Ruined by Shadows

by Lola StVil

  I reach the three demons, and I stick my knife between the ribs of one of them, dropping him before he even knew I was coming. Sadie lands an ice shot on the second demon’s face, and he too goes down. The third one is torn between going for Sadie or for me, and his indecision costs him greatly when I see my chance. I throw my knife. It spins end over end and comes to land with a satisfying popping sound in his left eyeball.

  Sadie drops the shield and runs to my side.

  “Kane, be careful, okay? You’re going to get yourself killed.”

  I go to tell her we’re all risking that, but she shakes her head.

  “No, listen to me. If you die, she dies with you. A dead heart is of no use to anyone.”

  Her words hit home, and I vow to be more careful, to stay on the fringes of the battle. The team will understand why I had to do that when it’s all over, and they see what we had planned. But then I see Atlas. She’s surrounded by three demons. Two of them have her by the arms. They are following Arken’s orders, so they don’t try to hurt her, but they’re dragging her away from the battle, leading her towards Arken.

  She digs her heels into the ground, but it’s no use. They are stronger than she is and the sand is just parting beneath her feet. She drags her arms around, kicks out with her feet, and generally tries to escape their clutches, but it’s no use. They overpower her easily, both far stronger than she is physically, and she’s going to die if they get her to Arken.

  I run towards her, ignoring everything and everyone else around me, just blanking it out like I’m running down a clear path. I make it almost to her. At the last second, the demon closest to me sees me coming. He turns as it hits me that I no longer have a weapon.

  I slam my body into his, the momentum dragging him away from Atlas and onto the ground. I land on top of him and rain blows down on his face. He is dazed for a second, and I have an advantage, which I make full use of. He regains his senses, although now his nose is smashed flat and blood is pouring from his lips.

  He turns his head to the side and spits out a mouthful of blood and a tooth. He roars and throws me sideways, and it’s his turn to be on top of me. A large fist looms towards me, and I move my head to the side just in time to avoid taking the full strength of the blow to my face. He catches me on the forehead instead, and although it hurts in a dull sort of way, it’s not a fatal blow. It’s barely even an irritant.

  Suddenly, he is gone, flying backward off of me, and I spring to my feet. Atlas stands behind me, the other demon who held her dead at her feet. She grins at me and turns to run to the next demon.

  Dammit. Why does she have to throw herself into danger at every possible opportunity?

  “It’s becoming quite a habit, having Atlas save your ass,” Perry comments as he goes past fighting a demon.

  I shake my head. I can’t deny it, because this is twice this week, but he didn’t have to point it out. Dick.

  I hear someone running up behind me, and I turn to see what I can do to avoid being mown down, but I’m half a second too late, and he raises his palm and fires. I’m hit with what feels like fire, and again, I’m flying through the air. I seem to fly for miles, and all the while, I’m on fire.

  I come crashing down a few feet away from the battle, and I land with my right leg beneath me. I hear my leg snap before I feel the white-hot agony that the broken bone causes. The burning in my side is subsiding, and I realize it wasn’t actually fire; it was just the demon’s laser. It is one that mimics the sensation of fire but doesn’t actually burn. It is more a stunning laser than a fatal one, and I snap my head up, knowing he’ll have followed me to make the final blow.

  He probably would have, but he’s been intercepted by Carla, who is looking him in the eye and muttering away to herself. I don’t know what she’s telling him to do, but I imagine it won’t be pretty. I watch them for another couple of seconds, and Carla looks away. The demon turns to a demon who’s running at Carla and fires at him.

  The approaching demon’s eyes widen in surprise as his own friend tries to take him out, and even through my pain, I take a second to appreciate Carla’s genius. She’s essentially created herself a bodyguard.

  I look for Regal. I could really use some healing right now so I can get back into the fight. It’s hard to spot a single team member through the throng of demons, and it occurs to me that there are a lot more than there were when we stood facing off against each other. It’s scary how outnumbered we are now, but I can’t help but smile. Arken has called for reinforcements. He’s scared of us.

