Demons 3 Draft 1 CH 21 (Patreon)

The soldier stands there, eyes unfocused.

I listen for indications the demon is coming, nothing yet. No fresh scents. Possibly they start on a different floor, giving us time to get lost within the maze.

“Humbert,” I call to the man. He doesn’t react. “Captain Humbert, snap out of it! We have a mission to accomplish.”

He looks at me, eyes still glazed. They harden, narrow. “Mission?” he snaps. “Don’t talk to me about any mission! You heard her, I’m expendable!”

I watch him, realize he expects me to react. “So am I. You had to problem sacrificing me to Adam and his demon if it meant accomplishing your mission.”

“That’s different! You’re just something that was made. I was born! I gave the colonel twenty years of my life and she's just going to throw me away.”

“Only if we don’t succeed in our mission. You did tell her it was still ongoing.”

He stares at me, dismay replacing his anger. “It’s the two of us against a demon, one the asshole in charge specifically picked so it would kill us, and you’ve made it clear they know what you’re capable of. How do you expect me to have any kind of chance against something that can tear you apart?”

I reach in my pocket and pull one of the vials from the pouch. Unlike those the soldiers use, it is metal. “Will this help?” The captain’s twitch is faint, but I see it. Restrained need, fought need. I expect I had a similar reaction on seeing the can of soda.

“How did you get that?”

“The guards had pouches containing them. I took one as we fought. Can you use it without the injector?”

His hand trembles as he extends it. “The injector is mainly to control the dose and don’t have to fumble when we need it.”

I move it away. “Dose? What will injecting an entire vial do to you?”

Anger flashes and is replaced with dry laughter. “Oh, it’s going to make me really dangerous.”

“Can it hurt you?”

“Why do you care?”

“If you are going to fall while we fight, this isn’t worthwhile.”

“I’m going to be fine,” he answers with a casualness I’ve learned to recognize and step back when he reaches for it. He curses. “I’m going to be fine,” he repeats. “It’s once I come down that the side effects can be a danger, but I’m pretty tolerant to them. It’s why the colonel picked me to start with. I’m one of those super-stable people.”

I hesitate, this can still be a lie, even I have an easy time rationalizing my addiction, but the faint roar forces my hand. I hand it to him. “How long will it last?”

He looks it over, removes the cap to expose the needle. “I can’t know for sure. This is black market stuff, but it looks like everything they use is good quality, so it should be close to an hour.”

The roar comes again, slightly louder, and I try to determine from which opening it comes. “How stable will you be while under its effect? Do I have to worry about you trying to kill me?”

Humbert chuckles. “Worried you can’t beat me?”

“Not when I also have to fight a demon.”

“You’re safe. This would have to be really bad stuff to affect my judgment to the point I don’t think of you as a temporary ally.” He presses the needle into his forearm.

“Then, once we’ve defeated them is when I need to worry about you.” His scent changes immediately. Aggressiveness, eagerness, hunger. There is something of young demons in that combination of scents.

He sighs, contentment. “You’re pretty confident we’ll beat it.” There’s a slight slur to the words that worry me.

“If we fail, we will be dead, then those we care for will also die. I don’t see a point in thinking about that.” When he doesn’t say anything, I ask. “Are you okay?”

The smile he gives as he looks at me is malicious, vicious. “I haven’t felt this good in years. How about we go kill ourselves a demon?”

The roar is loud enough Humbert reacts to it. It comes from the three openings but at different strengths. I point to one. “That is the fastest path to the demon, and that one the long—”

Humbert runs for the opening before I can point to another. His willingness to go for the demon catches me by surprise and I question the wisdom of boosting him, but the choice has been made. I run after him.

After three intersections, we are in another kill box. “Wait!” I yell as Humbert heads for one of the two openings. He pauses, and a roar sounds before he speaks. “This way.” I point at the other opening and he runs for it without questioning me. His narrow-mindedness would make it simple to lead him away from the demon, but I’d have to deal with his reaction once he realized what I’d done.

We find the demon running toward us after six turns. They are large, three times my size, but that isn’t what makes me pause. I’ve fought larger. It’s the way they slow and look at us as Humbert runs for them. They are evaluating, calculating. Adult traits.

I run after the soldier.

They step aside, shrinking as Humbert reaches them until they had half their previous size, and strike the man, sending him into the wall hard. I harden my skin and strike. The demon takes one step back from the punch, then strikes me. I slam against the metal wall hard enough my vision unfocuses for a few seconds.

When I can see properly, the demon is no longer there.

“Where did it go?” Humbert demands.

I listen, but they make no sound. I follow their scent back to an intersection, and each directions are thick with it.

“Why didn’t it stay to kill us?”

“They want a hunt,” I answer.

