Chapter 187: Shoot Second

I started up a spell that would end this fight, but I couldn’t focus with all the noise in my head. Demon Vivian fired another bolt as I dove for the floor.

Spinning, my tail batted it away and I landed with a crash, claws cutting through my boots and into the stone floor. Immediately, magic of all types assailed me, scorching, freezing, cutting. With a roar, I threw myself at the nearest envy demon, but I barely grazed them.

I whirled and tried to tear through the circle of demons, but they moved and flowed over pews and rubble, blinding me away from the windows with magic. Of varying looks, they were all gaunt, gangly, and very, very angry.

A second volley hit me—no fire this time. Again, I lunged. Again I scored a minor hit. They were fast—greater demons, all of them. And they weren’t taunting; they were here to kill me, plain and simple. I barely dodged the next bolt, and I could feel the injuries piling up—nothing major, but enough to hurt.

All the while only my Name kept my head clear. I needed something more than claws and fangs to fight this. I’m a Sovereign demon damnit! One of the six!

Snarling, I lunged again, but this time, I pulled back with a whip of fire. The demon screamed and I poured more magic into the spell.

Clothes. Weapons.

They always failed me. But I’d never truly sought a solution, because I hadn’t wanted to. I couldn’t afford to wax philosophical on all the many whys of that question, but I knew one thing for sure.

I wasn’t the same Zarenna as I was the last time I’d fought here, for good and ill both. I was Zerix’Arranthariel, Sovereign of Wrath, and I was damn well past the point of being ready to fight.

Fire pulled out of me, solidifying impossibly even as wind gave it edges. I felt like a little of myself was pulled into the forming shape and its shining blades. Four hands gripped a handle that one could wield, and I swung the burning, glowing double-headed axe in a sweeping arc.

Long arms and longer reach, it struck before my opponents could dance out of the way. My axe’s head sliced through the first’s spine, blood spraying just as the next was hit. The top half of the first demon hadn’t started to fall by the time the third was hit, and the fourth was just far enough off the arc to stay in one piece.

Power flowed into me in a steady stream. Accomplices. Challengers.

Other words threatened my mind, but I batted them away. I was no more a monster than anyone with a family and friends to protect.

But I did notice that the swing was unbalanced. And I lurched forward. Instead of a follow-up, I barely blocked an assault from a six-armed demon with sparking claws and stumbled when a bolt caught me in the leg.

Blocking with one arm, sweeping with my tail, and swinging my axe with my top arms, I ripped the bolt out and threw it back toward its sender. I missed obviously. Through all the magic and bodies and blood I couldn’t see for sure, but I totally missed.

My new axe, however, made the fight a lot less fair. I was faster, I was getting faster with each kill, and they couldn’t adapt before I’d felled half their number. More than that, the weapon felt right. Visceral, heavy, capable of massive sweeps and directed stabs with its pointed tip, it felt right.

That didn’t change my novice form with it, although every swing felt cleaner. The metal of the blades glowed crimson, with a greenish sheen, and it trailed sparks like it’d just been struck right out of the forge. Even the handle was metal and lit by a similar, albeit dimmer glow.

Set into the pommel was a gem that matched the one on my sternum, and the green sheen of it was a confidence-boosting approval from a dear old friend. Confidence I definitely needed.

I’d thought there were a dozen demons. There were more.

And they were definitely corralling me away from Vivian. The wound in my leg was deep, past the bone, and if I could feel how I favored one side, my opponents could see it, too. I kept swinging, and they moved further back, over ruined pews and even up onto walls.

I started mixing simple shots of fire and wind into my attacks, breaking both bodies and stone. My wings came out at some point, around when another bolt struck my other leg. I dove for Vivian, but she moved like a living gout of fire just out of my reach.

I’d have made it anyway if it wasn’t for the others. My head still pounded from the relentless assault, so I flew back and up on my wings before divebombing a small group. Some got out, some didn’t, and the ones that didn’t, didn’t live long.

Swing. Throw. Dodge. Grunt.

Another bolt hit me in the side. And another in an arm, weakening it. But I took out demons faster than they came in and by the time I’d lost count around twenty, the herd had thinned. And like the spineless, vexingly intelligent bastards they were, they tried to scatter.