  I can’t spot Arken anywhere, but I know he must be close by, watching the action and waiting for his prize to be delivered to him. He’s not a hands-on kind of villain. For all he’s powerful, deep down he’s a coward, which is why he has an army of demons to do his dirty work for him. The rules of the mission make it clear he can’t kill the Seeker himself, but he could certainly go after the rest of us.

  I spot Perry, Langston, and Sadie. They stand with their backs pressed together. Langston has thrown a shield up over them. Sadie is firing her ice shots out, and Perry is throwing his red plasma at any demon stupid enough to get too close to them. Perry has a flap of skin hanging from his forehead that he keeps pushing aside to stop it from blocking his vision like it’s nothing more irritating than a strand of hair.

  I see Atlas through the crowd, and even in this situation, my heart skips a beat. This heart is a nuisance. It registers everything, and it’s going to be damned hard to deny anything I feel while it’s in there, but I do like the way it responds to Atlas the same way I do. How it pauses for a second to take her in.

  She is fighting a demon, and she isn’t holding anything back. He, of course, can’t hurt her—Arken may be a coward when it comes to his enemies, but his punishment for a demon who disobeys him will be brutal—but he’s putting up a good show. He leans in, trying to grab her, and she darts out of his reach. Her movements are graceful, almost catlike, and my body responds to hers even now.

  She fires a white ball at the demon, and he manages to twist away, narrowly avoiding being hit by it. She isn’t done yet though. She follows it up with another, which he dodges. He isn’t so quick when the third one comes, and it engulfs his torso, and he goes down with a screech. Atlas doesn’t waste a second. She jumps over his broken body and taps a demon who is battling Perry on the shoulder. He turns, and she grins as she blasts his head open. Perry is splattered with the blood and brains, and he says something I can’t hear from here, but it makes Atlas laugh.

  I force myself to look away from Atlas. At the moment, she’s as safe as anyone can be in the midst of a bloody battle. She won’t be hurt, and until I get Regal’s attention and get back to her, that’s the best I can hope for.

  I finally spot Regal. He is coated head to toe in blood, but the way he holds himself tells me it isn’t his, or if some of it is, it’s not enough to be a big deal for him.

  He is stepping over a demon I presume he just killed. Another one runs at him, and it doesn’t even slow him down. He just fires. He seems to feel my eyes on him, and he looks in my direction. He spots my predicament, and he picks up his pace and heads towards me.

  An ear-splitting scream catches our attention, and I look away from Regal and to the sound of the scream. A demon has Saudia in his grip. Long metal spikes grow from his palms, and they press into Saudia’s sides.

  I want to look away but I can’t as the demon begins to squeeze his hands together around Saudia and she is pierced by the metal spikes. Her scream intensifies as the spikes crush her ribs and then penetrate her vital organs. The scream stops, replaced with an awful gargling sound. Blood begins to pour from her mouth. The demon grins.

  His grin is wiped off his face when Regal reaches them. He comes up behind the demon and blasts his head away with one swift move and a laser. Saudia drops to the ground with the demon, and Regal throws himself down beside her.

  He is there for only a few seconds, not even long enough to
pull her free of the spikes, and then he gets back up and runs towards me. Saudia isn’t getting back up, and I know why, but I refuse to accept it. Regal reaches my side and kneels beside me. I push him away.

  “Stop it, what are you doing?” he protests as he falls backward onto his ass.

  “Forget about me,” I say. “Go help Saudia.”

  “Kane, it’s too late for Saudia,” he says.

  “No, it fucking isn’t. You just didn’t try hard enough,” I say.

  “She was already gone when I got to her.”

  “Bullshit. Did you even try?”

  “Yes, I tried. Kane, she’s gone, but Atlas isn’t, and unless we get you fixed, she’ll be gone too,” Regal shouts.

  His shout breaks through my wall of denial, and I stop pushing him away.

  “She was strong, Regal. Maybe stronger than all of us. She wasn’t meant to die.”