“It had us! Demons don’t run away.”

“They still have us. We need to go through them to get out of the building.”

“Then tell me where it went!”

A huff draws my attention to one opening and before I can speak, Humbert runs in that direction. If he can’t strategize, this will be much more difficult. I run after him. Three turns later we reach another intersection and he has to stop.

“Can you do more than run straight for them?” I ask, sniffing the air. There is a trace of fresher air. Not outside air, but it doesn’t have a demon scent in it. The way off the floor?

“You hit them hard enough and they die.”

“You have to be able to hit first. We can only do that by forcing them to split their attention. That means working together. They’re stronger than we are individuals. I can cut them, but you don’t have any weapons. I’m not sure how many hits you can take, even boosted.”

“I can take as much as it can dish out.” I look at his bleeding nose and lip but don’t comment. “Where is it?”

“I don’t know, but the exit is that way, I think.”

“You want to run?” Humbert’s disbelieve is mixed with anger.

“I’d prefer that they chase us, so we can control where we’ll fight. They don’t care who hunts whom so long as it’s a hunt.”

“I don’t like that.” Humbert speaks slowly, as if it takes effort to work his mouth or pick the words. “It feels wrong to move away from it. I want to kill it, to rip it apart. This isn’t the boost I’m used to. It’s raw, violent. I really want to hurt something.” He looks at me and I don’t react; I suspect it would set him off.

“You say I didn’t have to worry about you.”

He nods slowly. “I’m okay. I can control this.” His breathing is controlled.

“If it helps, we will have to fight them. They aren’t going to let us go. We’re their meal.”

His smile is vicious. “Then we’re going to have to make sure to give it a fatal case of indigestion.”

Killing them again. He is fixed on the idea. I promised myself I was done killing demons. But that was with adolescents. Those still caught in the hunger madness. They deserved the chance to learn not to hunt humans.

I don’t know if this demon will give me the choice.

I follow the air, listening for the demon; once they realize we are not chasing them, they will turn to hunt us. I want to hurry, but if I lose the trace, I’m not sure I’ll be able to find it again as we disturb the air and mix the demon’s scent with it.

I see the hall with an open doorway as I hear the scraping of claws on metal behind us. I run and hope Humbert follows me instead of going for the demon. The door is the stairwell, I can smell the soldiers in it from when we took them. The elevator doors are gone, hidden behind the wall.

Humbert looks into the stairwell and turns to face the demon.

“We’re going down,” I tell him.

“We can take him,” he replies.

“We’re in a dead-end. Once they’re here, they can block the stairs and we’re trapped.”

He grins. “You mean it’s trapped with us.”

I grab the man and throw him in the stairwell. When he stands, I block his way. “I want us to survive, so we are going down until we find a better position. Move, soldier!” To my surprise, Humbert starts down the stairs.

I follow. Where the door to the next floor should, the one where the child Jezebel is, is only a wall. The next landing has a door, but I push further down. Where the next one is, the stairs stop at the landing, a metal floor blocking any way further down.

Going back up isn’t an option with the demon now in the stairwell.

This hall is narrower, chairs and potted flowers line it. A demon can still fit, but it is designed for humans first. The walls are the same metal, so when the alls ends at a T intersection and there’s a desk in the middle of it I am not surprised. Humbert takes a chair and breaks it, leaving him with two jagged metal pieces.

The scent of demons here are old, remnants of a hunt long over. Not many people make it off the top floor, or the last time it happened, the configuration of the building was different.

I head left to be moving. The echo of my feet warn me the next right is a dead-end to I continue, lower ceiling mean the demon can’t use height, limes its reach and leverage.

Does someone monitor the hunt? Does Mister Grave use it as a form of entertainment for his people? Do humans enjoy watching demon hunt their people? Do the people working for Mister Grave consider anyone hunted by a demon to still be their people? Humans are complex to the point of distraction.

We enter a large room. Part of it was a conference room, by the large table and chairs, but there is also a desk, dark wood, large. Something about it reminds me of Amanda and how her office tended to intimidate her subordinates.

The sounds the demon makes, grunts, claws, and occasional snarl to scare us, come louder behind us, so they are following our scent.

“Aim to cut them,” I tell Humbert as I kick the desk the way we came. “They’ll heal, but that it’ll sap their strength. Don’t bother trying to break their bones.”

“I do know how to kill demons,” he snarls back.

“You know how to kill them with irradiated weapons. I’ve been fighting them with my hands and blade for over two years. I might have the strength needed to break their bones, but I’m not sure of it.”

“I’ll—” Humbert grinds his teeth. “I’ll distract it so you can try.”

I nod. The demon knows I’m not human, but does that make me more or less attractive to them as a meal?

