Cory

Too many of my nightmares piled up around me. It was hard to keep my head on straight or focus on much of anything except my own fears. My ears rang, or maybe it was all the white noise in my nerves. Either way, I could no longer hear the boards creaking below me or tell how far away the Jaggars were. Too deep in Jaggar territory to run back to familiar ground, balancing on boards that threatened to break, hunted by the gang known most for their brutality, and backed against a field of unknown dog-demons, the odds were stacked up against us. Yet Mikkel seemed so composed, like he was waiting for a tea party to start. Taking off his coat like a damn gentleman in the middle of a building that was about to collapse on us at any minute.

Meanwhile, I fought off flashbacks that threatened to pull me under. My body shook and the scar on my stomach ached, reminding me of all the little pieces of gut that I was missing. Reliving my own death was not pleasant or helpful. Only one thing could have made it worse--one Jaggar face that I dreaded coming up those stairs. I wasn't sure what I would do if it was him.

In any other confrontation, I could keep my head about me. I just focused on the biggest threat and everything else moved to the sidelines. But he was different. He was the "Devil's Child." And he had already killed me once. Compared to facing him again, jumping out of a fourth floor window sounded like a good idea. Through the high pitched whine of white noise, I heard boards creak and sigh right below us, then footsteps in the stairwell as they made our way to the fourth floor. I wiped my hands on my jeans and started going for my short blade; then thought better of it and reached for my gun instead.

"No," Mikkel said. "If we fire, we might just attract more of them." He spoke in a low tone—tense, but controlled. "I know where we can drop into the tunnels from here. It's a bit of a run, but once we're in, I can get us back to the river without a problem."

"Or they could trap us," I said in a harsh whisper.

"Doubtful," he said. "I've never seen any proof that they know the tunnel system around here.

My hearing returned sharper than usual and I could hear the padding of their shoes on the steps and the stretch of every wood fiber that they stepped on. "Mikkel," I said as quietly as I could, "I don't want to die again." When he said nothing, I glanced over to see the look on his face. He was smiling. It was a small smile.

"We're not going to die today," he said.

The footsteps reached our floor, heavy and slow. There were at least four sets of them kicking up a cloud of dust in the hallway. I watched the dust drift through the door before I saw the first man enter the room. It wasn't the "Devil's Child." I let go of a breath that I didn't know I had been holding in. This man was tall and broad, but walking up four flights of steps had winded him a little. His cheeks flushed and he breathed heavier than normal.

Behind him, three others filled the doorway. None of them, familiar to me. They looked us over, assessed the broken window and our jackets draped over the side. I put my right hand on my short blade handle with my thumb on the buckle. It didn't take much effort to snap the buckle open and pull the blade. But I waited for them to make their move first.

"What are you two doing up here?" The first one finally asked.

"Making out," Mikkel said. "But you've ruined the mood."

I made a sideways glance at him and fought the urge to shake my head.

The man was not amused. He narrowed his eyes at us. "You two come from Center City," he said. "Are you Serpents?"

"Why don't you come over here and see?" Mikkel said. "I'll even let you take off my shirt."

I had to roll my eyes at that one. Everything was a big game to him. But I knew what he was trying to do. If he could bring them in close enough, he could grab them. Then they were all his. Unfortunately, I hadn't honed that skill yet, so touching them didn't do me any good, unless mild discomfort and static shock would make them run away. But it looked like discomfort was what they lived in.

"Nah," the Jaggar said, "I think I'll just kill you regardless. We'll look at brands when we need to decide who to send the body to."

I took that as my cue to draw my blade. Nothing was going to stop them from trying to kill us.

"That sword is about as big as you, little girl, do you really think you can handle it?" One of the other men said.

"Well, to be honest," I said, "It is a little heavy and I really do hate hacking people to death. If it's all the same to you, I'd much rather us all walk out of here in one piece."

Mikkel scrunched his eyebrows together and tilted his head to look at me funny. "What kind of talk is that? Is Miles rubbing off on you in your sleep? I think you need to go back to sleeping in your own bed."

"Stay out of our bedroom," I said.

