“Illorads,” Kas said, pushing Mia back with his tail.
Illorads? She’d heard of lorads, small demon lizards. These things were not small. They had to be ten or twelve feet long, like full-grown Komodo dragons that someone had glued big spikes onto. A dozen of them. Six of them sprinted along the cavern walls near the base, and six more followed them on the ground.
Everyone drew their weapons, but Vinicius took the longest getting ready, body weighed down by nothing, and he snarled down at the floor as he pushed himself up with three arms. Normally, it took him one.
Faust and the others got their swords out in front of them, borderline back to back, eyes locked on the oncoming wave. Julisa stood ready, four swords out, and Adron came and stood with Kas. Mia was protected on all sides.
The lizards ran, hissing, snapping at the demons, and… went on by. They hugged the wall, kept plenty of space between them and the demons, and scurried on, looking back and throwing glances at Mia and the demons for only a second. They disappeared into the dark cavern.
“Um… a hunting party?” Mia asked. “It’s morning twilight, right? Hellbeasts out hunting for easier game?”
“Maybe,” Adron said, and he hooked his sword to his back. “Hellbeasts have been acting weird lately. And usually a pack of hungry hellbeasts wouldn’t hesitate to throw themselves at us if they thought there was even a chance they’d win.” He gestured at the fleeing lizards with his sword. “There’s enough of them. They might have gotten two, maybe three volarins, if they’d tried.”
The incubi — volarins — rolled their eyes as they sheathed their swords.
“They flee,” Vin said, eyes pointed the way the lizards had come from.
Everyone looked back the way the lizards had first appeared, and waited. Breaths held, they listened for the inevitable growl of some giant monster that would take every bit of skill and strength they had to defeat. Maybe the not-so-invisible monster had found them. They waited, but nothing came.
“Smell anything?” she asked Kas.
“No.”
“Then… I guess we go? We need food asap, and find a way back topside, and find a way back to the trenches and hopefully to the big Trench, and find Romakus and Yosepha.” She counted on her fingers. A list of impossible tasks, but everything on her to-do list was impossible lately, and she just kept pushing forward.
Knowing David was out there, still alive and trying to meet the same goal, made it easier. If she died, he’d do it. Not that she was thinking she’d die on this journey, not with all the friends and allies she’d made, along with all the crazy shit happening to her. But considering the ground had literally swallowed her, randomly, it was safe to assume someone or something out there was trying to interfere with her journey. Best way to interfere was to kill her. And if she died, he’d succeed.
“We go,” Julisa said. Not agreeing with Mia, of course, because that’d be too nice, instead using her bitch tone to make sure everyone knew she was in charge. Whatever. As long as she and Mia had the same goal, what difference did it make?
It would eventually. In the future, Julisa would get directly in Mia’s way, leading to some kinda conflict, and who knew what’d happen then. Ugh, why couldn’t people just get along?
Mia walked. A glance Vin’s way proved the titan was struggling, and she didn’t want to be another burden for him to carry. Of course, he wouldn’t admit he was struggling, just that he was hungry. So she climbed onto Kas’s back instead, and he didn’t so much as grunt.
“Kas,” she said. “You have anything you wanna do, when this is all done?”
“Do?”
“Yeah. I mean, you and Adron joined us pretty quick, and I get why, what with that Diogo asshole apparently running Death’s Grip now. But assuming we get to False Gate, we find a way across the red sea, and we get to the Forgotten Place and save the world, what are you gonna do? What’s your plan?”
Kas rumbled, vibration tingling her thighs, but after a few seconds of waiting, he said nothing, not even a click. Resisting the urge to poke him on his flat shark head, she looked back to Adron.
Adron shrugged. “You think any of us plan that far ahead?”
“Zel did.”
“Zel acted like she did, but Zel only ever had one goal. She wanted to rule Hell, and she pursued whatever road looked like it’d head in that direction. Not like she ever thought about what she’d do after she succeeded.”
Good point. It wasn’t that demons didn’t think, but rather, they didn’t think about things past their immediate goal.
“Well, I have plans! Ideally, I’d find a way out of Hell, maybe to Heaven, and you’re all invited, of course. Yes, that includes you, Julisa.” Classic harassment tactic. Offer an invitation to the girl you know won’t accept. High school bitch maneuvers 101.
“Heaven?” Adron asked, jogging and catching up.
“Well, yeah. I’m unmarked, right?”
“Neither am I, and no way they’d let me in Heaven.”
“But I…” Sighing, she stroked her egg and slumped forward. “Yeah, you’re right. I’m not human.”
“I dunno,” Faust said. “You seem pretty damn human.”
Julisa barked a laugh. “She fit Vinicius inside her. She is not human.”
Fuck. Maybe it wasn’t a good idea to try and socially maneuver with Julisa. The bitch was mean.
“Maybe she’ll have room for more than just him, in the future,” Gallius said, grinning.
Mia blushed, heartbeat in her face, and she glared back at the incubus. All four of them grinned at her.
Vinicius rumbled. Not a snarl like usual, just a quiet rumble. Too hungry to be possessive of Mia, or maybe he didn’t care.
He had to care a little. Right?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~David~~
Somehow, they got through the night. Everyone slept and woke with energy they didn’t have yesterday.
David’s stomach felt like it was eating him from the inside out, though, and he groaned as he clutched it. His voice cut through the silence, and he snapped his head around. Girls? The girls. He sighed, unclenched his muscles, and walked his way over to them. All of them had found places to sleep on the floor, some between the pews, Caera along the aisle, while Vicus and Jes both stood watch at the front door.
“He didn’t find us?” David asked.
With a long groan of her own, Caera did a big, classic cat stretch, and sauntered up to David. She rubbed against his body, again like a house cat, and he couldn’t help but lean down and kiss her.
“He didn’t,” Jes said. “Vicus didn’t lie, apparently. This church is kind of out of the way of the action. No souls. No demons. No rider.”
No souls. David rubbed his stomach and pressed on it. But the hunger wasn’t physical, and squashing his stomach did nothing. Holy fuck, it was like a black hole. Combined with the ache of his inner fingers, worse now than ever, he really felt like shit. Exhausted, but not sleepy, so at least he had that going.
“We need to get moving,” Caera said. “David needs to eat. Vicus, you sure we can’t hunt from here?”
Vicus closed the front door and took watch by an empty window.
“I’m sure. There are pockets of nothing in the Grave Valley where nothing happens. This is one. If the rider is chasing the unmarked, it isn’t as simple as following his trail. He would have found us already.”
Finally, some good news.
“We guard David!” Lasca said, and she raised her sword high. “Fight rider!”
Acelina hissed down at the four Las as she stretched, too.
“You ran the moment those cannams arrived.”
“Las can’t fight cannam,” Laria said. “Too big. Too fast!”
“And don’t think we didn’t notice how quickly you ran from the rider. Far faster than you ran from the cannams.”