Demons 3 Draft 1 CH 27 (Patreon)

We enter the lab through the destroyed door and don’t find Amanda.

Sarge is who points us to the door in the sidewall opposite the cells with the various hybrids the scientist upstairs doesn’t care about.

“She was about to help an old man when you arrived.”

Matthew.

“Do you remember the process?” I ask as I run. “Do you remember if you woke up being violent?”

“No. She was next to me when I woke up, explaining what happened.”

She refined the process enough her creations wake up sane and with some memories of who they were. Why aren’t there more of them?

A roar provides me with an answer as we enter another lab, this one with three windows looking into three rooms I recognize from the video of my creation. A bed with equipment around it. The only thing missing in two of them is the glass bells with the soul stone in them.

In the third room, it’s there, or what’s left of it, as the last of the vaporized stone is funneled into the trashing and roaring old man in the bed; Amanda looking on with eagerness and pride. That voice as nothing human left to it. I reach the door as his trashing causes it and him to tip over. It’s locked, metal. Machine gunfire filled the room as the soldiers fire on the window. It cracks to opacity but doesn’t break.

The roar comes again, this time accompanied by screaming, male and female. In my focus on the old man in the bed and what was being done to him, I missed that Mister Graves is also there. Something crashes against the window and pieces fall off. I thicken the skin on my right first and slam it into the window as hard as I can. More pieces fall off.

Claws slams two very wide hands flat against it and the whole thing falls in to show a demented old man, skin turning darker as it shifts on him approaching Amanda, who crawls back. I jump into the room and tackle the old man down and away from her. He shoves me off with ease, and by the time I’m up, he is striking me. He has strength, but not skill. If like me he remembers the knowledge he gained before the process, Matthew wasn’t a fighter.

I stagger him away with a punch to the face that doesn’t break skin, even if it should have ripped his head off. With a roar and demented expression, he runs at me, fingers extended and elongating into claws.

I deflect a hand with a black covered arm and pain lanced through it as the claws cut through it with ease. I punch him back without ththinking, then think about it and keep attacking, part of me wondering why no one else is helping. I form a blade before he can regain his footing and slash at him, confirming that I can also cut his almost black skin as easily as he cuts mine, then stab him through the heart.

The old man’s face softens as the insanity leaves it along with his life, then he falls back and crumples into a heap.

I ignore Amanda’s stunned expression as I look to the opening. Greg looks annoyed as he moves the gun away from Claws. He hoped the old man would do what he isn’t allowed.

I look at Amanda, whose dismay shifts to anger. “No! No, you can’t have killed him! Where’s nineteen?” She gets to her feet, looking around, and sees Sarge with the other soldiers and round one me. “How dare you turn him against me! He was my greatest achievement! He’s better than you.”

“You shouldn’t have lied to him.”

She stomps in my direction looking like she used to, back before I know about the lies. Strong, powerful, a woman not to be trifled with. She opens her mouth to berate me, and the side of her head explodes a fraction of a second after the hammer on the gun falls.

I look at Gregg, who lowers his gun.

“Your mission was to bring her back alive.”

“After what that bitch did to my best friend, there’s no fucking way I was letting her walk out of here and go back to make more like you. You wanted her dead as badly as I did.”

“I’m your best friend?” Sarge asks and Gregg points the gun in his face only to fly into the room before he can do anything else. Sarge seems surprised by what he did.

Gregg gets to his feet. “She killed my best friend! You’re not him!”

The anger in the accusation makes Sarge take a step back.

“I didn’t want her dead,” I tell Gregg.

“That’s bullshit. She was standing right in front of you. You could have shoved her away easily before the bullet hit her.”

“I told her when I help rescue her from Adam, that I was done with her, that I wasn’t going to rescue her again.”

“And yet here you are like a good mama’s boy.”

“Claws was going to rescue her because he was afraid of what she’d do without the military to control her. I wasn’t letting him endanger himself alone.”

“So he is your boyfriend.”

“I’m not human,” I tell him, making my tone hard. “Stop applying human terms to me.”

“Or what?”

“Or I will eat you,” Claws says.

“I would love to see you—”

Gregg is on the floor across the room, his cheek cut.

“Don’t threaten him. The fact that I won’t use your terms for what we are doesn’t mean he isn’t important to me. I’m not killing you because you’re on that drug and it’s affecting your judgment; don’t push me, Gregg. How are you going to explain to the colonel the bullet in Amanda’s head?”

He snorts. “Like she needs to know about that.”

“You think she’s going to believe you when you return without her body?”

