I reached out and placed my hand on Clay’s arm, afraid that he’d missed the obvious in his excitement to reach that orange light and whatever it represented. To his credit, he did slow down a bit and turned my way. He nodded, barely perceptible, acknowledging that something was up.
The orange light seemed to become impatient at our slowed progress, growing in intensity. Clay’s eyes glowed with it, the strange quality of his irises capturing the brightness and holding it prisoner. He turned to me and grinned, his sharp teeth glistening.
“What are we doing?” I whispered to Clay, although my whisper seemed to resonate across the entire hall.
“Trust me,” he said. I arched an eyebrow. He’d been saying that a lot today.
He looked more closely at the orange light. I wanted to turn and face the darkness, but found myself drawn to the light as well. I thought it had been some kind of LED something-or-other, as everything seemed to be, but no. It was actually a very tiny person. A fairy, maybe? Did those exist? Everything seemed to exist now that the Traded were here. I mean, I was pretty much a demon, so why couldn’t fairies exist?
Whatever kind of fairy this was, it didn’t look super friendly. Its limbs were short and chunky, attached to its round, luminescent body. Its wings looked sharp, their darkness absorbing the light emanating from its body. The creature was three inches in length, tops. It was completely naked so that its luminescence could be fully seen. It looked at us, quite annoyed.
“You’re late,” it hissed.
Clay shrugged. “Your instructions were less than obvious,” he said.
I glanced from Clay to the creature. Was this Clay’s contact? All of this time, had all of our heists been ordered by a small orange lightbulb with wings?
Before I could stop it, I snorted out laughter. Clay groaned. The creature looked at me, its glow increasing, all except its eyes, which seemed to become darker. Two round, black pupils centered perfectly on its head.
Really, if I thought about it, it kind of looked like an ugly luminescent snowman. I lowered my head so I would stop looking at it. I was going to laugh again, and I didn’t think it was taking it kindly.
“Is something funny, Ms. Misu?”
Well, sure, something is funny, I wanted to say, but I didn’t, in a moment of rare wisdom. I tried to collect my thoughts, or at least stop laughing. I closed my eyes, pinched the bridge of my nose, took a deep breath.
I looked back up.
Nope, too early. I cracked a smile. Thank goodness Clay stepped in to save me.
“She starts laughing when she gets nervous or excited for a fight,” he said. I pictured fighting this thing and squashing it, and quickly covered my snort with a cough.
“Look,” I said, trying to be useful, although perhaps failing, “it’s really distracting to me right now that the only thing I’m looking at is you, a tiny little orange lightbulb. So do you want to give us more light so I know exactly who’s creeping at the edges of this light? Because that would be okay. If we’re going to fight, let’s do this. If you want to do it in darkness, that’s fine, but you’re the first thing I’m coming after.”
I straightened up and shook out my arms, the adrenaline of incoming battle flowing through me. I wasn’t sure if Clay was going to be mad at me or amused, but his grin quickly told me that he was more on the amused side. But his back was too stiff for casual amusement, and his fingers practically twitched around the hilt of his axe. Clay was nervous - which meant this was going to be a lot more dangerous than I’d hoped.
“Very well,” the creature hissed. It hovered for a few moments, its wings not moving, then exploded in a little shower of sparks. I half-gasped and half-laughed at the show, until those sparks exploded outward, creating a firmament of orange stars around us, which all gathered together to cast light across the entire room.
“Oh,” I said, standing back-to-back with Clay, automatically reaching for my silk-thin katana, still holding my Glock with the other hand.
Clay tensed beside me, his reaction unfamiliar. Usually he relaxed his muscles right before a fight, but not now. I turned his way, feeling my jubilance at the upcoming battle die a tiny bit. This wasn’t what he’d expected. He cast a quick glance my way, his brow furrowing.
