Demon Magic This Way Comes
The walls around me were dark, grimy brick and the passageway was narrow, about four inches wider than shoulder-span. I twisted my torso as I walked, angling myself as to not bang my duffel bag on the wall. The alley stretched on, traffic behind me muted the farther I went. Stench factor was high, thick, air reeking of garbage and mold and a few things I didn’t want to identify.
A trail of wispy black clutched the brick, clinging with tendrils that faded as the moments passed. If I looked straight at it, I saw nothing, but in my peripheral vision it shifted and the air seemed to pop and hiss.
My steps were light on the cement as I padded forward, growing more accustomed to the new boots as time ticked on. The blur of busy street noises behind me faded, the sound of feet scraping on pavement in the distance rising. A grunt and a curse—crack like a hand slapping flesh. The alley stretched on another thirty feet.
I ran.
The bag scraped the brick; I didn’t care. Not if stuff got damaged, not if I alerted Whatever the Fuck Lurked Ahead. Fear coated the air, licking at the back of my palate, awakening the stir of my demon side. Fear that wasn’t my own.
Another alley, or something, bisected the one I ran along—there was a space of pavement and more brick walls. I angled my head as I neared the edge, glancing out; the gap widened, and a deserted side street opened up.
Deserted except for the navy van with the black windows.
And the woman trying to coax a kid into it.
The adult woman was a redhead, thick coarse curls curving around her shoulders clad in black. Her pale hands were locked around the boy’s arm, hauling him toward the open van door though he put up a fight and dragged his heels. She glanced up at me, said something to her companion—another dark figure in the van—but I heard none of it. Saw none of it.
Shinichi.
It wasn’t him. Wasn’t. But rationality left me; there was just his short black hair, his scrawny build. He’d been small for his age, always a bit underweight compared to his twin sister. This boy wore a black denim jacket with a tough-looking cartoon Tweety Bird on the back. Shinichi liked the Looney Tunes. He and Hisa were obsessed with the American imports.
Shinichi.
The duffel left my grip, thumping on the ground at my feet, and I was already moving past it, already reaching, fingers clasping the Mosquito in the holster beneath my coat. No time for a suppressor and I didn’t care. My hand locked on the gun and whipped it out, pointing at the woman, looking for a clear shot.
The world moved in slow motion, my body moving though my mind hadn’t caught up. The redhead screamed something and tugged the kid harder. Her partner in the van shifted and he—given his size as he moved in the dark van, I was sure it was a man—reached out to grab the kid as well.
No, not grab, and not the kid. Point the barrel of a gun. At me.
A bullet tore through my thigh, pain blasting fire in the wound. I squeezed the trigger, gun popping like firecrackers as rounds burst through the barrel. One clipped the van, the other disappeared through the open side door, hopefully hitting the fucker who shot me. My steps were laboured but I pushed on, darting forward on my good leg toward that redheaded bitch who still hadn’t released the kid.
The watery light above from the overcast day caught the glint of a long bladed knife in the woman’s hand. Darkness I’d seen and sensed earlier slithered from the tip, wound around her, in the van—the whole place stank, sending my inner alarm bells shrieking in warning.
There was something very, very wrong with this whole scene and I was missing a pretty important piece. Maybe I could get information from one of them if I caught them alive.
Or maybe not. I shot again.
The kid was crying, kicking; the woman gave him a backhanded swipe and his head snapped to the side. I’d reached them now. The guy in the van was moving back and forth, probably trying to get a good angle, but my free hand locked around the chick’s arm and I pistol-whipped her across the face.
Her knife arced and I stepped back too late. The blade sliced along my abdomen, spilling more of my blood.
But she’d released the kid. He crumpled, shoes scraping weakly on the rough pavement as he fought to rise. She shifted her full attention to me, lips curling into a snarl. The knife moved toward me again; I took a step back and fired.
The bullet missed. I eased back on my shot leg, pain spiking, burning. I twisted, kicked, and knocked her arm away. The force threw her off balance and as she struggled back on her feet, I put a bullet in her shoulder.
