by Joe Jackson
Kari shifted in her sleep as she suddenly found herself in bed with Annabelle Sol’ridachi, her friend and fellow demonhunter she had traveled with on several occasions. She had always considered Annabelle a sister, but her relationship with the terra-rir demonhunter had troubled Kari for more than one reason. Annabelle always seemed to want more from their friendship, and she seduced Kari one night after both of them had far too much to drink. Though it was a pleasant memory in some ways, Kari was still uncomfortable with it: relationships between demonhunters were generally frowned upon, especially when in the field. Even more than that, though, was the fact that it blurred her perceptions of Annabelle as a sister. Though they remained close friends after the incident, they had crossed a line that Kari regretted, even if Annabelle never seemed to. What made the memory even more painful was the fate that had befallen Annabelle, and the fact that Kari couldn’t save her.
Her dreams turned back to Grakin, her mind working to free itself from the guilt and pain that accompanied the memories of Annabelle. One last time she saw the pale face and dead eyes of her friend, reduced to the undead husk of a vampire, but Kari’s unconscious mind broke free and the memory faded. She was suddenly assailed by warmth and the smell of the ocean, and Kari smiled in her dream, walking through the knee-high water along Salkorum’s tropical beaches with her mate. In the dream she was carrying Little Gray as well, and her heart fluttered when she saw her belly was swollen with another child. The warmth of the sun seemed to soak directly into her soul as she walked with her family. She wondered at the dream and whether it was an indication of her future, or simply a manifestation of her innermost desires. She assumed it was the latter, but a part of her said that she could make this come to pass, if she was willing to let go of her other passion.
A shadow passed over Kari, and she looked up to see what clouds were in front of the sun. She shivered as a wind that was too cold to be natural bit cruelly at her flesh. But there were no clouds in front of the sun. Kari hardly registered that Little Gray had disappeared from her arms and that her belly was no longer swollen as she turned on instinct to look at Grakin. She watched through the fog cloud of her own breath in horror as Grakin’s features began to shift. His cheeks and eyes sank in and the flesh of his snout tightened, and he began to wither and die in front of her. Kari tried to scream but nothing came forth, and she shivered, trying to shake herself out of the dream. She tried to wake herself before Grakin withered away to nothing, but consciousness would not come; something in her dreams had a grip on her.
“Karian!” came the angry call, and her body froze with fear.
The ocean and the harbor of Salkorum turned to ice, trapping her feet, and Kari shivered violently from both her terror and the cold. She looked out over the frozen sea at the man who had hurt her more than every demon and monster she had ever fought. Her knees nearly buckled, but Kari expended every ounce of effort she could simply to swallow, to make some move or gesture to break free of her terrified paralysis. Her mind flashed back across her lovemaking with Tumureldi, to the words he had spoken to her and that Triela had reminded her of on Kirelia, and with the thought of the war wizard came the strength the young woman had unlocked in Kari. No longer was she a terrified young girl, and in her dream she remembered that she was a demonhunter, a war hero, the slayer of a demon prince and a thousand demon minions before it. Her dream turned and she found herself in her paluric armor, her scimitars in hand, and even the memory of her father stopped as it beheld her.
“Karian!” came the call again, but she realized it was not her father’s voice. A loud bang sounded in her room and Kari sat upright, at last broken free from the world of dreams. It took only moments for her to focus on the terrifyingly beautiful face of the syrinthian assassin that stood at the foot of Kari’s bed.
“I have you,” the assassin said in her otherworldly voice with a hiss. She showed her fangs in a horrible grin and drew the long, straight blades from their sheaths.
Kari glanced once to the wardrobe where her armor hung, and to the scimitars the assassin had apparently put on the makeup table to taunt the demonhunter. Zalkar’s symbol was shining brightly on Kari’s naked chest, illuminating the purple and crimson walls with an eerie glow, but the assassin showed no fear as she approached around the side of the bed closest to the door, to cut off any avenue of escape should Kari try to run. It was as if she was baiting Kari to try to get to her swords, but even before the terra-dracon woman could move from the bed, the door of her room came off of its hinges and swung limply from its latch to crash into the wall. Both of the women were distracted for a moment, but Kari recovered quickly and tried to kick the assassin in the arm to get her to drop one of her blades.
The syrinthian woman slashed at Kari’s leg almost absently as Eli stepped into the room, and Kari screamed in pain and slid off the far side of the bed. Fortunately, the assassin was more interested in Eli as he came through the doorway, so Kari was able to inspect the wound. The laceration was deep but not life-threatening, and Kari was pretty sure there hadn’t been any poison on the blade. She took a moment to stanch the bleeding by channeling her limited healing power from Zalkar, but she rushed to get to her feet as quickly as she could. The wound split open again as soon as Kari put weight on her leg, but she ignored the stinging pain as best she could and moved for her swords.
Eli had a breastplate on and was carrying his wicked hammer. He took a conservative swing with the hammer to try to force the assassin’s weapons to one side. The syrinthian parried the hammer swing as expected, but when Eli moved in on her, Kari saw the woman’s incredible speed once again. The syrinthian woman quick-stepped in under the recoil of Eli’s hammer, and she instead grappled him, pinning his weapon arm against him. He tried to shake her off, but the snake-woman gripped the side of his head and bit him hard at the base of his neck. Eli screamed out in pain.
