Darklands

Only one minute left before the bell. I pressed on, speaking fast. “Harpies are the third kind of demon. Those are revenge-demons. Unlike Drudes and Eidolons, which are attracted by a person’s emotions, Harpies must be conjured by a sorcerer. If you’ve got an enemy with some spare cash—well, a lot of spare cash—your enemy might pay a sorcerer to send some Harpies against you.”



“What do they look like?”



Before I could answer, the bell rang. Students gathered up their books. It was over. I breathed a sigh of relief.



Bang! Glass shattered as something crashed through the window.



Kids screamed and crouched in their seats, covering their heads as the glass sprayed everywhere.



A large, feathered body hurtled into the classroom, clawed feet first. Huge talons, sharp as spikes, reached for me, aiming for my chest.



I dropped and rolled, and the Harpy hit the wall. It bounced off the blackboard and landed hard on the floor.



“Awesome!” Tina shouted. “You did bring a prop!” She ran to the front of the room.



“No, I…” My voice trailed off as I concentrated on the invader.



The Harpy shook itself and stood. I reached into my boot for a dagger. Nothing. That stupid zero-tolerance policy meant score zero for the demon slayer.



“Okay.” Tina’s voice took on a lecturing tone. “So, as you can see, a Harpy has the body of a large bird. Like a vulture—at least, it sort of reminds me of the vultures you see in cartoons.”



The Harpy sprang back into the air to take another dive at me. On my knees now, I grabbed my folding metal chair and swung. That knocked the demon back, but it locked its talons around the chair and yanked it from my hands. Before I could react, it crumpled the chair into a ball of twisted metal and tossed it aside. The Harpy landed and, almost too fast to see, ran at me.



I shoved it hard in the chest. The Harpy whipped its head to the side, and its beak gouged a bite from my right arm. I pulled away before one of the snakes that hissed out from its scalp could latch on to my flesh. I sat, drew back both legs, and kicked. The Harpy took to the air, hovering near the ceiling and shrieking.



Tina raised her voice over the din. “As you can see, Harpies have Medusa heads, with snakes for hair and everything, except instead of mouths they have beaks.” She paused. “Oh, crap. I shouldn’t have said, ‘As you can see.’ Don’t look at its face. Just like Medusa, it’ll paralyze you with fear. If one of those snakes bites you, that paralyzes you, too. Oh.” Another pause. “I guess I should’ve mentioned that part about not looking earlier.” Her voice brightened. “Except this way I guess everyone will stay until the end of Vicky’s demonstration. Sweet.”



A quick glance around the classroom showed Tina’s warning had come a bit late. All the students, plus the teacher, plus the career-day guests, were as immobile as lumps of rock. Except for mine and Tina’s, everyone’s eyes were fixed on the demon’s head. Mrs. McIntyre stood beside her desk, her hands clutching her skirt, a statue of an anxious high school teacher.



I stood and grabbed her vacated chair and hoisted it. I poked at the air, keeping the chair between me and the Harpy like a lion tamer. I watched the Harpy’s body, its great flapping wings, but avoided looking at its face.



“Harpies usually attack in threes,” Tina was saying, “but I guess Vicky figured that would be overkill for a classroom demonstration. Also, it’s really awesome that we can see this Harpy. I mean, okay, it’s not all that awesome for those of you who are paralyzed right now. But Harpies usually stay in the demon plane, becoming visible only to the victim. When one’s fully materialized like this, it means—” She turned to me. “Um, Vicky, how come we can all see it?”



The Harpy shrieked out its battle cry and dived at my head.



“Because it’s trying to kill me!” I shouted, batting at the Harpy like it was an ugly, oversized piñata. The chair made contact, slamming the demon to the back of the room and out through the broken window. Its howls grew distant.



I stood, panting, still holding the chair.



“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” Tina said. “Just like when that crazy sorcerer dude sent all those Harpies to attack the Halloween parade. Everyone could see them because they were told to kill.” She turned toward the broken window. “So is that it? The Harpy’s gone? How come nobody’s moving yet?”



Before I could answer, the Harpy blasted back into the classroom. Tina ducked, but it flashed past her. Once a Harpy locks on to its victim, it ignores everything else. And this one was sure as hell locked onto me.



I swung the chair again, but the demon swerved at the last minute and went around behind me. It landed on my shoulders. I wriggled them, trying to keep its talons from digging into my jacket. I dropped the chair and put both arms over my face, shielding it from the snakes’ fangs. Then I reached back and got my right hand around one of its legs. I pulled hard and flung the demon away from me. It flew back up toward the ceiling.



