I was right about it being terribly hard to get back into working out. I did 20 table side push ups, 20 sit up, 40 clam shells and 10 squats. My abs were burning, it's not even half as much as I was doing and I didn't get to run either. I feel utterly lame.
Oh well. Anyways been working on my NaNo. Here is part of it, enjoy, I haven't done any editing, so feel free to let me know of mistakes or parts that don't make any sense for whatever reason.
He sat in the corner.
She walked past the miss-matched tables that gave the impression of a poor antique shop rather then a tavern. She stopped on the other side of a rusted metal table and watched him. His arms were folded over his chest as it rose and fell and in a slow and steady rhythm, his feet, crossed and propped up on a nearby stool. She bent down, squinting slightly, trying to see through the darkness that enveloped him. His war battered leather top hat hid his face from view, only his rough unshaven chin was visible. She stood there watching him, her face slowly twisting into an expression of amazement and curiosity. He was fast asleep, even though this tavern was barely occupied there was always the chance one of them might come in, one of them one wouldn't wish to meet, a living nightmare. She looked around, balancing slowly from the ball of one heel to the other.
"Done staring?" the malice in the deep gritty voice startled her and she turned back to the man she had been watching only moments before. He hadn't moved from his position, his chin was still rested on his chest, his arms still crossed, his legs still comfortably rested and yet the atmosphere around him had changed, as if electricity had swarmed to the corner in the seconds she had looked away. She could see him almost perfectly, though her eyes had not changed, but as if an inner light bathed him, making him visible. "Well?" She coughed into the back of her hand nervously, she had come here, it would be silly to back down now.
"Are you D'Inglist?" She could feel his gaze sizing her up, her own eyes searching for any area that did not meet his.
"If I am?" She wrung her hands a few times before straightening her back and looking at him in the eyes.
"The question was are you him, not what would happen if you are." The stool screeched across the floor as he pulled his boots off of it to lean forward and glare at her. She took a step back, all the hairs on the back of her neck standing up.
"You are disturbing my nap."
"Clearly" Her voice wavered slightly and she coughed again, trying to regain her courage with the very motion. His laugh boomed throughout the tavern, causing all the patrons to stare in their direction.
"You are trying so hard to seem less scared then you actually are. I hope you understand how extremely funny that makes you seem, miss."
"Ammablique."
"What?"
"My name is Ammablique." She nodded her head slightly in the formal manner and held out her hand informally. He stared at her hand with a raised brow.
"That is an unusual name."
"It was once very popular or so my father has said."
"Maybe three hundred years ago."
"You would know, yes?" He kicked the stool past her and stood, towering over her, his lips twisted into a snarl as he glared down at her. She cowered, her eyes closed, half expecting him to slap her.
"Who the hell are you and why are you speaking to me?" His voice was barely above a whisper and yet the intensity of it made her quake. She could feel his eyes boring into her, and she desperately wished she could run away but her feet wouldn't move. Nor would her tongue, it felt heavy, swollen in her mouth, and her throat was dry as if she were made of sand and the rains had finally come to an end.
"Um." her lips trembled and she shivered, cold seeping into her bones even as sweat beaded on her forehead.
"Who?" he didn't even sound human. She flinched, the primal snarl of words feeling like the slap he had never given. She stared at the floor, each heave intensifying the burning sensation that was slowly creeping into her chest, like breathing in fire with every gasp, it was as if standing in front of one of the demonic horde. "Who are you?" He stared down at her, she was no more then 25, and yet how she had managed to live that long still astounded him. Most men and women were dead by the age of 15 in this place, only the very battle worn managed to survive and yet this woman standing in front of him exuded a sort of daintiness no longer found in this area, the sort of daintiness reserved only for very the elite, which he found didn't help with the lifespan much. He grabbed her roughly by the shoulders and shook her slightly. “Answer the Goddamn question woman.” He felt her body go limp as she fainted and held her up by her shoulders. He sighed heavily and turned to the bartender. “cheapest room.”
