by Hunter Blain
At this, the demon appeared in front of me as if walking into the light from the shadows.
I laid it on thick. “Please, benevolent one, show me mercy!” I wailed with hands outstretched in a submissive, begging posture.
The beast stood in front of me and cocked his head to the side, confused. A hand wrapped around my throat and lifted me effortlessly. I was hanging, tiptoes grazing the ground. His other hand pulled back at chest level, ready to spring forward and rip my heart—and probably spine—out. As his arm reached back all it would go and was about to launch forward, a silver kukri blade pierced through his chest, severing his heart.
His grasp weakened on my neck and I dropped to the ground, trying to land on my feet. My left leg refused to cooperate and I fell over, breaking my fall with my hands. I looked up to see one of Depweg’s lunch-box hands pushing down on the demon’s shoulder while his other hand forced the blade upward, cutting through bone and organs with relative ease. Black blood spilled out of the demon’s mouth and nose slits as he jerked with quickening, minute shudders. It was like he was being electrocuted.
“Hey, Bennett,” Depweg whispered into the demon’s earhole. “Let off some steam.”
The vulture beast’s glowing skin coalesced into a singular mixture of color and enveloped his entire body, like primed charcoal. With a few more spasms, he dissolved into ectoplasm and sloshed to the ground.
Depweg stepped over the puddle where I was lying and extended a hand.
“Did you like that thing I said?” Depweg asked, proud of himself.
I didn’t have the heart to tell him the quote had been off by a tad, and that it hadn’t really fit the situation.
“Oh yes,” I said, emphatically nodding my head while simultaneously wincing from my wounds. I noticed I couldn’t heal them. “The bastard infused his claws with hellfire, man. Shit’s gonna take some time to heal.”
“Why didn’t the attacks cauterize the wounds?” Depweg asked, bringing up an excellent point that reddit users would blast me on if I didn’t cover that base.
“Asshole knew what he was doing. Locke planned this out and told him vamps are weak to hellfire. He used enough to prevent me from healing, but held back so I would bleed out. Clever girl.”
“What should we do?” Depweg asked.
“Locke is hurt. We need to finish him,” I said as I started limping to the exit Locke had escaped through.
“You’re hurt too, in case you had neglected to notice.” Depweg said with more concern in his voice than reproach.
“I ain’t got time to bleed,” I said with my best Jesse Ventura impression.
“Question: what if you created tissue around the wound. I mean, looks pretty deep, wouldn’t that contain the blood?” Depweg asked.
“Why don’t you shut up?” I asked while mentally smacking myself in the head. “Hey, what’s that over there?” Depweg’s gaze followed my finger as I pointed into the darkness. While his attention was diverted, I told my skin to form a temporary cover to keep my precious blood from leaking.
Depweg turned back to face me.
“Must have been a squirrel or somethin’. Anywho, we ready to burst through this door?”
The corner of Depweg’s mouth curled up in a smirk as he noticed I wasn’t trailing a crimson shadow anymore.
“Go on ahead. I’m going to slip into something more…terrifying,” he finished with a fanged smile.
I nodded in agreement before pressing my shoulder against the emergency exit Locke had fled through, where I was met by a fireball the size of a Lilith-damned basketball.
It exploded on the wall just as I passed through the doorway and burned the shit out of the back of my head and left shoulder. I dropped to the ground, cursing about my duster—which hung loosely off my back now—and beanie—which fell to the ground on fire. I quickly scanned the area around me and found Locke, who was conjuring another fireball, though he seemed to be on wobbly legs.
Letting my coat drop to the ground, I crafted a spear from the blood that I willed through my palm, took aim, and lobbed it right at Locke. He was so intent on his creation, with cords sticking out of his neck and teeth bared in a grimace, that he didn’t even notice as the spear flew toward him. It pierced his right quad, causing him to drop the ball of fire which exploded at his feet, throwing him backward and setting his pants ablaze.