The desk explodes into the room and the demon runs at us through the debris. They’re our size, but bulkier. Humbert runs at them and I move to the side. When they focus on him, and he surprised us both by dodging attack after attack, I begin mine.

I cut their back, managing three times before they turn and swipe at me, forcing me back. Humbert takes over, striking and slashing with his poor excuses for weapons, but he keeps them from focusing entirely on me.

We exchange positions between hurting and distracting them until a solid hit sends Humbert down and he’s slow to stand. They bring down a claw on him, and I jump in, taking it to the side. I manage to cut the demon’s face in return, part of their muzzle falling to the floor, and as they deal with it I throw the man over my shoulder and run off.

I have no idea how fast they will be back on us, but healing from the loss of even as little as a muzzle will take time.

“Will you stop shaking me like this?” Humbert Growls.

“Can you run?” I ask, not slowing. A turn, and another.

“If you call what you’re doing running, then yes. I just got winded. You’re bleeding.”

I put him down and check my side. It’s the one that isn’t black yet, so the claw went it deep. I stretch my black skin over it to stop the bleeding. He moves again. Without his weight, I’m faster.

“Are you going to drop from loss of blood?” Humbert sounds more like himself. I’m not certain that’s a good thing.

“I heal faster than a human.”

“Can you hear it?”

“They’re grunting in the distance, so still healing.” Ahead of us an opening, a door.

Humbert stops. “Let’s go finish it then.”

“It’s still more a threat to us than we are to it.” Another stairwell. “Come on, let’s see how many floors down this takes us.”

“But it’s weak.”

“So are we, and we didn’t hurt it that much. Come on.” I move in his direction, but he gives a defeated sigh and heads for me. I think the stairwell takes us down three floors before it ends to another door, but the number of landing is uneven when it was even for the other stairwell. There are only human scents in it, filled with fear, the most recent a few days old, but not any scent I recognize, so not one of Humbert’s soldiers. Demons have another way to move up and down the building.

I hurry through the maze of corridors on this floor, passing desks, laboratory counters without equipment, a kitchen.

“Hold up!” Humbert is at the fridge. “There’s food in here. We need to keep our strength up.”

I join him and look. He hands me a wrapped plate containing cooked meat. I force them down, then drink water. He hands me a bowl of fruits smelling of chemicals when something shatters in the distance.

“No time.”

He can’t protest. We run out and after a few intersections, it’s evident we are running toward the sound. Humbert speeds up. I stay with him and we enter another room, this one was multiple offices before this hunt. The demon smiles at us, it’s muzzle crooked.

“This is a good hunt.”

“It always freaks me out when they speak,” Humbert comments.

“Now I eat.”

“Especially when they say something like that.”

I want to ask how many adults he has hunted, but the demon is before us. I dodge and cut its side. Humbert bangs it with his metal sticks. A claw cuts my black skin, but it heals before I’m back on my feet.

I’m initially surprised that there was no more strength behind the strike, but I find out why when I see they have Humbert pinned on the floor. Hand covering his torso and muzzle lowering to his head. There his no way Humbert can avoid his fate now.

I jump on their back, planting my blade as deep as I can. The demon rears and I scrape the ceiling. Their head turns until they face me.

That is unsettling.

“I will eat you first then. I will be known for eating the eater.” They grab me and pull me off.

“I’ve never eating anyone,” I grumble, trying to cut their skin enough they’ll let me go, but I can find the leverage to do damage.

They hesitate, cant their head at me. “I will still eat you.” And they lean in, maw opening wide.

I have seen muzzle from this close before, smells demon breath, and never before did it occur to me to do this. I shove my right arm down their throat and they pause, a quizzical sound coming from them. It isn’t wide enough to block their breathing, and I don’t know demon anatomy well enough to grab anything vital and pull it out. With how malleable they are, there might not be one vital part other than the head.

But they still need to breathe, and I block that by expanding my black sink until my sleeve rips and it fills its throat. The quizzicalness changed to concern, then fear as they realize what I am doing.

They pull on me, but my skin form spikes to keep it in place. They trash, expending more energy. They claw at my back but don’t bother stabbing me, a useless act against another demon and one they probably never needed against a human.

My feet touch the floor as they lower themselves and I push back. If they bury me under their mass, I might suffocate before they do. My knees buckle and I’m on them. The only option I have is to remove my arm and get away, give us both time to recuperate. But I cannot win against them.

They look surprised, and before I can wonder why, and a rod of metal pierces their eye. A foot lands on it, pushing it deep into the demon’s head, into their brain, and they fall back. My arm pulls free as they land on the floor and I turn to look at bloody and broken Humbert grin at me.

“You have no idea how satisfying that was.”

His eyes roll back and he falls toward me.