by Erik Reid
“Give it back,” I said, holding my position and ready to take a swing.
“Hoodie isss mine,” it hissed.
“Nope. I’m the one who spilled soda on it, told the clerk it was damaged, and bought it for half off as a final sale. Me!”
“But I,” it said, “possesssss.”
“It can speak!” Dani yelled.
“Of course it can,” I said, my eyes trained on the creature launching into another sprint toward me. “It bit me pretty bad and drank some of that sweet-talkin’ human blood I’ve got going on.”
Kaylee gasped. “Are you bleeding? I can’t see!”
“Nah, it was a long time ago,” I said, raising one hand to block the bloodhound’s attempt at a running punch, then jabbing forward with Oscar. The creature twisted at the waist and evaded me, then lunged forward. I had to lurch my head back to avoid its spiraled teeth as it snapped its jaw near my neck, then I pushed it with both hands to buy some distance.
“Dani was there,” I said. “Remember that, Dani? It killed a fisherman, hid and waited, set a trap for you, bit me, stole my hoodie, and ran off into the distance, never to be seen again. Until now.”
“I do remember that,” Dani said. “You haven’t mentioned it since.”
“Losing my favorite hoodie was a traumatic experience,” I said. “I was grieving. But you know what they say about the five stages of grief: first comes denial, then comes ripping someone’s heart out and squeezing it with a vengeance. Here goes!”
Three feet in front of me, the bloodhound snarled and bared its teeth in some kind of threatening display that was more revolting than anything else. Its dark gray tongue lolled around in its open mouth, allowing a thick strand of drool to spill down its chin.
“I will get sssuch reward,” the monster said. “I protect A’zarkin’s son from intrudersss.”
It stepped to the side as it spoke, tracing an arc around the snow. I moved closer to Dani and Kaylee, unwilling to circle the flat, wintery terrain and let that beast inch its way closer to them.
“I’m surprised daddy’s boy isn’t out here defending his own mountain,” I said. “Where is the lady prince anyway? That time of the month? Cramped up his tender little womb?”
“Prince Pakson will fill hisss womb after the egg ceremony,” the bloodhound said.
“What does that mean?” I asked.
The bloodhound leapt at me and I punched high, flattening its nose and killing its inertia. It scrambled away to regroup, bleeding black down its face.
I stole a glance toward Clara. A ring of moonlight touched the snow all around her, but she hid in the shadow of a large rock that shielded her from the night’s natural light.
Sensing an opening, the creature took a long swipe at me with its dingy claws. I lifted Oscar and took the hit, allowing his impenetrable black fabric to shield me.
“Where is the egg?” I asked.
“Nowhere sssoon,” it said. “No when soon.”
“Look,” I said. “You’re not the Riddler. Tell me straight up where that golden draykin nugget is.”
It feinted at me, then took a step backward, closing the distance between us and Clara another few feet.
That was unacceptable. I stood straight and planted my feet side by side, signaling my intention to stay put while I waited for an answer.
“Where is the egg, huh?” I asked. “Where? Where? Where? Is this annoying? Answer and I’ll stop.”
The creep pulled the sweatshirt’s hood over its head and crossed its arms with its feet planted shoulder-width apart, mimicking my own pose.
“Come on you stubborn bastard,” I said. “It’s my blood that gave you speech and I never shut up!”
I stomped toward him, picking up speed as my legs burst into a full sprint. The bloodhound reached out as I approached, and I did the same, quickly locking our arms into a mutual grapple. I twisted in an attempt to flip the creature over.
The bloodhound kneed me in the stomach and I went down hard, flopping onto the snow while my attacker loomed over me. Dani gasped, likely considering releasing Kaylee so both girls could help, but a thick spray of blood erupted from the bloodhound and splashed over the snow by its feet. The sharp prongs of a finely crafted shuriken protruded from its skull.
The shape in the distance wasn’t crouched anymore. She sprinted toward us with another throwing star already in hand and her long, feline tail whipping to each side as she ran.
