It was his darkness.
Slater hadn’t come personally. I was sure of it, but the darkness now surrounding the motel had been sent by him along with his men.
It spurred me into action. “Cecilia!” I cried as I picked up my jacket, my wallet, and my phone from the bed.
Holding her shirt over her chest, Cecilia stuck her head out the bathroom door, her long brown hair falling like a curtain around her shoulders. “What?”
“They're here.”
Her face paled. “Shit.” She put her shirt back on, zipped up her pants, and shoved her feet in her boots. “How many minutes do we have?”
The darkness was closing in faster now. “Two, three at the most.”
Her hands trembled as she tied her hair in a ponytail. “No time to run.”
I wasn’t much better than Cecilia, but I pretended better. Somehow, I was able to conceal the tremors running through my body.
I grabbed the duffel bag and slung it over my shoulders. “We can run, after we stun a few of them.”
“We.” She snorted. “As if I can do much against them.”
I knew she hated when we confronted Slater’s men or demons, because she couldn’t do more than a few self-defense moves she had learned a long time ago.
I pushed those thoughts away and focused. “Ready?”
Eyes shining with determination, Cecilia nodded. “Ready.”
The power hummed in my veins, as if awoken by the darkness encircling us. I extended my hands to my sides and pushed my power to the lights of the motel room. The lights flickered and extinguished. I held on to the darkness, creating a shroud over us. Cecilia and I pressed our backs to the wall right beside the door and waited.
The door burst open and a handful of men—all dressed in black, with a silver pendant with a coiled snake hanging from their necks—exploded into the room. I sent the darkness, thick and palpable, to them. Like fog, the black surrounded them, keeping them lost in a cloud of confusion.
Cecilia and I ran.
Two men waited outside the room. One lunged at Cecilia. She grabbed his wrist, twisted, and bent it outward. The man yelped and leaned forward to take the pressure off his wrist. Cecilia slammed her knee into his face and let go. The man dropped to the ground.
The other man came at me but didn’t touch me. He knew what I was capable of.
As if that would stop me.
I commanded the darkness from the corner of the wall, from the space under the stairs, from the night sky to surround him. The darkness spun until it created a tornado that twisted around the man.
“Run!” I cried, releasing my hold on my power.
The tornado spun the man face-first into the wall, and he dropped to the ground, unconscious.
Cecilia and I descended the outer staircase three steps at a time.
We paused in the parking lot. We had ditched our previous car a few blocks away, and had plans of securing another one as soon as we were ready to leave.
As usual, our stop didn’t go according to plan and now we were car-less.
Unless …
I glanced at the SUV Slater’s lackey had driven here. “Get in!”
“B-but that’s his car.”
“I know, but we can’t be picky right now.” I slid into the driver’s seat. “Come on!”
Groaning, Cecilia ran around the SUV and hopped inside. “I don’t like this idea.”
“It's the only one we have! We’ll ditch the car later; we just need to get out of here first.”
I slammed the SUV into reverse as the group of men emerged from our room on the second floor.
“Wait!” one of them yelled.
Oh, yeah, like I would freaking wait.
I stepped on the gas, the tires peeling on the pavement, and we raced down the road. We drove for about ten miles on the dark road outside of town before we allowed ourselves to breathe normally again.
“That was unexpected,” Cecilia said, leaning against the passenger seat and relaxing for a bit.
My knuckles turned white as I gripped the steering wheel. “You know it wasn’t. I was expecting it.”
“I know,” she whispered.
My eyes darted to the rearview mirror for the hundredth time, sure I would soon see a car or SUV gunning after us. Instead, the only thing behind us was the moonlight reflecting off the road markers.
I took a deep breath, releasing my death grip on the steering wheel, and immediately felt the shoulders of my muscles uncord.
For now, we were safe.
At least until he found us again.
Past
Devon
The warrior stood at the edge of the roof, looking down at the empty streets. At this time of the evening, the village was mostly asleep, except for the usual customers at the tavern. Despite the curfew being enforced since the attacks had started, a couple of men still sneaked out to drink.
One of those would be the next victim, the warrior was sure.
He didn’t have to wait long for two men to stumble out of the tavern, tripping over their own feet. Their laughter rang through the night. The town’s guard was sure to hear them, but not before something happened to them.
Like a shadow, the warrior jumped off the roof and followed the two men. One of them came upon his house not two minutes later. The lucky bastard tripped on his doorstep as he pushed open the door, falling on the floor of his home. He crawled into the dimly lit room and kicked the door shut behind him.
The second staggered several houses down, then he turned into an alley.
Not five seconds later, the warrior felt it. The change in the air, the thickness and the chill enveloping the area, the evil closing in.
A demon with a long gray body, black eyes, and sharp fangs materialized in the middle of the alley a few feet in front of the man.
The drunk's eyes went wide, and a startled scream caught in his throat. He stepped back to retreat and fell on his butt, gaping at the demon.
The warrior reached behind his back and unsheathed his sword, the black hilt resting comfortably in his palm.
The demon advanced on the drunk.
The warrior rushed from the shadows and slashed his blade across the demon's torso, slicing into its chest. The demon let out a howl of pain and rage. It hadn’t died, but it did what the warrior wanted—it shifted its attention to him, leaving the drunk man alone.
“Run,” the warrior commanded.
It took a moment, but the drunk man scrambled to his feet and fled, half-crawling and falling over himself as he tried to escape.
The warrior always wondered what the humans who encountered demons and survived told the others. That they had seen evil in the flesh? That they had escaped a demon? Would others believe them?
Not that the warrior really cared about it. Whether humans knew about demons or not, his job didn’t change.
He still had to hunt down demons and kill them.
Just as he would do to this one.
The demon let out a snarl, showing off its long claws, and lunged for the warrior.
The warrior sidestepped the demon, dodging the attack. He whirled, facing the demon’s back, and swept his sword wide, cutting off the demon’s head.
The head fell to the dirt ground with a wet thump.
Now it was dead.
The warrior cleaned the blade on his pants, then sheathed his sword on the scabbard across his back and a small white baton appeared in his hand. The warrior knelt beside the demon’s body and pierced the chest with the tip of the baton. The demon’s body dissolved into black smoke that faded into the night air.