She screamed and punched. Close quarters I figured fuck it and dropped the gun; I went instead for her, snatching a fistful of hair and dragging her face into my fist. The van door was still open, guy within possibly planning to do something bad to my person permanently, but I didn’t see it, didn’t hear it—there was just the boy who wasn’t Shinichi in my peripheral vision, fighting to rise, and the bitch slithering with demon magic who’d tried to grab him.
I popped her again in the face, blood splattering against my fist. She shrieked something but again, I didn’t make it out, couldn’t hear—sound had seeped away and I was in that quiet, easy place of pain and fire and fury. Like the last mile on the treadmill, when my lungs ached and every step was an effort and any sane person would call it quits. I upped the speed and pushed on, relishing the sting and the clear, simple moment when I wasn’t thinking, wasn’t myself, was nothing but the pain. Physical pain was clean. Easy.
It let me forget the emotional kind.
She clocked me in the chin. I yanked her hair again and threw her past me, and she stumbled across the pebbled cement, arms splayed to regain her balance. The van rumbled to my side, door closing and engine starting. Red curls cut over her face as she glanced back; her eyes widened and she shouted at them.
Huh. No loyalty among demonic child kidnappers then.
My leg was aching like a motherfucker so I gave up walking and leapt, knocking us both to the ground. She struggled but I got my good knee in her side, hitting the kidney. My fingers locked on her hair—both hands—and I wrenched her head back.
Answers. I should ask. She might have them. Might explain things. Give me a way to track down the others who now sped from the scene.
Shinichi.
I slammed her face down on the cement once. Twice. Three times. Harder and harder, over and over, until my muscles burned and tore from the force. Sweat slicked my forehead, twining my hair over my eyes. The pavement was crimson. She hadn’t struggled for a while but I couldn’t stop, kept pushing, just like that last mile again—like maybe at the end of it, I’d be somewhere else. Be free.
But my arms were tired. My vision blurred. I was bleeding out and lightheadedness seemed to crash my mind back into place, awareness hitting hard. I slowly dropped my arms and her bloody head slumped forward one last time.
I didn’t roll her over. The possibility of seeing her bloody, broken face wasn’t what stopped me, no—I’d done worse, seen worse, and I didn’t have a weak stomach for murder. No, it was that she was already dead. No sense in checking.
My knapsack was a heavy weight on my back; I hadn’t noticed it before, but adrenalin bled away and I felt it all. The straps cutting into my shoulders, the pressure pushing me forward. I slid it off and it rattled as it hit the pavement.
Spots played over my eyes. I blinked and they remained.
The hole in my leg spit blood, obscene amounts pouring on the ground. I moved sluggishly, weakening. Movement caught my attention and I struggled to focus on the kid, wide-eyed and staring down at me. His face sharpened for a moment: the high forehead, round chin, big eyes, bruises blooming on his cheek.
Not Shinichi.
My heart hurt.
“Run,” I whispered and already his steps were backing up. He sniffled loudly, snotty nose mixing with tears, and it was a small sound—a vulnerable one. Just a kid. They had a knife, demon magic, and tried to grab a kid.
“Run!” I bellowed the word this time, throwing all of my energy into it. The boy scrambled back, turned, and ducked down the narrow alley I’d originally come from. His steps faded and I breathed with relief. Whoever he was, at least he was gone.
Like I might be soon.
Sitting was too much—every time I closed my eyes, colour played over my vision and my head swam. I dropped to my elbows, then rolled on my back. Felt around my pocket. Somewhere...
I blinked. Stared up at the sky. I’d lost consciousness for a second.
Focus, you stupid bitch!
My fingers folded around the outline of my cell phone and I struggled to slip it from my pocket. A light blinked when I pressed a button. The writing on the LCD screen blurred. I went to the last number to text me and tried calling.
They were vampires. It was daylight. I wasn’t stupid, but dialling 911 wasn’t really an option for a quarter-demon mercenary and that bleeding heart secretary and company might let me croak since she had me rightly pegged as a bad guy.
Pavement bit into the back of my head as I shifted and held the phone to my ear. There was a voice on the other line—real and live or maybe a machine, I didn’t know—and I might have mumbled something before the warm dark arms of unconsciousness embraced me.