I put on my socks and shoved my feet into my boots before lacing them and tying my hair into a bun. Rushing over to my weapons trunk, I threw open the lid and removed my holster; I pulled it on before inserting two handguns and a trench knife into it.
I slid my hand through the brass knuckles making up the handle of my other trench knife. I could create fire, and my ability had gotten stronger over the past two years, but it wasn’t my best defense. Bullets wouldn’t kill a demon, but they would wound one enough I could cut its head off before it recovered.
When I turned to the front of the tent, I discovered the man was gone. I ignored the stab this inflicted to my heart as I ran for the exit. Flinging open the flap, I plunged into the night and almost smacked into the back of him.
He caught my wrist when I stumbled back and helped to steady me. One of the drakón swept overhead and down the other side of the hill as it headed toward the training field and woods beyond it. A burst of blue fire erupted from its mouth as it scorched the earth.
The glow of its fire illuminated thousands of enemy troops spilling from the woods and racing toward the wall. And those were just the ones I could see as they continued to flow from the woods. I understood the panic in Zanta’s voice now as countless demons poured toward us.
“My God,” I breathed.
I was far from the gateway when it opened and unleashed Hell on Earth, but I suspected it looked much like this as the freed demons overtook everything in their way. The craetons—those demons who once fought for Lucifer and now followed the remaining fallen angels and horsemen—seemed infinite in their numbers as they spread across the land.
I ducked and covered my head with my hands when the wings of the second drakón swept so close to my head it nearly tore my tent from its moorings. When they kicked up from the ground, dirt and rocks pelted me in the face as some of the tents tore free and tumbled away.
I lowered my hands as the second drakón unleashed a wave of blue fire before sweeping high to follow its mate. The first drakón was already dipping down to scorch the earth again, but as its fire consumed our enemies, more flowed around their bodies as they charged forward.
“I don’t suppose I could talk you into going to the hall,” the man said.
The hall was where the children, some of their mothers, and those unable to fight would shelter, but it wasnotwhere I was going.
“No, you can’t,” I told him.
He looked strangely disappointed for someone who had known me for less than six hours.
“I didn’t think so,” he said before grasping my arm and pulling me forward. “We have to go.”
I staggered after him as we plunged through the tents. I’d been in fights before, nothing to this extent, but I could do this. Iwoulddo this. I was a soldier, a demon, and I had no other choice.
Gunshots and explosions rent the air as screams echoed through the night, but the tents blocked my view of what was happening. I ran faster, eager to break free of here so I could see what was happening and fight.
We were almost out of the tents when a lumbering beast staggered out from between the tents. Its yellow eyes landed on us, and it charged. The man released my wrist and ducked as the eight-foot-tall creature swung a lobster-like claw at his head. Judging by its foot-long snout, crustacean-like hands, and armored plate on its chest, this was a lower-level demon. It wasn’t as powerful as the higher-level demons, but the thing looked like it could squish an elephant.
When it stalked toward the man, he threw a knife at it, which embedded in its throat. The thing didn’t hesitate before it seized the guy by the throat, lifted him, and flung him away.
No!My heart lodged in my throat as I watched the man fly thirty feet through the air before crashing into a tent. He disappeared when the material collapsed around him. He was a demon, that wouldn’t kill him, but he’d flown further than anyone ever should fly outside of an airplane.
It hadn’t killed him, but was he wounded?
I had no idea why the possibility of such a thing infuriated and scared me as much as it did. When the beast started stalking after the man, I knew I couldn’t let anything more happen to him.
I ran in low as I raced at the beast. It turned and swung its claw at me; I avoided the blow and sliced my knife across the back of its knee. The creature howled like a dog, and its legs buckled, but it didn’t go down. A breeze blew against my cheeks when its other hand, the size of a sledgehammer, arced toward my head.
Throwing myself to the ground, I managed to avoid having my skull bashed in, but when its hand kissed the top of my head, I saw stars. I tried to rise, but I couldn’t get my legs to cooperate. With no other choice, I rolled across the ground. Vibrations quaked the earth as it stalked after me.
Shit!
My back came up against a tent, and I looked up to discover the beast towering over me with its claw raised to smash me to pieces.
Turning on my side, I sliced a hole in the canvas of the tent as the man leapt onto its back, and I breathed a small sigh that he was okay. He cinched one arm around the beast’s throat and yanked backward before driving a knife into the creature’s ear and brain—if it had a brain.
When the thing’s yellow eyes focused on me again, I realized it wasn’t done with me. I yanked back the pieces of the tent I’d sliced open as it lifted its claw high. I squirmed into the tent and pulled my feet inside as its falling claw dented the earth.
I stared at the indent before jumping to my feet and pulling my other knife free. With the armor plating on this thing’s chest, a knife wouldn’t do much good, but neither would a bullet, and my knives wouldn’t ricochet and hit me instead.
The man stuck his finger in one of the beast’s eyes as I lunged forward and sliced its Achilles tendon. The creature howled again as its leg bowed out to the side, but unlike when I cut it before, it couldn’t hold itself up as it tilted to the side before falling to one knee.
The man yanked his knife out of the demon’s ear and drew the blade across its throat while he pulled back on its black hair. I slashed my knife across its other Achilles tendon before rising. The man succeeded in sawing the demon’s head off and tossed it aside as its body slumped forward and hit the ground. I gazed at the hole where its head was with grim satisfaction; the head was the only body part a demon couldn’t regenerate.