I dropped to one knee, having just lost the energy from the bloodspear. After a moment, I regained my mental breath and stood again, right as Locke patted the last of the flames out. Leaning forward, I commanded my legs to start running toward where my enemy was attempting to get back to his feet.
Urgency invigorated my body and mind as Locke put his feet under him in a crouch position, almost standing. My feet started moving at preternatural speed, albeit with more faith than motor function in my left leg. I knew if I flexed my thigh at the right time, my knee would straighten and my foot would (hopefully) find purchase on the ground. I crossed the distance between the warehouse and the edge of the parking lot where a demolished landscape was being prepped for another building.
Locke turned his head and saw me coming. Dirt that covered the concrete parking lot whipped up like a train through a snowbank. My fangs were bared, my fingers sprouted bloodclaws, and the purple in my eyes dulled to a blood red. Surprise exploded in his face, which was immediately replaced with focus. Locke rolled to his side, falling belly up, right as I leaped toward him with claws outstretched.
Locke threw his open palms at my torso as I flew over him, my hands raking over his sternum, rending flesh. An unseen wave of energy slammed into me and threw my body toward the full moon overhead. Wind tore at my hair and clothes, threatening to deafen me by whistling into my ears.
At the cusp, I regained my senses enough to realize my insides were on the outside. They hung in the air around me and attempted to flee in all directions after a lifelong prison stint inside my body. As I began to fall, I grabbed my innards and pulled them in hand over hand until a big ball of guts was cradled in my arms, like a defiant extension cord.
As I neared the ground, I pushed the ball-o-intestines back into my chest cavity and concentrated on my stomach knitting itself closed. I landed on my feet right as I finished, the jolt of the sudden stop testing my handiwork. It held, but I knew I was going to have to go back in later and straighten everything up.
A deafening roar that shook the very ground I stood on bellowed from behind me, followed by a pillar of fire that struck my back between the shoulder blades. I was launched forward into the construction site like a flaming meteor. An embankment of dirt and rocks broke my fall, splintering bones and lacerating skin. As if remembering a dream while it fought to escape, I took note that either the fire or my weakness prevented my skin from holding together against the pointed debris of the dirt hill. Oh, the lessons we learn.
The smell of burning flesh invaded my nose, and I became aware that the fire had moved down my back and was threatening to burn my ass off. Panicking, I rolled in the dirt to put the flames out. I was rewarded with the giddy laughter of Locke behind me.
While my back rested on the dirt, I raised my head to see a giant flame dragon pulsating with waves of blue, white, green, orange, and red flames.
Locke was approaching just behind the dragon, balls of light forming on both outstretched hands.
My jaw clenched and my teeth held a protest that they would break if conditions continued. I pushed myself up to a sitting position, palms down in the dirt. As Locke and his pet drew closer, I willed my blood into the mound and spread outward like a giant bowl.
“Knock, knock,” I said to Locke.
Puzzlement showed on his face as his scarred head tilted to the side. The dragon mirrored his movements.
“Who’s…there?” Locke asked, confounded.
“Shards of rock,” I said with a devilish smile.
Locke stopped in his tracks, realization spreading over his face. He pointed his hands toward me, palm
s out, right as I sent all my focus and sheer willpower into the dirt mound. The blood acted like a catapult, bolting up and over my head and sending debris hurling in the general direction of Locke and his pet, Puff the Magic Dragon.
Locke screamed with as much surprise as anger as the wall flew toward him. His hands clapped together, and a cone of flame shot out in front of him. Dirt was thrown back at me as rocks melted and fell with the force of the flame spout. My tactic worked, however, and Locke was swallowed whole by the sheer mass of the debris.
With the combination of Locke’s focus shifting and the rocks and wet dirt hitting the dragon with enough force to collapse a house, Puff went out like a candlewick in a hurricane.
The tidal wave of dirt crested and broke, sending debris tumbling into the warehouse parking lot. A few spinning, bouncing rocks hit the warehouse exterior. Puff was no more, and Locke was crushed and buried.
