Now I need to find a demon in this concrete monstrosity before Stan does something stupid. Like take a potshot at me.
I turn a three-sixty, unease prickling my skin into bumps, looking for the black blob of demon energy. I know the thing is here. Not only did the Agency computer say so, but my justitia vibrates a deep hum, acknowledging a demonic presence without forming a sword.
Guess it needs a visual.
“Stay back, or I’ll drop it! I mean it!” Stan yells, shaking the unknown object in his hand.
A couple of security personnel step back. One wipes his forehead on the back of his arm. Haven’t they seen a crazy guy in here before? After all, this is where the city council meets.
“Shit!” Smythe’s eyes flare.
Did he see the demon? My gaze follows where he looks, but he stares at Stan. Not a demon to be found. And as much as I want to hurt Stan for hurting T, he remains human, not a minion. Unless I want a trip to jail, I need to let the police handle the crazy killer. Being locked behind bars is about as appealing as thinking of my last demon fight.
If no demon or minion, what is Smythe upset about? The answer hits me like a speeding truck, hard and fast and life changing. It’s not the gun Stan waves with more flash than aim. It’s the object in his hand. The object I now see clearly. A vial. A vial like those in Dr. Sheevers’ lab. Tubes of weaponized anthrax.
Oh shit barely scratches the surface.
Dizziness spins my vision as I struggle to draw in a breath. I grab Smythe’s arm. Give it a shake. “Form a portal. Now. Get me out of here.”
He shakes off my hand like waving off an annoying fly. “Once the team arrives, we’ll contain it.”
“Are you kidding?”
One raised brow informs me I’ve insulted him. Deal, buddy.
“We train for situations like this.”
“With anthrax?” I clear my high-pitched voice. “Mages train for bioweapons?”
He swallows, his gaze bouncing from Stan to a point by my ear. “We can handle it.”
“Handle this. I’m leav—” The words die in my mouth as my backward step runs me into someone. Strong hands grab my arms, keeping me upright. Images flash through my mind, energy bolts, demons, dead minions, all laced with a glee bordering on the maniacal.
“Aidan.” The hands release me before I determine whether they belong to a psycho killer or someone who’s really into their job. Let’s hope it’s the latter and not the former.
“Chris.”
I turn while Smythe answers the greeting to see Team Agency en masse behind us. Six men, no women.
Someone needs to speak with HR about gender equality.
“Where’s the demon?” A tall, dark-skinned mage with a voice like James Earl Jones and a body like the statue of David, asks.
Smythe shrugs. “We’ve got a problem. That man,” he points to Stan, “probably has anthrax in that vial he’s holding. We need to be ready with a containment field in case he drops it.”
Judging from the f-bombs, not a team member is happy about the potential for mass casualties. Or they aren’t as confident in their containment abilities as Smythe claims. Sweat beads on their foreheads as if they spent too much time outside in the Texas heat. A couple lick their lips as they check out the Stan show. Despite knowing a bioweapon might drop and kill us all, not a one of them forms a portal, grabs me and escapes. Damn men and their sense of priority.
Although I’m a fine one to be talking. Just because my heart pounds a run-away-run-away beat, and I really need a potty doesn’t mean I can leave. The silver links fastened around my wrist guaran-damn-tees my ass stays in direct line of the bioweapon.
And I wanted to be a Justitian? What was I thinking?
After a brief discussion on the best way to handle containment—to my relief it appears Smythe wasn’t blowing smoke with his ‘we can handle it’ claim—Team Agency spreads out, two mages slithering along the wall to stand on either side of the guards circled around Stan. Two take positions between Stan and us, palms held outward but close to their bodies. The remaining mages, including the James Earl Jones echo—whose name is actually James—stay with us. And give me dirty looks. As if I should be risking my life to stop Stan from dropping the vial. Or maybe they think I should be doing a better job of hunting for the demon.
Okay, fine. Maybe they have a point. But hunting a demon when I really want to flee takes more willpower than I possess. And it doesn’t help that my justitia would rather join me in the run-and-hide move instead of fighting and killing.
