Angel's Grace: The Demon's Series, #4

By L. Rowyn

The Demon's Series: Book 4

 

If Bright had known how good it was to be a reformed demon, it would have reformed millennia ago.

 

Not that reform has been trouble-free for it, granted. Its presence in the demon hunters' guild had been so divisive that Bright had to leave. Now Bright and its friends — Sunrise, Raven, and Mercy — hunt demons as an independent team in a foreign nation. When they stumble upon a strange new kind of demon, asking the guild for assistance means risking another backlash.

 

On a more personal level, Bright knows its three teammates would like to forge a romantic relationship with one another. Even its teammates know they want a romantic triad. But for some reason, they can't just do that. Humans are incomprehensible.

 

Still, the most worrisome issue is that some demons in Anesh have been working together to stop Bright. They've attacked Sunrise once, and Bright expects them to try again. Or to attack one of its other allies.

 

Its concerns are justified—

 

—but their plan is far worse than anything Bright imagined.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Delight in Books
• Release date: Jan 9, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215503867

Book preview

Insight Independent

On a steep hill on an eastern Baushan skyland, a demon shaped like a gigantic white fox ran, three hunters riding it.

Raven had never flown, but he imagined the sensation of flying to be like this: this sense of speed, of exhilaration, of effortless power.

Although flying would no doubt require far more effort.

Mercy rode behind him, her hands about his waist, and Sunrise behind her. Raven was seeking: a tactile sense on his skin of the cold, unpleasant auras of demons and the welcoming auras of sigil-bearers. His focus on the sense made him more aware than usual of the closeness of the two young women: of the strength of Mercy’s sigil, and the sensual appeal of Sunrise’s.

Ah, yes, this hyperawareness must be because a seeker’s sense is touch-based, Raven told himself, mockingly. And regarding Bright’s presence as unimportant is not at all inconsistent, even though it is orders of magnitude more intense.

Wait, he said in Bright’s ear, at an icy pinprick against his left knee.

By the time the god-demon had slowed to a halt, the sensation had traveled along Raven’s thigh to his hip before vanishing. Bright’s ears pricked and swiveled to listen. Which way?

By angel-gifted instinct, Raven mapped the sensations on his skin to the surrounding landscape. It was to the northeast. Move slowly, if you would. We’ve passed beyond my range.

Is it the corruption demon we’ve been looking for? Can you tell? Mercy asked.

Raven gave a tense nod, his attention on his senses, and Mercy fell silent. Within a few minutes, the sensation returned. It’s at the extreme edge of my range now; eight hundred sixty-three yards north by northeast. Even as he reported the distance, it took him by surprise – a season ago, his range had been almost half of that. But Bright used its own sigil to reinforce Raven’s, and that made a dramatic difference. It has a victim with it; I can sense its hook in them. That impression was less intense than the demon itself, but distinct enough now that he’d had a moment to concentrate.

Bright nodded and adjusted its course, still walking. They weren’t using a road; the god-demon made its own way across the scrub. The slope was too steep to be used by humans for anything save perhaps grazing goats. Their patrols were rarely by road now. Instead, they crisscrossed skylands in a grid pattern, to bring Raven as close as possible to any potential demons. This method of patrolling only worked because of Bright’s speed and maneuverability. Passengers limited the latter to a degree, but it could still traverse a hundred miles of rough terrain in a day, and do so day after day. With this method, they’d already found a half-dozen demons lurking in out-of-the-way corners of the skylands. The process delighted Bright, to Raven’s surprise. Are you kidding? it had said. On my own, it takes forever to find a demon. And when I do find one, I usually have to spend a couple of days torturing it so that I can get it to tell me where other demons are. It’s a massive waste of time. I’d way rather spend a day running while you do all the hard work of finding the annoying demons for me.

