Faith Hunter - Easy Pickings

Jo raced onto Dumaine Street at Royal, and the small white house with gray shutters that had been there in my world, was gone. Instead there was new construction, a three-story, half-finished place, narrow but deep. I caught the old sour stink of fire, and understood instantly that the quaint house had burned, and maybe other buildings beside. Jo spun toward the new building. Another net spat out, this one tinged red to my human sight and gray to Beast’s. It hit the door with an almost audible spat. A hard pull, and the door flew outward. Joanne ducked and the door sailed over her head to catch Stinky in the teeth. He wrenched his head back. Blood flew and maybe a tooth.

It only slowed him down for a second. Long enough for me to see that the space where the door had been was now a doorway blacker than the entrance to hell. And Jo, still armed with the sword—where had she gotten a sword?—raced inside. I watched Stinky shake off the effects of the door even while his blood still splattered onto the pavement. Spitting splinters, he dove through the doorway into the dark. Swallowed up by the night within.

Empty, Beast murmured into my back-brain. No humans here now.

I looked around at the suddenly-empty street. Not liking this one bit, flying by the seat of my pants again, I followed. One step into the dark and pain hit me like a bus. I stumbled to my knees, agony ripping through my bones. Gray light, brighter than the dark around me shot out. “Oh, crap . . .”

No wonder I didn’t like using magic around people. Not only was it hard to explain, but they became a liability. I could have held the crushing masses off all day, except for the crushing part of the masses. People just kept showing up from alleyways and side roads and pouring out of bars and restaurants, none of them paying any heed to the great stench-ridden demon velociraptor in the street. They pushed against my shields and the shields pushed back until I began to sense the partiers’ discomfort, and then their pain. Loss of breath, elbowed ribs, stepped-on feet, all turning toward sour panic. I caught a glimpse of Jane unloading what looked like a full complement of bullets into the demon velociraptor, and relieved, gave up the fight.

Crowds flooded in again, panic abated, and only too late did I realize the velociraptor—he needed a shorter name—was not down for the count. I shoved a tipsy blonde sideways and reached for the one weapon I had: a silver rapier I’d taken off a god a while back. It materialized as I plowed toward the demon, and I let healing power surge down the blade in a blue blaze as I lifted it to slam into the bastard’s back.

He screamed holy living murder. I staggered back, wheezing with satisfaction.

Then silver bullets—fléchettes, actually—began to rain down between his giant-ass cloven hooves, and the sword gash that should have severed his spinal cord melded together and disappeared.

The son of a bitch was immune to silver. I stared at his healing back for maybe half a second, my gut churning with dismay, and then got pissed. The oldest weapon in my repertoire was a net, pure magic woven from the core of me. It was an extension of myself, bright and silver-blue, and in and of itself, it did no harm. But it landed on the demon like Greek sticky fire, like napalm, not burning but not coming off, either. He shrieked, a sure sign I’d gotten his attention. Once I had it, I did what any sensible human being would do.

I ran like hell.

I had no idea where I was going. Away from people. Away from people in the sense that I cleared a path in front of me with shields, and they bounced around without quite realizing what was going on. I careened onto a street where new construction was happening, picked a likely-looking empty building, and yanked the door off with another net. The healing power inside me, the source of my magic, gave a weird little burp at that. It was not generally meant to cause property damage. On the other hand, its job—my job—was making people healthy. A demon velociraptor was not going to help along those lines, so the power did not, thank God, seize up as it was wont to do when it disapproved of my behavior. That would have been a real problem, because the truth was, I could only think of one place to go where I could be sure my buddy the rainbow dinosaur wouldn’t rip people apart while I figured out how to deal with him.

The Lower World.

Honestly, opening portals to other planes wasn’t my strong suit. I did better with astral travel, but I knew how to create a door to the red-sunned, yellow-earthed level of the universe that was the Lower World. Usually I’d use a power circle and spirit animals and some polite words to the cardinal directions. Usually, however, I didn’t have a punk demon on my ass, so I simply threw forth a panicked warning, the psychic equivalent of How’s the water, I’m comin’ in!, and ripped a hole between the Middle World—Earth—and the Lower.

A few steps into the new building’s darkness, heat seared me, and red light came down like a weight. Gravity was always different in the Lower World, but this time it felt even more different. Not my Lower World. Not my Middle World either, the one I’d just left. They were close, but not the same. And unlike the Middle World, the Lower had more sense of awareness. It noticed me, and it knew I didn’t quite belong. Dark loamy earth with short blades of yellow grass rolled under my feet, ready to throw me out again. The doorway I’d opened shuddered, struggling to close, but the demon hadn’t crossed through yet. Time ran differently in the Lower World, but maybe the door I’d thrown at him had slowed him down, too. Either way, I had a couple seconds to collapse and do something I normally wouldn’t: grab the rapier blade to cut my hand open, and smash my bloodied palm against the earth.

Power sucked out of me so fast I saw black. I intensified my shields—they had to be down for this to work, but letting this new Lower World drain me dry wouldn’t do anybody any good. I whispered shaman into the bloody feed. Healer, warrior, shifter. A friend, if from distant places. Ah, hell, I was doing it again. Magic made people talk funny, all semi-formal and ritualistic-like. I hated it, but I found myself doing it anyway.

Even more irritatingly, this funky Lower World—the light was softer, a little more distant and mist-filled than in mine—this Lower World responded to it. Stopped gulping my power away and stopped shaking and shivering under my knees. It accepted me for what I was, and with that acceptance, offered up a willingness to support me.

Just as the demon came tearing through the door I’d opened up. I got to my feet, sword in hand, ready to face him. I was grounded, accepted. I could match his weight class, if not his actual size. I’d fought demons in the Lower World before. There would be a way to take him down. Confident, almost calm, I turned toward the ginormous stinky monster bearing down on me.

A huge fricking mountain lion bolted through the portal and ripped the demon’s rainbow ruff right off.

I was in place of dark. Narrow strip of night. Ahead was strange yellow light, like sun under smoky sky. Light and dark were spilt like entrance to cave, but no cave walls rose up. No cave overhead. Silent like cave, but was not cave. Strange.

My ruff rose and I growled, sniffed. Smelled no danger except for snake/lizard/manlike-thing. It rushed into light and disappeared. Pain of shift into big-cat burned.

Jane was lost deep inside. There was only Beast and big prey to hunt. Beast was good hunter. The best. I shoved out of Jane-clothes. Pulled paws out of boots. Stupid Jane to wear so much, but Jane did not have fur or claws. I shook self and felt the necklace twist on my neck, tangled as fur settled into place.