“Gin?” Smythe’s blue eyes grab my gaze. “We’re in position. Where’s the demon?”
I cross my arms, rub my hands up and down goosebump covered flesh. “I don’t see it. Have you looked?”
“What do you think I’ve been doing?”
“I don’t know. Trying to form a containment field?”
Smythe’s eyes narrow. Focus and stop smarting off.
“I’ll try again.” I blow out a puff of air, uncross my arms, and focus my gaze on the shadows thickening in the corners.
My justitia shivers as if it senses the demon. A quick glance around the atrium shows no demon. At least not a visible one. I step around Smythe as he talks to James and Chris about containment spells, my gaze drifting to the corners. Enough light shines through the several stories tall windows to obliterate shadows, yet behind a potted tree a shadow shimmers a malevolent hue.
The demon? Or trick of the light?
“I will do anything to pay those assholes back!” Stan screams. “Anything! They stole my land! They killed my wife!”
The shadow moves into the light, solidifying into Cracked Flesh, aka Agramon. Jagged red lines streak across his charred black body. Bright red eyes focus on Stan. The room shrinks, walls growing closer, a threat of impending doom hanging in the air like a visible mist.
The demon takes a step, the sound a shotgun blast of pure terror across my nerves. My pulse throbs in my ears as a sword explodes out of the justitia, the metal cool against the back of my hand.
“Anything?” The demon’s voice slides across my skin, into my bones, a cold needle invading my marrow.
Time slows. Stan, Smythe, and Team Agency are the only ones who glance at the demon. No one else seems to hear it.
Lucky them.
I need to kill the thing, to stop whatever nefarious plan it has, but my knees freeze, the justitia’s fear reaction turning my nerves into long shards of ice. I can’t do this. I can’t fight this demon. I can’t win.
Stan nods, his wide eyes focused on the demon as if the thing holds a winning lottery ticket and believes in sharing. A deep rumble comes from the creature’s chest, a laugh, a roar, the malevolence slamming into me with the force of an eighteen-wheeler.
I want to run, but I’m frozen in place, in time, eyes wide like I’m caught in a horror movie. Worse than a horror movie. This is real. This demon wants me dead. I can’t stop it from killing me. Ohgodohgodohgod, what do I do? Why can’t I run? I’m going to die. Why won’t anyone help me?
Frozen, I can do nothing but watch as the demon exhales a visible puff of air that floats to Stan, engulfing him in a coat of evil.
Stan stiffens as the pulsing demon’s essence sinks through his skin, turning his eyes black and his aura the throbbing red of a minion.
Shit. Looks like I can kill him after all. Knowing Stan’s a minion and on the top of my kill list fails to chase away the fright riding my bones. Why did I ever call myself a demon huntress? I can’t kill a minion, let alone go after a demon.
You must conquer fear. Zagan’s voice drifts through my mind.
He’s right. But how? How do I conquer a demon when my body remains frozen with fright? Despite my justitia forming a sword, the entity along my nerves would rather shrivel into an invisible, quivering heap. Which doesn’t bode well for the upcoming fight.
Stan throws his head back, his maniacal laugh swallowed by the concrete walls. A full body shiver shakes throug
h my skin, settles into my bones. I draw in a breath. I am a Justitian. I am. It’s my job to kill these things.
Really. I can kill the demon. I must kill the demon. No other choice exists.
No other good choice, that is. Worst case scenario. The demon could kill me. Or Team Agency. Or Smythe. I can’t allow that to happen.
My justitia twists along my nerves, sensing my determination, fueling my frozen muscles into movement. The sword tip dips, shakes. I draw in another breath. Take a step toward the demon. Stan might be the easier target in the sense he’s a new minion. In theory new minions are weaker, not as powerful as older ones.
But he holds a container of anthrax. When faced with those killing spores, I’ll take my chances with Cracked Flesh. Team Agency can handle the bioweapon.
Another breath and I sneak closer to the demon. Why do the regular humans not notice it? Do demons possess cloaking devices the average human can’t see? Why do random thoughts bounce through my mind when I should be planning an attack?