“Clay,” I said. He nodded, his axe in one hand. He pulled out a nasty-looking serrated blade in the other. He was going for close combat, not that I blamed him. We were surrounded, and not just a little bit. There were at least twenty people surrounding us, gauging us. They were definitely Traded, of all different types. One of them had muscles which seemed to snake below the surface. Another had long legs and short arms, and very sharp teeth. Practically the entire rainbow was represented here in skin tones. My purple skin fit right in!
One of the Traded lifted a glowing orange arm, and I yelped as a stream of fire shot my way. I stumbled to the ground, cursing. They’d effectively separated Clay and I.
Now, that I didn’t like. I moved back to the left, trying to regain my ground with Clay, but he’d been engaged by two nasty-looking enemies - one fuzzy, one not - that was as far as I got analyzing them before I was defending myself.
I shot at the Traded flamethrower - a satisfying scream welcoming my efforts. Claws swept down to take a chunk out of my arm and I moved down and to my right, sweeping my legs and knocking down a green attacker.
I really did love all of these colors. But I didn’t love how quickly he got back up, using a large tail to push off the ground and regain his footing.
Clay shifted sideways, trying to get close to me, and I did the same, folding every shadow in the room around myself and Clay. My attacker’s eyes grew wide as he pulled his claws back, not certain where I’d gone. I took advantage of that, sweeping down with my katana and taking off one of his hands. He yowled in pain as blue blood flowed from his wound.
Clay’s back pressed against mine, and this was suddenly a lot more fun. We shifted, still in my shadows. We were surrounded, but they wouldn’t see our hits coming. I heard two thumps behind me, sheathed my gun and threw two knives to take out two more fighters.
Gunshots were too easy to track.
Clay grunted and stumbled. My blood ran cold. He’d taken a hit. I pulled the shadows closer, but there was nowhere to go, even if they couldn’t tell where we were. They surrounded us.
Two more walked forward, one toward me, and I glanced back to see one more heading toward where Clay should be, though he’d shifted left as he quickly patched the wound on his arm.
I realized that they weren’t trying to swarm us. They were methodical, probably trying to tire us out, to finish us off slowly.
“I can smell blood!” a short pinkish blob screamed from the back. I looked his way, stunned, then turned to Clay, who stood back up, ready for another round.
Not a second too soon. That orange lightbulb, which I should have squashed, flickered on and off, and eradicated the shadows enough that our protective barrier vanished. I tried folding them back, but the light flickered again.
“Damn it,” I whispered, then shot a wide grin to the few Traded facing me, now quite able to see me. A few took a step back. I gripped my weapons loosely, ready for the attack.
“Get ’em, Barbara!” one of the remaining Traded screamed.
“Kick its ass, Bob!”
“Barbara?” I snorted.
Barbara stepped forward, all height, muscles and anger, with bright yellow skin and pink hair. I wasn’t actually sure of their gender, but that hardly mattered. What mattered was the giant hammer that they swung down toward my head. I leapt back and knocked into Clay. He steadied himself, making sure I didn’t fall, while the hammer came within an inch of striking my nose.
I pulled out two more throwing knives, flicking them directly at Barbara’s face. Barbara, it turned out, had skin that was not exactly penetrable by my throwing knives, and they just bounced off of them.
They grinned at me as I stood there panting, unarmed.
“Great�
�” I mumbled. “I think we should get out of here,” I said to Clay as I avoided another blow, pulling him to the left a tiny bit so that he wouldn’t get smacked from behind.
“I don’t think we can,” he said, breathing heavily as he parried and returned blows of his own. I busied myself trying to avoid Barbara’s various glorious and angry attacks.
“Look, I didn’t mean to insult your name!” I said as I threw two knives directly at their eyes. Their blinking might give us enough time to move. But the smoke bomb would definitely give us our escape route. I yelped, our usual signal so Clay wouldn’t be caught unaware, and threw down a round vial, smoke quickly exploding out and filling the area. A great resource for failing shadows.
I grabbed Clay’s arm. Time to run toward the exit, find our way while everybody coughed and tried to recover their senses.