Exhausted, I let my chin hit my chest and closed my eyes. I was starting to feel every bump, bruise, broken bone, and skin tear. I knew I was going to have to feed to heal all my grievous wounds. The hunger was already growing uncontrollable inside me. I was also super looking forward to letting someone cut me open and rearrange my waterslide. My hands went down to my bulging stomach, and I cradled my protruding guts like a pregnant woman.
“Neat,” I let out with a tired sigh.
The ground in front of me exploded. Razor-sharp rocks and bulbous stone smashed into me as I flew, cutting deep gashes and breaking even more bones. I was thrown back and down the other side of the mound I had been perched upon, hitting even more debris as I tumbled tits over feet, like a human slinky. For some reason, the thought of me laughing at YouTube videos of skiers tumbling down a mountain shot through my mind.
I landed in the mulched earth hard enough to create a crater; I was getting really good at that. Dirt flew in all directions in a circle around me. Little pale bugs swam in my blackened vision as my brain tried to reboot.
A pinprick of light appeared in the center of my existence and slowly spread, bringing with it a growing pain that told me I wasn’t dead yet. More dead. Deader. I wasn’t deader yet.
A long, drawn out moan escaped my mouth as my brain came back online and I tried to move.
The dirt was cool against my face. My fingers pressed into the earth as I tried to push my limp, drained body up, desperately seeking to get any air into my lungs out of pure reflex. After several moments, my diaphragm relaxed, and I inhaled so loudly and ferociously that it sounded like a train had just barreled from my face.
A cloud of blood erupted from my gaping mouth as I propped myself up on unstable, exhausted knees. My crimson life force joined the pools of others that were scattered around. The ashen ground beneath distorted like a kaleidoscope as my head attempted to reboot. There was the smell of my own seared flesh that began at the top of my skull and continued down the back of my broken, and all but useless, body. I couldn’t feel the pain of the burn, which I knew was probably not a good thing. Probably.
“Finally, you kneel before me,” I heard an exasperated voice proclaim between heavy breaths.
It took everything I had to keep from collapsing onto the inviting ground, like a comfy bed promising that your boss wouldn’t mind if you came in late, or tomorrow. I lifted my face to see him standing on the edge of the crater that I had the pleasure of creating with my once sexy body. My eyes shifted in and out of focus, but I could make out a tall figure with arms outstretched.
“Fuck…you…” I managed between coughs of blood.
“What, no witty retort? No clever comeback?” The tall man chortled. “Then I suppose it’s game over for you, mosquito,” he finished with a booming voice as he raised his outstretched hands. A small light the size of a bead of rice formed. It started growing in volume and brightness as it began rising into the space above him. First a tennis ball of orange, then a basketball of blue. The star of death, not to be confused with the legally different Death Star, kept growing until, lastly, a sphere the size of a house made from blinding white light loomed ominously. I had to shield my eyes from the bright sight. Wisps of smoke rose from the ground around him from the immense heat.
“Goku would be so pissed if he saw this,” I said, trying to sound like my old self. The star started to incinerate the ground around the entire crater. The pools of my blood on the ground—which I had been saving for later, damnit—started to boil and evaporate. Stone melted like ice cream in the hot Texas sun, leaving growing pools of, in the words of Dr. Evil, liquid hot magma.
My shielding arms caught fire, and I collapsed to the ground; defeated. As I dropped my arms to my sides, I looked up to watch my death as the ball was thrown upward and toward me. I saw a bright light expand in my vision, followed by a dot of blackness that quickly engulfed everything I saw just before my eyes started to melt in their sockets and drip down my cheeks to evaporate. My face caught fire and started to slide off the bone, as if I had opened the Ark of the Covenant.
Chapter 35
Present day
Locke controlled the star-o-death as it descended on me. In his weakened, maddened state, he had failed to notice the massive salivating wolf that was running its way up the mound.
At the last second, Locke heard and turned his head, stopping the star and then letting it wink out of existence as Depweg leaped. Locke held up his hands but nothing happened, as the energy he had used was just returning. In his last moments of existence, Locke looked at his hands in confusion before powerful jaws closed over his face.
