by K. F. Breene
In the back of my head, I felt the underlying fear from before, telling me to get lost. It had never been so easy to ignore something in all my life. Not with more beings jostling and bumping me. Straying in my path when I was clearly the big man on campus.
Where are these feelings coming from, Reagan? a tiny voice thought in my head.
I had no idea, but I was powerless to stop them.
The crowd that had formed around the fight thinned at the outskirts. Something howled from within the press of creatures. A spray of blood shot out over the beings. I ducked just in time. The glob hit a scaly creature next to me.
There was definitely a reason Vlad’s people weren’t hanging around these edges. The brutality was intense.
I hated that a part of me thrived in it. The part my father had passed down.
An opening on the left gave us an option to leave the main drag. The question was, would it take us toward the river?
I had decided to go for it when a huge shape ducked out of the nearest hovel. I swerved as best I could, but my backpack bumped into it. The impact had me careening away, staggering to get my balance. Darius was beside me in an instant, helping me straighten up.
You know what else was straightening up?
The huge freaking creature that had just come out of the hovel, that was what.
Up and up until it was a little more than double my height. Horns like a mountain goat’s curled around its head and under its ears. Pointed ears stuck out of a leathery face with a hole for a nose. From huge shoulders hung monstrous arms, much too long for its body. A short waist and then thick thighs led down into weird, dinosaur-looking feet.
I dropped my sword a little, because regardless of the feeling from a moment ago, I did not want to tango with this monster.
Please work, suit, I said to myself as I turned slowly and continued on my way. Please work. Don’t let it see me. Don’t let it—
“What is this?” it said in a deep, booming voice.
Was it too much to hope that the creature was talking about some other idiot who’d bumped it with her backpack?
“Does ’ooman scum dare invade my pride?”
I didn’t know what pride meant in the context of that sentence, since the thing clearly wasn’t a lion, but I did know the suit wasn’t keeping me invisible. The creature had a problem with me. Joy.
I also knew that it clearly knew I was part human, not a demon with a human form. So that was unfortunate.
I took a moment to try and read its thoughts, but came up blank. It was blocking me, somehow. I ripped off the mask so I could see better. If the suit wasn’t hiding me from eyeballs, there was no use half blinding myself.
“You grew tired of summoning us to do your bidding, filthy ’ooman, and thought your reign would transfer down here?” It blew out fire through its nostrils, the flame washing down my face.
“Dang it! I wasn’t ready. There go my freaking eyebrows again.”
I turned to face the monster, much more horrible than Darius’s monster form could ever be.
“How dare you speak that filthy tongue to me, ’ooman!” the creature roared.
Do you know what the creature said? Darius thought-asked me.
“Yeah. Don’t you?”
No. It is speaking a language I have never heard.
In other words, I could randomly understand a demonic language without ever having heard it before. That was odd and terrifying, though helpful.
It seems the suit is working for me, since the creature has not noticed me, Darius thought. We’re drawing a crowd. We need to make a move.
“Well, bully for you,” I said sarcastically, sizing up the situation. I adjusted my grip on my sword. “And yes, we do, but running is not going to work. What a crappy way to start an adventure.”
One word pulsed within the quickly gathering crowd, chanted out loud over and over.
“Blood! Blood! Blood!”
Can we end this peacefully? Darius thought.
The creature reached for me.
I dodged its hand and slashed down with my sword. The blade cut halfway through. “Not anymore.”
Chapter Fourteen
The being didn’t howl like I’d thought it might. It roared, shaking the ground and making the crowd shrink back in fear.
“Crap, of all the beasts I could run into, it had to be the one that all these brutal creatures are afraid of.”
It stuck its arm into the air, and through a strange sort of rustling, bone and skin stitched back together before my eyes, faster than I’d ever seen something regenerate. Ever.
A swear word drifted out of Darius’s thoughts, also unhelpful. I didn’t hear any thoughts from the creatures.
“This is why I usually stick to pouches.” I dashed forward and hacked at the creature’s leg before stabbing it in the stomach. “Pouches don’t trouble anyone.”
The creature huffed fire at me, raking it down my front again. I capped my head in ice magic, keeping it subtle in the hopes it wouldn’t be seen, to save myself from going completely bald. Call me vain, but I liked my blond locks.
Once again, the demon’s wounds magically righted themselves. I needed to get serious.
“Say hello to my little friend!” I blasted it with a stream of hellfire. Since I wasn’t the only creature capable of producing hellfire, I felt safe in showing that little trick.
The hellfire punched a hole in its middle.
It screamed, a horrible, high-pitched sound that shook me to the core. Panic bubbled up, wild and paralyzing, begging me to run, scream, cry, or just cower at its feet. I could barely think through the terror.
“That is a great trick,” I said through clenched teeth, fighting the effects of that sound. “That’s some magic that would really help the bounty-hunting gig.”
The hole didn’t stitch back together, so I hit it with another blast, square in the chest.
Realizing its magical scream hadn’t produced the desired effect—on me, anyway; all the other creatures had scattered, and even Darius had jogged backward a few paces—it launched forward, swiping at me first with one hand, then the other.
