forgot that fear was even an option. I’d been training to fight long before I discovered I’d be fighting demons. I might be in the body of a slight woman, but my heart was that of a warrior. In that way, I hadn’t strayed far from my samurai ancestors. Even as a child I’d known I was a warrior.
When the girls in my village played with dolls and tea sets, I trained to eventually fight with the katana.
I’d always recognized what I was. “Let me help you out then. I’ll end you today, and you can be free to go back to Hell or wherever it is foul beasts like you come from.”
He snarled, the remaining vestiges of his feigned humanity all but stripped of him. He was a monster in a fancy suit.
He stepped toward me, but I lunged for him, katanas outstretched and reaching for the sonovabitch.
Chapter Four
My two swords clashed with his gigantic one. Mine shone a bright white; his glowed in its complete opposite, as if his sword were composed of the raw matter of a black hole. I crossed my swords to create a bar against the swing he tried to slice through the crown of my head.
“How refreshing that you fight in the ways of old. I do miss a good sword fight now and again.” He pulled his blade back and thrust at me. I jumped backward to avoid being singed. I wasn’t sure what would happen if he touched me with his blade, but I had no desire to find out. Whatever it was, it would hurt like sin, kill me, or both.
I moved to the side, blocked another of his blows, and sliced at his torso with both blades in a parallel swing. His suit jacket sizzled and burned, and one of my katanas sliced the flesh beneath.
“You’ll pay for that.” But I could tell it was still mostly show. A skin walker had no real care for things of the material world—or at least, they weren’t supposed to—and while I’d cut skin, I hadn’t sliced that deeply. “This was one of my favorite suits.”
Was he lying? I couldn’t tell. If he’d become a skin walker with a taste for human luxuries, then that was something new and an angle I could potentially mine for vulnerabilities. Once I survived this, once I got Alek out of here in one piece.
Alek. I strained to hear signs of struggle, but heard none other than my own. I couldn’t afford to divert my attention to seek him out. The skin walker was still toying with me. An instant of distraction would be the end of me.
My best chances were to dispatch with the swordsman and then save Alek from the specters. At least the one I fought was the worst of them, and the others wouldn’t do anything without his orders.
Of course, he could have given them orders to hurt Alek before I arrived...
But I didn’t hear anything to indicate that the other wraiths were attacking.
Which meant that maybe Alek was dead already.
My heart thumped, I stumbled, and Skin Walker’s sword sliced my arm. He laughed.
My flesh boiled, instantly turning a putrid shade of gray no one ever wanted to see on one’s own body. “I got you!” He made it sound like we were playing a game of tag, as if the stakes weren’t as high as they got.
For him they weren’t. I was just another demon huntress he had to kill. Sure, I was one of the few alive, but I was still just another face he had to put down, in a sea of humans to manipulate and control.
For me this battle was everything. Every time I fought demons it always was. Not only could I lose my life, I could lose my humanity. They always tried to lure me to the side of darkness, and every time they did it became more difficult to resist. The temptation to give all my responsibility the big eff off and live an easy life grew larger.
“That must hurt, lovely little Katsumi. It cooks like a goose for Sunday dinner.”
I glanced at my arm. The gash had spread. No longer a line, it gaped like a canyon on my forearm. Was that bone? Damn, it was.
Bile rose in my throat. I swallowed—hard—and took advantage of his distraction—or more what he thought was my distraction. His sword was off to the side as if we’d agree on a time out.
Faster than he could do a double take, I stabbed at him with a sword from either side and pierced his trunk. Blades of light sliced through his ribs like they were butter on a hot day. I experienced a glorious m
oment in which I felt like a Jedi with a pair of invincible light sabers.
But my victory was short lived, and the real battle began even as I watched light illuminate the insides of his flesh, glowing through his abdomen brightly enough for me to see through a crisp shirt.
I sensed the skin walker dig into my mind. He swung his sword at me. I parried, rotting arm be damned, while I diverted the majority of my attention to the real fight—the one the bastard would wage in my head.