Raven found it amusing to have his task labeled ‘the hard work.’ He would have picked either ‘walking 20-30 miles every day for a season’ or ‘risking death in combat’ as the hardest parts of hunting. Even this aspect of seeking – extending his senses to detect a demon – was easier than following the physical trail of one. They’d done some of that, but Raven usually missed the faint impressions of a trail when Bright was moving at speed. They used these long, fast sweeps to find the obvious pinprick of a demon’s presence. Raven had been concerned that they might miss some of the fainter demons. Those fears had been somewhat assuaged when they caught both a misery demon and a drain demon with this method. But Raven remained haunted by the memory of one woman in Greenwaters. She’d lived but a few miles from a hunters’ guild and yet had become the victim of a misery demon for several seasons while no one realized – including him.

That they’d found so many demons still troubled Raven. They’d done the work of multiple patrols in just a handful of days. Finding demons should not have been this easy. Demons should not have been this plentiful. How long had these demons been tormenting and murdering humans before his team finally found them?

They’d heard about this corruption demon in a city to the east: it had rampaged through a remote village and killed a half-dozen people. Beyond that, it left corruption in its wake, virulent enough to torment a score of others. Because it had taken the villagers several days to reach help, the demon’s trail had been too faint to follow. Bright had found no hooks between it and its surviving victims, which meant it had been smart enough to pull them out. That was unusual behavior from a demon: clever enough to vomit out its hooks, but not enough to restrain itself from gorging.

Bright had predicted its course of travel based on that: it figured the demon would avoid roads and look for another remote village to target. So they’d been weaving back and forth across the skyland, traveling slowly further west while Raven searched for signs of it. He’d missed the trail, which didn’t surprise him at those speeds. But he’d not missed the demon itself.

Stop, please, Raven told Bright. This section of the hillside was closer to level, enough so for the humans to walk. We’re five hundred yards away and it’s not moving; we should plan our attack.

Should we be able to see it yet? Mercy asked in a murmur, peering over Raven’s shoulder.

Not yet; it’s behind the curve of the hill. On the other side of that rise, Raven answered, voice also low. Bright, anything else around beyond the demon and one victim? Can your senses identify the demon yet?

Yeah. Bright did not have a detector’s sense, not for either demons or hunters. But it sensed both hooks and emotions. The latter included animals, but the impressions of animals were weak, according to the god-demon. Demons, however, were similar in intensity to humans; they did not stand out to Bright the way they did instinctively to Raven. But demons’ emotional states were simpler, normally dominated by either hunger or satiation, in a way that adult humans seldom were. So it could make a good guess based on that. How dangerous is the demon?

Very. Raven grimaced. It’s immortal, old, and close to its full power. It is not a significant threat to you, but it should easily overpower the rest of us were you absent. How is the person, can you tell?

Uh…not good. We shouldn’t wait. Or, um, maybe it doesn’t matter if we wait because I’m not sure they’re gonna survive anyway, Bright said. They’re in really terrible shape.

So…worse than Raven was when he reached Guild White a season ago? Sunrise asked.

Yeah. A lot worse, Bright said, and Mercy winced.

Let’s not wait, Sunrise said, urgently.

Can I kill it with one good skewer, or— Bright began.

No, Raven said. You can kill it, certainly, but it shall take even you some time. Even if you exert yourself and create several horns and tentacles to attack from multiple directions. It shall regenerate, as you would. This shall not be a perilous battle, but it shall be one.

Which means it’s gonna be dangerous to the victim. Unless we can separate the victim from the demon first, anyway. Bright crinkled its muzzle in thought.

How close together are they? Mercy asked.

It’s right on top of the victim.

Raven dismounted from Bright and offered a hand to Sunrise. All right. We shall lay a web here – a small one, since we’ve little time. Then Bright and Mercy must go after it. Do your best to get the victim away from it, then drive it here to kill and trap it.

Bright divested itself of the packs it carried for the group, and then assisted the others in laying down the lines of a web with twine. They wrapped it around scrub to keep it in place rather than using stakes to secure it. For an ordinary hunting team, a trap’s web served multiple purposes. It impeded the demon’s movements and its attacks, held it in place to let hunters kill it more easily, and ensured the trap amulet was in contact with the demon at the moment its body died. Then the trap would contain the demon’s essence and prevent it from escaping to create a new body elsewhere.

