She bangs on the door with her fists.
“Rye? Rye? I know you can hear me. Open this door right now,” she shouts.
I ignore her and she keeps banging on the door. Abruptly the banging stops and I wonder what trick she’s going to try and pull, but I don’t have time to work it out right now. Two demons have appeared in front of me in the hallway.
They look like normal men except for three things: their skin is bloodred, tiny blue flames flicker where their fingertips should be, and their teeth are a full set of jet-black fangs dripping with yellow venom. So yeah, normal.
I stand tensed up, facing the demons, waiting for their attack. One of them takes a half step forward, but rather than attacking, he raises his hands, showing me they are empty. It doesn’t mean much from someone who can throw power balls from his hands, but it’ll buy me some time.
“We have no interest in you, God. Move aside and give us the Paradox and you will live,” he says.
Somehow, this angers me more than if he had attacked. He is talking about Sailor as though she’s nothing more than a bargaining chip. I clench my jaw and shake my head.
“Not a fucking chance,” I say. “Prepare to go right back to Hell, motherfucker.”
I start running as I speak, and the demons do the same. We come together in the center of the hallway. Power balls fly at me and I duck and dodge. I pull my knife out and use it to deflect a power ball that’s coming right at my face. The demons have covered the length of the hall and they’re almost on me. I swipe out with my knife and I manage to make a cut across one of the demon’s arms. He roars angrily and reaches for me.
He clasps my wrist in his hand and the little blue flames enlarge and encase my arm like a blue sleeve. I can feel my energy levels plummeting, and it hits me, too late, that these are Zavin Demons, a kind of demon that can drain a person’s energy with their touch.
He’s still gripping me and I can feel myself getting weaker as the other one stands behind him, firing power balls, being careful not to hit the other demon. I have to get my arm away or I’m done. I try to pull my arm free but his grip is too strong and the power balls flying at me are distracting me.
I remember my knife and I bring it up and swipe it down in a vicious arc, severing his hand at the wrist. The fingers loosen and the hand falls to the floor with a clonking sound. The demon howls, holding up his stump, looking at it in almost comical surprise as blood spurts from it.
I watch, fascinated, as the skin begins to reform and grow over the end of his wrist. His hand doesn’t regenerate, which is something, but he’s not going to bleed out. A power ball comes at my face and I duck down just in time. I hear a crashing sound as it hits the wall behind me. Plaster dust rains down and I cough as I breathe it in.
The one-handed demon comes at me again, and I move back slightly to avoid the groping fingers on its remaining hand. If it catches me again, I’m dead. I lunge toward the demon, stabbing out with my knife. It jumps back and I miss my kill shot, but I have it worried now. I can see the panic momentarily flit across its face when it sees me fighting back. It’s not used to taking on gods. On a mortal, that one touch would have been enough to sap their entire energy reserves and drop them.
I keep advancing, swiping at the demon with my knife. It backs up and ends up in the living room. I am still in the hallway, standing just outside of the living room door. I have my back to demon number two now, not an ideal situation, but each power ball it throws causes a whistling sound and I can anticipate where it will hit and move accordingly.
The demon I am facing fires a power ball at me, and I jump into the air, leaping over the power ball and coming to land close to the demon. I kick out as I fly through the air, catching it with a good kick to the side of its face. It goes down with another angry howl, but it springs back to its feet almost instantly and runs towards me. It stretches its hand out towards me and I take a step back. I trip over something and I feel myself falling.
A loud crashing sound comes from the kitchen as I fall, and the demon that’s towering over me turns to the other one for a second.
“Check it out,” he commands.
He turns back to me. I try to push myself to my feet, but he puts his foot on my chest, holding me in place.
“Now you will see what happens to people who get in my way,” he says with an evil grin.
He begins to lean towards me. My knife has fallen from my hand and I can’t reach it. I raise my arms, ready to punch him when he gets close enough to me. Before he gets there, a scream of agony rings out from the kitchen. The demon and I both freeze, our attention focused on the kitchen door.
The door slams open and Sailor appears. She’s holding the head of a demon in her hand at her side, holding it by
