Page 10 of The River of Fire
“Don’t be so blasé,” Jess hisses.
“All of you shut up and run,” I command through gritted teeth. This isn’t good. “They’re not weak and there’s too many of them.”
Ethan frowns, but to his credit, he doesn’t argue. Just as we clear the gates, a high-pitched shriek chills our bones, and wedumbly stop.
“W-what do you think it is?” Simone stutters.
“Too damned close, that’s what it is.” Ethan’s words spur us back into movement.
I sense it before I see it, a figure running parallel to us in the fog, darting between the skeletal trees. Before I can decide what to do, it changes its trajectory, now on a course straight toward us.
“Jess, duck!” I shout and she immediately drops, leaving room for Liam’s sword to slash through the air at hip height. The creature dodges the blow and cocks its head as it reassesses us.
It’s taller than us and has four arms, two on each side. Or it has some sort of arm-like appendages, at least, seeing as they don’t end with a hand, but instead curve into a giant hook-like claw. The rest of its features are what we’ve come to expect from demons: slimy and scaly black skin, super bendy joints, and a teardrop-shaped head sporting a gaping mouth full of razor-sharp teeth and black voids where eyes should be. From Corson’s lessons on Hell and demonology, I know they call demons like this one raptors.
Jess rolls closer to the rest of the group and pops up, face set in grim determination.
“Declaw it, then we go for the neck,” I order, and we position ourselves into a flanking formation, hours of training having honed our muscle memory to perfection.
As soon as the creature charges, Ethan lifts his weapon into an undercut, aiming for the lowest of the demon’s arms on his side. The angelic steel slices through the limb like a knife through butter. As the raptor shrieks in outrage and pain, Simone throws a shuriken at its open maw. It lodges in the back of its mouth – and now it’s really mad. Flailing wildly, it runs at us, its hooks audibly slicing the air. We’re forced onto the defensive, ducking and dodging, Liam even parrying once or twice, but the claw seems to be made of strong chitin, thick enough to deflect weapons of angelic make.
Finally, Jess drops to her knees and takes off one of thedemon’s legs, rolling once again before the off-balance demon can collapse onto her. Liam lifts his sword and decapitates the wailing creature, the severed head landing on the ground a second before the rest of its body follows.
“That’s one way to do it,” I sniff, and run a hand over my sweaty face. “We better go before the rest of them come; it’s a miracle they haven’t heard this one’s screams.”
Sweeping my gaze over my crew, I check for visible injuries. I then sheath my swords before we take off towards Abaddon with a story to tell.
???
My first solo patrol went well. In fact, I didn’t encounter anything scarier than an imp. I was looking forward to hearing how it went for the rest of my team, but one never made it home.
“It’s your fault!”
Everyone is gathered in the atrium, and I’m sitting on a step gripping my hair in a nightmare case of déjà vu. Only this time, we’re not having our realities shattered by the truth of our existence. We’re here because Simone isn’t.
Nick is yelling at me and practically foaming at the mouth with fervor. Like I don’t feel guilty enough already. If only I’d tried harder to tell the Fallen that Simone was not ready to be out there alone.
“Please,” Kevin sneers at him. “You’re only upset we can’t find her because she’s not here for you to perv over.”
We all went out looking for her, even the Fallen. Akira, Corson’s team leader and the best of his sleuths, tracked her a couple of hours west, towards the direction of Acheron, miles away from where she was meant to go. Her tracks then disappeared, as if she had simply vanished. No one here is strong enough to use the ether for travel like that, and there were no signs of anyone else being with her.
We’ve been awake for over a day, and our nerves are frayed,the uncertainty mocking us.
“A few months as team leader and you already manage to lose a member – what does that say about you?” Nick’s ignoring the glares everyone is throwing at him, which includes his team leader, Darla. Everyone knows he’s salty about the fact a woman got the nod from Ramel, their Fallen instructor. Only a couple of his gorilla-shaped friends are standing with him, arms crossed and looking like they’re a hair's breadth away from violence.
“Simone was as prepared for this patrol as the rest of you,” Ramel snaps. “Whatever she encountered is something none of you would have been able to overcome.”
“So, what now?” I croak, my voice rough from tension and from shouting Simone’s name all night.
“We will ask the Council for aid.” Daniel’s voice is soothing, and I nod like I don’t realize it’s pointless. What will they do, these mysterious angels and demons who set laws which Hell is only half pretending to follow? If a higher-tier demon killed her, we’ll never know.
My team clusters around me, their faces drawn with exhaustion and worry. Jess is silently crying, her face unmoving with grief. She looks like she’s too exhausted to sob, but the pain doesn’t care – it finds a way out.
Maalik looks at us and sighs. “Try to get some rest.”
Despite his alien eyes, it’s obvious to me he feels heavy with remorse. Maybe he’s thinking he should have listened to me as well. At least I hope he’s thinking that and feels guiltier than I do.
“No more solo patrols for a while,” Corson tells us, the other fallen angels agreeing with nods. “Pairs at the least.”