But Bright’s overwhelming advantage in combat meant it only needed the web for the last purpose. Hence, crafting the web to be well-secured was much less important than making sure the web existed at all.

After a few moments, Raven waved Bright and Mercy away. We shall finish here. Go.

image-placeholder

Bright crested the rise with Mercy alone on its back. It paused, eyes and ears searching for the target it sensed but still did not see. It was late afternoon in Summer Planting, and the heat of the day was abating with the shadow of the skyland over everything. Still, plenty of ambient light remained to see by. Think it’s in a den. It sprouted a dozen tentacles along its flanks and chest, ignoring the reflexive flinch of revulsion from its rider. I’m gonna try pulling it out to get it away from its victim. It’ll try to kill its victim as soon as it realizes we’re hunters, but it might take a few moments to make that connection. You wanna go into the den when I pull it out, make sure it can’t go back in after the human? You don’t have anything that can unhook a victim, do you?

Mercy shook her head. No, unhooking requires specialized tools. It’s usually faster and safer to kill a demon quickly than to mess around unhooking its prey.

Yeah. Well. Don’t get your hopes up that we’ll save this human. And, uh, brace yourself because they’re not gonna look good.

…got it. Mercy swallowed.

Right. Let’s do this. Bright plunged forward, sure-footed on the steep slope, noting the rising adrenaline in Mercy, the keen edge of her appetite for battle. It raced toward the enemy demon’s emotions, its combination of hunger and feeding. Too much hunger, because the binging it had done several days earlier had left it ravenous to continue, to gorge itself, to corrupt dozens, hundreds at once. Instead, it was nursing a single meal, trying to quench a forest fire with the trickle of a stream. Its victim was a twitching pile of despair and horror, barely conscious.

Bright reached the area nearest its target, and swept its tentacles over a tangle of dried, rotting vegetation. The plant life pulled away from the surrounding ground to reveal a dark hole in the slope. A spike of fear, surprise, and anger from the corruption demon, even as Bright crouched and reached into the den with a mass of tentacles. They wrapped around the other demon and hauled it forward.

Mercy vaulted from Bright’s back and over its lowered head to land on the corruption demon. She sank her spear into its back as she pushed off to continue in a roll into the den beyond, yanking her spear out again as she did. Angels, she swore.

With the plant cover gone, the putrid stench was overwhelming, obvious even to ordinary human senses. Bright ignored it to yank the corruption demon fully from its den. The other demon screamed imprecations, shape squirming and twisting in Bright’s tentacles, body changing into a slick, slime-covered snake that oozed from Bright’s grasp and struck at its flank, sinking hooks into it.

Bright did not try to evade either the strike or the hook. Instead, it ran for the web that Sunrise and Raven had made, dragging the demon’s body with it.

As it ran over the rise, the corruption demon released Bright’s flank, and the god-demon spun, lashing out with its tentacles. The corruption demon had started towards its den. Mercy was crouched at the entrance, spear braced and shield up. Bright caught the demon before it had gone far. This time, instead of trying to hold it, Bright spun again and threw it in the general direction of the web.

What is your quarrel, demon? the corruption demon snarled, body coiling beneath it as it recovered its bearings. It reared its head as it saw Sunrise and Raven standing on the far side of the web, and chose a course to the east, trying to escape both Bright and the humans.

Relieved that it had interpreted Sunrise and Raven as threats rather than as potential food sources, Bright flashed forward to cut off the corruption demon’s retreat. It wrapped the enemy up in tentacles. I don’t like demons, Bright told it, and hurled it into the web.

You are a demon! the corruption demon screeched in a voice like broken glass, as the glowing lines of the web reached up to snare it. It struggled, sloughing off the skin the web clung to, blood pouring from its sides as it slithered from the web.

Doesn’t mean I have to like it. Long, straight horns grew from the center of Bright’s forehead. It charged forward to spear the demon and drive it into the web.