Unfortunately for them, they couldn’t run and maintain a constant bombardment against my mind. I felt clarity like the morning after a bad headache, and I gathered power.

Vivian shouted, but the next bolt was incinerated against the growing sphere of the hottest damn fire I could manage. I probably didn’t need to melt the stone, but I did, and I released that power with a swing of my axe.

Like shooting stars, tendrils of fire shot out, following my aura sight to their targets. Some were behind walls—the flames drilled through them. Others tried to move—the flames looped back. Like an avalanche gaining momentum, each of the demons allied with Vivian lit up into screeching infernos as a wave of heat washed through the church, setting some of the bodies lying about to smoldering.

Vivian leaned into it, braced with an arm, and came out sneering. She took aim and fired at the end of my swing.

I caught the bolt with my good free hand and snapped it.

From the latest demons, I felt another surge of power. Nothing like a full soul from a greater demon, but something substantial.

She glared at me, eyes radiating pure fury. “You’re finally showing what you really are.”

I opened my mouth to deny it, but then I furrowed my brow. Landing softly a few paces away from her, I took a step forward—she surprised me by not flinching. “I like to think so—in a way. I’m showing what I can be when I need to.”

“Monster. You were going to use me like you used those other humans.”

I started walking toward her. “Do you think I’m a monster for defending myself? I almost gave you a chance, you know. If Seyari or Taava or Nelys had come running out just a little earlier, shouting that they were all okay, I might’ve spared you.”

Vivian fired again, and with a blur of glowing blades, I cut the bolt down—barely. Any closer and even I couldn’t react fast enough.

“Bullshit,” she spat.

I stopped, facing her down only a few paces outside my axe’s reach. Even with the height difference between stage and nave, I was at her eye level and we locked gazes. “You tried to kill the woman I love, and my friends. Whether you succeeded or not doesn’t really matter, does it?”

Demon Vivian’s brown-on-black eyes narrowed.

I could ask her if she felt all the recent murders were justified, but they absolutely weren’t. I could tell her I didn’t enjoy doing this, but that’d only be a partial truth. There wasn’t anything else to say.

And Vivian also knew this.

She moved first, her body shifting into a rain of embers and a gout of crimson flame. Acting half on instinct, I pulled at the retreating flames. They faltered, flared, then were sent tumbling back towards me. How could this work?

I couldn’t dwell on it; the moment she coalesced out of the flames, Vivian fired. The shot punched through my shoulder, and the crossbow clattered to the ground as she moved to draw the blades at her hips.

I grabbed one of her arms, and brought the axe around with two more, using my tail as a counterweight. We spun, and I finally saw fear in her eyes. Fear, and perhaps regret. Magic blade parted flesh, then bone.

Vivian choked a gurgling cry, then fell apart, cleaved in two at the waist. Her regeneration tried for a moment, flames burned around her, and her arm went slack in mine.

“For what it’s worth—” I grasped her hand, then let go “—I’m sorry.”

I didn’t know if she heard me, and when she died, I felt her soul slam into mine. Ready this time, I accepted it, and a wave of power washed over me. Jaw clenching, I forced down the sense of euphoria—this wasn’t something I wanted to associate with pleasure.

As a corpse, Vivian looked almost like a mundane demon-blooded—the black sclerae of her eyes were the biggest tell. She didn’t look peaceful in death—she looked tormented. There was no bright side to this, no sign that all was well in the end.

I hated it, but I struggled to tear my eyes away. If the church was abandoned before, it was a ruin now. Snow fell in tiny flakes through fresh holes in the roof, the walls were cracked in places and melted in others. And the two rows of columns standing in lines down the nave looked like the sad remnants of a decimated division returning from battle: slumped over, missing, and broken.

Meanwhile, I was covered in blood, wearing tattered rags, and holding a gleaming axe taller than I was, with blades each as wide as my head. It wasn’t covered in wicked spikes, but it glowed red-hot and flames licked around the blades. The tip had a spike for thrusting. Going on instinct, I pulled at the spell holding the axe together and it came apart, flowing back into my gem in a rush of flames.