“How are you still going?” I dodged, dove to the side, and rolled, barely getting out of the way. I jumped up and slashed, catching its wrist and severing its hand cleanly this time. Chancing my ice magic, since the place had cleared out and I’d already decided this demon couldn’t be left to live and tell tales, I smacked its feet with hardened air, pushing them out from under it.
Shock bled through its expression. At least, it could’ve been shock. I only had a moment to catch it before its face smacked against the rock.
I jumped onto its back and hacked downward like a wild thing. My blade sliced through its neck, which, thank all that was holy, didn’t stitch back together.
Its arms and legs flailed. I kept hacking. The thing was made of strong stuff.
Finally, I separated think tank from body. It rolled two feet away and I barely kept from gagging. Severing heads was seriously gross. I hated doing it.
Unexpectedly, the body gave a huge jolt, bucking me off.
Darius caught me midair and set me to rights before stepping back, clearly content to let me handle the situation as long as I didn’t land on my head. What a gentleman.
The demon’s body wiggled again, and steam rose from its collapsed form. A moment later, it half melted, or maybe decomposed, onto the ground.
Breathing heavily, I watched it for a moment to make sure it wouldn’t hop back up and yell, “Psych!”
Look around you, came Darius’s thought.
I turned to find a bunch of creatures creeping toward me. They formed a half-circle, their eyes going between me and my sword and the giant demon at my feet. Not one of them made a sound.
Make a statement, Darius thought.
He was right. If I shied away after taking down a mammoth like that, it wouldn’t look right. I needed to give them a show—something nuts enough that it would start an
urban legend, and people down the road would shrug this off as a tall tale. Stories of bullies getting beaten were always exaggerated with time.
I pumped my fist in the air and yelled barbarically, guttural and savage. I hopped from one foot to the other, raising each knee high and bending my arms, like a mountain man on too much moonshine. Then I surged forward and kicked the head. It bounced off someone and skittered away. My “Ahhh!” turned into “Ugh…”
That was probably enough.
I made a circle in the air with my finger, letting Darius know the bus was leaving, and stalked away, shoving with my ice magic when someone didn’t move out of my way fast enough. The creature—which I couldn’t identify—flew ass over end before skidding on its face.
My agreement not to use my magic wasn’t going well.
“And we’re hurrying,” I said in an undertone as I passed Darius. “We are moving quickly, now.” I put on the jets, using my new vampire-enhanced speed.
That will certainly leave a lasting impression, Darius thought as he caught up with me. Did pride color that thought? Because if he was smart, he’d be more than a little wary. I’d just lopped off a fire-breathing monster’s head and kicked it at the onlookers. I wasn’t the kind of girl to take home to mother.
“I have goo on my boot, and I’m too grossed out to try and scrape it off.” I took a left at the next crossroads. A drop of water plunked off my head. “And why is the ceiling dripping? Never mind; I don’t want to know.”
We came to a fork in the road. A hideous creature, half spider and half typically ugly demon, sidled toward us from the right side. Its head, featuring four eyes and no visible mouth, stared at me for a beat too long.
Irrational rage surged up out of nowhere. Before I could help it, I brought fire down out of the sky, turning the demon into a ball of flame.
“Oh crap, why did I do that?” I snuffed out the fire and looked around quickly. The empty corridors greeted me. Thankfully, nothing had seen my faux pas.
I turned back and found a lump of char in the creature’s place.
“Oops.” I grimaced and turned left. “You better get your money back for this suit, Darius, because it is the pits.”
No. Go right. I think that creature had recently crossed the river.
I hesitated for a brief moment before altering course. “It would be cool to have that magic. Not that I’m bitter or anything.” I breathed out slowly, checking in on the rage still simmering in my gut. “I feel like I’m losing control. I’m not in my right frame of mind. I had no idea I would blast that demon with fire until after it had happened.”
You are reacting to your environment with the part of you that understands it. While I would certainly advise you to hold back whenever possible, don’t keep a demon creature alive at the expense of getting found out.
“It will be impossible for me to keep a low profile. Which, of course, is the reason I didn’t stay in the Brink.” I shook my head, seeing a clear way ahead. For now. “What could I possibly have been thinking?”
Your choices were limited. You chose the path the enemy will least expect, and one that will keep your friends safe. In addition, you are a survivor. You adapt almost immediately to new, hard-to-navigate situations. This journey isn’t ideal, but I think it was the best option available to you.
“You need to do some inspirational seminars. Maybe self-help talks. You’d rake in the dough.”
Those who need inspiration and self-help talks are useless.
“‘Present company excluded’ might’ve been a nice ending to that sentence. Just saying.”
The rocks had become taller again, though every so often we could see the top of a hovel peeking out over them. We had returned to some sort of alleyway, traveling behind the huts where the demons were wheeling and dealing. It was the first stroke of luck we’d gotten.
Incoming.
I saw them as Darius’s thought registered. A group of four creatures walking toward us. Probably all demons (though I was no expert), with thick cords of muscle on powerful frames. Most were shorter than me, and only one might’ve reached my height.