With her swords in hand, Kari moved to help Eli, but she could see the woman hadn’t just bitten him: she was sucking blood out of the wound while her snake eyes watched Kari. The hammer dropped impotently from the warrior’s hand, and when Kari approached, the syrinthian woman drew back and then kicked Eli in the chest, sending him into Kari. The terra-dracon woman tried to ignore the instinct to catch him, but she deflected his weight somewhat so he didn’t fall straight to the floor. Kari barely got her scimitars up to deflect the syrinthian woman’s assault, and Kari understood that without her armor, even a single mistake would be fatal.
Eli groaned and tried to drag himself away from Kari’s feet so she could fight. He was bleeding badly, but Kari was relieved when he pulled the blankets off the bed and pressed them hard against the wound. Satisfied he could hold out for a few minutes, Kari tensed her legs and began taking short steps toward the assassin. The syrinthian woman couldn’t get to the door without engaging the demonhunter, but Kari recalled that the woman was also able to teleport herself. With that in mind, Kari pushed in with a conservative combination to keep the assassin from escaping, while also not opening herself to an easy killing blow.
Kari’s instincts served her well once again when the assassin parried her attacks and attempted the same maneuver she had in DarkWind. Reflexively, Kari’s right scimitar came down and swept the assassin’s thrust harmlessly wide, and the demonhunter tripped the syrinthian even as she moved to Kari’s right side. The assassin was surprised but recovered quickly, rolling with the trip to come up on her feet near the door, and she brought her blades up before her. Kari faced off with the demon again. The syrinthian woman threw her wings out from under her cloak, but her head bobbed forward oddly as something struck her.
Kari wasn’t sure what had hit the assassin in the back, but the syrinthian woman turned with a hiss and spat in the face of one of the prostitutes. The human girl screamed and fell to the floor holding her face, and the syrinthian glanced hatefully back at Kari before she ducked into the hallway and ran. Kari started to give chase but stopped when she saw that the assassin wa
s already gone; again that snake speed left the demonhunter in awe. Kari realized she was naked and that was no condition in which to face such a skilled swordsman, so she stopped to check on the girl lying in the hallway. Whatever the syrinthian had spat into the girl’s face, it didn’t appear to be caustic, it simply irritated her eyes.
Antoine appeared after a few moments, still breathing easily even after running up three flights of stairs. “What’s happened? Who was that woman?” he asked.
“An assassin,” Kari said, still squatting next to the girl. “Quickly, run downstairs and alert the city watch, then make sure she doesn’t get back inside the building.”
The human considered Kari’s words for only a moment before he nodded and ran to do as he was ordered. Kari helped the girl into her room and sat her on the end of the bed, and then she knelt down to tend to Eli. Their eyes met and Kari could see he wasn’t in immediate danger: his gaze was more a combination of embarrassment and rage, and Kari could well understand it. The syrinthian woman didn’t look like much of a fighter, but the demonhunter understood that was a large part of what made her so effective. Even Kari had somewhat underestimated the assassin the first time they’d met, but that was a mistake she made sure not to repeat this time.
“What was that? Was she…a vampire?” Eli asked, an edge of pain straining his voice.
“No,” Kari said with a shake of her head. “That was a succubus…or a half-succubus, anyway.”
“Toughest damn succubus I’ve ever met,” he said with a grunt, and Kari wondered at his words.
The assassin being half succubus explained a lot: why Kari had the erotic dreams, and why she was nearly attacked in those dreams. Without the mental discipline Triela had taught her three years before, Kari imagined that what she’d faced in her dreams may well have killed her. It further explained why the syrinthian woman’s coloration was so pale and why she had wings. Kari studied Eli, and she pulled the blankets away from his wound to inspect it. While the assassin hadn’t gone for any of the major arteries or veins in his neck, she had left two deep puncture wounds inside his collarbone that continued to ooze out blood without the pressure. Kari replaced the blankets and clasped his hand over them, and she stood up straight when the prostitute finally opened her eyes again.
“Are you all right?” Kari asked.
“I think so,” the girl said in a timid voice. “I just…she blinded me.”
The demonhunter nodded. She could hear the booted feet of city watch coming up the stairs. She paced to the wardrobe in a partial rush, and put on a robe just before the guards made their appearance. Once they identified her as a demonhunter, Kari issued orders to the watch captain to put the city on high alert and clear the streets as much as possible. At Kari’s request, several guards were stationed around the brothel to keep any unidentified people from entering or exiting. Kari wasn’t entirely sure that the assassin had left the building, and Antoine was unable to confirm where she went after she passed him on the stairs. Kari gave assignments to the guards to keep the building locked down, to alert the patrols to a possible assassin on the streets, and even to send word to the Count of the disturbance in the city.