Usually we’d be running like hell by now. But this time, Clay held back. He didn’t move with me. And in that split second it took for me to try to figure out what he was up to, and how to pull him after me, a blow struck me on the side of the head. My hand slipped from his arm, and the last thing I felt before slipping into darkness was Clay standing over me.
For one split second, I was unsure whether he was there to protect me, or to keep me down.
It wasn’t the best feeling in the world to slip into darkness with.
Chapter Eight
The first thing that tugged at the edges of my consciousness was the smell. No - smell was too kind a word for this. This was a stench. A downright stink.
And it wasn’t just a stench. It was a miasma. Like some kind of dark cloud created with the sole purpose of lining my lungs and nose with putridness.
My head hurt. That was the second thing that caught my attention. A dull throb in the back of it. I couldn’t quite feel the rest of my body yet. That had been a good blow, but I was still alive. Something to celebrate, I suppose.
Clay…where was Clay?
My eyes shot open and I groaned. There was just enough light to jab into my pupils and stab my brain directly.
I swore. Then moaned.
The stench intensified and my stomach flip-flopped, like a fish caught on shore, gasping its last breath. Except in this case, there would definitely be a rediscovering of my supper unless I moved soon. I took a deep breath. That didn’t help. I managed not to gag and opened my eyes more cautiously this time.
I think I liked it better when I didn’t know where the smell came from.
I was in some kind of room. I imagined it was still the warehouse. For all I knew, this room was all the way across town, or another town entirely. But I didn’t think I’d been out that long. And I remembered this smell when we’d entered the back of the warehouse.
I pushed myself up gently, my head protesting every single movement. Between the smell and the blow, I didn’t think it would ever forgive me. I massaged my neck gently and squinted as I looked around.
Dead animals lined the floors. All types of dead animals. That was pretty much all I could tell from the various parts strewn about. Most of the corpses weren’t actually in one piece. My stomach turned, realizing I sat on the haunch of something big. I shifted, tried not to think of it, tried to analyze instead of emotionalize.
Damned easier said than done.
I liked animals. And a hell of a lot of them had been made to suffer here.
I spotted wild animal bits, like squirrels and rats. And some raccoons and skunks, which definitely didn’t help the smell. There were also pets. Dogs and cats and even birds. Some collars flung about, covered in blood and fur.
I’ve never had a pet myself. But I liked the idea of one day having a pet, if guilds allowed that. And I imagined that this wasn’t exactly how people wanted to find their furry friends. Maybe it was better that they never knew what had happened to their lost companions.
I certainly wished I wasn’t here.
The heat of the warehouse intensified the putridness of the corpses, which baked slowly in the closed room.
I blinked, tried to blink away the webs of the injury from my eyes. Of the two lightbulbs hanging from the ceiling, one of them began to flicker slightly.
Great. Just great.
I touched the side of my face and rubbed away some of the blood. I’d apparently been using a swollen, half-ripped-apart raccoon as my pillow.
Wonderful.
I tried to ignore what I smelled like, looking around for Clay. The good part about being stuck with a bunch of ripped-apart animals was that it was easy to tell at a glance that there was nothing human amongst them. At least, nothing remotely big enough to be a Clay bit. Which meant Clay might still be alive. But where was he? And why had I been thrown in here?
I carefully stood up, holding out my hands to steady myself. Dizziness washed over me, overtaking even the wave of stench surrounding me. I closed my eyes and focused on standing and breathing.
Eventually, the pain began to dissipate.
The room was maybe 25 by 25 feet, carpeted with a bunch of dead animals, no windows, and one door. One metal door, locked, I imagined. I could probably get through that.
I’d grown up pretty much locked in a school or in a room. I was pretty good at getting past locks by now.
I took a couple of steps forward, fighting with my stomach, glad when it finally settled. The pain in my head receded from sharp stabbing to a dull throb.
