Page 16 of Shadow & Stars
You don’t hate me for having this thing inside me.
Again, why the fuck would he? I seriously needed to drop this thinking, especially with a scary sounding arsehole hammering the hell out of the wall.
After one final squeeze of his hand, the white door crashed open, spinning away from the wall and clattering across the ground. Rocky debris followed it, big chucks shattering the tiles. We all jumped back, Margarite repeating her spiel from the sidelines.
“Christ!” Darcy yelled. “I think I’m about to pee myself.” He slid off Xavier’s back, shuffling closer to the blue door.
The ground shook under heavy footsteps. Every muscle in my body tensed, my survival instincts kicking in with a flood of adrenaline.
A figure ducked through the new hole, a tall humanoid wrapped in shadows. All bulging muscles, its head hidden by a hood of thicker shadow. It stomped closer, brandishing a huge hammer, the weapon like something Thor would swing around.
I remembered to breathe, Darcy not the only one close to pissing his pants.
The demon stopped, white eyes flaring as it drank us in. “Scum!” Its voice thundered around the room, pounding my eardrums. “Look at what you’ve done!”
I covered my ears, the guy’s volume way too loud.
“I’m scrawny. Reduced by the golden dust. I can’t feed on the shadows as I should. Everything about me is diminished.” He snorted like a boar. “But I can break every single bone in this room. And I’ll start with the sparkly one.”
He charged at me like a hundred rhinos at once.
5
ROMAN
Idove into a forward roll, narrowly dodging the swing of the hammer. It came down hard behind me, a vicious bell putting my eardrums through even more hell.
With a grunt, I twirled on my toes, backflipping to avoid an upward swing.
“Slug fuckers!” the demon cried.
That was a new one.
Xavier sprang into action, going into a slide and taking the demon’s legs out from under him. He put a dent in the tiled floor, creating a network of crevasses that reached my feet.
Holy shit!
“Fuckers of the slug!”
Ha! How many ways could he spin the insult?
The demon charged at me again. Xavier leapt into the air like a proper badarse, landing a kick on the wanker’s head. Shadowy Bastard stumbled toward me, clearly seeing stars, his big hands clutching the back of his skull.
Not to be outdone in the arse-kicking department, I rushed him, performing my own kick trick. A mid-air flip kick, crackinghim under the chin. Well, where I assumed the chin was under that weird hood thingy.
Shadowy Bastard howled, going down onto his spine, bones cracking as loudly as the tiles, putting another dent into the floor.
I went to try for his hammer, then thought better of it. It’d be way too heavy for me to use.
Xavier went for it instead, helped by Butterfly who now decided to join the fight.
“No!” the demon wailed. “My weapon! Mine!”
Butterfly almost had it, but Shadowy Bastard gave the hammer a mighty swing. It clipped Butterfly’s shoulder as he jumped back, sending him spinning across the room.
“So, so, so, so sorry!” Margarite bellowed. “If only I could help!”
I checked on Darcy and saw the blue door was still closed.