Once the initial panic calmed and a search revealed that the assassin was indeed not in the building – Kari’s Blood Oath confirmed it – Kari sat in the brothel’s foyer fully dressed in her armor. Eli sat close by while a physician sutured his wounds, and the half-corlyps spared Kari a glance now and then whenever he could do so without interrupting the suturing. It was hard for Kari to read his expression; clearly there was still embarrassment and aggravation there at having been disabled so easily by a woman he outweighed significantly, but there was a canniness in his gaze that said he understood what Kari was up against, and why she needed all the information she could get. He had sent for the other men who worked as bouncers to come and double up the security, and he inquired after the girls often, even while having his wounds tended. It was very easy in that situation for Kari to see Eli’s protective nature and the value he would bring to a group.
The watch captain was certain that the Count or one of his two protégés would be arriving in the city even given the late hour, and Kari tapped her small black claws on the arm of her chair while she waited. She was pretty familiar with succubi in an educated sense: she knew a lot about them from her lessons at the Academy, though she had never encountered or battled one over the course of her two lives. Generally considered a weak creature, a succubus was among the more deadly demons for exactly that reason: most who encountered them assumed they were little more than underworld harlots. Truthfully, they were exceptionally dangerous because they had so many ways of disabling and killing their victims: they could drain their victims of vitality, either through carnality or by drawing their lifeforce out akin to a vampire; they could attack or seduce their victims from within dreams; many of them were proficient sorceresses; and, of course, they were demons – nowhere near as weak and helpless as their comely forms might otherwise indicate.
Kari was disturbed by the dreams she’d had prior to the encounter. She assumed the syrinthian assassin had dug into her innermost memories and desires, prompting her statement of “I have you.” The demonhunter bit her lower lip and considered how she still struggled to face the memories of her father and the way he’d abused her. The fact that the assassin not only knew that, but was capable of using that knowledge to attack from within Kari’s dreams, almost made her afraid to return to bed. Kari was confident that if the assassin hadn’t fled the city, she would return to finish what she’d started. Kari recalled Triela and the mental exercise she had undergone with the kirelas-rir war wizard’s help: how she had faced her fears, pushed down the hurt her parents had scarred her soul with, and fortified her emotions with the knowledge that she was a good woman who was well-loved. She would have to remember those exercises and boost her resolve so that if the assassin tried the same avenue of attacking her again, she would be ready and able to defend herself. She looked to her left as she sensed Eli’s eyes upon her again.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
Kari chuckled despite the situation. “You’re the one with a hole in the side of your neck,” she said, though in truth she found the pentagram made of five swords tattooed on his shoulder of greater interest than his injury. She was pretty sure the mark was that of the Five Clans, which led her to wonder why he would still have such a distinguishing mark, or why he would display it in public when the Five Clans was long since destroyed. At the very least, she knew it wouldn’t be a good topic of discussion among so many ears – even the city watch who had no doubt seen the mark – so she resolved to ask him about it later, when there were less people around.
The half-corlyps shrugged, eliciting a sigh from the physician. “I’ve had worse than this, that’s for sure,” Eli said. “She’s got some kind of poison in her fangs, if I’m not mistaken. One of the few positives of being half-corlyps: strong constitution.”
The mention of poison in the fangs reminded Kari of her encounter with Ressallk, the sylinthian prince she battled on the island of Tsalbrin. The sylinth had slain the children of a local czarikk tribe, and Kari and her brother-in-law Erik tracked and slew it. During the battle, the sylinth had tried to blind Kari with venomous spit; she found it curious that a syrinthian could do the same thing. Her studies at the Academy never mentioned either venomous succubi or venomous syrinthians, so she was left to wonder where that particular ability had come from. Kari expected it could have been a side effect or a direct result of working sorcery, since the assassin was also able to teleport herself at will: another ability she had never heard of succubi or syrinthians manifesting.
Kari looked at Eli curiously after a couple of silent minutes when the physician at last finished his suturing and departed. “How many demons have you fought?” she asked.
“Fought, or killed?” he shot back with a smirk, and Kari laughed. The half-corlyps, dressed only in his trousers, turned
partially in his seat and pointed to several vicious-looking scars on his right-side ribs. “Got these from an erestram; damn thing’s war scythe cut right through my old breastplate. If I hadn’t partially stopped its swing with my hammer, we probably wouldn’t be having this conversation right now.”
He pointed out numerous round burn scars down his left arm, which were highly unusual, given a serilian-rir’s resistance to fire. “These were a gift from an elestram wizard,” he said, and then he lifted his right arm to show a mass of scar tissue on the underside, and continued, “and this was from a valiras trying to figure out what I taste like.”
Kari let out a single grunt and considered how few scars she had to show for all her efforts as a demonhunter. Most people incorrectly assumed that her suit of paluric armor was largely responsible for that, but in truth, she had received the armor more than halfway through her career in her prior life. More than anything, it had been Tumureldi’s style that had kept her not just alive but relatively scar-free. Kari considered the breastplate that sat next to Eli’s chair: it looked to be made of the same metal as her scimitars, which meant it was a lot stronger than whatever breastplate had allowed him to take vicious cuts from an erestram. As she further considered the shield that was leaning against the back of his chair, it made more sense to Kari that the majority of Eli’s scars were on his right side.
“I’m surprised they never made you an actual demonhunter,” she commented quietly.
