Something humanoid, but very much not human, stood about twenty feet away from us, standing between two cars. It looked maybe seven feet tall with long, bony white limbs attached to equally white claws. It looked almost like a skeleton except for a thin layer of milky, white, leathery skin. Its head was long and narrow, shaped more like a ram with rounded horns. It had a lipless mouth and slits for a nose. Its eyes were large gaping black holes.
Just as I suspected—a demon. And not the fun kind like me. No, this thing stunk of pure evil. There would be no negotiating with it. This was the kind of creature that would kill a child without batting an eyelash. I didn’t want to wait around for it to try anything on us, but I also needed to know what the hell it was doing here. Demon attacks weren’t incredibly common. The world knew of magic, but it had put forth an incredibly regulated system stemming from centuries of fighting.
One such rule was that demons didn’t get to wander around freely in non-demon territories unless they were approved. I wasn’t a fan of the unequal treatment, but I did recognize that my kind was the most destructive of all the groups, and we were about 85% not to be trusted.
I could just look at this thing and know that nobody had approved him. Sure, you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, but the stink of evil wasn’t something to be missed.
Now either this guy got lost and wandered over to the wrong side of town, or he was the rule-breaking kind. I was betting on the latter. Every group had its criminals. And this was a havoc demon. His kind lived to fuck shit up. It seemed a little low level to attack a grocery store, but I guess demonic criminals had to start somewhere.
I tilted my head from side to side, readying myself for the fight. I hadn’t taken out a havoc demon in a few decades. Maybe it was time to get a little practice back in. “Looks like you got a little lost. You have two choices, you can teleport your ass back to the underworld or your demon town, or I can kill you on the spot.”
The demon raised a bony arm and pointed its long taloned finger at Billie, who was now standing beside me. What the hell? Why couldn’t she let me protect her and stay her ass behind me? Not that that was the most important part right now. What the hell did a havoc demon want with her?
Billie pushed her hands out to the side, and I could feel her magic crackling off of her like static electricity. She was getting prepared to fight as well. Of course, she was no weakling. The thought of her fighting beside me kind of turned me on.
“What do you want with me?” she shouted.
I tilted my head toward her. “I don’t think they can ta—”
“Ours!” the demon said through its open maw. The voice sounded almost robotic and echoed around us like a speaker.
Okay, so I was wrong about the not the talking part. But what did he mean by ‘ours?’
Billie punched her hands together. “I’m no one’s. Fuck off!” she shouted before pushing out her hands, shouting words in a language I didn’t know.
The havoc demon lifted in the air and flew back, landing on the main road in a crumpled pile. I could already see the creature moving slowly on the street. A large SUV was approaching down the road. The car stopped and then began driving in reverse. I didn’t blame the driver. The havoc demon wasn’t exactly road kill to drive around.
Billie took a hesitant step forward. “What is it, and how do we kill it?” she asked.
“It’s a havoc demon, and there are a number of ways to kill it. Mostly decapitation and fire are the best options, but you’ve got to get very close to them to be effective. I’m surprised your magic was able to work on it from the distance we were at.”
I knew she was powerful, but she was turning out to be impressive. Still, I didn’t want her to feel she needed to fight. Not while I was next to her.
“So, what do we do?” she asked.
“Wait for it to come back to us.”
She frowned. “Why would we do that? It’s already hurt.”
I had fought many a havoc demon. I knew better. She had only delayed the fight. Sure, the demon was banged and bruised, but if I raced to it, it would only teleport away. I needed to get up close and personal and stay that way. “Because we’ll end up playing tag. It teleports. We need to grab it.”
She grimaced, clearly not wanting to touch the thing. I understood that, and I would make it so she didn’t have to.
I looked back at the demon. It was now standing up, but it didn’t move. I grabbed Billie’s hand and began a slow, calculated walk toward it. My goal was not to reach it but to get it to move to us. It wasn’t going to be patient.
And, right on cue, the creature disappeared into a cloud of black smoke.
Billie tightened her grasp on my hand, and I could hear her heartbeat quicken. She was tough, but she wasn’t a fool. A certain level of fear was smart. I wasn’t that smart, so hopefully, she was.
She looked around the area. “Shit, where is it?”
I cracked my neck from side to side. “It’s fucking with us.”
“Maybe it left because it got scared of us?”
“Nah.”
Eerie silence spread around us as we waited. Billie continued to strain her neck, looking around us.