"Yup. That's Miles talking. I think your husband finally got in your head."

"Are you two going to talk all day?" one of the Jaggars said, moving to surround us.

"Can we?" I asked. "I'd like that more than this."

"Screw this," another said and pulled his gun. He pointed it at me and pulled the trigger, but I managed to duck and charge him, dodging the bullet and knocking him into the stairwell with my shoulder in his stomach and the dull side of my short blade hitting hard on his hip to shatter his pelvis. Or at least chip it, since I lacked the necessary strength to shatter much of anything besides glass. The ordeal did make him drop his gun down the stairwell, but that was a bonus I hadn't planned on. To make sure he stayed down and out, I hit him again across the temple with the dull side. He fell to the floor and bled from a gash on the side of his face, but it wasn't deep enough to kill him.

"What the hell was that?" Mikkel held out his hands like a coach screaming at his players. One of the other Jaggars standing near him pulled a gun, but he grabbed the barrel and yanked it out of the man's hand while using his other hand to break the man's nose. "You need to get Miles out of your head, Cory. It does no good to think like a pacifist when you're fighting a war." As if to prove a point, he used the man's own gun to finish him off, puncturing both his head and the floorboard below him.

The remaining two Jaggars in the room pulled their guns, but Mikkel was faster and shot them both dead before they could get a shot out. The only man left was just starting to regain consciousness after his short faint. He held the gash on his head and struggled to sit up. "Don't kill me," He said.

"I don't want to." I looked over at Mikkel who was looking upset at the blood stains on his shirt. "But he might."

"How many more of you are coming for us?" Mikkel said to the man.

"I don't know," the man said. "They just asked us to check you two out since you were wandering all over town."

"Are there any more of you hanging around outside?" He was trying to see down through the broken window without getting too close.

"I don't know, man. I told you what I know. Just let me go."

"How about we use you for a human shield as we get out the door."

"You really think they'll stop shooting just because they see me?"

"What about those things out in the field?" I asked. "What are they?"

Mikkel shrugged at the new line of questioning. "I guess while we're here, we might as well beat as much out of him as possible."

The man let out a painful laugh. "Those things are what's coming to kill you."

Mikkel frowned. "Well that's unhelpful. Let me see if I can get anything else out of him before we just throw him over the fence and feed him to the little monsters in the field." Mikkel grabbed the man's wrist and twisted his arm as if he was using physical force to get the man to talk. But that was just how he hid his abilities as an Indigo Child. While the guy cried out at his arm being twisted, Mikkel dug through his mind to find useful information. He didn't even have to ask the guy anything, but he did just to complete the facade. "What are those creatures?" He asked him.

Even if the guy didn't want to answer, the answers were already surfacing in his head for Mikkel to take. He asked him a few more lazy questions about it all before dropping the man's wrist and turning to me. "You want to kill him, or should I?"

"Do we have to?" I asked. "This day is already bloody and awful enough."

"We either kill him now or kill him when we invade. War is war, Cory. Enemies die. That's how it goes. And considering what I just said out loud about us invading, I think we're better off killing him now." Without any hesitation or even a moment for me to step back from the splatter zone, Mikkel shot the man through the head.

I let out a heavy sigh and shook my head. My pants were now covered in blood stains that looked like bad art. "Does killing ever get easier?" I asked him.

"It does once you get Miles out of your head," he said.

"That's an awful thing to say."

"We should get moving. Those things are called brutes and there's at least three of them being released on us right now."

"Only three?"

"Yeah, apparently the rest aren't properly trained yet. Also, we're going to have to break past a group of Jaggars that are blocking the main street."

"I thought you knew a way to the tunnels."

"I do, but we'll have to run for a ways on the main street to get there. There's a boarded up shop just off the main street that has an entrance inside it. We'll go in through the back."

"You're going to make me run all that way with a heavy sword on my back?"

"I'll take it. Just keep up with me. And grab your jacket," he added. He grabbed his jacket from the window sill, shaking off any glass it might have picked up, and put it on hastily, then slung the short blade over his shoulder.

