Demoness

by Harry Nix

  “No idea. Something important though,” the ink demon said with a shrug.

  Maybe I could focus Vibrate on two of the guards’ boots, knock them down?

  Isabel tugged on my shirt.

  “Do you have one?”

  “I like big butts and I cannot...” I said, trailing off.

  Yeah, that could work, two with the crossbows knocked down, Armando crushes them, Isabel stealth kills another, we’re down to three in under ten seconds.

  “Did he just imply I have a big butt? Did I hear that correctly?” Scarlet asked Isabel.

  “I’m changing mine to that. I like big butts too,” Isabel said, whacking Armando on the body.

  “Are you saying I have a big butt?” Armando said. I could hear the grin in her voice.

  I turned back to them. Ori was watching the exchange like he was at a tennis match.

  “Everyone has big butts, big butts are good, let’s focus up here,” I said, lightly tapping Scarlet on the butt. She smacked the back of my hand with her tail.

  I quickly detailed the plan. Vibrate to knock down the crossbows, Armando leaps on them, Isabel from nowhere, me and Scarlet with ranged attacks and Ori on blinding.

  “Sounds like a plan,” Isabel said, putting her hand out.

  “I like big butts,” she said in a cheeky tone.

  Armando touched her black leg to the back of it.

  “I like big butts,” she chorused.

  “I like big butts,” Scarlet said, adding her hand.

  Ori glanced at me like what do I do here?

  “May as well,” I said to him.

  “I like big butts?” Ori said.

  I slapped my hand on top.

  “I like big butts... now let’s do this.”

  Isabel stealthed away. We were on a downslope from the guards, so it wasn’t exactly going to be easy, but they also looked like they were bored and tired of standing there. Only the two with crossbows had their weapons out anywhere near ready. The rest were sheathed, except for one of the ax-men who had his loosely held in one hand.

  I focused up Vibrate, shrinking the glowing yellow circle that only I could see. The smaller I could get it, the more powerful it would be. The problem was the crossbow guards had about a foot between them. When I shrank the circle I could get one boot each, but the circle was paler than I liked.

  “She’s in position now,” Armando whispered to me.

  I looked but couldn’t see Isabel.

  Then one of the crossbow guards stepped away, out of the circle. I cursed under my breath as he moved away from the group to piss in the bushes. For a moment I considered focusing on just one guard with full power. The one pissing could be caught badly off guard. I waited too long though and soon enough he was moving back to the group.

  “I’ve never seen one of those before,” Armando whispered from behind me.

  “Oh, they’re the best... if you’re into that kind of thing,” Scarlet replied.

  If I closed my eyes I could imagine it was just two girls talking, rather than a giant spider and a demoness.

  We waited and then luck hit. One of the crossbow guards said something to the other, who laughed and pushed at him, stepping close. The other four were grinning at whatever joke had been made.

  I shrank the circle to cover a boot each of the two men and cast Vibrate.

  It worked like a charm. One went straight over on to his back as his boot was heaved out from underneath him. The other, the one who’d gone to take a piss, suddenly kicked out, screaming as his knee twisted sharply and something cracked. I could hear it from where we were standing. He went down on the grass.

  These guards must have been well-trained against magic because there was no standing around gawping. They reached for their weapons with lightning speed. One of the swordsmen got his half out of its sheath before Isabel was there behind him, stabbing him in the back. They were well-armored but she was going for a gap near his kidney.

  Ori hurled ink, catching one of the axemen in the eyes. He still had his weapon though and held it up, ready to swing.

  Scarlet cast Fireball, and it flew straight and true at the other axeman. He swung his ax at it and it shot away from the blade. It was damn impressive and I suddenly wanted that weapon. It would have been more impressive had he not deflected the fireball into one of the guards on the ground who yelled as the fireball burst on his face.

  I cast Bolt and incredibly, he held up his ax, the lightning striking it and then flying away to the nearest target, which was Isabel. She went from mincing the swordsman’s kidney to blown off her feet in a second flat.