A shower would feel so good. A bath. To change clothes. Remove every single layer of skin. My purple, probably rather black and blue at this moment, was also gore-covered. I walked carefully and slowly, trying not to trip on animal bits, or slip on the slick, bloodied floor. I didn’t want more gore.
An eye looked at me from half a moose skull. I looked away, forced my stomach and head to settle again. The door was closer. But still so far. It was like walking in molasses, except all the molasses were in my brain and body.
A noise caught my attention to my left. A small whining. A dog sat there, or maybe a wolf. I wasn’t exactly good at wildlife identification. It was grey and fluffy with deep black eyes. He’d been injured, a big gouge on the side of his snout. He looked underfed. His fur was matted, but he was alive.
“Well, there, Mister Pupper.” I fell to one knee in front of him carefully, and patted his head. He looked at me intently, as though studying me.
“How did you get in here?” I asked. He cocked his head sideways. “Let’s see if we can get out of here.” I grinned at the puppy, patted him again and stood carefully back up, putting my hand against the wall as another wave of nausea and dizziness struck me.
Something touched my other hand, which dangled uselessly beside me. The dog had pushed his head into my hand, as though to comfort me. I smiled down at him. It was nice to have a friend.
Especially since my one other friend seemed to be missing. I pushed down my growing worry for him. I had to first make sure I’d live long enough to be able to find him.
The door wasn’t even locked. I guess if all you’re doing is keeping animal parts in here, it didn’t matter. Then why was I still alive? Why would they just leave me here?
“Let’s get out of here,” I mumbled to my new friend as I carefully opened the door. The puppy bolted out but stopped to sniff the air. A low growl emerged from its throat.
I skirted the wall and tried to vanish into the shadows, but my head throbbed too much. I heard someone whistling and decided to head toward the sound. Not like I could avoid it anyway, so might as well face it head on.
The dog kept two steps in front of me as though clearing the path. I turned the corner, the light from the fully lit hallway stabbing my brain. I swallowed hard. I needed water, my throat like sandpaper.
A man with a broom hummed at the music he listened to through his earphones. I stepped into the light, the dog beside me. It took him a few seconds to notice I was there, and then he jumped back and pulled out his earphones, putting his hands up.
“I’m just cleaning here, don’t hurt me
!”
“I’ll consider not hurting you,” I said with a gentle smile. Talking in this light felt like hammer blows. “But I need some information.”
He nodded enthusiastically, as though he’d tell me anything just to make sure that he got out of this alive. I could see why, too. He was obviously no fighter. Or if he was, he was well-disguised.
He looked like a janitor, complete with a beer gut, cleaning products on his belt, a good broom at his side. And he didn’t seem unhappy about any of that. The main thing that made him unhappy was me standing in front of him. I probably looked a sight. Bad enough a demon stood there. But a gore-covered demon? He probably wanted to take his spray and wipe some of that gore off of me. I’d be okay with that right now.
But first, questions.
“What is this place?” I asked.
“I.. I don’t know!” he stammered. “I mean, I just get paid to clean the office areas! That’s all I do.”
“Are you a Traded?” I looked him up and down.
He shook his head. “No, you’re actually the first one I’ve met. It’s good to meet you, I think. You’re not going to eat me, are you?” The words all tumbled into one another. A sweat mark began to seep through his overalls.
I started to feel bad for the guy, but not bad enough to back off. Still, I softened my voice a bit.
“Have you seen my friend Clay?” I gave him my most disarming smile.
More sweat appeared through his overalls. I probably had to work at my most disarming smile. I didn’t seem to be having the desired effect.
“I don’t think I know a guy named Clay. I mean, I think one guy in accounting’s named Clay, but I don’t know if it’s your friend, Clay.”
“I don’t think he’d like accounting,” I offered. We were practically making chitchat. That was friendly, right?
I looked down at the dog, who looked up at me as though shrugging and saying this guy’s useless. I didn’t disagree.
“Why are you keeping a bunch of dead animals back there?” I asked.
He looked wide-eyed toward the back.
Hell Born Page 5