Depweg’s maw enveloped Locke’s jaw all the way to his neck. He bit down like a hydraulic press, and what could be seen of Locke’s burned face crumbled like a coke can. Teeth scraped vertebrae. Skin was rent from bone. Depweg readjusted his mouth to Locke’s throat for the kill just as Locke sent a focused blast of fire through Depweg’s torso. It burst out his back like a lightsaber before billowing into the night.
Depweg reeled in agony as the flames started spreading across his fur like a wildfire. He dropped Locke and started running chaotically with his front paws. His back legs were limp and useless.
I had used their back and forth to climb the embankment to where Locke lay. I couldn’t see, but I could hear his heartbeat, and it lit up in my vision like a beacon. Every erratic pump sent a sonar signal to my senses, and I could see his red outline in the blackness. As I crested the top, I could also see Depweg crawling away. His essence was shrinking and growing dim.
Locke’s head turned right as I climbed on top of him, his eyes growing wide in terror and realization. The entire front half of my body was burned to muscle and bone. My skin was still burning at the edges, with the hellfire growing over my body like a…well, like a damn wild fire. The flames had a voracious appetite that wouldn’t stop until my entire body was consumed. All Locke saw as I mounted his body was a blackened skull interlaced with singed tendons and a fanged, lipless grin.
Through my sonar vision I could see Locke raising his hands to attack. I grabbed both of his wrists with my burning hands and bent them backward. Bones crumbled and ligaments snapped. The skin tore as I continued to push his hands, making his knuckles touch his forearms. Locke tried to scream through his crushed face, but only succeeded in whistling out of his bubbling nose. Mucus and blood shot down from his nostrils into his obliterated mouth.
I continued pulling his hands until only skin held them to his body, then I ripped them off with a satisfying tearing sound. Locke inhaled forcibly through his nose.
With vocal cords that were well-done, and a voice that could have been from a George A. Romero film, I said to Locke, “For my parents, you dick,” right as I sank my fangs deep into Locke’s neck, like a starving lion on a plump gazelle. Locke squirmed as I let the blood flow, not in any hurry to stop. I had to tilt my head to allow any of the crimson goodness to flow down my throat, as I no longer had lips. Even with the angle, most of it fell to the ground. I was starving, and my predatory side was about to expl
ode trying to get to the precious blood.
I willed a small dagger in my left hand and plunged it into Locke’s liver, just above his right hip. I pulled in as much blood as I could, but it wasn’t enough. Most spilled out through the torn artery in his neck that I couldn’t catch.
When I heard Locke’s heart start to flutter, I retracted my blade into my palm, placed my left hand on the top of his head and my right on his shoulder, and I ripped his disfigured skull right the fuck off in pure fury and agitation. I lifted it up into the night sky, proclaiming my vengeance to the universe.
Holding my grisly treasure to the sky, I let the last of his blood drop from his neck into my mouth as his eyes blinked and looked around before slowing, and eventually, glazing over. Once his life force left his body, I laughed into his face with a mix of emotions. Relief that I had avenged my parents. Agony from the hellfire that was still eating my skin. Anger that his pain hadn’t lasted longer. Worry about my best friend, Depweg.
I dropped the severed head to the dirt. I was vaguely aware of his nose breaking as it smacked into the packed earth.
As the hellfire sapped me of my life, I fought to remain standing. I looked around with my preternatural senses and found what I was looking for. Depweg was still in wolf form, as far as I could tell, and was still burning. I could smell the burnt fur in the air.
What energy I stole from the now very deceased Locke, I used to extinguish Depweg; I pointed my hand and, with full knowledge of what would happen to me, commanded a torrent of blood where Depweg had collapsed, covering him like a busted fire hydrant. The flames went out, and Depweg lay still, whimpering. As expected, the fire decimated the first wave of my blood energy before being overwhelmed by the pure quantity I commanded forth. Though not even a full second had passed, the flames did their part and stunned me. Unable to will the rest of the energy back in, I let the connection drop at my hand, losing the remaining life force. I was ready for the long sleep.