I start banging on the demon’s bristled arm. I claw at its tough skin. I kick my feet, but they can’t get a good hold.
The ceiling swirls behind the demon’s face. My blows soften, my grip on reality waning. No matter how hard I gasp, I can’t find the air I so desperately need, and my eyes soon start to flutter.
Maybe it’s best this way. At least if I’m unconscious, I won’t have to watch everyone I care about die; I won’t feel the demons as they consume me, limb by limb.
Just as my vision is about to fade, a large shadow swirls overhead. It collides with the demon, and the creature disappears, crashing somewhere out of sight, as I fall to the floor. My head strikes something soft, not stony like I expected, and I’m only faintly aware between my gasping breaths that the thing beneath me is a warm body.
I push myself up, lungs aching and hungry for air. I swallow it all, guzzling it in like I’ve never been thirstier in my life. Tears stream down my cheeks from the effort, but I can’t stop. Nothing has ever tasted so good.
Bleary-eyed, I finally glance up. With the chaos still live around me, the only thing I can think of is finding my dagger, but just as I’m starting to make sense of the crumpled masses on the floor, someone grabs me.
I’m hoisted to my feet before my eyes have a chance to adjust fully. The shape is that of a man, a strapping one, at that, with unbelievably dark skin. He takes my hand, closes it around something light and familiar. I look down to find my brother’s blade clutched in my grasp.
With each clearing blink, I bring my gaze up, my eyes roving over his inky chest and the ripples of muscle I find there. He could fight off an entire army of demons with his bare hands if he wanted to. In fact, as my eyes continue adjusting, and as I start noting the slickness that covers most of his body, I start to wonder if he hasn’t already.
The acrid stench of demon blood wafts between us. I wince, drawing back just enough to slide my gaze back up to the thing standing before me, only to realize I’ve seen him before.
Dark eyes. Dark hair. A creature with a human face and body, but with demon attributes like wings, horns, and his demonic arm, still blackened and bristled. As for the rest of him…
Too stupefied to move, and too curious to do so anyway, I extend a shaky finger out and drag it down his chest. The black ink smears away, leaving only his pale skin to break through the demon blood he’s painted on him. I drag another finger over his demon arm, pulling it back to find it still clean.
Shaking my head, I start to back away. How is he here? How did he find me?
One of the journals I’d read in the library answers for me: some demons can scent their prey.
But this demon is unlike any I’ve read about, still through all my studies. We haven’t discussed demons who make themselves appear human in any of Scholar Amon’s lessons, nor have there been mention of them in any of the discarded and forgotten books.
My brow twitches. I’m overcome with horror and bewilderment. “Who are you?”
His jaw tightens, as if he can actually understand me. It looks like he strains for the words, but I’m not even sure he knows the human language. The only sounds I’ve heard demons make are the vicious ones churning around us.
“Ry—” he begins, but the syllable is cut short by the ringing of shadowsteel before I can figure out if it’s an actual language he was about to speak, or it was just a sound.
Out of the corner of my eye, I spy the Crusaders filing into the catacombs, their weapons drawn, their strikes true.
The partial demon before me snarls, twisting away without another word or growl. He slams into the wall, defying the pull of gravity as he walks across the stones as if it were the floor beneath my feet. He bounds for the window, clears it in one go, and is gone.
The Crusaders slash through the beasts that have cornered us inside. Within a matter of minutes, they’ve killed every last one of them.
I pull my thoughts away from the half-demon to search the carnage around me for my friends. I lost track of all of them during the fight. I’m not even sure if any of them made it.
With my heart in my throat, I push through the Crusaders toward the window. It’s the last place I saw Dimitri standing. Before Güthric had been knocked back, the two of them seemed like they were winning. But what happened to the skull Güthric wielded could’ve happened to Dimitri’s bone blade too, and once the other demons entered the catacombs, there’s no telling how long he stood, or if he even lasted that long enough to…
I burst past the Crusaders and stumble over the heap of demons lying at their feet. My boots squelch in the dark blood, but I hardly notice. Every one of my senses are trained on Dimitri. His hand is pressed against the wall, his back hunched and breathing ragged. The moment I enter the clearing, he glances over his shoulder as if he can sense me. He pushes himself off the wall, his terrified gaze quivering as he takes me in, scans me for the same wounds I’m searching for on him.
He shakes his head, answering the question I’m too afraid to ask. A small smile twitches on my lips. I don’t know how it’s possible, how he’s alive, how he’s not even injured. He is drenched in blood, the black splatter of demon gore the most concentrated on his chest and the arm he was stabbing with. It reminds me of the way things used to be, how often I’d find him at the end of the day covered in bloodstains, wrist-deep in the intestines of a hog or a deer or some other woodland animal he’d hunted. I’d been afraid to touch him back then, too sickened by the blood and the thought of getting it on me.
I bound for him now and throw my arms around his neck. He wobbles with the weight of me, still exhausted from the fight, but he steadies quickly, his arms reaching around my waist and squeezing me close.
Hurried, panicked strides thump down the ramp. “Report. What damage has been done?”
Alphonse strides into the gloomy morgue with all the tact of an elephant. Under normal circumstances, I might begrudge him for it. He talks about the deaths of his Crusaders like they’re just meaningless numbers. But his hair is frazzled, a few rogue strands dangling from the typically straightened mass. His face is covered in grime. It’s only once he’s in the center of the room, wildly looking around at all of us for answers, do I see the thick darkness coating his shadowsteel sword like a quill dipped in ink.
I suppose it’s his job to tally the dead after encounters like this, and any of us would be just as tactless if we were in his shoes.
“Did they take any of the necro-ink?” he growls, enunciating his point.
He doesn’t care about the dead. All he cares about are the resources that the dead provide.
I stifle a gasp as I watch him with horror. Since accepting the role of general to the Shadow Crusade, is he even human anymore? How can he walk in here after what we’ve just endured and speak so coldly about lost resources?
Dimitri clutches me tighter and I’m not sure if it’s because he’s afraid I’ll do something stupid, or if he also needs something to hold onto to stop the world from spinning around him. I still haven’t recovered from my near strangulation, and so, rather than calling Alphonse out for his callousness, I lean back into Dimitri and scan the crowd of those still standing.
Fox.
Güthric.
Silver.
Sai.
All of our friends have survived. Even Maxwell, despite all odds, is still standing.