I plucked at Darius’s sleeve and moved into a stream of creatures edging around the disturbance. As long as we weren’t the only ones heading out instead of hanging around to watch the bloody battle, it was fine to move on.
Something dull and hard poked my arm. A different bony, gross thing bumped into me. Darius’s hand tightened on my shoulder and his claws dug into my suit as he pulled me away.
In front of me, a creature turned suddenly. Its half-torn wing jabbed my chest.
A blast of anger turned lightheadedness rolled through my consciousness. Fire roared in my middle, and I shoved the oddly squishy being without meaning to. My logical mind told me to stop, to make my way to the edge of the path so I could regroup, but I stalked forward like a woman turned battle-axe, forcing people out of my way.
My power pumped higher, daring any of these beings to challenge me. My power didn’t seem to call to anyone. The suit was at least partially working so far.
In the back of my head, I felt the underlying fear from before, telling me to get lost. It had never been so easy to ignore something in all my life. Not with more beings jostling and bumping me. Straying in my path when I was clearly the big man on campus.
Where are these feelings coming from, Reagan? a tiny voice thought in my head.
I had no idea, but I was powerless to stop them.
The crowd that had formed around the fight thinned at the outskirts. Something howled from within the press of creatures. A spray of blood shot out over the beings. I ducked just in time. The glob hit a scaly creature next to me.
There was definitely a reason Vlad’s people weren’t hanging around these edges. The brutality was intense.
I hated that a part of me thrived in it. The part my father had passed down.
An opening on the left gave us an option to leave the main drag. The question was, would it take us toward the river?
I had decided to go for it when a huge shape ducked out of the nearest hovel. I swerved as best I could, but my backpack bumped into it. The impact had me careening away, staggering to get my balance. Darius was beside me in an instant, helping me straighten up.
You know what else was straightening up?
The huge freaking creature that had just come out of the hovel, that was what.
Up and up until it was a little more than double my height. Horns like a mountain goat’s curled around its head and under its ears. Pointed ears stuck out of a leathery face with a hole for a nose. From huge shoulders hung monstrous arms, much too long for its body. A short waist and then thick thighs led down into weird, dinosaur-looking feet.
I dropped my sword a little, because regardless of the feeling from a moment ago, I did not want to tango with this monster.
Please work, suit, I said to myself as I turned slowly and continued on my way. Please work. Don’t let it see me. Don’t let it—
“What is this?” it said in a deep, booming voice.
Was it too much to hope that the creature was talking about some other idiot who’d bumped it with her backpack?
“Does ’ooman scum dare invade my pride?”
I didn’t know what pride meant in the context of that sentence, since the thing clearly wasn’t a lion, but I did know the suit wasn’t keeping me invisible. The creature had a problem with me. Joy.
I also knew that it clearly knew I was part human, not a demon with a human form. So that was unfortunate.
I took a moment to try and read its thoughts, but came up blank. It was blocking me, somehow. I ripped off the mask so I could see better. If the suit wasn’t hiding me from eyeballs, there was no use half blinding myself.
“You grew tired of summoning us to do your bidding, filthy ’ooman, and thought your reign would transfer down here?” It blew out fire through its nostrils, the flame washing down my face.
“Dang it! I wasn’t ready. There go my freaking eyebrows again.”
I turned to face the monster, much more horrible than Darius’s monster form could ever be.
“How dare you speak that filthy tongue to me, ’ooman!” the creature roared.
Do you know what the creature said? Darius thought-asked me.
“Yeah. Don’t you?”
No. It is speaking a language I have never heard.
In other words, I could randomly understand a demonic language without ever having heard it before. That was odd and terrifying, though helpful.
It seems the suit is working for me, since the creature has not noticed me, Darius thought. We’re drawing a crowd. We need to make a move.
“Well, bully for you,” I said sarcastically, sizing up the situation. I adjusted my grip on my sword. “And yes, we do, but running is not going to work. What a crappy way to start an adventure.”
One word pulsed within the quickly gathering crowd, chanted out loud over and over.
“Blood! Blood! Blood!”
Can we end this peacefully? Darius thought.
The creature reached for me.
I dodged its hand and slashed down with my sword. The blade cut halfway through. “Not anymore.”
Chapter Fourteen
The being didn’t howl like I’d thought it might. It roared, shaking the ground and making the crowd shrink back in fear.
“Crap, of all the beasts I could run into, it had to be the one that all these brutal creatures are afraid of.”
It stuck its arm into the air, and through a strange sort of rustling, bone and skin stitched back together before my eyes, faster than I’d ever seen something regenerate. Ever.
A swear word drifted out of Darius’s thoughts, also unhelpful. I didn’t hear any thoughts from the creatures.
“This is why I usually stick to pouches.” I dashed forward and hacked at the creature’s leg before stabbing it in the stomach. “Pouches don’t trouble anyone.”
The creature huffed fire at me, raking it down my front again. I capped my head in ice magic, keeping it subtle in the hopes it wouldn’t be seen, to save myself from going completely bald. Call me vain, but I liked my blond locks.
Once again, the demon’s wounds magically righted themselves. I needed to get serious.
“Say hello to my little friend!” I blasted it with a stream of hellfire. Since I wasn’t the only creature capable of producing hellfire, I felt safe in showing that little trick.
The hellfire punched a hole in its middle.
It screamed, a horrible, high-pitched sound that shook me to the core. Panic bubbled up, wild and paralyzing, begging me to run, scream, cry, or just cower at its feet. I could barely think through the terror.
“That is a great trick,” I said through clenched teeth, fighting the effects of that sound. “That’s some magic that would really help the bounty-hunting gig.”
The hole didn’t stitch back together, so I hit it with another blast, square in the chest.