Demons. CH 22 (Patreon)

The moment the glass breaks, gunfire erupts. I still follow Claws, and I’m hit in the shoulder. I throw myself to the floor, roll, stand, and punch whoever I’m standing next to. I catch him and use his body as a shield against the next volley of bullets.

His vest takes the worst of it, but his arms and legs aren’t as well protected. I grab the sword off his belt and unfold it. When the lull comes, I drop him and go for the closest gunman.

 I swing and miss. This sword is shorter than my usual one. I don’t have the time to do anything about it; he’s faster than the other and is already raising his gun. I jump to the side.

I catch a glance of Claws fighting four of them. He’s putting himself in the middle of them, keeping them from firing.

I’m close to another guard. This one doesn’t reload but rather pulls out his sword. I block the strike, see another about to fire, and don’t move entirely in time. My side burns, but there isn’t much blood-flow. Just a graze, then.

I grab the sword-wielding man’s arms and use this one as a shield too. My back’s against the wall so no one can shoot me from there. There are too many of them and not enough workable space. I can’t use my speed to good effect; someone is always in a position to either fire at me or strike me.

Claws has the best idea, but he has mass and harder skin, from what I can tell. The attacks don’t seem to hurt him as much. What I need to do is incapacitate as many of them as fast as I can.

I run to the group before me. The man I’m holding screams and the others hesitate for a moment. I throw my shield and swing my sword, aiming for wrists and ankles. Three go down before they can react. I see the flash of a gun, duck down, and throw my sword in that direction.

I grab another one off a belt, block a strike, and punch that woman in the face, my black hand slicing her flesh open.

My back burns and I turn. I cut that man across the stomach, below his vest. His guts spill out. Gunfire erupts again. I drop to the ground, roll on my back, and look around. They’re firing at Claws, who's using his skin as a shield, extending it before him. A few holes appear in it, but not as many as it should from the fire he’s taking. The caliber is too small on these automatic pistols; they need revolvers to do real damage.

I’m up, and four guards run at me, all armed with swords. I’m faster, surprising the closest one before she’s ready. I grab the sword out of her hand, throw it at the furthest man, then punch her. This time my hand feels like a rock when it hits, and bones break. The man drops, the sword sticking out of his chest.

The other two swing at me. I dodge one, parry the other. We exchange a few blows, but they are only human. They aren’t giving me much trouble.

One of them glances over my shoulder.

I lunge at them, forcing them back. I drop and turn, swinging hard, cutting the legs out from under the woman who had been sneaking behind me. I face my two opponents again, slicing one of them as I stand, opening his leg from calf to thigh. The other makes the mistake of glancing at his companion, and my sword goes through his shoulder.

I take his sword as he falls back and swing at the closest person to me, but she ducks, stands and slashes my left arm. The cut isn’t deep, but it burns. It’s like fire, and the pain makes me drop my sword.

Her sword is irradiated. The others didn’t hurt as much, which means they weren’t. They had clearly prepared for my return, so why not irradiate all their weapons? Did they not have the time? I have no idea what the procedure to irradiate them is. Something else I never questioned.

She presses her advantage. I dodge, parry, and move back. I hear Claws’ grunts and growls getting louder. I’m moving toward him.

There’s motion out the corner of my eye. I move out of the way, and the sword bites in my side instead of running me through. It burns, but not as bad. Not irradiated. With a hiss, I backhand the man. This time I see the change to my hand, the skin moving to where the impact will occur, forming plates. His jaw shatters as I hit him.

I go to hit the woman, but she jumps back, slashing at me. I avoid, step into her attack, and swing again. She dodges. We’re moving away from Claws.

I risk a glance around. She uses my distraction to come at me. I jump to the side, but she sees what I am doing and strikes there. A red line appears on my stomach. It isn’t deep, but it really burns. I take a step back and try to push the pain away.

At least, now I know it’s only her against me. Everyone else who is combat-ready is focusing on Claws. All I need now is a sword of my own. Fortunately, enough people are littering the floor. I throw myself low to the side, under her swing, landing on top of a whimpering man holding the bleeding lump of his wrist. I grab his sword and stand.

I dodge as it unfolds, then parry her next strikes. I strike back, and she dodges and parries, moving back, stepping around and above the bodies. She’s good. Her movements are precise, no waste of energy. She’s aware of her surroundings.

We circle each other. I don’t recognize her, and I should. Amanda said I’d trained with the best people she had, so I should have fought her before. Yet another lie. We exchange a few blows, go back to circling.