  There was a rush of air from behind me as Armando launched herself up into the air. The plan had been two quick deaths for the ones down, then mop up the rest. Except she was aiming for the axeman with the magical ax I really really wanted now.

  It was a dumb move for sure and only saved by Ori, who flung an inkball at the last moment, hitting the axeman in the face, blinding him. Still, he swung and barely missed Armando. A quarter of a second later and she would have been hit a killing blow in the face.

  But such things battles are made of. She’d pressed her legs together, creating a sharp spike of them and with her weight behind it, she crushed the axeman to the ground, opening up his body like a piñata from the collarbone to his pelvis. There was a splash of blood, his body fountaining and droplets fell over the remaining guards. The one Isabel stabbed in the kidneys was holding a hand over the wound, desperately trying to staunch the bleeding. The blinded axeman was blinking the ink away, his weapon ready.

  The two on the ground were still screwed, one scrabbling at his face where the fireball had hit it, the other struggling to rise with a broken leg.

  The problem was the second swordsman. He was uninjured, splattered with blood and moving with cold professionalism toward Armando.

  She’d turned on him, fangs bared but couldn’t risk a leap, not with the sword in his hand. She’d be skewered.

  I spammed Bolt at him but my aim was off. Maybe the luck of taking the two guards down had drained it temporarily. Two bolts missed entirely and the one that hit dissipated over his armor. It must have been threaded with metal, like the guards we’d fought in the mine.

  “Throw me!” Ori yelled, rushing towards me.

  It all happened so quick I didn’t have time to think it through. I dropped my staff, grabbed the ink demon, spun and tossed him. In the air he split into multiple Ori’s, each no larger than a tennis ball.

  Most missed entirely, falling short but two landed right on the swordsman. One he swatted away but couldn’t stop the second jamming his inky fingers right into his eye socket. That tiny Ori wasn’t long for this world—he was crushed to death in a fist an instant later but it was enough for Armando to go on the attack.

  “We need to get closer,” I said, rushing up the hill with Scarlet close behind me.

  Although the slope wasn’t too steep, it felt like we were running through glue. Isabel was stirring but still out of it. The swordsman she’d attacked was grimacing, holding the wound shut but now had his sword out, advancing on her. The blinded axeman was nearly clear of the ink and the two on the ground were getting it together as well. We’d killed just one out of six and were now five-on-five. Sure they were injured but they also possibly had Bolt-proof armor and who knows what else.

  Armando attacked the swordsman in front of her, knocking his sword away and taking him to the ground. He was well trained though—even as she bit his face with her sharp fangs, he drew a dagger and plunged it into her. She leaped off him, one of her legs punching through his armor and pulling her jump short as it caught.

  The other swordsman raised his weapon to kill Isabel and I only had enough mana to attack one of them.

  In a split second I decided a giant spider could take a dagger wound better than a diminutive girl could take a sword.

  I cast Vibrate on his sword and it was only when it pulled forward that I saw the leather loop fro
m the hilt around his wrist, protection against such things. Instead of ripping it away, it pulled him off his feet, unfortunately straight down on top of Isabel.

  A fireball went flying past me, hitting the unburned crossbow guard who was aiming from a prone position. It splashed against his hands and weapon and he dropped it, discharging the bolt into the ground.

  Armando took another stab, the dagger going deep this time.

  I hurled my staff, having nothing else I could do but I may as well have thrown a broomstick for all the good it did. It hit the downed swordsman but did zero to him.

  The axeman who’d been inked was now clear of it and advancing on Armando with a killing blow.

  The tiny Ori’s were doing their best hurling ink but because of their size they were throwing less than peas, with no effect. Three got stomped into the ground.

  Just when I was sure we were utterly fucked, Scarlet shoved past me, knocking me down.

  “Oh boys!” she yelled.

  It wasn’t the sexy seductive voice, but it worked. The guards all glanced her direction and she hit them full force with Pure Desire.