“You’re not Clara,” I said, rolling away from the bloodhound as it wobbled on unsteady feet and reached for the open wound in its cranium.
“And you’re not going any further,” Lissa said, skidding to a stop. Her bare arms and midriff were still exposed, but she didn’t seem phased by the cold. “Just because I stopped it from feeding doesn’t mean I’ll let you return to your master unharmed.”
“I’m one of the good guys,” I said. “Do you not see me attempting to kill this asshole?”
“I’ve seen you kill one, and I’ve seen you save one,” she said. “My guard remains up.”
Lissa held one hand out with her palm facing me, preparing to defend even as her other hand clutched a throwing star poised to attack. I raised my hands as if in surrender, knowing full well that Oscar could deflect her shuriken as quickly as she could launch them.
“I don’t want to fight you,” I said.
“Of course you don’t,” she said. “Does the pig wish to fight the butcher? In the end, there is no choice, and the butcher always wins.”
The bloodhound staggered to its feet some distance behind Lissa, its head tilting to one side with the shuriken still protruding from it. One arm hung limp from its side and it tread in a haphazard zigzag toward her before falling into the snow again.
“But think how great the world would be,” I said, “if the butcher accepted her role as Party Assist and helped the pig save all the other animals on the farm.”
“You speak nonsense,” she said.
“I am generally aware of that, yes.”
The bloodhound shook snow from its mangy gray fur and tattered clothing, pausing on all fours for a moment before standing upright, a human pose thanks to imbibing my manly, humanly blood. It crept toward her, its skull dripping globs of black blood onto the ice as it went.
“Hey, Lissa,” I said. “Behind you.”
She laughed.
“I mean it. You really, really need to trust me on this.”
“That is an invitation I decline,” she said.
The slightest twitch of her fingers foreshadowed an oncoming shuriken, but the crunch of ice behind her diverted her attention. Her cat ears pivoted toward the sound and her vertical pupils went wide. Her head whipped back to find her attacker a moment too late.
The bloodhound had leapt into the air, bringing its arms and legs up at once and pouncing on the cat-eared huntress. Its face buried against her neck and they both hit the ground, rolling until the bloodhound pinned her body against the snow and sat on top of her, greedily drinking away her blood.
Lissa’s body lay nearly paralyzed under that monster’s assault, snow bunched up along one side where she had spread her arms out a few inches. That’s all she could muster with the bloodhound’s teeth deep in her neck and her blood pumping in reverse, filling the demonspawn’s stomach with fresh, hot blood stolen from her veins.
I walked toward them, but the bloodhound ignored me as it gorged on Lissa’s body. Oscar’s fingers stretched out and limbered up. He was ready.
In one rapid movement, I yanked the shuriken from the bloodhound’s head, held it firm in Oscar’s hand, and punched a hole into the back of the creature siphoning away Lissa’s blood. A second later, I dropped the weapon into the snow and thrust Oscar’s black glove deep into the bloodhound’s back. I split its skin and meaty tissue wider, plunging into the monster’s ice cold chest cavity while the black sludge of its dead, post-digestive blood seeped all over my favorite hoodie.
The creature’s final moments
kicked off with a piercing howl into the dark night that spread its jaw open and released Lissa’s neck. She pushed out from under the creature, slowly regaining control of her arms and legs.
“I caused delay,” it said through a weak smile before collapsing into a lifeless pile of gray flesh.
“Yes, you did.” I squeezed the onicite heart and crumbled it to dust, sending a quick flash of bright blue energy into the night.
Energy Reserves Up: 2.6%
Lissa knelt on the ground, panting and pale.
She would take a second to recover, but my first priority was getting my hoodie back. It was a little more torn than before, and a hell of a lot more stained, but it was one of the only things I had that reminded me of home. Unlike my battery-dead iPhone, the hoodie was still sort of functional here.
“You saved my life,” Lissa said, regarding me warily as I slipped my arms inside soft, familiar sleeves. “Why?”
