Kurt worked on Shannon and Amy’s wounds, his hands moving
quickly over the cuts and scrapes that covered their arms and legs. Neither girl was seriously hurt, at least
physically. Mentally was a completely different
story.
He could remember when he was first in their shoes,
oblivious to the world of the supernatural and all the hellish bullshit that it
could throw at a person. He had seen
things that made his blood run cold, but he had pulled himself together, and in
the end, had grown stronger because of it. Glancing into Amy’s hazy, unfocused
eyes, he wasn’t so sure that she was going to react the same way.
He snapped his fingers, trying to get her to focus. “Try and
stay with us, okay? When you space out,
you can… well, bad things happen if you aren’t paying attention.”
Amy nodded, but he wasn’t sure that she could hear him.
Shannon, on the other hand, was at full attention. She was helping Bobby block up the door,
sealing any small cracks those little elven bastards could use to crawl
inside. Who knew if those things even
needed to go through an open door, though.
For all any of them knew, the elves could walk through walls. Not for the first time, Kurt cursed himself
for leaving all his research materials at the office.
Chris had broken away from the rest of the group and headed
towards the large, picture window that looked out of the parking lot.
“You see anything out there?” Kurt stood up, stretching. “Any
more of those things?”
Chris didn’t answer, his eyes locked on whatever was
outside.
“Chris?” Kurt walked closer.
Looking over his shoulder he could see out the window.
Floating above the parking lot, her long, red cape and green
frilly dress fluttering in the winter wind, was something that looked like a
little girl. Her eyes were glowing with
a blazing red fire, and a ball of energy was building in her right hand,
growing larger by the second. Slowly she
began to lift her arm, the ball of energy rising with the motion as well.
“Shit.” Kurt ran to the couch, grabbing Amy and lifting her
to her feet. “Incoming!”
Kurt and Amy dove to the floor just as the ball of energy
exploded through the window, ripping away the frame, a chunk of the wall, and
most of the right side of Chris’s head.
Blood, bone and brains sprayed the apartment, covering everything in a
fine, red mist.
Chris turned, his body twitching, and his one remaining eye
spinning in its socket before collapsing to the ground in a bloody heap.
“Get Amy out of here!” Bobby was screaming at Shannon. Then his eyes met Kurt’s and he knew what
they had to do.
“You got enough energy left, old man?” Kurt called out to
Doctore.
“Oh, you know I do.”
The old man was starting to form in Kurt’s brain. “I may look old, but I got the spiritual
energy of a teenager.”
“Good.”
Kurt followed Bobby as he rushed towards the giant hole in
their apartment wall.
-*-
The demon girl had expected to hear screams of terror, maybe
moans of pain. Instead she heard only
shouted commands. Something was not
right. This was not how it was supposed
to play out. They were supposed to cower
in fear at her amazing powers. They were
supposed to beg her for their lives, or at least quick deaths. She had come to this building longing for the
sounds of pleading, but instead she got two very angry looking men leaping out
of the window at her.
The men, they didn’t look right. They didn’t look entirely human. There was something about their eyes, the
building glow inside the irises, or the way they seemed to hover in the air instead
of dropping into the snow below.
She had known that the two were demon slayers. The old man had told her as much when he had
called her up for this task, but now, feeling their auras wash over her, she
realized that the old bastard had left out something very important.
They harbored inner deities.
“You made a big mistake little girl.” The taller one, with
wavy black hair, and burning hazel eyes was glowering at her, speaking through
clenched teeth.
“I…” the words caught in her throat. These demon slayers were stronger than
her. Much stronger than her. She could sense that now that their powers
were on full display. “I’m sorry, I didn’t…”
The other one, the shorter one with thinning brown hair,
seemed to swoop around her, coming up behind her. “Sorry won’t bring our
neighbors back to life.” As he spoke his voice seemed to double. There was something else, no, someone else,
behind it.
The voice was familiar, feminine and strong.
Juktha, thought the girl.
That old fuck had sent her to do battle with Juktha! He knew she didn’t
stand a chance, and yet he had still called her up, still sent her out here to…
what? Give him a good show? Was she about to be blasted out of existence for
his entertainment?
She wanted to protest, to let the two men that now had her
cornered about the old man, about his plans and what he had told her. She never got the chance.
The first blast of power came from the tall man floating in
front of her. It hit her hard in the
right side, ripping her arm clean off.
She howled, and her body spun around.
She was now facing the other one, Juktha’s host.
She didn’t even have time to scream as the man’s hand
raised, revealing a very large, very sharp battle axe. The blade swung down in an arc so fast it
appeared to be nothing more than a blast of silver light.
The demon went completely still, her body suspended in the
air for a brief moment before the red seam began to appear down her forehead,
then her face. Then, in a massive
explosion of blood and gore, her body split in half and plummeted towards the
parking lot.
Before it hit the snow covered pavement the two halves of
the demon exploded. The force was so
strong that it sent both Kurt and Bobby flying backwards, landing hard into the
packed, wet snow.
Flames from the explosion flickered, and floated through the
air, drifting towards the building, through the gapping hole left in Kurt and
Bobby’s apartment.
By the time both men recovered, the building was already
burning.
-*-
When the demon had died, her elves had vanished. Still, none of the remaining residents had
wanted to go back inside.
They stood in the parking lot, the flashing police lights
and the blaring sirens of the fire engines invading their skulls, they watched
as the paramedics carried out the mutilated bodies of Chris and Mrs. Whip.
“She was a bitch, but she didn’t deserve to die like that.”
Amy was shaking her head. “No one
deserves to die like that.”
“And Chris…” Shannon glanced at the growing blaze. “I barely
knew the guy. He seemed nice enough. To have your head blasted off like that…” She shuddered.
Kurt and Bobby glanced at Amy and Shannon. Both men wondered
how the two women would be changed by this.
Once you get touched by the supernatural
it didn’t let you go easily.
Bobby leaned against Kurt, his head resting on Kurt’s chest,
and Kurt put his arm around him, pulling him close. They watched as their first
home together, the place where they had created so many memories, and had
started building their lives together, burned.
“Think they can save it?” Bobby glanced up at Kurt, tears
threatening to spill from his eyes.
“I think so.”
They kissed. It was
brief, honest and sad, but the kiss was just the reminder they needed that they
still had each other.
Now they just needed to figure out where they were going to
live.
-*-
The old man stood in the crowd of onlookers, watching as the
apartment building burned. Sure, his
plan hadn’t gone exactly as he had wanted it, but he would make it work in his
favor. He always did. The stakes were too high for him to let a
little disruption throw him off course.
He had been looking for so long, and finally he knew that
this town was the key to his life’s work, and not even an incompetent demon
could get in his way.
Without anyone noticing the man turned, and walked
away.
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