“Up the stairs, first on the left.” The bartender didn't even look up from the glass in his hand, wiping the interior of the glass with the mostly dirty rag. D'Inglist hoped Polk didn't give so little care to all customers taking an innocent girl up the stairs after a dead faint, he could easily be taking her there to rape her and he hadn't done so much as bat an eye, though it was only because they had known each other so long that Polk had remained so quiet on the whole deal, he still felt it was something he should have to ask him about later.
He slung her over his shoulder, grabbed his gun belt and stomped up the stairs to the room. He laid her down on the bed and placed his belt on the floor before sitting down in the wing back chair facing it. He needed to get his anger under control or she might never wake, he knew how overpowering he could be to pure humans but she had caught him completely by surprise, something which hadn't happened in years. She groaned softly in her sleep as he sat there, almost perfectly still, his cheek resting on his fist, watching her, trying to figure out how she knew both his name and his relative age.
Three hours had passed and she had still yet to wake but he sat, perfectly still, as if a statue erected in the chair, only his eyes changing position, scanning the room slowly as he wrestled with his mired of thoughts.
She stirred on the bed but he remained seated. She opened her eyes and stared at the unfamiliar ceiling over head. She rubbed her eyes with her hand and slowly raised herself onto her elbow. Her forehead ached, the power hangover making her ears pound painfully.
“You ready to answer the question now?” She groaned, her face scrunched up as she began to slowly blink, trying to look through the dark in the direction of the voice.
“You will have to remind me of the question, my head is in incredible pain and I cannot seem to recall it.” He raised a brow, her formal way of speaking was rarely taught even to the elites.
“Who are you and why are you asking about me.” Every word he spoke slammed into her, making her head swell with pain. She brought her hand to her forehead and rubbed her temples with her fingertips. She sucked in air between her gritted teeth, making a soft hissing sound before exhaling with a grunt.
He stood slowly, the whole of the room seeming to creak with his very moment as he walked to the side of the bed. Her brow furrowed as she tried to recall who the person near her was, her head hurt just from the movement and she closed her eyes tightly. She held them closed, a flash of a memory of the tavern playing on the back of her lids. Her eyes flew open and she scooted back on the bed, all her earlier fear returning. The hand on her forehead chilled her to her core, even though it was warm and soft. She blinked furiously at the tears that were threatening to fall and swallowed slowly.
“If you are going to kill me, could you at least do it quickly.” the laugh that greeted her sounded warm instead of menacing and she smiled weakly.
“I didn't realize that someone in your position really had the right to request anything.” her smiled faded and she shrank away from the hand on her forehead.
“I would really hold still if I were you. If I had wanted to do anything with you, I could have done it already, many times over.” She looked at him, worry filling her charcoal colored eyes, his hand pressing to her forehead once again.
“What does that mean?” He shook his head, he hoped her lack of ability to understand was a side effect of her fainting and being disoriented instead of an overabundance of naivety, then her having lived this long would be incredulous.
“It means you have been asleep for three hours and had I wanted to do anything to you I could have done it and be on my way a very long time ago.” The pain in her head felt like tiny spidery fingers webbed out over her head, she could feel them slowly receding, being pulled forward and out. She sighed with relief as the last of it diminished. She watched him open and close his hand slowly as if it were stiff.
“What did you just do?” She touched her forehead with her fingertips where his hand had been only moments before. She jumped as his face was instantly in front of her own, his eyes dark and menacing.
“Do you think you have the right to ask questions of me?” She blinked, dumbfounded, he was still standing to the side of the bed, he didn't look as if he had moved. She looked down at her hands and began singing softly to herself.
"Sometimes, I feel the fear of uncertainty stinging clear. And I can't help but ask myself how much I let the fear. Take the wheel and steer. It's driven me before. And it seems to have a vague, haunting mass appeal. But lately I'm beginning to find that I. Should be the one behind the wheel.” her voice was soft and it shook with fear but she continued, as if singing somehow cleared her thoughts and pushed away her fear, her tantra of choice worried him and he sat back down in the chair.
“Where did you learn that song?” her voice died away and she looked at him for a moment before quickly looking away. “Christ woman, I have to repeat every damn question I ask you. Are you that deaf.”
“My father...”
“What?”