  “I know, Kane. I know,” Regal says.

  I can see my own pain etched on his face as he kneels down beside me.

  “What happened to you?” he asked.

  “I forgot I was human now and therefore basically useless, and I picked a fight with a demon with no weapon except my fists,” I say.

  “Ouch,” Regal replies.

  “Yeah. He launched me, and my leg broke.”

  I realize Regal is pale, and I frown.

  “Are you okay?” I ask.

  He nods.

  “I’ll be fine. I just used up a bit too much juice too quickly. It’s fucking brutal out there, Kane. Those demons don’t just want to take us down; they want to do it in a way that does the most damage first. There’s a lot of fixing up to be done.”

  He rolls me onto my side as he says it so he can get to the leg that’s still trapped beneath me. I wince.

  “Brace yourself. This is going to hurt,” he says.

  He pulls my leg free, and I clamp my teeth shut to stop from screaming as I feel the two ends of the bone scrape together.

  “Sorry,” Regal says as he finally lets go of my leg.

  I wave his apology away.

  “How much is fixing this going to take out of you?” I ask.

  “A fair bit. Your leg is broken in at least three places that I can see,” he replies.

  “So leave it, keep your strength for Atlas after the transfer.”

  “If I don’t fix this there won’t be a transfer,” he says.

  “Sure there will. I can cope with a bit of pain,” I reply.

  “Right,” he says, already laying his hands on me. “And you’re going to hop into the battle, are you?”

  Okay, that’s a good point.

  “Just do a rough job then, enough that I can walk. I don’t care if it still hurts. We can worry about that later.”

  He nods, and I feel the bones in my leg start to shift, beginning to fuse back together. I grit my teeth. Somehow, this is hurting more than breaking it did. Regal works for another couple of minutes and then he pulls his hand back.

  “Sorry about that. I didn’t bother to take the pain as I fixed it, as that takes more energy than the actual fix does. How’s that?”

  I wiggle my toes and then bend my knee. It hurts, but it’s more of a dull ache than a pain and I know I’ll be fine.

  “Better,” I say. “Now let’s go finish this.”

  Regal gets up and pulls me to my feet. I take a tentative step and then another. The leg holds.

  “Oh fuck,” Regal says. “Kane? We’re screwed.”

  I look towards the battle, except now it’s not so much a battle as a game for the demons. There must be over fifty of them now, and they stand in a large circle. Inside of the circle is the team, Sadie, and Carla. They surround Atlas, but I know it’s not going to be long before the demons get to her.

  The demons are playing with the team, sending small lasers and fireballs. Enough to wound, but not to kill.

  Arken is already making his way across the desert towards them, and he will tire of the game quickly and demand the demons finish it and give him Atlas.

  The team is fighting back, but it’s clear it’s a losing battle. They know it too. I can see it in their slumped shoulders and the half-hearted firepower they use. At least thirty to forty demons lay dead around the outskirts of the circle. The team did well. We held our own in the face of numbers we should never have been able to take on, and yet still it wasn’t enough.

  My eyes fall on Saudia as I scan the dead demons, and I know this battle is about more than just Atlas now. It’s about her. We can’t let her have died in vain.

  There has to be a way to take Arken out. If we can do that, then it’s all over. But I have no powers and no weapon, and I can’t put that on Regal. The whole team together might stand a chance at taking Arken down, but just Regal on his own? I’d be sending him to his death if I even suggested it.

  The thought of the full team together gives me an idea, and suddenly, I am excited. Yes. This could work.

  “Regal, listen to me,” I say. “We need to work together as one, the whole team, and cause one big problem for the demons. I need you to create a massive sandstorm.”

  “It won’t be enough,” he says. “It might buy us a few minutes, but anything strong enough to kill the demons will kill the team too.”

  “No,” I say. “I’m going to get Langston’s attention and tell her to throw up a shield. And then tell the team to all fire their powers into the storm you create, making it lethal.”

  Regal considers this.

  “Yeah. That could work,” he says.

  “Stay here,” I tell him.