“You’re a demon hunter,” I said, reaching down to help her up. “The last thing we need is a bloodhound stealing whatever powers you cat ladies have. Besides, we have a will-they-or-won’t-they thing going on here. Death would really suck the fun out of it.”
She took hold of Oscar and held tight as she stood, though she held him close to her face and peered at him closely.
“You quenched the demonspawn heart,” she said. “Not with training and intention, but with an armor the likes of which the Order hasn’t crafted for a lifetime. But you cannot be the man it was built for. His life was snuffed out long ago.”
“I don’t have time to unpack that,” I said. “Or any of the mythology and politics that make this place tick. We’re here to stop A’zarkin from wiping out all the draykin, and it sounds like you want him dead just as much as we do. Help us.”
“I cannot,” she said. “My mission is to retrieve the heart of A’zarkin and return it to the Order. I am to trust no one and rely on no one along the way, just as I am not to deviate an inch from the path set out for me. My oaths are binding.
“If you choose to help me, I would not bother to stop you,” she continued. “But do not interfere with my mission. I cannot allow that to stand. The heart of A’zarkin must devolve to the Order’s control.”
She gave a slight bow, then turned and ran, nimbly touching her boots to the thin layer of ice atop the snow without making a sound.
“Wait,” I said. “At least add me on Snapchat!”
“She seems nice,” Dani said. The kindness in her voice was beguiling. Not a touch of sarcasm.
“No she doesn’t,” I said. “You’re sweet Dani, but the most generous thing we can say about Lissa is: she didn’t murder us with shuriken.”
Kaylee peeked out from behind Dani’s fingers. “Is it over?”
“Sure,” I said. “All we lost was time. Time finding Clara, time finding the egg…”
“And time to get away from here,” Kaylee said. “A’zarkin knows we’re coming now.”
“Oh yeah,” I said. “He sees with their eyes or some Borg shit like that. Well that sucks. Thermal on.”
A dozen cold outlines of bloodhound bodies raced toward us from all over the mountain’s top. They leapt over stray rocks and bounded toward us on four legs, surrounding us in a circle that was tightening by the second.
Energy Reserves Down: 2.5%
I shut thermal vision off and took a deep breath.
“While we tangoed with one idiotic bloodhound,” I said, “A’zarkin blasted his cronies on psychic group chat and organized a flash mob. Well played, demon. Well played.”
“We could take the high ground,” Dani said.
“You mean try to reason with them?” I asked. “Refuse to resort to bloodshed and base instincts because, perhaps with an open dialogue, we can craft a diverse and inclusive society where bloodhounds and draykin can finally broker a lasting peace?”
“I meant the rock shelf,” she said.
“Literal high ground,” I said. “Got it. Run!”
The three of us raced in the snow toward the diagonal rock spire that stood out from the mountain’s peak. As we tried to scale it, our feet all slipped, sending snow cascading down its sloping face.
We kept testing the ground and attempting to climb, but we only made it a few feet up. I reached out to catch Dani before she slid back to the bottom.
“Popo and Nana made it look so easy,” I said.
“Are those your grandparents?” Dani asked.
“No, but they did provide significant comfort as a child. And eye strain.”
I bent down and squinted at the streak of rock we had brushed free of snow. It wasn’t rock at all. It was ice.
“Check this out,” I said, clearing off more ice as I went. Dani and Kaylee joined in, causing a small flurry to erupt behind us.
“Didn’t Queen Zolocki say the last human hero buried A’zarkin under a glacier?” I asked. “This is the glacier. This spike of ice is the tip of that iceberg!”
“There’s light coming from beneath it,” Dani said, using her tail to swish wide swathes of the ice clear.
Kaylee pressed her face against the ice. “Torch pits filled with black flame. A blue man with horns holding a large golden egg. This is the ceremony!”
“It’s already happening,” Dani said.
“We’ve got to get down there,” I said. “Go, go, gadget fist!”
I pulled back my arm and let Oscar fly at the ice. A long crack split across the ice shelf’s surface and the frozen mass beneath us creaked and bobbed. I did it again, and again, weakening the ice with every blow, but not breaking or dislodging it.
