At times like these, I want to go home, because havoc abounds around me and I’m forced to keep moving and fighting. I miss my blanket, and my comfy bed that squeaks a tad much. It’s okay my bed squeaks. My body sinks into it perfectly, so I don’t mind. I want to eat ice cream while watching a mindless show on Netflix, or maybe read a good novel while cooling myself off with a face mask. All that sounds miles better than fighting demons.
Yet here I am, fighting demons.
I’m not sure how many I’ve beheaded or immobilized, but the number should be pitiful compared to Vickal and Jared. I wish I could say I’m just as strong and capable, but the guys are faster than me, and Jared seems to have taken private lessons with Vickal—private lessons I was too knocked out to attend.
I’ve slain so many demons that it’s become repetitive at this point. Stab, slice, shove. Rinse and repeat. It’s because so many of them are smaller demons, easy to take down and inconsequential.
So when a horridly large one comes up to me, my mind jolts and I must figure out what to do.
It has two heads shaped like oxen and beady eyes that are completely red. It opens its mouth and breathes fire. I don’t know if it’s trying to be intimidating, but if it is, then its doing a mighty good job of it, because I’m thinking of how it could break me in two.
“Vickal!” I shout. He usually takes out demons like these. He doesn’t come to my rescue, and all his men are busy with their own fights. Some have even gone missing in this mess. I’m left gaping at the monstrosity, attempting to still my quivering hand. I catch Vickal in the near distance—it’s a surprise that I manage to, because there’s just so many demons blocking my view. He’s exchanging aerial blows with three angels.
Angels?
What are they doing here?
My eyes flick to Jared, and my heart plummets.
He’s been fighting another one of these two-headed creatures. A lesser demon uses that as a distraction to assault Jared, and its disproportionately large jaw sinks over Jared’s shoulder.
“Jared!”
Shitshitshit.
He winces and throws his head back.
My body springs forward, instinct throwing my limbs into action, but the two-headed demon coming for me doesn’t let me rush to my brother’s side. It kicks dust into the air with its grotesquely muscled legs and charges at me, pointing its four horns in my direction.
A pair of horns slide past me. They narrowly miss my side.
“Jared!” I shout again, but my cries fail to help my brother. My view of him is constantly interrupted, but the glimpses I catch tell me he’s getting overwhelmed, with too many demons to count around him, and his flames thrown around randomly, not meeting their marks.
I’m terrified that after all this, I won’t have a brother left to protect.
If only I could phase. Then maybe I’d be able to get to Jared in time. I take down creature after creature, trying to cut my way through them, but once one is down, another takes its place.
I revisit Vickal’s instructions from earlier, trying to imagine where I might be after phasing, but my power doesn’t come. Adrenaline continues to push me onward, but inside, I’m quivering like a leaf.
Jared lets out another howl of pain. Despite the wretched sounds of the creatures surrounding us, his cries echo toward me.
I catch another glimpse of him. He’s bloodied and being taken away by another two-headed abomination.
No! I don’t know whether I’m screaming in my head or if the words left my lips, but the sense of dread I feel is terrifying.
One of Vickal’s men leaps to the rescue, but I don’t see what happens after that. My vision gets blocked.
I curse as I summon all the might in my legs, propelling myself forward. I shouldn’t have taken the horned demon lightly, because he slams his horns into my side. A crraack pierces my ears, and I wonder whether that’s due to my bones breaking. I’m thrown across the ground. Sensing weakened prey, many of the demons look to me. I’m too shocked to feel anything.
This is nothing but a crap-fest.
My wound begins to stitch up. With that, pain returns, and I seethe, trying to bear it.
I struggle to my feet. The two-headed demon charges at me again, knocking me to the ground. I fend off the demons who take advantage of my weakened moment. Some bite into my flesh. I can taste my own blood.
Jared…
The shock fades and panic flares. I need to phase to get to him. I burn whitefyre across myself, keeping away the weaker demons, and stand up, drawing on all my strength. But the wound in my side protests by sending throbs and spikes up my torso. I bite the inside of my mouth. The physical pain is temporary, but if I lose my brother, that is forever.
Phase, phase, you stupid girl. Phase, damn it!
Why won’t it come? In the last battle, I wanted to save Vickal, which triggered the power. It’s my brother I now want to rescue—shouldn’t my body react to my twin brother? But it refuses to listen, despite my efforts.
It gives me something else.
Bright light pours out of my fingertips. It’s glowing so much that it hurts to look at it. It flickers and glows, yet it doesn’t have the heat that my whitefyre produces. The two-headed demon lunges at me again. Not sure what my power does, I throw it out. It hits the ground and circles my enemy. A barrier—or that’s what I think it is—shoots up from the ground and makes a wall around the demon.
It thrashes against the wall. I startle at how much force the demon’s throwing at it. For a second there, it seems as if he might break through and put another hole through my gut. The wound there is still throbbing, and there’s blood. So much blood. It gushes out of me and stains my clothes, forming a puddle on the ground.
