Seeker: Demon Killers [Fantasy/Action | Complete]

Chapter 2: A Family of Peculiar Misfits

Markl yelled, tumbling backwards. Tora threw a forcefield around him as soon as she came within ten metres. The unharmed demons that had swarmed around their burned comrades bounced off, snarling. They rammed against her shield, to no avail. Behind her, Markl panted, clutching his bloodied shoulder, his blood pumping out incessantly.

"That was careless of you, Markl," Tora said, sizing the creatures up.

Four demons. All long-clawed and -tailed, shaped like domesticated cats, but larger and more gross. The muscles bulged under their hairless, grey skin. The one with the burned face that had taken Markl's arm off already lay dead on the ground in a steaming mess.

Markl chuckled without mirth. Blood continued to splash onto the floor. His face was white, contrasting sharply with his dark hair.

"You should have seen how many there were when Damien closed the rip."

"Now's not the time for idle chit chat," snapped Ross, glaring at Tora.

Tora made a face at Ross, who by then had darted around Tora's forcefield with three Ross copies. The demons screeched at her, sounding like anything but the cats they physically resembled. Damien felled one of them. It screamed, writhing on the floor like a worm, thrashing its forked tail.

Tora tapped her feet, sighing, as Ross and Carlos – the latter still invisible – moved in. During the punching and shouting, she glanced down at Markl, who still breathed heavily. He must have sensed her impatience, because on the tenth glance, he looked up with a weak smile.

"Go and join them if you want to so badly."

His arm was a stump, ending just below the elbow. Even as she watched, Tora could see the tendrils swirling where the blood vessels and muscles were regenerating. The skin that had burned off during Markl's fight would soon be as good as new.

With a grin, Tora sprinted forward. Most of the demons were dead. The other three were tidying up the last ones. Corpses smoked on the floor. The early ones had already disappeared without a trace.

With a shout, Carlos punched a demon that was the size and shape of a hippo, but with bat-like ears and razor-sharp teeth. His knuckles left a two-inch deep indentation in its flank and he grunted as his bones cracked. Ross broke the neck of the creature she mounted and threw it, without warning, at the hippo. Tora managed to give the hippo a kick in the face – the impact sent a shuddering impulse up to her hip – before Ross's demon slammed into it. Carlos stumbled back, shock flitting across his freckled face and narrowly avoiding being flattened by a two-hundred-kilogram monster.

"Hey!" he protested. "I'm still here!"

Ross ignored him. Three copies of her pummelled the remaining demon, distracting it from the real one advancing closer.

Tora jumped in, too fast for the stunned hippo to see. Sweat stung Tora's eyes. The hippo stood on precarious legs and stumbled when she rammed into it. Her shoulder dislocated, sending a spasm of pain shooting from the joint into her neck and down the side of her chest.

"Hey!"

Popping it into place without effort, Tora rammed a knee into its chest. The demon's eyes bulged. It opened its mouth, a pathetic last-minute attempt to bite her, but it was too slow. Slipping by the gaping orifice, she lifted her leg and slammed her heel on its head. Her ankle cracked. The hippo's head split like a dropped tomato. Blood ran like fountains across the floor, staining Tora's converses.

"Hello?"

Tora gave Carlos a look, sweeping her sticky fringe off her face. There was a forlorn expression on his freckled face. Coupled with the pouting lips, it was all Tora could do not to punch him in the shoulder.