Gregg considers it. “Have your demon eat her head.”

“No,” Claws answers, an undertone of disgust in the accompanying rumble.

“No hunt, no eating,” I tell Gregg before he complains. Even if I know demons can eat without the hunt; there’s just no nourishment in it.

“Fine, then at least have it claw it to the point no one can tell I shot her.”

“No need,” I answer, forming claws at the end of my fingers. “I can do that myself.”

I do more than disfigure her further. I claw her body, make it look like the old man got to her before I could save her. While I do that, someone finds Mister Graves, neck and back broken. He’s what hit the window that first time.

I hand her corpse to Gregg, who passes her to Diniz. In the observation room, another soldier smiles as he takes off a headset and hands it to Gregg. “I made contact.”

With a sigh, he puts it on. “This is Captain Humbert. The mission is done, we have the doctor. We need an extraction at the drop off point.”

“Is she coming quietly?” the colonel asks. Sarge hears her and frowns. Trying to place the voice? Trying to understand why no one else is reacting to it?

“Oh yeah,” Gregg answers, looking at the corpse Diniz has over his shoulder. “She’s not in a position to make any objections.”

“I’m glad to hear it. The chopper will be there in forty.”

They hurry up the stairs. Me, Claws, and Sarge at the rear. I get the scientist and children from their hiding place. There is movement outside, human, hybrid, and demons I make out guns pointed at the entrance. It’s a good thing we are leaving by the roof.

We reach the maze, making our way to where the skylight was, now covered by a metal sheet. Before Gregg and point it out, Claws jumps up and through it. We carry the others to the roof, the children laughing, and the scientist cringing. He likes not having his feet on the ground less than I do.

We wait.

“Looks like it’s early,” Diniz says, pointing to a shape in the distance.

Before the shape is too low, I know it’s not the helicopter. They land on a roof, then jump in the air, wings becoming visible.

Gregg curses. “Weapon’s hot!” he orders, but like the others, he had trouble standing. The Boost is wearing off. I lower his machine gun.

“You can’t fight Rules them All.”

“So you’re going to let that eat us?”

“No, but if you shoot at them, they will kill you, possibly us all, and there’s nothing that can stop them.”

“So what? You’re going to talk it into letting us go?”

“That’s the idea.”

Rules them All lands on the roof and I step forward.

“Again, I don’t know how to welcome you with respect.”

A submissive rumble comes from Claws, and he stays close to me. I can’t tell if he hopes to protect me, or needs me to protect him.

“I don’t expect it from your kind, or theirs.”

“You said you didn’t care if we took Amanda. We did that, now we’re leaving.”

“Matthew was with her.” The tone is inquisitive, the undertone uninterested. Is this for the humans?

“Matthew is dead,” I tell them.

“How did it happen?” again, the vocal intonation is curiosity, but there is no matching undertone.

“I killed him,” I say at the same time as Gregg says Amanda killed him, indicating the body over Diniz’s shoulder. He tries to glare at me, but his exhaustion lets the mix of anger, disbelief, and fear show.

Rules them All looks at the soldiers, then back to me. “Humans lie.” The undertone is amusement. “Did you kill him to hurt me?”

“The process Amanda used to change him filled him with rage. It happened when she made me, but she must have thought she’d fixed that because she and Jimmy were in the room with Matthew during the process. He killed Jimmy and was about to kill her.”

“A gun killed that human,” Rules them All states.

“Things get complicated when humans are involved,” I say as an answer, and it satisfies him.

“There is no one to control the humans,” they say, the undertone speculative.

“You can’t stay here.”

“This is mine,” they reply, the undertone an order to submit, but not overpowering.

“The military will destroy this city because of all the People in it. They fear your kind. If Claws hadn’t killed Adam, Wants to Rule, and convinced the demons to leave back to the wild, they would have destroyed that city too, with all the humans still in it. The only humans in this city, they consider criminals, a group that—”

“I know what criminals are,” They interrupt me. “The First of the Graves explained the word to me when I learned human. Humans who break laws.” They snort. “Humans are criminals to the People, they break the laws of the wild.”

“But you can’t destroy all of them with one attack. They can. They have weapons that can, and they will use them.”

They study me, the others. “If you stay here, the humans will not attack. You aren’t criminals to them.” Gregg snorts and Rules them All stares at him. “That is derision. Are you mocking me, Human?” the undertone is that of warning, tread carefully, do not anger me.

Gregg doesn’t sense any of it, he’s only human, but when he speaks, he manages to stop wobbling, and his voice is a little more respect than fear. “No. But I found out recently that we don’t matter. I don’t matter. They’re going to kill us along with the rest of you if they have to.”

