Because she was entrenched in the serpent’s mind, she saw that he was directing his offspring to enter Raik’s body, where they could feed and grow.
I’ve got him safe. You can destroy the little demons.
Silke was forced to take her gaze from Snaggle as she swept the crystal sword around the room in a meticulous grid to pierce each of the slithering tadpoles as they rushed at Raik. Raik suddenly surged to his feet, almost as if he were a puppet, a marionette, directed by another being. He swung his fists wildly as he lumbered straight at her.
Silke tried to dodge Raik as he hobbled toward her. His movements were jerky and very awkward as if he didn’t have control of his own body. She timed her evasion to avoid his wildly swinging fists. For all his awkward motion, Raik was astonishingly fast with his hamlike fists. One managed to graze her head as she ducked back, still targeting the sea serpent’s offspring as they raced to find a host.
The slight contact with Raik sent alarm skittering down her spine. He felt off. She had been certain she had managed to draw the serpent from his body, yet he still had the taint of demon. Why? That made no sense. It was one more division of her mind while she was attempting to destroy the many tadpoles, evade Raik and protect herself from the demon in the form of the sea creature as it took advantage of Raik’s attack to rush her with blinding speed.
I have placed a protection barrier between you and Raik,Tora informed her.It isn’t strong. I didn’t want to weave something Lilith might recognize as mine later, should she be drawn here by this battle.
Silke shot the dazzling vivid colors straight at the demon as it flung itself through the air straight at her throat. She was lucky the serpent had chosen to come at her so high. That allowed her to continue her sweep down to the floor as the sea creature dropped, shrieking, trying to protect itself from the vibrant crystals. Several holesappeared in the thick, round body, piercing through the armored scales. No more spawn burst from the many holes. Instead, orange and red embers flickered from inside the serpent. It shrieked and screamed continuously, the sound horrendous, playing on every nerve in her body.
Silke took the opportunity to finish destroying the last of the remaining tadpoles, burning them with the crystal lights. It took several more precious seconds to do a thorough job, giving the sea demon enough recovery time to launch another attack on her. He was shockingly fast. She was forced into an evasive maneuver as she tried to quickly analyze how the demon was becoming faster. He had been created specifically to draw energy from the softer crystal colors. The more vivid, stronger tones pierced through his armor, clearly presenting a danger to the creature’s life. Yet he was becoming faster.
Was he evolving? Becoming resistant to the crystal sword? His offspring had burned within moments of being exposed to the sword’s powerful energy. They hadn’t been born resistant. That meant the original sea monster, bred in a vat, was the most dangerous. Perhaps in time, the emerging offspring would develop a resistance, but when they first emerged, they had none.
Her brain processed information at high speed, analyzing and discarding the various possibilities. She had to conclude that the serpent adapted quickly to the crystal sword’s lights. If he began to absorb the energy, she could be in real trouble. Not just from the serpent but from any other demons Lilith and her mages created.
The serpent stayed low, not repeating the mistake he’d made in his previous attack. That also told her he evolved quickly. He learned as he went. She took a better grip on his mind, watching for the moment he decided to make his next move. Merged with him, she forced a hesitation, a doubt, giving her a split second to slice through the serpent’s long, thick body. Just in the short time it had been outside the host, the scales had thickened, giving it the appearance of the sea monstersdepicted in the drawings from a hundred years previous. The teeth were longer and came to a wicked point.
She swung the crystal sword, the blue blade slicing off the head of the serpent as it rushed her. At the same time, she poured an entire tube of sacred water all along the body and severed head. At once, smoke rose. Holes appeared throughout the long body and head. She swept the colors of the sword at the shrieking creature. Instantly, fires sprang up, roaring through the holes from the inside out. The stench was horrific. Even with the head cut off, the demon shrieked for what seemed hours before the fire consumed it entirely. She had to ensure that not one of the ashes remained.
Silke sank to the floor and put her pounding head in her hands. She felt sick. She always did after a particularly difficult battle with a demon. Part of her reaction was because she often shared their mind, felt the pain they suffered with no letup from the hideous experiments Lilith conducted on them. Lilith thought nothing of sentencing them to gruesome punishments and then forgot where they were for months or years on end. Silke couldn’t help the compassion she felt for the creatures, even though they were wholly evil and she had no choice but to destroy them. That didn’t mean she didn’t feel empathy.