A fitting weapon for the Sovereign of Wrath: made to cut down swathes of enemies indiscriminately. A tool of vicious gore. I knew my strength, and was confident in my body if not my stance. Regardless of its appearance, I’d bend its use to suit my purpose.

That, perhaps, had been the key: confidence rather than evasion. Human weapons didn’t suit me. Similarly… I looked down—human clothing wouldn’t suit me. When I fought, at least. I loved my dress from Elena in Port Princely, and I deeply desired to commission another from Countess Elstein. The first, I supposed, didn’t really count after what Lilly had done, but I needed something better to fight in.

If I could make an axe out of my magic, could I not also make something to wear? The thought was both galling and appealing—in a way, I’d be naked. Unfortunately, I looked like the sorts of demons I usually tried to reform or kill, and I could now hear shouting from outside.

The fight had been loud and intense, but it was also clearly over and curiosity would bring people here even ahead of Captain Kerra and her city guard. Technicalities aside, I needed something to wear. For my own sake, I stepped away from the bodies, and tried to think.

The axe had been instinctual, desire and need made form. So why not try the same for something to wear? Something practical.

I pulled on my magic and stumbled at the hit to my mana reserves. Warm heat washed over me, flames forming something a bit more. It started with underclothes, then underpadding and not-leather. Just when I was thinking it looked a bit like my company outfit with a stylized bump where my gem was, plates of softly glowing not-metal grew across the surface, linking and locking like a partial version of Kartania’s armor.

The pauldron on my right shoulder formed weightier, and a neck guard lifted itself up, linking over the front of my throat. Plates—arm guards—formed over my lower arms’ forearms. All down my tail, heavy links of studded metal fell into place. My hands, claws and all, were left exposed, as was the majority of each foot. That, and the lighter armor on my non-tail limbs, would give me some protection without making me lose mobility.

Unfortunately, I’d wanted something comfortable to walk around in. I couldn’t say it was uncomfortable despite looking like it weighed half as much as Seyari did, but it certainly wasn’t casual wear. Crimson and glowing, hot enough that I could see the air around myself distorting, the armor didn’t need spikes to look intimidating.

I suppose I hadn’t been envisioning an axe, either. If this was something more intrinsic, or something that sufficiently powerful or Sovereign demons could do, I’d need to ask Lilly about it.

For now, however, it was what I had to wear. Hopefully I could get something from the duchess or Kerra before I left Gedon, because walking into the Gelles company to ask to see my storage looking like I’d just been dumped out of a forge wasn’t going to work.

The commotion from outside drew closer, and I took a deep breath. Last time I did this, it was a standoff, and I’d been on the defensive. This time, people knew what I was, and I was surrounded by demon corpses instead of trying to protect a living demon.

It’d go better, right?

One look down at my armor made me think I might as well have my axe to match for all it was going to help with diplomacy. At least the Sovereign of Wrath special didn’t come with a helm covered in spikes and literally on fire. And I’d even burned all the blood and viscera off!

Taking just a moment to practice my “I am not here to kill you and burn the city” neutral expression, I walked right out the opening where the front doors would have been.

On the other side were, predictably, civilians. Also predictably, they screamed and ran away. Most did, others stood frozen, staring at me with wide eyes. One or two I saw staring from alleys at what they assumed—correctly, but for the wrong reasons—to be a safe distance. That meant there were probably more I didn’t see.

Trying my best to look unassuming, I leaned against the wall of the church. Water dripped down on me from melting icicles above, and I saw a contingent of the city guard arriving into the square on horseback just as the large pile of snow above me fell down onto my head.

Water hissed against my armor and I spluttered, batting at the crunchy old snow with all of my arms. Somewhere, in an alley, someone laughed. When I got my eyes clear, I could see Captain Kerra at the lead.

“Zarenna!” she shouted.

Please don’t say that I did a good job “breaking the ice.” “Yeah?”

Kerra pulled her horse up a short distance from me. “I assume you caught the culprit?”

I got up off the wall and let the rest of the water steam off me. “I did, yeah.”

She walked forward, while the other guards pulled up. Some dismounted, headed for the people watching, and others followed her. All of them gave me wary glances.