I flicked a wisp of a glance at the stage. Illuminated by every light the theater had, shadowy wraiths swarmed my man. An impression was all I could get. There were too many of the demons, their attack too dense to catch more than glimpses of the Russian fighter my heart yearned to spare from the curse that was my life.
It was too quiet on stage. Like a heavy snowfall in the middle of the night, it was too still. Alek should have been resisting. He should have been doing something.
The skin walker’s sword slashed at my thigh. The evil blade sliced through my jeans. I felt its heat—hotter than a flame thrower—but it didn’t touch my skin.
I snapped my attention back where it belonged.
Hello there, Katsumi. The skin walker’s slithery voice was in my head, where it could do the most damage. I’m enjoying this little fight we’re having. I was bored before you came along. I’m glad you took that old curd’s place. Fights with him were always the same. A blast of power. A shove, a push, and he was done. There was no finesse.
I clenched my teeth against his words.
You, however, are all finesse. All delicate lines and movements. It’s a pleasure to fight you. I’ll almost be disappointed once I’ve killed you and you’re gone. Almost.
I sensed his creepy smile in my head as much as I saw it with my eyes. I resisted the urge to shiver with disgust.
I lunged at him with a flurry of fast-placed blades, and pushed—as hard as I could—until he popped out of my mind. Then I sealed it down. I clenched my jaw from the effort of concentrating my power inside my skull.
He laughed again, and somehow his laughter seemed the worst of it all. I might have heard his laugh in a country club or a private lounge or wherever the extremely wealthy hung out. His lightheartedness—an act, no doubt—was an abomination, a mockery of the struggle to lead a decent human life.
“You’ve gotten stronger, little warrior. You’ve been practicing.”
I didn’t have the extra focus or strength to exchange banter. My left forearm pulsed alarmingly and I resisted the desire to evaluate the damage. It would be bad, that I already knew.
There was still no sound of attack or resistance from the stage area.
The skin walker pushed against my walls of defense. Tendrils of darkness licked at my mind, trying to get in through a gentle touch. A wave of caresses that sought out a crack in my shield pushed on my brain until all I could see was a future with a blinding headache.
When the subtle failed, he broke out the battering rams. He slammed against my protection, banging against the power I wrapped around my thoughts. If he got in, he could get me to harm myself and even Alek.
The susceptibility of the mind was humanity’s greatest weakness. Demons manipulated thoughts and actions at the individual level until they affected the worldwide population.
But they wouldn’t manipulate me. If they did, I would have lost. Without my mentor to back me up, I’d fail, and Alek and I would die before I had the chance to tell him I loved him. Before I could tell him it was the last thing I ever wanted, but it had happened just the same.
Skin Walker pushed and shoved at my brain while he slammed at me from above and all sides with his sword. It was nothing like the elegant fights of Jedi with their light sabers. The skin walker hit me with mounting rage and violence. Each attack I blocked increased his frustration.
I didn’t know how I’d withstand all the darkness and nastiness inside him if he were to unleash it. With every movement that didn’t deliver his goal, he put more of himself into the next swing, the next slam against my brain.
I thanked the gods I’d trained so hard with the katana since I was a child. Counterattacking and assaulting were as natural as if the blades were a true part of my body—their light was an extension of me.
I fell into the flow and danced with my blades. Every time he stepped and attempted to slice me again, I stopped him. I prevented every attack.
I zoned out until I no longer focused on his individual features or how they distorted more with each of his failed attacks. As time slipped by, he became more beast, less human. More demon, less something that belonged in the same world as I did.
He banged, shoved, and whipped his blade with muscles that bulged and would no longer fit in his human shirt. His clothing shredded into nothing, eventually sizzling and dissolving.
Before me stood a giant beast. An otherworldly force that had no business in my domain.
A five-foot-nothing woman against a monster.
But power had nothing to do with physical size or prowess. It had everything to do with who and what you are, and what you’re willing to believe of yourself.
