The next time it tried to pull the portal trick, the return opened up right under Svetlana’s booted feet. In a spectacular display of acrobatics, she left the ground as the thing came up beneath her, snapping and clacking. She twisted in midair, her landing bringing her sword down full force on the back end of the creature, pinning it to the ground, caught between the two portals. The front half whipped about, the back half struggling to get free, and in the middle, there was just nothing. Dead space. It thrashed there, apparently not having the brainpower to figure out how to find reverse.
A faint buzzing sound reached my ears, and I adjusted the binoculars, trying to get a better look. The night vision made clear details hard to see, but there was a ripple that passed up the back of the centipede, travelling from segment to segment toward the head. The demon-bug’s head suddenly focused on her and spat something thick and steaming through the frigid night air.
She rolled out of the way, taking her sword with her, but the tree stump that took the shot for her started to smoke forlornly, parts of it dissolving as I watched. “Holy shit…” Freed, the centipede finished its travel through the portal, coming out whole on the other side again. The portal had become its downfall, though, and it didn’t try that trick again.
The pair came together in a flurry of slashes and snapping fangs, moving so fast, and it was hard to follow what exactly happened. Pretty sure no human should be able to move that fast without some sort of help. I could tell the moment Svetlana started to tire, though. The bug tail-swiped her, knocking her sprawling, and then the buzzing started again, the little waves moving through the thing’s carapace. It loomed up and spewed that toxic gunk at her, and she only had time to pull her hood up over her head, taking the hit square in the back.
The white of her coat vanished as the smoke rolled, and she stripped out of the parka quickly, leaving it to melt into the snow. That left her in what looked like a Kevlar vest, with mail sleeves attached, covering her from shoulder to wrist. A twist and yank produced another blade from somewhere, and she faced the thing with her shashka in one hand and a reversed dagger in the other. When it came at her again, she met it head-on, the sword defending her upper body as she lunged in to bury the dagger between the first and second segments.
The worm-demon whipped itself away from her, writhing as it tried to scrape the dagger free. Everywhere it touched, it left a blackness behind, and that smudge on the white snow started to move, oozing together like blobs of black mercury.
I recognized that. It was how demons bled, a wispy black fog that would eventually form another type of portal, a big one, ushering the creature back to Hell. The wounded bug was leaving a lot behind. Whatever she’d done with that dagger had hurt it, badly.
When it was unable to remove the blade, the demon came back, raising itself in the air and slamming its entire body down in an attempt to crush her. She leaped to the side, avoiding the smash, but the tail snapped around and took her feet out from under her again. Her head cracked against a tree stump loud enough that I could hear it, and inside I cringed. This was not going to end well.
She didn’t get up. Christ, she wasn’t getting up! I didn’t even realized I’d taken two steps toward the hill until Ivan’s big hand landed on my shoulder, freezing me in place. “
Despite the fact that every instinct was demanding I dash up that hill and…well, probably get my ass kicked again, I raised the lenses to my eyes, spinning the dial until I could focus in on Svetlana’s still form as closely as I could. “Come on…”
That close, I could see her chest rising and falling. I could see her hand lying across her waist. I could catch the moment her fingers twitched with purpose, easing something small off a clip on her belt. It was small enough to conceal in her hand and though I couldn’t see what it was, I recognized the distinctive flick of her thumb. A pin. She’d pulled a pin on something.
Reaching her head, the centipede picked at strands of her hair, tasting it. Finally, satisfied that Svetlana was no longer a threat, it raised up a bit to get a decent strike, its mandibles gaping wide. That’s when she struck.
Her eyes snapped open and she thrust her hand into the creature’s mouth, clear up to her elbow. Whatever she had, she was jamming it clear down the bug’s gullet. She was moving so fast, the thing didn’t even have time to bite her arm off before she’d yanked it out and scrambled away, taking shelter behind the biggest stump she could find.
The demon didn’t bother to follow, hacking and choking, trying to dislodge whatever she’d stuffed into its mouth. Its head whipped violently, the venomous rattle starting again as it tried to launch the foreign object out in a burst of toxic goo. For a moment, I thought it was going to succeed. Then it exploded.
The blast echoed forever, and took half the centipede demon with it. Bits of it rained down, drifting like falling white-hot stars in the night vision goggles, burning in the snow until the entire hillside looked like it was covered in fireflies. The parts that weren’t left burning promptly dispersed, wafting and swirling into a shining disk in midair. I lowered the glasses in favor of putting my hands over my ears, but I could still hear the high-pitched whine, a wail I could feel only in the back of my head. It seemed to go with the portal, like for just a moment we could hear the souls in Hell screaming.
And then it was gone.
Ivan put his binoculars away, and nodded. “Holy hand grenade.”
I couldn’t help it. I busted up laughing, choking it off only when I realized that he had no idea why it was funny. The big man gave me an odd look, and I just shook my head. “Never mind.” Not a Monty Python fan, obviously.
The sounds of feet scuffing through the snow made me look up in time to see Svetlana come staggering down the hillside. Her hair was a deep brown, I realized, matted to her head with sweat, but her eyes were a striking pale blue, lighter even than my own. A trickle of blood gleamed wetly down the side of her neck, oozing from the back of her head, if I had to guess, where she’d smacked it on the stump. Still, she was moving damn good. Better than I had after my last fight.
She drew up short to find us in the trees, her glance dismissing me immediately, and fixating on the big Ukrainian.
“Svetlana.” Ivan dipped his head to her in acknowledgment.
