Christina Henry: Black City

“What is that?” I asked, pointing.

“Gods above and below,” Nathaniel swore. “That is a pix demon. They are scavengers. They feed off the sick, the dying. And where there is one, there are always more. Like rats. They do not usually come out during the day, however.”

“Must be trying to take advantage of the chaos,” I said.

“They will not be the only ones,” Nathaniel said.

I shuddered. Wasn’t it bad enough that vampires were running loose during the day? Did I also have to worry about other, unseen menaces crouching on the outskirts, waiting for things to really fall apart before they pounced? How was I supposed to keep my baby safe when all these thrice-bedamned things were invading my city?

The pix demon slipped inside a window that looked like it might be cracked open half a centimeter.

“We can’t let that demon run rampant inside the hospital,” I said.

Nathaniel scooped me up and we flew to the pix’s point of entry, Samiel and Jude following. Urgency now trumped subtlety, so I blasted the window apart with nightfire and hoped that the falling shards of glass wouldn’t hit anyone below. Cold winter wind blasted into the room.

The creature crouched over a young woman lying prone in bed. Her eyes were wide and staring. The IV hooked up to her arm dripped fluid into a body that didn’t need it anymore. The heart rate monitor flatlined, sounding an urgent alarm that no one answered.

The demon looked up as we entered, its face covered in the flesh and blood of the dead girl. It hissed, displaying sharp predator teeth. I blasted it with nightfire before Nathaniel had finished setting me on my feet, but the monster had bounded from the room already.

“Damn it all,” I swore, and chased it into the hall, the other three following close behind.

The hallway was empty.

“Those things are fast,” I said.

“Yes, and it is doubtless feeding on another victim,” Nathaniel said. “The fact that its own life is in peril will not override its instinct to eat.”

“Split up and check the rooms,” I said, already moving down the hall.

Jude barked behind me, and I didn’t need to speak wolf to know what he said.

“I know; we shouldn’t separate. Nobody leaves this floor, all right? Check the rooms and then meet up by the stairwell.”

We searched the floor, which seemed to be empty of nurses and doctors as well as pix demons. All the patients on the floor were soundly asleep. Everyone gathered near the stairwell and looked expectantly at me.

“Is it more likely to go up or down?” I asked Nathaniel.

“Down, I would think,” he said. “They usually prefer dark places.”

I stared at the vents in the wall. “Like air ducts?”

“You are not checking the air ducts,” Nathaniel said. “If you were caught in an enclosed space with more than one of those creatures, they would tear you apart like a pack of piranhas.”

Yeah, I’m drawing a line there, too, Samiel signed.

“I wasn’t suggesting I go into the air ducts,” I said, although I’d been thinking that very thing. “I’m just saying that maybe it’s using the air ducts to travel through the building. There would be a lot more screaming if it were running loose in the halls, don’t you think? Especially since everyone is already on edge because of the vampires.”

“I suppose we could monitor the air ducts, but that seems inefficient,” Nathaniel said.

“Yeah, it’s so much more efficient to find the pix when it’s already gnawing on someone’s guts,” I said.

“It is simpler to find it by the suffering of its victims, yes,” Nathaniel acknowledged.

“Don’t you care that someone has to die to make things easier for you?” I said angrily.

“I am merely pointing out that this hospital is a warren of hallways and alcoves, and it is not in the least productive for us to hare up and down corridors in search of this demon,” Nathaniel said. “I thought we were here to find Chloe.”

I took a deep breath because it would not be productive for me to punch him in the face. Sometimes he surprised me with his humanity, but it was times like this I remembered Nathaniel was not human at all. He came from a world where death was meaningless, and the death of an innocent even more so.

“We are here to find Chloe,” I said evenly. “But it’s not okay for us to let the patients get eaten by a demon when we’re the only ones who can stop it.”

I’d been vaguely aware of Jude sniffing up and down the hallway as I argued with Nathaniel. He seemed frustrated, and I suspected that he couldn’t get a fix on the demon’s scent.

“Too many people have passed through here,” I said to Jude, and he barked in acknowledgment.

“And there is too much sickness in the air,” Nathaniel added.

Jude barked again, shorter this time, as if he were only reluctantly acknowledging that Nathaniel might be correct about anything.

“Samiel, why don’t you see if you can get into the computer on this floor and find out where Chloe is,” I said. “I don’t know where all the staff is, but we might as well use their absence to our advantage.”

Samiel went down the hall to the empty reception area. Nathaniel gave me a look. “And the pix demon?”

“We keep looking. I don’t care if it takes all day.”

“It has probably already found another victim.”

“Then we stop it from getting another one.”

“What is the point?” Nathaniel said. “What do you think will happen to everyone in this building when the vampires cross the river? Isn’t that why you came for Chloe, why you were so eager to save your friend?”

“Samiel wants Chloe with him,” I said, trying to ignore the nagging guilt that I’d been suppressing since we’d undertaken this task.

“And it’s all right to leave everyone else to their fate,” Nathaniel said. “When the hospital is overrun by vampires and all of the helpless, ill and elderly are devoured in their beds, at least the person you care about will be home safe.”

I did slap him then, my temper running over before I had the chance to stop it. “What would you have me do? I can’t save them all. I don’t even know how to try.”

“You cannot,” Nathaniel said, grabbing my hand before I hauled off and hit him again. “And you know that I will stay with you, no matter what foolish enterprise you are engaged in. But do not deceive yourself. If you stop the pix demon, you are not saving innocents. You are merely prolonging the final moment of their death.”

I stared at him, knowing what he said was true, but everything I was inside fought against it.

“I can’t stand by,” I said, yanking my hand away. “I have to use my gifts to help those who have none.”

“So you can make yourself feel better? So you can sleep at night?” Nathaniel asked. “So when you close your eyes you can see the grateful face of the person you rescued at the last moment from a demon, never wondering what became of them after you disappeared into a swirl of smoke?”

“When I close my eyes I see Azazel’s sword cutting out Gabriel’s heart. I see Gabriel falling into the snow, surrounded by his own blood,” I said, my voice hard. “Don’t presume that you know me, or what drives me. If I save someone from a monster only to have them get hit by a bus fifteen minutes later, then at least I did the right thing when I had the opportunity. I wouldn’t walk by a pix demon eating someone just because a vampire might be right behind.”

“Even if it means you risk your life for no purpose?” Nathaniel asked.

“You’re not human. You wouldn’t understand.”

“I have seen plenty of humanity. The vast majority would not help their fellow neighbor unless forced to do so at gunpoint,” Nathaniel said.