  I bend low, trying to stay as unobtrusive as possible as I run towards the demons. When I’m close enough to be confident that I will be heard, I shout.

  “Langston. A storm is coming. You guys need a roof over your heads. And a lightning show.”

  I pray she understands the message. It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, but that was the idea. I’m hoping she knows me well enough to understand, at least once the storm starts, but the demons won’t work it out until it’s too late.

  The part about fooling the demons has worked. One of the ones towards the back of the circle laughs and nudges the one beside him.

  “Hear that? Kane’s gone crazy,” he says.

  The second demon laughs.

  “Serves him right for betraying Arken. We should kill him.”

  He steps away from the circle, but his friend shakes his head.

  “Nah, let him live. It’ll be much more fun to watch him break when Arken takes the Seeker’s heart.”

  Their eyes are filled with glee at the thought of it, and only the fact that we need this to work quickly stops me from running at them and likely getting myself killed.

  I run back to Regal. Arken is almost in shouting distance of the circle now, and we don’t have much time. If he reaches it before we make this thing happen and he gives the kill order, we’re done.

  “Now, Regal,” I say.

  He raises his hands and then drops them again.

  “I… I can’t do it. I’m sorry.”

  “What do you mean you can’t do it?” I ask. “Has the healing affected your powers?”

  “No. It doesn’t work like that,” he says.

  “Then what’s the problem? Let’s go. Come on, Regal. We have about three minutes to make this thing work, and I’m not certain Langston understood the full message.”

  Regal shakes his head. I can almost see his inner turmoil written all over him.

  “I can’t do it. Not after last time. Kane, I caused a damned earthquake after Remy died. Innocent people were hurt. What if I lose control again and go too far? The team will be killed.”

  I take hold of the tops of his arms and force him to look at me.

  “Regal, listen to me. If we don’t try this, the team is going to be killed anyway. We’ll all be dead, and Arken wins. You won’t lose control this time. Last time, you were hurting and angry, and that came out of you in a way no one could h
ave predicted. This is different. It’s your thing, Regal.”

  “I…” he starts.

  I have one more card to play, and I have to play it now. We have about a minute left.

  “Carla’s in there, Regal,” I say quietly.

  His shoulders square up, and I see the panic in his eyes turn to concentration. I move out of the way, and he raises his palms again.

  I see the grains of sand begin to move, slowly at first, just sort of drifting over each other, making waves on the ground. They start to lift up in peaks, and then the wind comes. A howling, strong, scary wind that I have to admit I’m glad I’m on this side of.

  Regal turns his hands in a circle, and the wind becomes a spinning cyclone, picking up the sand until it’s thick with it. I see a flash of yellow as the sand engulfs the circle, and I know Langston has brought her shield up.

  A red flash in the cyclone is joined by a white one then a blue one, and soon, the cyclone is alive with power.

  “Can you move and still hold it?” I ask Regal.

  He nods, and I begin to lead him around the circle towards where I last saw Arken heading. I can hear shouts of anger, screams of agony from inside of the cyclone. I see a stray arm flying from it and coming to land on the ground.

  We reach the other side of the circle. Arken has reached it too. He studies it for a second and then he raises his hands. He places them in front of him, the backs of them touching, and moves them apart. As his hands part, a path cuts through the cyclone and Arken steps in. It falls closed behind him.

  “Regal, stop. Arken’s in there with the team.”

  This close to the cyclone, I have to shout to be heard over the noise of the wind and the screaming. Regal drops his hands, and just like that, the wind dies, and the sand falls back to the ground, landing in uneven piles.

  I clap Regal on the shoulder as I survey the damage. Very few demons have survived this, and the few that have ignore Arken’s commands to fight. They turn and run. Wise move as their master is about to be defeated.

  The dead demons aren’t just dead. They have been torn to tiny pieces, and the ground all around us is sand-coated meat. I shudder as I think of Saudia and Pest in there with them, but I know that they’re looking down on us and cheering us on. I think both of them would have liked Regal’s storm a lot.