Raven drew closer and thrust his own spear into the corruption demon’s side, skewering it to the ground. Bright almost wished he wouldn’t; it didn’t want to risk injury to the seeker. Then again, Raven was a seeker: he knew the risk better than anyone. So it must’ve been safe. You’re feeding it; shed the hook, Raven said.

Oh, right. Corruption spread along Bright’s flank and down its leg. It shifted, altering the corrupted flesh to concentrate it in two tentacles and a leg. Then it excised all three limbs and grew a new, untainted leg. Often it didn’t worry about hooks during a fight. But corruption would persist after the demon’s death, unlike the hooks of a misery or pain demon. Best to get rid of it at once. Raven had speared the demon again while Bright dealt with the injury. The corruption demon shifted its body, melting away from both Raven’s spear and Bright’s horns. It grew a new serpentine head facing Raven and lashed out to strike: before it reached him, Bright skewered it through the eye socket. As it shed that horn, Bright grew another, and another, and another, striking again and again.

It’s dead, Raven said. Bright struck three more times after that, and Raven repeated, You may stop now. It’s dead.

Bright speared it one last time, then shed the horn still inside of the already-decomposing corpse. It stood half inside of the web, flanks heaving, staring at the body. Trap worked?

Yes. Raven used the butt of the spear to shove the decaying corpse to one side, and bent to retrieve the trap amulet. Also, thank you. I should not have closed so quickly.

Sure. Bright re-absorbed the tentacles into its body, embarrassed by its own excesses. It had spent a lot more energy than it had needed to during that fight. It never worried for itself anymore, and that made it reflexive to spend its power as a profligate, to ensure it stopped the enemy before it hurt anyone else.

Are you all right? Sunrise moved to its side and stroked Bright’s ruff, her eyes concerned.

Uh. Yeah. It shook itself out and glanced over the rise. We should check on Mercy. Victim’s…still alive. Bright felt Mercy’s own reaction, repulsed and worried and a little panicky. She had to be safe, because Mercy was never panicked or afraid during an actual fight.

They walked together over the rise. Mercy stood before the den entrance, still braced for battle. You got it? she called out. At their confirmation, she set her spear and shield down to crawl into the den. Bright heard her talking to the corruption demon’s prey, low tones that reassured her more than the victim.

You need a hand? Bright asked. It hung back as Raven and Sunrise closed on the den.

I can manage. Her voice emerged muffled from the den. Ouch, sorry – not enough room, anyway. We got it…sir, it’s dead. We’re gonna get you to treatment. What she pulled from the den scarcely looked human: the right half of the body was swollen, naked limbs distended by lumpy buboes of flesh in pustulent shades of green, purple and blue.

Raven knelt by the man’s head to offer his canteen.

The man accepted a sip, then shook his head. No, he whispered, voice hoarse. Let me die.

We shall get you to a mender, Raven told him. Corruption is treatable. As I well know; I recovered from a corruption infection last season.

But the man only shook his head again. Please. Let me die.

Sunrise gave a helpless look to Bright. Bright crinkled its muzzle, restraining the impulse to snarl. Its lure was unhappy. Everyone was unhappy, most of all the badly disfigured body before them. He only had one physical injury, a bite mark red and swollen by infection on his right thigh. The rest of the damage was all corruption.

Is this treatable? Sunrise asked Raven in an undertone.

Raven stood and moved away. At a discreet distance, he answered quietly, I don’t know. I’ve never felt a case like this before. He needs a guild infirmary at once. And we’re…I don’t know. A hundred and twenty miles from Guild Yellow? And it’s the closest. They were still in Guild Yellow’s territory, but on a separate skyland from the guild hall.

For a few long moments, Bright turned the problem over in its head. I’ll have to carry him. He can’t ride and he’d probably freak if he noticed I was a demon. But he’s so out of it now, I don’t think he realizes. I can shift into a human form and run with him. But I won’t be able to carry the rest of you. And I should stay to help their mender, if he’s gonna have a chance. If their mender will let me help.

Guild Yellow has been consistently supportive, Raven said. That was true; it was one reason they were in Yellow’s territory. I believe they will appreciate your assistance. And we need to return to a guild hall in any event. They’d used their last empty trap on the corruption demon; they couldn’t stop another immortal demon without getting more.