In that moment, I chose to believe I was a warrior, a demon huntress, as capable of feats of victory as my mentor had been. Because if I didn’t... well, there was no point in exploring that. I wouldn’t.
The demon beast growled and roared. The glass in the windows of the high balconies shook behind dusty curtains.
Thick, viscous liquid dripped down my nose and slid onto my upper lip. I wouldn’t drop my blades to swipe at it. I realized it must be blood.
I was pushing my brain too far. I was pushing all of me to my limits.
My physical katanas clanked against my thighs making me long for those easy battles against beings of the flesh, where efficient slices would deliver an end to a fight. I wished so much that I could drop my light katanas, grab my real ones, and slice, cut, and kill the bastard into oblivion.
The stage area was still too quiet and I was growing tired of the games the beast played. Adrenaline pumped through my veins as if it, and not blood, were the source of life.
Then the sword vanished from the hands of the demon beast, all bulging, shiny muscle of gray and crimson. He jumped back, out of my reach. His legs were too springy, his leap too far. With all pretense of humanity abandoned, he was proving he didn’t have to live by any earthly rules.
I watched, trying not to tremble, as he nearly doubled in size. As a skin walker, he was already a foot taller than me. Now I didn’t bother to count.
He was Goliath, and I was screwed.
I released my mental hold on my energetic katanas and they vanished.
I raced toward the monster as he crossed the distance in three giant strides and leapt toward the stage, where Alek was too still to be safe.
Chapter Five
I didn’t think; I ran. I wouldn’t beat the demon beast to the stage. His stride was too long and he was nearly there.
But I wasn’t giving up—not ever. They’d drag my iron will from me only with my dying breath.
I was fast. Everything I’d done since I was a child was meant to hone me for fighting. I maintained my body in prime conditioning.
I pumped my legs and arms and traversed the hundred feet of theater intended for lighthearted evenings filled with tantalizing delight. If only that’s what I was here for...
The only steps that led to the stage were off to the sides, but there was no way I was going that way. I wouldn’t wrap around the stage and lose sight of what little bit of Alek I could make out, nor would I go into an area I couldn’t see ahead of time, especially not when demons controlled it.
The stage looked like it would reach my rib cage. I didn’t slow down. I raced to the edge, planted both hands against it, swung one leg up, then the other, and landed in a crouch. My eyes never left the former skin walker, who was now all beast and already dominated the stage—the star of the show.
My gaze flickered left and right, s
ifting through passing demons that never stopped moving. Translucent shadows, they flew back and forth as if in the current of a river, which didn’t allow them to remain still. Under different circumstances, their constant movement might have disturbed or irritated me at least. That day I barely registered it.
There, behind a mass of writhing shadow, was Alek. Finally.
A rush of breath I hadn’t realized I was holding left me in a whoosh. In hindsight, I wished I hadn’t released it audibly. The demon honcho studied me for signs of weakness. I experienced his constant attention like a dull razor rasping at my skin, one that was sure to leave behind a painful rash.
Bless Alek, he didn’t look terrified as I’d assumed he would. It had nothing to do with his courage or strength, and much less with his manliness—Alek was all man, from the stubble on his face to the muscles which bulged against his otherworldly binds. His eyes spoke of his intentions. He meant to break free of his restraints and pound these demons into ash. His eyes screamed murder—that they would dare to take him the way they had, that they dared to threaten me the way they were!
I didn’t need to hear words to understand that Alek was furious because they’d attacked me. His crystal eyes, the color of a hot summer sky when the rain was finally coming in, held fear for me, not for him.
And fear was the one thing that would get him killed.
The demons were masters at manipulating a person’s fears. They’d use it against Alek until he couldn’t see reality for what it was, until he might hurt himself or me and not even realize it.
But... why hadn’t they worked his mind already? I stared into the now inhuman eyes of the demon beast and wondered—hard. I’d faced enough demons to recognize their modus operandi. Their greatest weapons were those they unleashed within a person’s psyche. They were capable of twisting everything. Love suddenly became hate, and trust gave way to betrayal.