We started making our way down the staircase as fast as we could without falling through any of the steps, but something made us stop in our tracks before we reached the second floor. It was a high pitched scream of something that was anything but human. It sounded unearthly. "Good God! The Devil Child now has demons with him," I said to myself.

"Don't talk like that," Mikkel said. He continued to run down the steps. "You're only scaring yourself. Whatever these things are, they die just like anything else. You have your gun. Take careful aim."

We made it to the first floor and headed for the open window. But before we could cross the room, a brute jumped up into that very window and stared us down. The last light of the sun streamed in around it, shrouding its form in shadow and giving it an unholy halo around its body.

It was bigger than any dog I dreaded, but it didn't sit like one. Instead, its posture reminded me of the creature statues on the church in Center City. Long, black talons dug into the wood frame to hold its demonic form in place. It's skin was black and had a texture almost like hard scales, or rough patches that appeared charred. Between these patches, long strands of scraggly hair caught the light.

It moved fast—jumping from the window frame to the wall near us. Its long talons dug into the wall and held it there, defying gravity. Then it lunged at us, jumping high enough to scratch the ceiling.

Mikkel pulled out the short blade just in time and cut the brute from its stomach to its throat as it landed on the blade, spilling its intestines on the floor. The creature fell on the ground, moaning and screeching until Mikkel put it out of its misery. "There," he said, "See? It dies just like anything else. Nothing to be afraid of." He wiped his bloodied hands on his pants and used his jacket to wipe the handle of my short-blade.

"I don't think it's any use," I said. "You're just covered in blood."

"Yes," he said, "I think I'll be burning these clothes."

There was another scream, like the first, but louder and longer. And with it, joined a cacophony of similar screams. Like dogs from hell, they screeched together—the two left on the street and the countless creatures locked behind the fence. The sound was consuming. It wrapped all around me so tightly that I couldn't find where any of it was coming from. It disoriented my senses and throbbed in my eardrums.

"Okay," Mikkel said as the screeching finally died off, "That is a little annoying. Let's go."

We only made it another step before the two remaining brutes jumped into the room. One, like the first, jumped through the open window we were headed for. The other smashed through another window to our right.

"I'm willing to bet that the Jaggars are waiting for us on the street, ready to fire at us when we get out of here," Mikkel said.

"A little ahead of yourself, don't you think?"

"Not at all. But if I'm good at what I do, then I'll be a step ahead of them. That's the trick, my dear." He dodged as the brute in front of us jumped at him.

I pulled my gun and fired at it as it landed to his side and directly in front of me. The bullet punctured its thick skin, but didn't seem to bother the brute. It jumped at me with full force, swiping at my legs with its talons, which caught my pant leg and shredded it like tissue paper.

Mikkel moved in closer to me, eyeing both creatures as they moved around the room, finding the best angle of attack. "Try aiming for their underbelly," he said, "It must be softer."

"How about if I just aim for their eyes? Those are always nice and tender, right?" I started to take careful aim at a brutes face, but it screeched at me and jumped sideways, keeping its underbelly facing away from me and moving its face too much for me to aim. In frustration, I fired off two quick rounds, but only managed to hit its shoulder twice. It narrowed its eyes at me and let out a low growl before jumping at me from where it had been climbing the wall.

Mikkel stepped between us and sliced the brute up the middle like he had done in to the first one. As he did, the other brute jumped at us from the opposite side. I swung my gun around and shot it in the chest before it landed on me, still alive enough to dig its talons into my shoulder. It picked its head up to bite me, but it was losing strength fast. Its talons started to loosen and it fell off of me, dead. I wiped its blood from my scalp before it ran down my face, but my shirt front could not be helped. Warm blood clung to my chest.

"I think I just found a new nightmare."

"This city is full of them," Mikkel said. "Let's get out of here."

We peeked out the window, looking for any sign of Jaggars. Two long shadows stretched down the street at the west end.

Mikkel looked me over, making a quick assessment of my shoulder wounds. "Do you think you're good to run three kilometers?" He asked. "It has to be at least that far to the shop."

I nodded. "I wish I had some water, though. Next time we go on one of these scouting death trap missions, lets bring some water."

"Agreed."