Will you be all right? Sunrise put her arms over Bright’s shoulders and hugged it. We can catch up with you. We’re all used to walking, even if we haven’t done much of it in a while. But it’ll take several days.

Sure, I can manage. I’ve gone longer without you. After the fight at the Nyupusau Caves, I spent, what, almost half a season without you? It’ll be fine. Bright didn’t feel as confident as it sounded. Its most recent absence from Sunrise had been just six days, and those days had been miserable and endless.

You are certain? Raven eyed it with some concern, and Bright knew he was worried about its reserves. Which would not replenish while it was away from Sunrise. And which it’d carelessly depleted in that fight. Should’ve been more conservative. Rookie mistake.

Yeah. It’s fine. I can do one shift and run for a night, no problem. I won’t fight anything without you. It changed into the shape of a tall, burly woman, shedding the harness as it did so. Its hair was in locs, tied back from its face, except for one short white loc in front. It loped back to where it had left the bags and then returned to the others, map in one hand and a canteen slung over its shoulder. It double-checked their position with Sunrise and Raven and verified the fastest route to Guild Yellow. Then Bright strode to where Mercy was trying to convince the wounded man to take another drink. Mercy, you all right with taking care of these two while I get this guy to Guild Yellow?

Mercy bit her lip and nodded, while Bright stooped to scoop the man into its arms. The victim moaned. Bright cradled him to its chest, arranging the man’s limbs to minimize his discomfort. If you don’t catch up with me first, I’ll come find you when I’m done, it told the others, and set off at a run.

Its passenger trembled against the rush of wind, despite the heat of the evening and his fevered state. What are you doing? he asked. Please, just kill me.

For Bright, the weirdest thing was how unappetizing this was. With the corruption demon dead, the man was no longer hooked. He was so drained of energy that he could barely move, mind overwhelmed by pain, fear, and despair. Bright had a smooth pace even over rough terrain, but its run nonetheless jostled its passenger and exacerbated his agony. A year ago, Bright would have thought the flavor of those emotions delicious; it would have sunk a hook into the man at once and fed.

But here and now, Bright had no interest in sinking a hook into him. The calculating part of its mind said that it should: it could feed on the man’s suffering and replenish its reserves. The man was suffering anyway, and his suffering wasn’t nourishing any other demon. He might as well feed Bright. Sure, it’d never liked leaving hooks in living people, but hunters couldn’t do anything to it now. This was a free meal. Why not eat it?

What had Raven said was the food he disliked most? Redstalk? This didn’t feel like contemplating some unpalatable food. It was like thinking of eating wood splinters and broken glass. The mental taste of those emotions wasn’t like food at all. Mercy’s elation during combat, or Raven’s uncomplicated pleasure when they were racing across the landscape, tasted more like food than this. And of course, Sunrise’s good moods nourished it in a way that banished even the memory of hunger. That was true food to Bright now: nothing like suffering, and infinitely more appealing.

You’ve been that demon’s prisoner for a while now, right? Several days, Bright said to the man, estimating based on his condition. Just hang on for one more day, all right? I’m gonna take you to a mender and they’ll fix you up.

No, he hissed. No more. Please. Kill me.

Bright had spent a hundred lifetimes ignoring pleas for death. This one was more tempting than most of them had been. It would be much more convenient if the man was dead. He’d be trivial to kill – a lot easier to kill than keep alive, at this point. Once Bright killed him, it could go back to Sunrise and be with its team again. Sunrise would be sad that they hadn’t saved the guy, but no one would blame Bright or know that Bright had killed the man to spare itself the run. It’d been obvious to all of them that this was a long shot.

Seriously, why had Sunrise and Raven and even Mercy trusted it to take this man alone all the way to Guild Yellow?

But it didn’t want to lie to Sunrise. Lying to Sunrise had turned out badly literally every time it’d done so.

And besides—

—besides—

—it wanted to save the man.

Sunrise