“My father taught me the song, he has sang it for me since I was very little.” The man sat forward, his face pained with worry. He knew that song, it was an old one, one not many people would know, he knew of four people who would have known that song, two of which could no longer sing it in this world.
“Who was your father?”
“Is.”
“Excuse me? Are you correcting me?” his annoyance was easily visible and she smiled weakly once more.
“I'm just saying, he isn't dead, or at least I don't think he is dead, not yet anyways.” His eyes deadened, as if the light in them had seeped away with her words.
“Why don't you stop trying to be coy and just answer the initial question.” His voice was as dead as his eyes and she looked around the room trying to think of any way she could distract him enough that she could leave, coming here had been a mistake, she wasn't sure what her father had been thinking. This man was evil, how could he have expected her to trust him.
He sighed heavily, women were such a pain, it was smart of her not to answer him, not to trust him, but it just made it more difficult for him. He clenched and unclenched his jaw trying to think of the best way to make her answer the questions he had posed.
He almost missed the unmistakable soft crackle of the fireball, his mind distracted by the situation already at hand. He leapt from the chair, wrapping his coat around her as the wall to the left exploded with furious intensity. He glanced out the new hole in the wall, the dust and smoke screening most of the world outside, but he caught a glimpse of four of them. He picked her up from the bed effortlessly, even her slight weight seeming almost like air to him and bound off the bed, towards the door of the room, kicking through it and running down the hall to the stairs. He hoped the patrons downstairs had been left alone and were at this moment fleeing, he did not know if he could protect them all in such a cramped space against what was at least four Leaphon. He jumped down the last half of the stairs, landing gracefully at the base of the steps and scanned the area. Two more Leaphon were downstairs, the patrons were cowered in the corner and the two were playing an old hand game to see who would win the right to pick the first victim. He knew exactly who they were fighting over, the bartender, the old goat had taken many Leaphon down and the smell of death and war had lingered on his flesh, he smelled delightful to them and D'Inglist knew that even if one of them got him there would be at least one more victim chosen. There had only been six people in the bar when he had com in, including himself, but now there were twelve people standing in the corner, most of which were under the age of 10. He sighed, the children always ran towards the adults in hopes that they would help protect them, it was more likely that an adult would barter with a Leaphon for his or her life by giving the child over instead, Leaphon loved the flesh of children, it was a sweeter more tender meat. D'Inglist was only slightly comforted by the fact that Polk had taken a stance in front of the others. He was a good warrior, he had fought for many years against the Leaphon but he was older now
“Hahaha Lardiz I won, which means, I get to eat the old man who has killed so many of our own. His flesh wont be as sweet but the victory over him with more then make up for it.” Lardiz growled at his companion and turned to a small girl to his right. Her face was dirty and full of fear and she looked as if she had peed herself just moments before, she would be more then enough to ease his bitterness at losing.
His blood sprayed all over the children quivering in front of him, a large hole where his forehead and right eye had been. Lardiz blinked a few times before squealing in pain, his hand held over the part of his face that was now missing.
“I wouldn't be so quick to assume you will have either of them.” D'Inglist put the woman in his arms down on her feet, his other arm raised and holding an old smoking Taurus Raging Bull. He watched the second Leaphon turn around and charge at him. He fired again, the bullet tearing at the flesh on the demons shoulder, the momentum knock the demon off course. “Polk, the cellar.” The older man nodded his head and ran towards the bar, his hip sliding across the smooth top surface as he vaulted over it with ease. A loud click was followed by an even louder bang as the trap door slammed into the floor. D'Inglist shoved the woman roughly towards the bar. “In!” The group of children stood staring at him, the blood running down their faces and soaking their clothes. “Unless you want to die.” D'Inglist turned and faced the two crumpled demons, they were wounded but not dead and he knew that sooner rather than later they would regain their senses enough to fight, no need having people getting in the way of that.
The group of people scrambled, trying to get onto the other side of the bar counter as fast as possible and yet it seemed as if they we going far too slowly. Polk stood there silently, helping the little ones down with one hand while his other held a long jagged edge knife. Ammablique stood next to the doorway, letting the younger children go in before her.