Another step, my limbs trembling a dance of terror. Agramon turns its head, its gaze like obsidian pools splashing with anguish. Its lips part, edges turning with an unholy glee.
“Little Justitian. You live. For now.”
My heart pounds hard enough to shake my shirt. My mouth turns into the dry sands of the Sahara. Did I really think I could fight this thing?
You can. You will. I know how. The justitia’s thoughts or am I hearing voices?
I vote for the justitia.
How?
Silence.
Great.
Agramon’s hand draws back. Before my mind processes the movement, I’m flying through the air, limbs outstretched, a flying monkey toy complete with high-pitched screeching. No more internal conversations for me.
A male scream fills the air right before I hit the ground, my fall broken by an invisible mat, a clear courtesy of Smythe. Thank God for mentors.
Fear washes away under a good dose of pissed off. I roll to my feet, facing Cracked Flesh. One of its hands drops, a fading glow of an energy bolt giving a reason to my sudden flight. It got in the first hit. Now it’s my turn.
Stan screams a threat, a curse, but I tune him out, my focus riveted on the demon. Smoke encircles its hands, a prelude to another energy bolt or some other demon trick. No matter. The thing is mine.
But I can’t defeat it. I can’t. A cold wave of fear crashes into me, freezing me solid. Inside the justitia roars. Or maybe that’s a sob. The two of us want to fight, want to defeat the demon, but how can we when my feet refuse to move?
There is nothing to fear but fear itself.
Zagan’s voice? Or my own remembrance? Either way it’s a lie. There’s a lot to fear. Stan and the anthrax. Smythe never trusting me again.
The demon throwing another energy bolt.
This time I fly into the wall sans invisi-mat. Ouch, ouch, ouch.
Getting all up in my head when I should be paying attention to the demon who wants to use my body as its bowling ball is not a good idea.
Smythe, James, and Chris throw a flash of energy at the demon, their bolts striking Agramon in the chest, none doing damage. Unless you count the crazed cackle the beast releases. Yeah, that one releases a round of whole body goosebumps.
Fear. How do I conquer Fear?
Together. Trust me. My justitia whispers along my nerves, giving me a glimpse into its thoughts, its memories. It still fears the demon. The only demon to scare it.
A memory long buried surfaces, floats beneath the water of time, sinks beneath the surface, out of my grasp. But the justitia remembers. The justitia knows.
And the justitia shuts down all my pain receptors, forces my legs to stand, to hold my weight instead of collapsing.
The demon throws a bolt at Smythe. Light flares around my mentor as he forms a shield. Then he flies backward, smacking into James, both mages hitting the ground hard. Before Chris can toss his energy ball, the demon smacks him with a bolt, knocking him onto the James and Smythe pile.
Rage fills my soul, blots red dots across my vision. Anger more akin to T than me boils out my pores, drives away the fear, replacing it with a healthy dose of you-hurt-my-mentor-and-you-must-die.
I let loose with a loud cry and run toward Agramon. Who turns right before I nail it in the back with my sword. The justitia screeches as the blade scraps along its arm, fingernails across the chalkboard of its skin.
The demon roars, its lip pulling into a snarl as one hand reaches for me. “You will regret that, little Justitian.”
Its words stroke along my body, igniting a fire of fright. A fire easily doused with a dose of anger. I want this demon dead. Dead, dead, dead, dead, dead. The spell its words try to wrap around me falls to the ground, a failed attempt at control.
Take that Fear. Up yours.
Pain shatters along my jaw, snapping my head to the side, windmilling my body. What the hell just happened?
I reach a hand out to catch myself before I face plant on the concrete. Claws grip the back of my shirt, the waistband of my leather pants.
And I’m airborne, sailing toward the mass of security guards paying my fight no attention. Right before I smack into a guard, an invisible wall of foam breaks my flight. I sink to the ground, shaken and dizzy.
Huddled on the concrete floor, I listen to the click of claws growing closer. And they grow closer.
