Page 52

The two vampires have sent the last cultists on the main factory floor to their unfortunate grave, but their eyes are now fixed on Arzel’s twisted body. I am not sure why, but somehow I already know that the answer isn’t good. When a thin band of blackish-purple smoke starts to rise from Arzel’s death grimace, I know why they aren’t back to murdering each other. It curls and twists in the air before dissipating into nothingness.

Contrary to me, both vampires seem to know exactly what is going on, moving back hastily as they look around. They even move together to where their backs touch, eyes scanning the room for… something. Arzel was not just a run-of-the-mill cultist; he was a head honcho, that much I know. But what that means exactly is still a mystery to me.

Either way, I can’t help from up here. I have to get down there, preferably armed. I shake off my coat far enough to get access to my shirt sleeves and rip the one off that is already drenched in blood. It’s not the nicest emergency bandage I’ve ever done, but it’s better than holding the blood in with my fingers alone, and it frees my other hand.

The gun is lying right there, waiting for me to pick it up like an obedient dog. Cor looks up at long last, and our eyes meet. The relief in his gaze is palpable, but short-lived as he snaps his attention back to whatever he and his lord are expecting to crawl out of the shadows.

I make my way towards the stairs that lead down to the factory floor. My wrist throbs with pain with every step I take, but I push through it, adrenaline coursing through my veins. I can’t fall apart yet. We are not done. In the distance, I hear the fire engines howling. We have minutes at most.

As I reach the bottom of the stairs, I see something move out of the corner of my eye. I turn towards it and see a figure standing in front of one machine, half consumed by shadows. It’s a woman, her long dark hair cascading over her shoulders in wild waves. At least I think it is a woman until she takes a step forward and I see the lower part of her body.

Eight legs, seeping, open gashes with bloody eyeballs rolling wildly behind the weeping wounds, and a constant drizzle of black worms that rain down from beneath her like her body is its own rain cloud.

Yup. And that’s a demon.

THE DEMON MOVES with a fluid, disturbing grace, like she's walking through water instead of air. Her mouth is suddenly too wide, a stretched canvas of teeth that seem to jostle for space. Her eyes—or what should be her eyes—fixate on the vampires, bulging and unblinking. I somehow expected it to go after me first, what with me being the closest and most fragile creature in the room right now, but no. She screeches, a sound that makes my ears pop and my eyes water, skittering across the concrete floor like a cockroach, straight towards Cor.

Cor and Egil move back at the same speed, shoulder to shoulder, as one of them keeps an eye out to the side and the other focuses on the most immediate threat. It looks… choreographed, like they did this countless times before and don’t have to think about who does what anymore. How could two people who work this well together turn into such bitter enemies? Asha’s panicked face flashes through my mind.

Right. Things happen.

I limp forward, my wrist throbbing painfully with each heartbeat, as I grip the gun tightly in my other hand. The blood-soaked fabric wrapped around my injured arm feels both ice-cold and blazing hot at the same time, fingers prickling as they go numb. I’m not sure if it is the best idea to try to reach the vampires or if I should stay behind the demon so it can’t attack us all at once, but I do know that I have to keep up with it. As fast as this thing can potentially move, I need some additional time to shoot. Especially one-handed.

"New plan," Cor calls without turning his head to look at me. I don’t know why I know he is talking to me, but I do, and the Norseman seems to agree, simply not reacting to the words. His voice is raspy and rough, but it still carries through the smoke and the blanket of meaty, shuffling sounds and demonic screeches.

"Same as my old one?" I quip, swallowing bile as I get hit with a whiff of offal, sulfur, and decay. “Run like hell?”

Egil barks a laugh, a sharp, fleeting sound like the shattering of glass underfoot. The sound is followed by rough, wet coughing and a hacking sound. Something semi-solid and wet smacks to the floor. Looks like a piece of lung or liver. Something organ-adjacent. I guess the legendary Norseman isn’t invincible after all, although Cor proving his prowess and strength tonight might not have been the best time.

Cor doesn’t take his eyes off the demon, just moves slightly to the side to broaden the ranks. "No. Kill everything. But this time we will not get caught. Or die."

I nod and carefully start moving, mirroring Cor as he keeps edging to the side. We circle slowly, the demon now fully aware of its increasingly worsening situation.

The demon tilts its head curiously, as if pondering us, deciding whether we're prey or no more than a nuisance. It jerks more upright and turns erratically, its legs scratching and screeching on the concrete. And it still seems to be growing, new gashes forming, new eyes popping into light, ever so slowly. Which means it’s not at its full power yet, but it will be. We need to do something. Fast.

Egil, who's been silent until now—well, less silent and more trying to heal internal damage that turned his giblets into haggis—, steps forward slightly, his icy blue eyes never leaving the grotesque form of our opponent.

"Distraction," he growls hoarsely, and though it’s just one word, it packs enough command to feel like an entire strategy session squeezed into a couple of syllables.

I shift position, looking for better footing. The gun in my hand feels heavier than usual, or maybe that’s just my blood loss speaking. "Distraction it is." I aim the gun carefully.

Then Cor's voice slices through the tension, low and menacing. "Don't! Destroy the cultist, disrupt her summoning. I distract."

I nod, a little relieved I don’t have to play tag with a spider demon, though my gut churns at the idea of digging through whatever is left of Arzel. The alternative—watching those demonic legs skitter any closer—is worse.

Then Cor yells something in a language I’ve never heard before and throws a sizeable chunk of metal at the creature. The demon whirls around and screeches out a sound so high, I feel the blood vessels in my left eye pop, a second before half my vision is drenched in blackish red that flows from the bottom of my vision to the top as my eye fills with blood. Seems like the distraction is working great. Let's hope the demon gets killed before I lose any more senses. Or blood. Or limbs.

I inch my way around the group, keeping my focus on the demon as she mirrors every move Cor and Egil make, her body undulating grotesquely. At some point, I realize I'm not just watching a deadly dance but actively participating in it. Each step I take is measured, calculated to not attract attention but to circle nearer to where Arzel took his last fall. He hasn’t moved since I more or less kicked him off the catwalk, but he doesn’t look as dead as I would have liked. Sure, there is a blood puddle creeping out from behind his head, probably where the skull cracked when he hit the concrete. But other than that, he looks way too… complete.

I notice the machete a few feet away from his corpse. If Cor and Egil are correct, chopping up ol’ skeletonface here should either dispel the demon completely, or at least weaken it enough to erase it from existence before the mortals arrive.

The fire engines are louder now, a symphony of urgency that none of us can afford to ignore. If mortals stumble across this battlefield as long as there is still active magic going on, there will be no more Contract after tonight. I can’t kill half the city’s fire department and police, it’s just not possible.

I seize the machete, the metal cold and heavy in my grip. Sure, handling a machete with one hand might not be ideal, but desperate times call for desperate measures—or desperate beheadings, more accurately. But options are limited and my window of opportunity is closing fast.

Cor and Egil are a blur of movement, perfectly synchronized despite their mutual loathing. I watch for a second longer, admiring the lethal dance, then turn towards Arzel's too-still body. I have one job, and I’ll damn well excel at it.

"You better be deader than you look," I mutter under my breath as I approach him.