“Are you going to be all right? I want to heal Raik as soon as possible. We’re going to lose the night if I don’t move on this,” Tora cautioned.
Silke lifted her head. “I’m good. Be careful.”
“I always am.” Tora shed her ego, let go of all sense of self to become pure light and energy in the way of her people. It was how they healed wounds from the inside out. She entered Raik’s body and began her slow, careful inspection.
Silke guarded Tora’s body. With her spirit absent, Tora’s body was vulnerable to attack. For some reason, when she should have felt satisfied and relieved, anxiety gripped Silke. The ominous foreshadowing remained in her mind.
Tora had wrapped the room in weaves of protection. Silke had known Tora her entire life. She knew Tora was a powerful, dangerous woman and very skilled in her protections as well as fighting ability. She’d had to become proficient, as no other Carpathians were near them. If a vampire stumbled across their village, there was only Tora to protect them. Eventually, Silke learned to aid her.
She glanced out the window into the dark sky. Clouds drifted across the moon, but they seemed natural to her. No spies looking down in an effort to find the two of them—slayer and guardian of the gate. She turned back to face the room. Whatever was making her uneasy was close. Had she missed one of the serpent’s offspring? Was it hiding? Waiting for an unwary host?
Silke went very still, allowing her mind to expand, to seek the taint of demon. She inspected every corner of the room, the ceiling, the floor, the furniture, the fireplace. Nothing. Still, she knew she was right, she had missed something. Her attention returned time and again to Raik. Tora was pure spirit. Silke didn’t know enough about how she survived as light and energy when inside another being. She’d been healed by Tora on many occasions. She’d felt her moving inside her, the heat, the soothing relief as Tora closed wounds she’d endured during battle or pushed wiggling parasites from her bloodstream that a vampire had injected into her when his teeth had torn her open.
Frowning, she paced, walking off the nervous energy while she waited. She hadn’t asked Tora what kind of danger she could be in if another being such as the demon was still in a host while Tora healed the man. She should have asked. She couldn’t reach out to Tora and distract her.
Tora finally emerged, pale and exhausted. Without hesitation, Silke extended her wrist to her friend. She knew Tora needed blood to recover, and she’d given her blood so many times she didn’t think anything of it.
The uneasiness in her magnified, not lessened. Something was terribly wrong.Raik is still tainted.Silke was certain.I missed something.
Tora’s frown was in her mind, as she took the blood she needed for her recovery. Once she was stronger, she walked carefully around the fisherman. He sat on the floor, hands pressed to his head, rocking back and forth and moaning.
“You drove the demon from him,” Tora said. “Could there have been a second one we missed? I went through his body to heal him from the inside out. I was very meticulous, worried that one of the serpent’s offspring had gone unnoticed. I found nothing.”
Silke couldn’t imagine Tora missing anything when she was healing someone. This was too important. She had taken her time, careful to inspect every muscle and organ, his blood and bones.
“I do not feel the threat,” Tora admitted. “Just your uneasiness. You have never been wrong when it comes to demons. The merest trace does not escape you. If you are feeling taint, there must still be a demon close.”
Close. Silke turned the word over and over in her mind. From the time she was a child, she had been very sensitive to the slightest taint of demon. She trusted her instincts. She trusted her radar. Her warning system blared at her. She once again searched the room. There were many tiny cracks where a tadpole might be hidden, but she reexamined the walls and furniture, the fireplace and floor, even the ceiling, inch by inch. It took her a long time, but she didn’t rush her inspection, no matter that she was losing the night. Tora and Silke wanted to be gone before villagers might see them. And Tora always left before dawn.
Silke’s ability to ferret out demons was intuitive. She had such an instinctive expertise, she knew that ability had been given to her prior to her birth. She was born with the knowledge of her ancestors—demon slayers—each adding their experience. At her birth, she was already a walking encyclopedia of demons, the hierarchy and how to kill each one. But now, demons were evolving, growing stronger and faster and resistant to the crystal sword the slayers had always used to defeat them.
Silke came back to the center of the room, staring down at Raik as he rocked back and forth, moaning. Tora kept him in a state of unawareness, yet he was still feeling pain. She had healed him, yet he was moaning and rocking. The most condemning evidence was the strong feeling of demon taint emanating from him.