  Spread over five of them it was diluted but incredibly useful none-the-less. Their jaws collectively dropped, enamored with the demoness. Armando ripped the swordsman’s throat out, the blood gushing up into their air.

  From under the other swordsman, Isabel started stabbing in a fury, opening his neck down to the bone. From the ground where I’d fallen I hit Bolt, casting it on the burned crossbow guard. Incredibly, the lightning hit one and then arced across to the other. They weren’t wearing the dissipative armor the others had and were shocked.

  There were only three Ori’s left but they were efficient. They grabbed the dagger from the dead swordsman and rushed the axeman who still had his blade above his head and mouth open like a lovestruck fool.

  If you’ve ever seen the trick where two acrobats join hands and launch a third then you know what the Ori’s did. They were small but two of them launched the third straight up, where he stabbed the dagger in the gap between crotch and leg.

  He screamed and Scarlet’s spell was broken but it was all too late for them now. We’d gone five to three and two of them were still on the ground.

  The axeman flung Ori away but then was crushed against the cliff by Armando, bloodied and furious. His ax went spinning away. I guess not all of them took precautions like the others.

  He might have had a chance to kill Armando except Isabel had gotten out from under the other dead swordsman. She was by Armando’s side in a heartbeat, stabbing at the axeman as he reached for his own dagger.

  I scrambled to my feet, calling my staff to me. It shot into my hand with a satisfying thunk and I unloaded Bolt after Bolt into the two on the ground. Scarlet had her Echo knife out now and stabbed the two of them in quick succession before rushing the axeman, stuck up against the cliff.

  I was puzzled as to why she didn’t finish the job until I remembered she had Spike, a spell that gave status effects to her attacks. The burned guard suddenly vomited, practically jackknifing himself as his body clenched. The other half-closed his eyes, looking drunk.

  I killed him first, Bolt at close range, the end of the staff practically in his mouth. The other one tried to scramble away but then threw up again. I hit him with Bolt in the back, swung the staff to crack him over the head and finished by stomping his throat. It was far less magic-wielding Summoner from a distance and more close-up Warrior but it felt right in the moment so I went with it.

  By the time I turned around, the axeman was nearly dead. Isabel had opened wounds on any bit of skin she could get to. Armando had torn into him with her fangs. He wasn’t frothing at the mouth so it appeared he was immune to her poison. Scarlet whipped her tail, cutting a line across this throat before jamming the graveyard spike into it.

  His legs went out from under him and he collapsed, properly dead by the time he hit the ground.

  We were in a rush then, not knowing if more guards would arrive. There were flares of fire as Isabel cauterized Armando’s wounds and then bound them. Ori was still alive, but significantly reduced. There was only one ax in sight so I grabbed it, watching it disappear into my bag. If I’d had more time I would have stripped that Bolt-proof armor but we couldn’t wait.

  “You going to be able to do this?” I asked Armando, who was grunting in pain with every movement.

  “Yes,” the spider managed to get out. “Don’t worry about me. I like big butts, let’s go,” she added.

  I thought for sure she’d drop dead off the cliff but not so. She scaled it like a pro, rushing to the top with ridiculous speed. She was up there for only a moment before she came sailing down, trailing web from behind her.

  This was where the plan was a bit hazy. Like the way the spiders had bungee-jumped off the cliff, this was the same thing in reverse. Armando’s web was stretched tight and under strain. She quickly looped it around me, told me to hold my head still and let go.

  It was like being shot out of a cannon, or that first loop of a rollercoaster. All I saw was a blur of cliff before suddenly I was at the top. For a brief moment I was almost as high as the wall around the palace. I fell down, scrabbling at the grass and managed to get a grip.

  With my heart thudding and feeling I was about to vomit, I shakily unwound the rope of web and dropped it down the cliff. Armando was halfway up, waiting for it. She grabbed it and leaped off, ready for the next passenger.