I ignore it and look down at my hands, where the power is still swirling. It’s draining my energy, sucking it away at an alarming rate, making my eyes want to close from how tired it’s making me.
I can use this to get to Jared.
I throw the power at the ground, and two thin lines zip up from where it impacts. The barriers form a path, and the demons caught in between are pushed away The remainder caught in the barrier are easily taken care of by me, now that more aren’t pouring in.
I repeat this until I reach Jared. He’s limping around, trying to hold his own, but it looks like half his arm has been torn off, and his clothes have been ripped to shreds. His body is stained by red and green, and I wonder how much of that blood is his.
He’s taken care of the two-headed demon, at least partly. One of its heads has gone missing, but the other remains, roaring and alive, enraged by the loss of its other half. It thrashes with rage.
I do the same as I did with the other demons, erecting a barrier around it. Exhaustion threatens to take me, and the ground begins to look like a nice resting spot.
“Val? What are those powers?” Jared says, looking at me with awe. A demon with razor-sharp teeth almost gets to him, but before it does, I blast it away with my whitefyre.
“I don’t know, but it’s useful. You look like shit.” I create a barrier around us. A demon reaches for my face, but the barrier comes up just in time, and is repelled backward. The demon opens its mouth and reveals a row of deadly, oversized teeth. Gross. This guy definitely needs a dentist.
“No kidding,” Jared says. “Where’s Vickal? He’s supposed to be protecting us.”
“Fighting angels.” The barrier hums around us, giving us a reprieve, but I don’t know how long it’ll last or if I can continue to hold on to this power. I see one of Vickal’s men walking toward us, puzzlement on his face. I wave at him and let him enter.
“Hi,” he says.
“Hi,” I reply.
“Angels?” Jared asks, continuing our conversation on Vickal.
“Forget him. He’s holding his own. What about Sylver and Xeres?”
“They should still be fighting Belial. The fight took them pretty far away, but they should be back by now. I don’t know why they aren’t. Maybe they’re dead or something.” Jared laughs sheepishly and scratches the back of his head.
Worry spikes up my chest. A scary thought that they might be dead zips through me. It’s strange when I realize I don’t want them to die. The notion pains me when it shouldn’t. If Xeres dies, if means that I’ll be free from my compulsion, and I can go back to living a normal life—if night shifts at a strip club count as normal, anyway.
But it’s definitely way less crazy than this.
I point in the direction Xeres and Sylver went. Or at least, I think it’s where they went. It’s confusion all around. “Let’s go rescue them, then?”
“Rescue them? I think I’m the one who needs to be rescued. I’m in no shape to rescue anyone.”
“You’re healing.” The puncture wound the horned demon gave me is nearly gone, too.
I wonder if I can expand my barrier. I push at it, and it grows, sucking in more ground and keeping the demons out. It makes me smile, because I’m finally feeling useful, and even though I’m not adding to the body count, I’m the one who’s going to save the day.
“You’re Moses!” Jared says.
“What?” I frown at him.
“It’s like you’re parting the Red Sea, but instead of that, it’s a sea of demons, which makes it even more cool and badass.”
“Astute observation, dear brother,” I say.
“Why thank you.”
We’re ambling past the demons like we’re having a casual walk in the park. They throw themselves at the barrier, shaking it, but my power holds up.
In the distance, demons are thrown in the air like flies, making sprays of blood in the air. I’m guessing Xeres is out there being Xeres. He jumps from the carnage and phases to us. He cocks his head and walks alongside us, outside the barrier. A few splatters of green stain his skin and clothes, but he looks to be in a much better condition than Jared and me, who are dripping with our own blood.
“New power,” I explain.
“Barriers?” Xeres says. “But that’s a kind of power that angels specialize in.” I start to worry that he’s losing trust in me, although it’s not like we had trust for each other in the first place. He punches a demon out of the way and stabs another one. “Can you let me in?”
“I… I still don’t know how this works.”
“Try anyway.”
I focus and imagine the barrier being spread apart. A small opening forms, and Xeres steps in, I close it immediately, lest any demons re-enter. That maneuver sucked up even more of my energy, and I’m left more exhausted than before. I’m not going to be able to keep this up for much longer, but I have to. This is our ticket out of here.
Xeres regards me with a look I can’t decipher. It seems like there’s disgust there, and that makes me hurt. “Sylver should still be where Belial was. It’s not too far from here. Mystery why he’s not here with us yet. Bastard likes to take his time, or maybe he got lost. Let’s fetch him and get the hell out.”
“Sounds like a plan,” I say.
“Would have really been useful if your powers manifested earlier,” Jared says. “Then we could’ve actually formulated a proper plan out of it. But the hero always has to save the day at the last minute, huh? You know, if you had this barrier magic in the beginning, it would have saved us a trip to Vega—”
“Oh, shut up.”
I spread my magic out, and we push on.