Cracked Flesh squats before me, yellow stubby teeth appearing as his lips turn back in a macabre grin. “You are more fun than the other Justitians I’ve killed. All these memories. All these secrets. All this pain. I could gorge on you for days. Unfortunately, I do not have time.” It reaches for me, claws extended, then pauses, its lips pulling wider, exposing more teeth. “But I know how to finish you. Watch as I kill the one you care for. Watch, for you will be next.”
It stands to face Smythe, its palm turned face up. Energy boils, hovering above its outstretched hand. My gaze focuses on Smythe, who struggles to stand, his face pale and sweating.
Like hell it’s going to kill my mentor. Not while I’m still standing. Or shivering in a huddle as the case may be.
I leap forward a second before the demon releases the energy bolt, twisting, extending the justitia to catch the bolt of light. My sword explodes in flashing red light as if it turned into a disco ball. Meant as a killing blast, the red energy knocks me off my feet. Once again I perform my best falling with style routine, arms and legs windmilling as if that will help me catch my balance while airborne.
The red light travels up the justitia until it sinks beneath my skin. I should be dead even with a magical entity attached to my nerves. Instead, I bounce off another invisi-mat, landing in a crouch halfway between the approaching demon and Smythe.
Red fire licks my skin, tries to sink inside. Death. What should be my death stops skin deep. As if some internal force holds it in place.
Trust. The justitia sounds in my head.
Trust what? The entity living alongside my nerves? And then pain cuts through my center, and all thoughts disappear into a screaming void. Sounds rip through my ears. Sounds I make. Sounds of a wounded, enraged animal.
Me.
And I’m pissed off.
A healthy dose of anger rips off the band-aid of fear and pain surrounding me. Red saturates my vision, colors the scene in a crimson shade of death. This time the anger taps into the strange well of power deep inside, entwines the two together and yanks. Power streams through my being, my veins, my limbs, a red-hot power like an endless well of energy at my disposal.
The power stops the advance of Agramon’s energy against my skin, turning that power around, shoving it out my skin and up the length of the justitia. My sword gleams with a pulsing red light, a deadly combination of that strange internal power and the demon’s energy.
Cracked Flesh’s eyes widen. “Impossible! It cannot be done!”
I can’t help the smile spreading across my face. The expression feels wicked, evil. L
ike it belongs to another.
“I’m no longer afraid of you. You hear that? No. Longer. Afraid.” Why should I fear? Whatever power races around my veins lends me strength. Cunning. Power.
I am invincible. And the demon is not.
The thing stands stunned, even as I race toward it, sword pulled back for a killing blow. It gathers energy in its palm a second too late, for I’m upon it, justitia infused with the red power.
It hisses, the ‘s’ drawn out until I’m no longer sure if it’s trying to say a word that starts with an ‘s’ or one that starts with a ‘z’. Not that its last word matters. My justitia slices through its neck like a scalpel through fat. Its severed head bounces once and rolls to a stop against the wall.
And that’s when Stan drops the glass vial of anthrax.
Chapter Twenty-One
Right before the glass shatters on the concrete, the mages on either side of Stan wave their hands and the vial clinks against the floor as if laid there by a careful hand.
My breath explodes out my mouth as Stan drops to the ground, arms around his middle. Black mist streams out of him, races to the headless demon, a sprint to return to its host. Without thinking, I step between the mist and the demon, justitia raised. The mist smacks into the metal, popping, and sizzling before dissipating as gray smoke, dead and defeated.
With a flash of light, the demon’s body and head turn to a fine, black ash.
I grin, an expression done often throughout a normal day, and yet the movement feels different, sinister. Not that I stop to analyze the reason. I want to jump around, pumping my fist in the air like a touchdown scoring football player. I killed it. I killed Fear. I defeated an enemy of my justitia. I really am invincible. The justitia leaps along my nerves, its version of the happy dance. We won. We can do anything.
A strong hand grabs my arm. I turn to a frantic Smythe. A small frisson of guilt lances my chest. I should’ve checked on him sooner.
“Your eyes.”
I blink. Raise a brow. What does that have to do with the dead demon? “My eyes? That’s all you can say? Are you okay?”
“Your eyes were red.” He returns my puzzled look, gaze searching for specks of crimson.
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