Ann Aguirre - Devil's Punch

With a final twirl of my athame, I released and the Hazo went blind. Shannon gave me a grateful nod and I ran from the shade with as much speed as I could muster. Exhaustion hammered at the back of my eyes, burned in my muscles. I don’t see how we can win this. But we’d fight, until there was nothing left.

The enraged warrior demon charged blindly and slammed into a wall. Impact knocked it down, but I couldn’t watch for long. Oz had summoned the shade to deal with me, so it hunted me relentlessly through room. I kited it, but I had no damage spells to use against it. Ninlil had been the queen of those; my mother hadn’t used her powers that way.

Come on, I screamed silently. Wake up. Greydusk is dead because you’re a coward. Don’t let us die too .

Oz was casting again. He had to be tired as well, but he still had tricks up his sleeve. I dodged away from another icy burst, conscious of the shade closing the distance between us. If my throat hadn’t hurt so much, I’d have trash-talked him, but apart from the blind Hazo growling with rage and beating the hell out of a statue, the room was more or less silent.

Shannon slid up beside me, breathing hard. Her blade gleamed red from where she’d slashed the mage. “Do we honestly have a chance here?”

“Yeah,” I lied. “Watch out!”

Then I relocated again in a slow, lopsided gait, leading the shadow away from her. How the hell could I kill this thing? While I maneuvered I kept pillars and fountain between Oz and me, frustrating him. Finally he shouted, “Give up, Binder! I’ll be kind. Think of how much we could learn from you.”

“Like you did my father? Fuck you .” At first I wasn’t sure my damaged voice carried to him, but his answering snarl said it did.

Shannon took the second mage down. Busy fleeing from Chance, the Saremon didn’t even see her poised with her sword. She chopped him neatly across the middle; she lacked the strength to cleave, but the gut wound dropped him, and Chance finished him with a single punch. The mage’s face…melted.

At last, the demon queen stirred from her grief. She looked out from my eyes and saw the shade, the Hazo preparing to charge, and Oz deploying another spell. Her reflexes took over and they saved me from a bolt of acidic darkness. I dove wide and the energy hammered a statue behind me. The great stone beast sizzled and fell, breaking into chunks that smoked and flaked into dust.

“Chance, take the shade,” I ordered. He’d dealt with them successfully before, using his gloves. Fortunately Oz couldn’t summon and control more than one; his reserves must be running low also. Otherwise we might not win this.

Suddenly I was sure we would. I had a battle plan, one that was hers, and mine. Ours. She was back, and I was stronger. The imperative filled my head. This wasn’t defeat; this was an obstacle, nothing more. We’d kill these two pretenders and then retreat to heal up and regroup at my mountain fortress. In time, we’d return. Without Oz to lead them, the other castes would fall on their knees. I’d break the back of the resistance here and return triumphant. Even my pain and weariness lessened.

“Shannon, distract the Hazo.”

She cut me a look as if to say, Are you crazy, and then I nudged my purse on the ground nearby. Butch popped out of the bag.

“You too,” I told the dog. “Run around. Bark. Make some noise. Don’t let the big monster step on you.”

Butch crawled out of my bag, quivering, but his ears went up and he bounded away, his tiny, fierce yip sounding. I couldn’t watch how Chance was doing against the shadow. Head down, I ran for Oz, as fast as my bad leg would carry me. I wove around the statues and columns, ducking and rolling away from his spells. They came slower and slower, more time between them. He was tired, and I’d finish him.

Athame in hand, I charged and he fell back. “You’re not strong enough—”

His empty words died as I sank the blade into his side. His eyes widened when I realized what I was doing. Not a killing stroke, but a draining one. The demon blade served as a conduit, and I forced the last flicker of my power in through the weapon and latched on to the magick he had left. Then I pulled with every ounce of will.

He screamed and scrabbled frantically at the athame, but his strength faded as I suctioned his energy. Dark, tainted magick unfurled in my veins, revitalizing me. I held him pinned until his eyes fluttered shut and he sagged to the ground. For good measure, I cut his throat in a decisive slash and then I spun back to the battle in time to see the shadow explode into icy fragments at Chance’s hand.

Butch circled the giant Hazo, yapping ferociously and nipping at his toes. If you’ve ever seen someone try to step on a cockroach and fail—well, yeah. Despite the dire situation, I smiled. From behind cover, Shannon threw chunks of stone at the beast. The blindness was starting to wear off, but the demon didn’t have complete peripheral vision yet. Chance whispered the command word for fire, his gloves obeyed, and he flanked the Hazo smoothly.

He unleashed a flurry of blows, searing the creature’s hide. This Hazo took longer to catch fire because of its scaly hide and lack of clothing. And this one, as I viewed it with my witch sight, was layered in protective runes, courtesy of the now-deceased Oz. Unfortunately, his wards didn’t die when he did. I set to unraveling them, but it was slow going.

Shannon saw that Chance had the demon’s attention, dropped her rocks, drew her blade and rushed into battle. The Hazo swung by reflex and caught her in the abdomen. The blow sent her spinning back and she hit the ground hard.

I abandoned my work on the protections and ran over to see how badly she was hurt. “Shan?”

“I’m fine,” she wheezed. “Well, maybe not fine . But I’ll live. Help Chance.”

I nodded. “Butch, get out of there. He can see you now.”

The little dog leapt away, bounding in and out of piles of debris. I drew on stolen magick to craft a dark, insidious curse. The demon queen wouldn’t permit any harm to her beloved; and when Chance took a claw in the side, utter rage filled my head.

With a snarl in demontongue, I unleashed hell upon the Hazo. From the moment my spell hit, its blood bubbled in its veins, growing hotter and hotter with the fury of hellfire, until steam leaked out its ears, its eyes cooked in its head, and ichor ran out its ursine nostrils. The demon screamed in anguish, and Chance sprang for the final blow. He whirled in a snap kick, followed by a hammer-fist strike so fierce it crushed the demon’s nose back into its skull. It fell back with a heavy thud, and clouds of dust swirled around us.

“We did it,” Shannon said in a tone etched in disbelief.

Chance nodded. “Now let’s find the portal and get the hell out of here.”

“First I look at your wound,” I corrected.

He grumbled but let me peel away his shirt. It was a bloody rake, but not deep. The blood had already clotted, leaving a messy slash along his flank. I hated seeing the damage, but it wasn’t life-threatening.

“How am I?”

“Gorgeous. Amazing. Mine.” I raised up on tiptoes to kiss him. “And you’ll be fine, albeit with some interesting new scars.”

“You’ve got some too, now.”

“Other places besides my hands.” I only had the flower pentacle there now. “Does that mean I’m a real warrior?”

“A veritable badass.”

Yeah, relief was definitely making us loopy. I drove back the awareness of the price Greydusk paid to get us this far. Images of the Imaron haunted me. He had been a true friend from the first, even when I had been frightened of him. From the beginning, he behaved with honor. I didn’t deserve his loyalty or his sacrifice. Ninlil, the demon queen who abandoned us in our hour of need, deserved it even less.