I returned their looks with a toothy grin and was not at all incredibly pleased with the flinches I got in response.

“Holy shit,” Kerra mumbled from the doorway, then stepped back. “What… how? How many… were these all demons?”

I turned to look at her standing straight like a fencepost in the doorway. “Yeah, greater Envy and a greater Wrath. Maybe a few avarice demons—I couldn’t exactly stop and look.”

“Did any escape?”

“I don’t think so, but it’s entirely possible some did.” I looked back around the square, then something caught my peripheral vision, and I looked up into the empty belltower. For a moment, I could have sworn someone was there.

Envy?

“Do you see something?” I heard the sliding sound of a blade unsheathing.

“No, it was nothing.”

“If you’re certain.”

“I am.”

The blade slid back, and I looked down.

Kerra’s eyes moved up and down my glowing armor. “If I didn’t know you, I’d not assume good things from this look.”

“Well I’m glad you know me.” I put two hands at my hips and gestured with a third. “Seems like your guards don’t feel the same, though.”

“They’ll get over it. A few of them recognize you, even.” She leaned in. “You know you’re not good at keeping all your identities secret from each other.”

“I don’t want them to be,” I said back, rather plainly. “In fact, I think you should expect some news about that in the relatively new future—I won’t be hiding like at the last event.”

Kerra nodded. “Right then. We can take it from here, I think, but I want to ask: why were there so many demons? They could have overrun half the city.”

“I think… they were trying to lure me here. The wrath demon was that mercenary who tried to kill me. It’s complicated and I don’t know for sure, but I think she was put up to this in a way—someone stoked her desires.”

“That’s twisted.” Kerra hissed out a breath.

Both my eyebrows shot up. “I’m a little surprised you’re not trying to blame me somehow.”

Kerra cocked her head to one side. “Why would I? It’s not your fault if you defend yourself and someone else commits crimes looking for round two.”

“I know, but that’s… well when I look like this people tend to read into it further. Honestly, I thought my armor would get more of a reaction from you.”

“Zarenna,” Kerra started. “Every instinct in my body is telling me to run away screaming while I’m this close to you. You scare the living shit out of me on a damn near constant basis. But you’ve shown yourself time and again, and quite frankly you’ve shown me so many insane things today that a suit of armor so hot it’s glowing isn’t going to push me over the edge.”

“Good to know. But, I wanted to ask about that.”

Kerra furrowed her brows. “About what?”

“Do you have something mundane I can wear? I didn’t bring a change of clothes, and I want to not cause a panic when I stop in Linthel on my way home tonight.”

“Oh,” she chuckled and turned back to her guards. “Yeah, we’ll figure something out.”

“And Kerra,” I whispered, “thanks for knowing to be discreet about certain things.”

She waved a hand. “I wouldn’t have this job if I couldn’t read the room. I’ll have my folks take this and you can come with me for a change.” One she reached her horse, which was doing an admirable job of not bolting while staring at me intently, she stopped. “Could you fly there, actually? The guard house—if you remember where that is. It’ll cause less panic than you running through the city.”

“Vaguely? I’ll figure it out.”

“Good enough. Try not to beat me there.”

I nodded and watched her go. Rather than wait around for the Church to show up, I summoned my wings and leapt skyward. My new armor, of course, had holes for them in the back.

The flight was quick, and I followed Kerra’s horse to her destination, circled, and landed in the back. Some yelling, some shouting, and a broken sword from one person too brave for his own good later, I was dressed in clothes taken from somewhere that smelled faintly of alcohol and piss.

Wind magic and heat helped things a little, but I tied the rope belt only begrudgingly. All the apologies of “we didn’t have anything else that would fit you” could only go so far toward making me feel like my reward for all this was rather insulting. I just reminded myself that the true reward was aid, and a political friendship—if not a future alliance.

So, looking both human and like a drunk just let out of a holding cell, I gleefully burned two holes into the back of the shirt and took skyward again, banking for Linthel. A book, a message to the king through the Gelles company, an offer to hire mercenaries to watch the pass, and I’d be free to fly home.

The thing I was most looking forward to was showing Seyari my axe, and the spar-turned-something-more that would surely follow.