Darius drifted to the side, back to his role as the lurker, which would hopefully turn into a silent killer should I need him.
I didn’t alter coarse or drift with him, choosing instead to own my space and wrap myself in confidence. I knew not all demons were brutal, but the ones in this cesspool seemed to be, and I needed to keep my brazenness front and center or risk getting pushed around.
They noticed me, and their scratching, grating voices fell silent. Their group, previously taking up three-quarters of the path, spread out to fill the whole thing. A blockade.
The rage surged up again, hot and heady.
Don’t be stupid, demons, I thought desperately, staring straight ahead. Don’t pick a fight with me. I’m barely hanging on to control.
“You are far from home,” the demon walking straight at me rasped. They all slowed, ready for a confrontation.
I ground my teeth as a molten wave of wrath ate at my gut. Something else appeared on the path behind the demons.
They have all come from the river, Darius thought, slowing with me. We are almost there.
“That’s super, but I’m about to go crazy.” I rolled my head then shoulders, trying to loosen up. “And there are witnesses.”
I cannot understand you.
Oh good. I was talking the demonic language that I had never learned. It was like waking up in a foreign place with no idea how you’d gotten there.
“We don’t tolerate human spawn, maggot,” the one in front of me, Mr. Chatty, said, clearly thinking I was the product of an incubus or something similar, a demon who seduced humans and begot a child. It spat to the side. The spit sizzled on the rock.
“Acidic spit. That must really kill your love life.” Flame licked at my fingers, begging to be set free. My magic flowered. I spread my hands and grinned as my control slipped. “But, as you see, I made it through the gate. I have a right to be down here.”
“You only have the rights I say you do.” The demons stopped, challenging me.
I kept walking, closing the distance. “You’ll want to step aside,” I said in an easy-breezy tone at complete odds with the inferno raging within. “Or I’ll be forced to yank off your arm and beat you with it.”
Mr. Chatty laughed. The others joined in.
“Wrong answer.” Aching cold slid down my arms and pounded inside me. The fire swirled around it. The desire to maim, kill, destroy! thudded in time to my heart. “I shouldn’t have come down here,” I said, breathing heavily.
“You are just now realizing that?” Mr. Chatty asked.
I stopped two feet in front of it, red tinging the edges of my vision. The desire to blow this whole place up was so strong that my limbs shook. “That thought is on a loop. I think it every few minutes. Regardless, you’ll want to move. Now.”
Though it didn’t show in my voice, I was begging it. What did show in my voice was that part of me—the crazy-powerful part—hoped the demon would force me to retaliate.
I didn’t know much about split personalities, but I knew they weren’t good. And my power was forcing me to develop one. This was the start of the breakdown, I was sure of it.
“I will move…right after I kill you,” Mr. Chatty growled.
The ice magic overcame me, and before I knew it, air had solidified in front of the demon. Barely realizing that it was me working the magic, I grabbed the demon’s arm with the air, yanked it off, and slapped the creature across the face with it.
“I did promise to do that,” I said with a grimace.
The others started and about-faced. They took off as one.
I sent a fireball over the first demon and rolling after the rest, ending their ability to tattle. The weave was different than the straightforward flame I usually used. I’d picked up a little something from the demon we’d summoned in the Brink.
Silence drifted down onto the newly s
tilled path.
“I should go home and lock myself up. This can’t be good. I think I have a rage problem.” I wiped my sweating forehead, then clutched at my hammering heart. “A very bad rage problem. The cure is probably yoga. Yoga seems to cure everything. Maybe I should head back and enroll in some yoga classes.”
That was…effective. Not low profile, but effective.
This time the pride rang through his thoughts loud and clear. Also giddiness. The vampire part of him had loved the show of force and violence.
“I don’t know if I’m happy that you can understand me again, or severely worried that my ethics committee is a creature distinctly known for a lack of ethics.”
Both, I should think.
“Yes. Probably. Let’s find that freaking river before we meet any more bullies. I don’t want to know what I’m going to do next. It’ll probably make me faint. Or worse, make me giddy like you.”
Both, judging by the display a moment ago.
“Do me a favor. Stop thinking.”
I didn’t like his soft chuckle. He was getting way too much enjoyment out of my newfound talent for savagery.
The problem was, like them or not, I’d need a bigger dose of these new talents soon enough. The demons I’d just gone up against were probably level twos or threes, creatures that could readily be summoned to the Brink. Even the tough one earlier had only been a level four or so, even though he’d clearly had some special powers. These were the flunkies. The hacks. The ones who couldn’t make it in the big leagues. Except for a couple of new magical traits I hadn’t seen before, they were nothing.
Anxiety made my stomach churn.
If these were the lackeys, what would I find across the river?
Chapter Fifteen
We passed the charred remains of the demon that had been in the wrong place at the wrong time. All it had probably wanted to do was trade a trinket or something, and instead it had witnessed a psycho thumping demons with their own extremities.
“You’re just relaxing and taking it easy, huh?” I asked Darius quietly as we made our way. A pair of growls sounded somewhere to the left beyond the rock, followed by snarling and hollering. A fight had started. “Letting the girl take care of everything.”