Tina pinched her nose. “Oh, and in case you’re wondering what that smell is,” she said, “that’s the Harpy. They stink like garbage and rotten eggs and I don’t even know what else. That’s why Vicky puts eucalyptus oil in her nostrils before she fights a Harpy, to cover up the smell.” She turned to me. “You know, you could’ve warned us you’d be bringing a real Harpy for show-and-tell,” she scolded. “It’s not as much fun when I feel like puking.”



“I—”



The Harpy dived again. I somersaulted, and it crashed to the floor. It leapt into the air, jumping over me and landing on my left ankle. Talons dug through my jeans and into the thick leather of my boot. They didn’t penetrate to my skin, but this time the Harpy had a strong grip on me. I kicked. The demon spread its wings for balance; its beak tore into my leg. Cloth ripped, and pain slashed through my thigh. A moment later, I felt the sting of a snake bite. My leg went numb.



“To fight a Harpy,” Tina was saying, “it’s best to use bronze bullets. You want to kill the demon before it can get close to you. As Vicky is demonstrating for us, once a Harpy gets its claws into you, you’ve got a real problem.”



No kidding. My left leg, useless as a fallen log, now merely served as a perch for the Harpy. I kicked at the demon with my right leg, trying to knock it off while avoiding its beak. I smashed the sole of my boot into its beak and chest, but its grip only tightened. Its beak slashed my right calf, and I pulled my leg back to keep it out of range of the snakes.



The Harpy hopped up my paralyzed leg, digging its talons in above and below my knee. It was trying to make its way to my torso, where it would rip into my abdomen to feed on my guts. I kept kicking. I was not going to be disemboweled as the finale to Career Night.



Still kicking with my good leg, I worked my arms out of my jacket. If I could wrap the thick leather around the Harpy, I might be able to trap it long enough to wrestle it into a locker. With the demon encased in metal, a quick containment charm would hold it in place while I figured out how to finish it off.



I shrugged off the jacket as the Harpy inched up my leg. I was running out of time. Keeping my gaze slightly to the right of the Medusa head, I waited for it to strike. Tina’s voice droned on. I wasn’t listening to her, I was listening for the soft, guttural clucking that a Harpy makes when it’s about to feed.



There.



The Harpy lunged forward to strike, and I threw my jacket over its head. It shrieked with fury as I wrapped it up in the jacket. Keeping the head covered, I clasped the demon in a bear hug, pushing with my good leg so I rolled over on top of it. It bucked and writhed, but I held it.



Now to stuff it into a locker. Not so easy to do with only one working leg.



“Tina,” I said. “I need your help. We have to—”



“I thought you’d never ask,” she said. “We were only supposed to get ten minutes, you know.” But she didn’t come over. She kept talking to the class. “Now, if you don’t have bronze bullets, you need a bronze blade of some sort. Bronze is like poison to demons. So—”



The Harpy heaved, almost bucking me off.



“Tina!” I shouted. “We’ve got to imprison this Harpy. I don’t have a bronze blade.”



“But I do,” she said. She pulled a six-inch bronze dagger from her backpack. “You told me you wouldn’t bring a weapon into school, so I did.”



Bless the girl. And zero tolerance be damned.



“Toss it to me.” I tried to hold out a hand so she could throw me the knife, but the Harpy’s frenzied movements were too wild. I had to grab the demon again before it threw me off.



Tina sauntered over. The Playboy bunny on her shirt winked as she bent to examine the situation.



“I’m going to pull back the edge of the jacket,” I said. “Just a little. When I do, stab the exposed part—”



Before I could finish, a taloned foot worked its way out from under the jacket. The bronze blade flashed as Tina stabbed upward, under the jacket, spearing the Harpy in its leg.



It let out a furious shriek, loud enough to make all the demons of Hell cover their ears.



“Good!” I shouted. “Move the blade around. Maximize contact with the bronze.”



Tina made a face. “It’s getting, like, all mushy.” She pinched her nose again. “And it smells even worse.”



“That’s exactly what we want.” The Harpy’s struggles were getting weaker. “Give me the dagger. I’ll finish it off.”



Tina pulled the dagger from the Harpy’s body. Black slime dripped from the blade in long, gooey strings. The smell was eau de sulfur, accented with notes of rotting garbage, decaying flesh, and vomit. Tina handed me the dagger, then covered her nose with both hands and backed away.



Keeping the Harpy’s head firmly wrapped in my jacket, I exposed its body. Its wings flapped weakly, without the strength to lift it into the air. I raised the dagger high and drove it straight down into the demon. And then again. And again. With each blow, the Harpy got smaller. Its cries grew fainter, its movements more feeble. In a minute, all that remained was a still, deflated body in a stinking puddle of demon guts.