The bloodhounds started to close in at the base of our narrow, sloping ledge. If any of them gained some traction they’d catch up to us quickly.
Kaylee let go of her perch on the ice and slid to the bottom. “I’m going to help.”
“But your curse,” Dani said.
“Benoch taught me to control it,” she said. “Sort of. It works for a little while. I can do this.”
The first pair of bloodhounds closed in as I rattled the ice with another punch. It shook beneath us, forcing Dani and me to slide a few inches down its diagonal face. Kaylee was on solid ground though, just beyond the rim of whatever crater or cavern sat beneath the giant shard of ice.
She took a punch in the arm from a bloodhound, wincing and sending my blood into an initial boil. It ran hotter for her though; that one strike was enough to set off the curse that turned her pale skin red and her reflexes into a cyclone of berserk fury.
“A suffering I cannot abide,” she muttered, her voice a throaty rasp. A second later she shook off the pain of that first attack; it was the only one that would land on her.
Dani’s fingers dug into my bicep as she held on, not only for support on the slippery ice, but also out of worry for Kaylee’s wellbeing. I struck at the ice with Oscar again and buoyed the block beneath us, fracturing the ice into another series of delicate cracks that spread across its surface but didn’t seem to penetrate too deeply.
Kaylee’s attacks were perfectly aimed, and often they struck just as a bloodhound would have lashed out at her instead, acting as preemptive strikes that knocked her opponents down as quickly as they arrived. One tried to bypass her and scurry up the ice toward me and Dani, but Kaylee grabbed its ankle, swung it into another bloodhound, and then stomped her foot into its kneecap.
The howls of pain those creatures released were almost harmonic, echoing together across the mountain’s surface.
Between attacks, when the moment allowed, Kaylee brought her stance back to neutral with her feet together and her arms by her sides. A deep breath lifted her chest, and then she sprang back into action, whirling her limbs and striking demonspawn down left and right.
Meanwhile, I sped up my assault on the ice that separated us from A’zarkin’s little ceremony. The demon strode across the cavern’s floor beneath us toward a raging pit of black flame. There was no smoke emanating from it, and no warmth that might m
elt or weaken the ice. It was the same demonfire that Lissa carried around her neck, though for her it stayed mostly blue.
Kaylee’s pauses were interrupted a few times by bloodhounds that split her attention and left her taken by surprise. She started to growl more, and turn a deeper red. I kept buffeting the ice in the hope something would change.
“We’re losing her,” Dani said. “We have to pull her away.”
“A’zarkin’s almost ready to put the egg in the fire,” I said. “No frying pan, just straight up fire.”
“That doesn’t mean I’ll let Kaylee sacrifice herself,” Dani said. “Just because I might disappear from the book of time doesn’t mean I’ll abandon my principles. I care about her. If the curse overwhelms her, she’ll black out again.”
She reached the base of the ice and rested one hand against its surface while reaching out to Kaylee with the other.
The simki didn’t even notice.
“Kaylee!” I yelled. “Hurry!”
Her head whipped back, red balls of energy igniting in her eyes, casting an eerie glow outward that added to the redness of her skin. Even her cute, round ears were burning up.
She spun back to the crowd of bloodhounds and shrieked at them, punching one in the throat while kicking another in the groin.
“Kaylee!” My voice bobbed in time with the unstable ground as it shifted and sank.
Dani slid toward the base of the ice and reached out toward Kaylee, but the simki girl didn’t slow down at Dani’s touch. Her concentration was lost amidst the kicks and punches that swatted those demonspawn down.
Then she drew her legs together, took a long, deliberate breath, and thrust her hand out to snatch a bloodhound’s tattered gray shirt. Her other hand buried itself in the creature’s mouth, scraping her skin open along its teeth as she reached into its gut. A black mass of muscle and tendon burst from its mouth as she yanked her hand free.
She tossed the glistening nest of entrails at my feet. A heart sat in the center.