parents’ house.
“What the fuck?” she asks with newfound panic, just as surprised as me.
But there’s not time to try and figure out what just went wrong, because the ring of demons around us converges.
Delta snarls fuck as she spins and presses her winged back against mine. And then, the demons rush us all at once. All we can do is fight and slash and scream and curse as we do everythin’ we can to protect ourselves and each other. The two of us fightin’ back-to-back is like havin’ another piece slip into place in who I am, and I didn’t even know I was missin’ it until this exact moment.
Good thing my scythe is double-ended, though, because I have a feelin’ I’ll need both of these curved blades to get out of this alive.
I move so fast, cuttin’ demons apart with one end of my scythe and turnin’ them to dust with the other. I imagine I look like a propeller blade. I can feel Delta movin’ at the same pace, and I have no doubt that we’re a sight to see.
Fewer and fewer demons move in around us to fight and die, and it’s like I can see the light at the end of this sulfur and demon-blood soaked tunnel.
“Oh no you don’t, I just fucking found her!” Delta shouts out, and she shoves me forward just as one of the camo-skinned demons who somehow snuck too close to my side lashes out with its long claws.
She hisses out in pain as the claws rake down her chest instead. In some impossible gymnastics move I didn’t even know I was capable of, I flip over her, scythe raised, and I dust the demon who has another swipe aimed her way while I’m still upside down. My feet hit the grass, and I push a hand against the blood seepin’ out of the claw marks across Delta’s chest.
“Are you okay?” I ask as I apply pressure to her wounds with nothin’ other than my hand and my will for her to stop bleedin’. With my other hand, I arc the no nonsense side of my scythe and dust the row of demons closest to us.
Are they multiplyin’? How many of these damn things are there?
She grits her teeth. “I’m fine. It’s a bleeder, but I’m okay,” Delta reassures me, and then the strangest thing happens. The blood seepin’ through my fingers from where my palm is pressed against her wounds heats up. And not only heats up, but somehow moves up my damn hand.
Time slows as I watch drops of blood deny gravity and move in the wrong direction, flowin’ up my arm instead of down it. It’s as though somethin’ in me is pullin’ her essence in. Things get even weirder when the droplets of blood one by one get absorbed by my skin.
What the heck?
I’m suddenly like a parched plant, and Delta’s blood is the water I’ve been beggin’ for. Her gray eyes widen just like mine at what’s happenin’. And then, from one breath to another, power explodes out of me.
I don’t know exactly what happens, but my back arches, my mouth opens wide in a soundless scream, and somethin’ breaks in me, some sort of barrier that was trappin’ parts of me inside, shatterin’ completely.
Time speeds back up as the pulse of power slams out of me. Whatever this is doesn’t faze Delta other than to make her gasp, but the remainin’ demons all around us are thrown back, cut in half by the force that shoots out, a white ring of somethin’ rippin’ through everythin’ around us.
A tinglin’ sensation starts in my back but quickly morphs into a tearin’ pain. I whimper at the sensations sparkin’ through my body, and I cry out just as Delta grabs my shoulder and a familiar weightlessness comes over me. In the blink of an eye, she shifts us away, this time without bein’ blocked. In an instant, the terrifyin’ battle in her backyard dissolves, and we’re transported back to the driveway of Perdition Estate.
Gravel crunches under my feet as we land, but I’m suddenly top heavy and fall to my knees, my center of gravity off. Delta collapses next to me, worried gray eyes searchin’ my face as she presses her shirt to the wounds on her chest.
“Are you okay?” she asks me, her voice frantic. “I’m so sorry. I thought we were safe there, and then with the sound of the storm...” she trails off, her gaze