We can’t be evenly-matched. It doesn’t matter how good she is; I am faster, stronger, not human. I should be able to snatch the sword out of her hand if I want to, so how come she parries and avoids my swings so easily?

She comes at me. I parry one blow and move out of the way of the other, only I feel fire run up my leg, and when I put weight on it, I almost fall. I barely parry the next swing.

Can it be the radiation? It’s only supposed to inhibit demonic healing, not weaken them, me. I’ve never noticed them becoming weaker, but were those fights not long enough? Am I different enough from them that it affects me differently? Is this something else entirely? Something Amanda prepared especially for me, in case I turned against her?

I barely parry another strike. Something is definitely wrong with me; she can’t be moving this fast. I need to end this. I am going to lose this fight if it goes on much longer. I don’t want to lose here, not in Amanda’s base, not to her people.

I have no idea if this will work, but I have no other choice. I need the skin in my palm as hard as it can get, and hope that if that doesn’t work, my other move will.

I push her and swing. She steps away, strikes back, from the side. I move out of the way, not in position yet. She brings it up to strike down at me, but I swing at her stomach, forcing her back. I attack again, but she parries. I see her glance to her side. She knows she’s getting close to Claws.

She swings at me, hard, for my face. I can tell she wants to push me back, away from the demon. Instead, I catch her blade. My skin screams in pain, but I tighten my hand on it. I smile at her. She looks at my sword. I swing at her.

At that moment, she decides Claws is a better target. She pulls on her sword as she jumps back, turning and preparing to swing at Claws’ side. It does her no good; she doesn’t realize how aware he is of his surroundings. He smacks her across the room, then goes back to his opponents.

My hand hurts so much it doesn’t register anymore; it just doesn’t respond. I am tired. I want to lie down, close my eyes, and let oblivion take me. I look for a place to sit down. Claws roars, and it brings my focus back to what is going on. This fight isn’t over.

I kneel next to a body, take the gun, and aim at one of the guards fighting Claws. The gun clicks, already empty. I can’t reload it with only one working hand. I take the gun off the next person. This one is loaded, but my aim his horrible. It takes me four tries before I hit that guard’s leg.

I aim for the next one, but they blur together. I shake my head to clear it and find my hand is down, the gun slipping from my fingers. I tighten my grip on it and try to raise it. It’s so heavy. When did it become this heavy? It clangs to the floor, then I’ve fallen next to it.

Someone shakes me. I raise my hand to shoot at them, but my hand is empty. The form resolves itself into a large, black body.

“You’re alive. Good,” Claws says, his voice much too loud. He’s looking at me, his red eyes fixed on mine. I hear groans and moans around me.

“They’re alive,” I whisper, relieved.

“Most, yes.”

“I told you…” My voice drifts and I have trouble keeping my eyes open for even a moment.

“They didn’t leave me any choice, nor did they you. The deaths are not all at my hands.”

I force myself to sit, and my groans join the others. I know he’s right; I was too busy staying alive to focus on being careful.

“How are you?” I ask. He’s bleeding from multiple wounds.

“I am hurt, but not so badly I can’t finish what I came here to do.” He goes to the center of the room. The column containing the individual containment cylinders is streaked with blood. Someone impacted it hard enough they splattered brain matter over it.

He pulls one of them out of the column, and I call to him. “Wait!”

He turns to me, cylinder in hand. I look at him, then at it, expecting a demon to burst from it. Then I remember.

“Never mind, she lied.”

He studies the cylinder, then breaks it in half. He tips the halves over his hand, and the stone falls out. He holds it gingerly, then places it in a fold of his skin.

He turns one of the ends toward me. “What is this?”

It takes a moment for my eyes to focus. “It’s the date the soul stone was collected.

He looks at the column. “Did you collect all of them?”

“No, I only started hunting last year. Forty or so of them. The rest were collected by the previous hunt—“ I stop for a moment. “I don’t know where the others are from.”

Amanda told me how many there were at one point. Seventy, I think. How did they get here? How do other cities protect themselves?

“Claws, do demons attack other cities?”

“Of course.” He pulls cylinder after cylinder out, breaking them and collecting the stones. “Humans are crowding out all of the wild, not just the one close to this city.”

I nod. How are they doing it? There are no other hunters; they were a lie given to me. I look at the unconscious bodies littering the room. Can humans really defend themselves against demons?

I’m shaken again, and I wake up.

“We can leave now.”

The words take a moment to register, then I force myself up, only to tip over. Claws catches me. He sniffs me.

“You’ve been poisoned. This is different from the poison on the weapons I fought against.”

“I’ll be okay.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure of that,” Amanda says.