Page 30 of Demon Hunger
A mass of bodies pressed against the exit, crushing, ruthless.
Drevan fought his way back toward Jenna, Sage, and Benjamin. Suddenly, he reared back, raising his hands and blasting a jet of fire just as one of the creature’s tentacles lashed above us like the whip of a ferocious giant. The tentacle turned to ashes that floated all around us and quickly disintegrated. I expected the beast to shriek in pain, but it made no sound despite having lost one of its limbs. It had so many that maybe losing one was no worse than losing a hair.
When we reached the others, Drevan said, “We need to use a portal. Now!”
“You can’t,” Jenna protested over the din of the crowd. “Don’t you know Lucia has schizonevima?”
This was another thing he knew well. He was grasping at straws.
“And what about all these people?” I said. “We can’t leave them all to that creature’s mercy.”
Drevan shook his head. “That creature is Jophiel, and he’s here for you, not them.”
What?How could that be the angel? This was messed up. And why wasn’tthe man upstairsdoing anything about enforcing the rules of the game? Jophiel wasn’t supposed to do stuff like this. I was supposed to be off limits. This was total bullshit.
The crowd ahead stopped moving completely. Some of them started climbing the chain-link fence that surrounded the grounds, while others were being crushed against it. Noticing what was happening, Drevan cast a hand forward. The fence disappeared. A general gasp of relief went over everyone as they ran towards their cars, spreading quickly over the parking lot. Soon, they would be creating another type of gridlock that would make it just as difficult for us to escape.
Suddenly, something snapped around my ankle, pulled, and took me to the ground.
“Lucia!” Drevan shouted as I was dragged away on my stomach, and I awkwardly tried to reach for my Queller. He came running after me, one hand outstretched, shooting another jet of fire at the tentacle that had captured me.
The pressure around my ankle released, and I slowed to a stop. I scrambled to a sitting position, unsheathing my sword and brandishing it around blindly. Panic boomed in my ears, and my heart knocked like a sledgehammer against my ribs.
I jumped back as another tentacle reached for me. I swung the sword down, hoping to nick the bastard, but it retreated with a snap.
“I’ll kill you, wipe you out of existence, you bastard,” I shouted, my anger boiling over as I continued slashing my sword like a maniac.
The coward stayed away from me. If I managed to kill him, to make it as if he’d never existed, even if he’d been around since the beginning of creation, I would have no regrets. And if on my day of judgment I was condemned because of it, I would take my punishment gladly.
“He’s surrounding us,” Drevan warned.
In my anger, I hadn’t noticed, but the thick, long tentacles had stealthily found paths to create a ring around the five of us.
Without warning, one of the tentacles lashed out at Jenna. Surprisingly, Benjamin moved quickly and shoved her out of the way. Except he wasn’t fast enough to avoid a blunt hit to the head. He dropped like a lead weight, crimson goo sliding down his face—at least I hoped that was what it was. Jenna fell to her knees in front of him, crying out his name.
Drevan started shooting fire out of his hands as fast as he could, but just as he burned one tentacle, another one appeared. Soon, it became evident that some of the appendages were real, while others were not. The real ones could cause physical damage like the one that hit Benjamin, but the fake ones disintegrated at the slightest contact. So not all the creature was Jophiel. Some of it was simply an illusion. If only I could tell one from the other, maybe I would have a chance dispatching the bastard.
But as the circle tightened around us, I realized that, for my friends’ sake, I needed to take a chance and go for it. Suddenly, an idea occurred to me: the fake tentacles would offer no resistance to my telekinetic powers while the real ones…
Throwing one hand out, I sent a blast of energy toward one of the tentacles threatening to go for Sage. My energy went through it as if it was made of air. Quickly, I tried another one, finding the same result. I went around, testing one after the next until I finally found one that felt as real as real could be. Setting my jaw, I raised my sword and lunged forward, but once more, Drevan was there to stop me.
“You’re not fast enough to kill him,” he snapped. “And he has Swiftglory hidden somewhere. I can’t risk it. We have to—”
A great shadow appeared above us. I glanced up to find three tentacles smashed together, quickly coming down like a giant flyswatter. Something told me those were not fake. They were the kind that would turn us into human pancakes.
I started to raise my sword, but even as big as they were, those tentacles were moving a lot faster than I ever could.
“Fuck me!” Drevan cursed as I felt that familiar awful feeling in my stomach, and the ground quickly disintegrated at our feet. Despite my condition, he knew this was the only way we would get out of here alive was through a demon portal.
But how much better were my chances against schizonevima? I was dead.
12
WematerializedinTheFray room. Jenna fell to her knees. Benjamin swayed on the spot, and Sage cursed under his breath while holding his stomach. They all looked about to puke. I felt the same, except that, even though I tried very hard, I couldn’t hold it back. Head spinning, I vomited, managing to turn away just in time.
Drevan rushed to me and held my hair out of the way. “Lucia, how do you feel?”
I looked at him sideways, wiping my mouth.
