“Whoa, okay. Got the aggression going. I like it. Now let’s take it out on the four demons inside,” I said to Shea, then pushed open the door.
Luke was the first one in. He brushed past me, head down and horns ready to ram anything that got in his way. His spotlight spread out through the space, but I saw nothing but dusty half-broken sewing desks.
Chloe was in next, Shea beside her, and I brought up the rear, closing the door and locking it behind me. I didn’t want any of these suckers getting out and failing us. Magically locked or not, I wasn’t taking any chances.
I opened the carabiner at my waist and pulled the lamp out. Clicking it on, I rolled it into the middle of the room.
“There!” Chloe shouted as movement crawled along the far-right edge of the wall. The little bastard passed into the light, and I saw tiny bat-like wings for a split second.
“It’s a Yew demon!” I shouted, and then Chloe was off, like a hawk seeking prey as she cut through the room.
Yew demons spit fire. If you got them going, they wouldn’t stop until the whole place was up in flames. Their only weakness was that they were pretty much blind and super slow, going off sound.
Chloe was fast enough to distract him, zipping to his right. When he heard her coming, he spit a stream of fire into the air ten feet from where she’d been standing. He didn’t even sense her as she reached up and yanked him down by one wing. With a screech, he flapped madly as she pinned him to the ground. The little bastard spit fire onto the old hardwood floors but nothing alighted, and then Luke was there. Chloe maneuvered the Yew demon so Luke could take the small bat-like creature into his mouth. Then he shook his head vigorously until we heard the snapping of the demon’s neck.
I knew there were three more in the building, so I didn’t pay too much attention to the Yew demon. Luke and Chloe had him. Instead, I spun in a circle and scoped out the rest of the space. The front area was pretty open, and led to a main room full of sewing desks, but the back part, past Chloe and Luke, seemed to have an office and another stairwell.
Luke glanced up from his kill, and I walked over to pat his round rump. “Good boy,” I cooed.
He reached around, head-butting my leg, and I laughed. “Okay, okay. Sorry. Awesome job, you badass mutha.”
He hated being treated like a pet, but I wasn’t sure how else to talk to him in his animal form.
“Come on. I think this place is four stories high, so there’s probably one demon on each floor,” I said to everyone.
I grabbed the lantern, and we walked slowly to the back of the room where the office was. Pulling Sera from my boot, I peeked inside the office room. A quick scan told me it was empty.
“This is going to be easy-peasy,” Chloe announced as she started up the stairs.
“Don’t get cocky!” I shouted after her, running to catch up. “Hang back a second.” I placed a hand on her chest, and stepped in front of her.
The lower-level demons were Yew, Snakeroot, Larkspur, and Castor, the latter being more dangerous than the others. Though any one of them could kill us, burn our faces off or make our lives a living nightmare.
“You did a great job with the Yew demon, but let’s be cautious,” I urged. We’d reached the top of the steps, where there was an opening to another level.
She nodded, and let me take the lead into the room. I gripped Sera firmly in my right hand, then stepped inside.
The second I crossed the threshold, nausea rolled into me, making my mouth water as bile churned in my belly.
“Lark… spur,” I said between dry heaves as the rest of my team burst into the room, flashlights shining.
Larkspur demons made you physically ill while in their presence, weakening you the longer you stayed near them. Ten minutes in the room and I’d be puking my brains out, unable to do a damned thing to defend myself. I already felt the body aches setting in, like a really bad case of food poisoning, or the flu.
‘Sera, help,’ I called, holding my dagger in front of me. Larkspur demons were a menacing seven feet tall, and they packed a punch. If I could illuminate the room, there was no way he could hide.
Sera’s light shot out of the tip of her blade and burst like a firework at the ceiling.
Oh shit.
The light had also shown him where we were. From his place near the far-left window, he was now running at us.
“Infirmi!” Shea yelled, and a spark of yellow shot from her palm, slamming into the demon’s gut. His legs buckled, and he started to fall forward. Luke made a distressing sound from behind me, and I took a split second to glance over my shoulder at the Snakeroot demon riding his back.
What the hell! My eyes widened. There were two of them on that floor. I felt like I was going to throw up, but I had to push all that aside and deal with this, or we were in some deep shit.
“Chloe, help Luke!” I shouted, my mouth full of saliva. Then I advanced on the Larkspur demon with Shea at my side.
“I weakened his legs, but it won’t last.” she said, then turned over and retched on the ground.
Wasting no time, I leapt onto the demon’s back as he was trying to stand and shoved Sera between his shoulder blades up to the hilt. The moment I sank the blade into his flesh, he roared and arched his back, using his incredible strength and speed to try and buck me off. I kept my hold on Sera as my body was flung up and outward, in a forty-foot arc across the sewing factory.
This landing is going to hurt. Wait, I have wings!
At the last second, my wings shot out, and I got all of two flaps in before I crashed into the far wall. I hit with the entire left side of my body, minimally slowed by my wings, and sank to the ground. Doing a quick assessment for anything broken, I tried to stand. My left hip was pinching fiercely, but it didn’t feel dislocated, at least.
Looking back over to the fight, I saw Chloe chasing the Snakeroot demon while Luke was panting on the ground. The Larkspur demon had his hands around Shea’s throat.
“Shea!” I roared and burst forward from where I stood. Launching into the air, I felt pain shoot into my left hip, but as soon as I let my wings take over, I was fine. Flying across the room, I slammed into the demon’s back, knocking him off Shea.
‘Keep me in him long enough and I can obliterate him!’ Sera ordered.
She was in battle mode, and so was I. I wouldn’t lose any friends tonight, and I would not fail this test.
The Larkspur demon hit the ground at an awkward angle and I fell on top of him, plunging Sera into the closest part of his body I could reach, which happened to be his groin.
Take that, you bastard.
Then I crawled over him, straddling his abdomen and trying to pin him down long enough to allow Sera to work. Being that close to him was making me feel like death, my whole body breaking out in chills as nausea rolled into me like waves crashing against a shoreline.
His face contorted in rage, his thick gray leathery skin bunching into a menacing pug-faced look. I thought I had his arms pinned, but then I realized he’d just been letting me as his left arm shot out and his fist connected with my jaw. Pain exploded in my ear and neck, a scream of surprise tearing from my mouth.
I went berserk then, raining blows from both fists along his face, neck, and anywhere else I could reach. Just like Lincoln taught me, I pushed my upper body weight into each blow to make them as powerful as possible.
Suddenly, the demon’s body started to heat beneath me, making the backs of my thighs hot. With crazy speed, his arms shot up into my armpits, and then I was launched off him. I crashed into the ground near Shea, who was heaving on the floor on all fours. Same with Luke’s bear. Only Chloe and I were left, and we were barely functioning.