“Humans are wasteful.” They raise their head and roar. An order to hunt, to feed, to prepare for a journey.

I fight the desire to obey and grab Claw’s arm as he turns to look at the soldiers, the scientist. Memories of Claws hunting, and I want to do that alongside him. He remembers the taste of blood on his tongue, the feel of it down his throat, and my stomach rumbles in hunger.

Enough of me isn’t demon that I remain in control, and the roar ends before Claws can break from my grasp, and rumbles to me shame at how easily he was taken by it.

Below us, I hear the scream of humans, roars of demons, and the accompanying satisfaction of hunting and feeding. Whatever arrangement humans thought they had with demons, they forgot how different they are from one another.

“When they are sated, or no food remains, my people will leave this place.” They turn and head for the edge of the roof. “Tell the humans they don’t need to destroy it.”

“You can’t gather like this again,” I tell them, and they are in my face before the last word is done leaving my mouth. They are silent, but the anger hits—I stagger back—followed by satisfaction.

“Don’t tell me what I can’t do, Thing of Humans. I am Rules them All I don’t answer to them or you.”

I force myself to look them in the eyes. “You’ve shown them demons, the People, can congregate. They didn’t believe that before. The more of the People are together to more afraid they get. If it happens again, they won’t send someone to tell you to stop.”

“They will destroy my wild,” they finish. The undercurrent carries no surprise, only determination.

I just told Rules them All that they will never be safe from humans, and instead of something to fear, they see a challenge.

They look to the soldiers. “Tell the humans I do not want that to happen.” And they go to the edge of the roof and jump off, wings spreading from their back, and they glide away in the direction of the aerie.

“I can’t believe you talked it down,” Gregg says once they vanish from sight.

I didn’t. They didn’t lie, but it’s the first time I’ve heard a demon twist what they say so human misunderstand. I don’t like what it says about the kind of being Rules them All is.

Faintly, I make out the sound of the helicopter. It doesn’t bother being silent this time. We give it space when it lands, and a voice amplified to be heard over the deafening sounds speaks.

“Captain Humbert, I don’t have the space for everyone. It’s going to take a second trip.”

Gregg gestures to the helicopter and the sound diminishes and when he speaks to me I understand him. “I am not leaving one of my people behind, and before you even think of mentioning it, you aren’t staying behind either. You’re the one who’s going to explain to Fallon why you told the demons to scatter so we can’t blow them up. She’s going to love listening to that and I want to see what she’s going to do to you for it..”

“I will take them away,” Claws offers. “Once the hunting is over and the others leave, it will be safe to leave. I can protect them until then.”

Gregg scoffs. “Oh, yeah, you definitely looked ready to protect them a minute ago. I can just imagine what’s going to happen the instant we’re in the air.”

“You do it,” I tell Claws. “I’ll meet you where we exited the forest once I’m done with the colonel.”

Claws heads for the scientist and children, I follow Gregg to the helicopter.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Greg yells as Sarge starts climbing into the helicopter.

“I’m going with you.” He sounds confused at the question, at the way the others keep their distance from him. “I’m a soldier like you, I have to report in.”

“No fucking way.” Gregg points to Claws. “You’re going to that, where you belong.”

“I—” Sarge looks where the soldier point, back at him. “Gregg?”

“Don’t you fucking dare say my name. You don’t know me and I’d never know a thing like you.”

The pain is clear on Sarge’s face. Unlike me, remembers some of his past. Some of the attachments he is losing, that are being ripped away from him.

“I’ll take you to a place where you can belong,” I tell him. “Go with Claws, help him keep the children safe.”

Reluctantly, Sarge leaves, and then Gregg climbs into the helicopter. Once I’m in, he bangs the wall to the cockpit twice and the helicopter lifts off.

“I thought you’d want him to come,” I say. “He was made by Amanda, so he is the property of the military, just as you keep saying I am.”

“I don’t want that thing anywhere near the military!” He looks outside, toward Sarge and the others standing around the skylight. “I don’t want anyone getting their hands on him.” Sorrow taint his words, show on his face. Then it’s gone, replaced by anger. “Cline’s dead, is that clear?” he looks at the others. “If anyone asks, Cline died doing his job. He was the best of us.”

There is no hesitation in the other’s approval.

When Gregg looks at me, eyes filled with threat, I nod. I don’t care about any threats he thinks he can enact, but I understand the desire to preserve a memory. I can give him that.

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