  It took me a little while to realize I’d lost my staff on the way up. I summoned it with a thought and saw it come flying up from below, Ori riding it like a witch’s broom. It snapped into my hand and he dropped to the grass, nearly going back over the cliff. I hauled him back.

  “Thanks, Meow Meow,” he squeaked. He was tiny now, the rest of his body ink splotches on the dead below.

  There was a flash of red as Scarlet shot up and then landed on the cliff like a cat, all poise and grace.

  Isabel was next and then we were all at the top, sitting in a patch of grass beside the high marble palace wall.

  The trip had taken its toll on Armando though, who was clearly having trouble breathing.

  “I think... I’m... going to stay here to recover,” she gasped.

  Isabel fed her a few potions from her cloak and they seemed to ease her pain a little. The plan had been for her to remain at the clifftop while we crept into the mine but now I wasn’t so sure. In her state I doubted she’d be able to escape.

  “I have a lot of web and I can sail right off the side if I need to,” Armando said after Isabel talked to her in low tones.

  “I’m just saying...” Isabel said, lowering her tone again.

  “Babe. Please. I’ll be fine. We’re following the plan and that means you go in, I wait here in case a quick escape is needed,” Armando interrupted.

  “Okay, fine. I just don’t want to hear about this from your mother at the next family dinner.”

  “My lips are sealed. If I had lips,” Armando said. Whatever Isabel had given her appeared to be working because she was breathing easier now.

  “You, red girl and you, cat man, toss me up to the wall,” Isabel said.

  “It’s Katz with K and a—”

  “No one cares! Just throw me!”

  We emulated Ori’s move from earlier, tossing her to the top of the wall. She vanished over it and then we waited.

  “My mother can be a little overprotective at times,” Armando said to break the silence.

  “Oh,” I said, to be polite.

  “You know mothers.”

  “I don’t have one,” Scarlet said.

  “Where do little baby demons come from then?” I asked.

  “The usual place. No pants, a hot night then bam! Baby time. Except me. I just... wasn’t and then I was.”

  Scarlet stroked her finger along her lip in thought.

  “I must be older than I think because only the oldest demons and demonesses blinked out of nothing,” she said.<
br />
  She shook her head and frowned.

  “How am I only knowing this now? There’s like parts of me missing,” she said, looking at me.

  I guess to a digital being they did blink out of nothing into creation. It was strange that the system, or Lucy, let them remember such a thing though.

  “It’ll all come back,” I said, which, yeah, was a little trite for the moment but my mind was half on other things. Soon there’d be a small attack on the other side of the palace designed to draw guards away. The hope was that we could find a way into the mines, so we could search for Delicia and also some of the explosive. It may have been a stupid plan. We’d barely managed six guards and there were a hell of a lot more the last time I checked.

  “Psst. Come up. I found a way in and I saw the spiders too. It’s now or never,” Isabel said from above.

  Scarlet stepped into my cupped hands and up, for a moment the bottom of her skirt right in my face. She brushed her tail across me before stepping to my shoulders and climbing the wall. I tossed Ori with no problem and then Armando helped me up. I very carefully stepped up on her body, avoiding her injuries and soon was on top of the wall.

  The attack had already started by the time I got there and the guards were stirred up like ants, swarming across the courtyard.

  I was thankful the guards seemed to have wildly varying levels of professionalism. Properly trained soldiers would have remained at their post until ordered otherwise. These idiots bolted, running to the far side of the palace.

  We got down the wall and then followed Isabel. Soon we were in a small dead-end open-air corridor. Below the wall was a gap carved into the stone, the size of a street gutter.

  “Ventilation system,” Isabel said and slipped her way in. Ori followed with ease but Scarlet and I struggled. I had to drop my staff through and my clothes got a little torn up. Scarlet with her curves was sucking in her stomach and twisting, trying to fit a very curvy butt though.

  On the other side was a carved stone tunnel, not quite big enough for me to stand fully upright.

  “Don’t you say you like big butts,” Scarlet warned as I tugged on her arms, finally pulling her in.