“Will he be okay?” Polk glanced to her and then back in the opposite direction, trying to keep an eye out for any more Leaphon that might come through the door, he knew, from far too much experience that they hunted in packs.
“If there is anyone that would be it, it would be him.” He reached down and pulled out a small bottle, no bigger then his hand, and the clear liquid slosh around inside.
“What's that?”
“The best protection I can give, now get in.” He tilted his head towards the opening of the trap door. Ammablique looked between the door and the man before her.
“What about you?”
“What about me.”
“Aren't you going to come in?”
“No.” D'Inglist clenched his jaw, stubborn old brute.
“You know damn well you will just be in my way.”
“I'm forty-seven years old. I should have been dead a long time ago by all accounts.”
“No need to push your luck today.” D'Inglist looked over his shoulder, his features softer then Ammablique had ever seen them, even when he slept he looked like hardened stone and yet right now, she could see the look of a man who was desperately trying to hold onto the last bit of his own personal history. This man whom her father said had lived many lifetimes over, how many of his friends and loved ones had he seen murdered, how many had been lost on the way to being great, how many had he grieved for. She looked down at her hands and then off to the side. Didn't make him any less of an ass though.
“If not today, then tomorrow, or the next day.”
“Then live till then.”
The two demons, both severely wounded were now standing, not even ten feet from D'Inglist, their eyes glowing with a bitter hatred.
“You will pay for this.” Lardiz hissed through a mouth that twitched with each word, part of his face slumping off his twisted skeletal frame. The demons body emitted a soft red light, the edges of his wound concentrating the light, his face looking like it had been burned away and his flesh, at the edges, turned to glowing coal. Lardiz hissed again, clinging to his face once more, the agony of the new pain feeding to the previous one. The second demon watched, the clear horror of understanding twisting his features with fear.
“Sanctified bullets?” the laughter that rang out from behind D'Inglist was dark and foreboding, filled with anger and malice and made Ammablique's head throb. “D'Inglist. Fancy meeting you here. I see you've met Lardiz, or really, he met the end of your ancient piece of junk.” The two wounded demons took a few shuffled steps backwards letting the new Leaphon through as he flipped his hand nonchalantly in the direction of the weapon now pointed towards his chest.
“Not really a piece of junk if it can still do that.” D'Inglist nodded towards Lardiz, who now stood quietly, the blood from his wound slowly pooling on the floor, the viscous liquid making a sickeningly sticky sound as gravity pulled it to the ground.
He sat in the corner.
She walked past the miss-matched tables that gave the impression of a poor antique shop rather then a tavern. She stopped on the other side of a rusted metal table and watched him. His arms were folded over his chest as it rose and fell and in a slow and steady rhythm, his feet, crossed and propped up on a nearby stool. She bent down, squinting slightly, trying to see through the darkness that enveloped him. His war battered leather top hat hid his face from view, only his rough unshaven chin was visible. She stood there watching him, her face slowly twisting into an expression of amazement and curiosity. He was fast asleep, even though this tavern was barely occupied there was always the chance one of them might come in, one of them one wouldn't wish to meet, a living nightmare. She looked around, balancing slowly from the ball of one heel to the other.
"Done staring?" the malice in the deep gritty voice startled her and she turned back to the man she had been watching only moments before. He hadn't moved from his position, his chin was still rested on his chest, his arms still crossed, his legs still comfortably rested and yet the atmosphere around him had changed, as if electricity had swarmed to the corner in the seconds she had looked away. She could see him almost perfectly, though her eyes had not changed, but as if an inner light bathed him, making him visible. "Well?" She coughed into the back of her hand nervously, she had come here, it would be silly to back down now.
"Are you D'Inglist?" She could feel his gaze sizing her up, her own eyes searching for any area that did not meet his.
"If I am?" She wrung her hands a few times before straightening her back and looking at him in the eyes.
"The question was are you him, not what would happen if you are." The stool screeched across the floor as he pulled his boots off of it to lean forward and glare at her. She took a step back, all the hairs on the back of her neck standing up.
"You are disturbing my nap."
"Clearly" Her voice wavered slightly and she coughed again, trying to regain her courage with the very motion. His laugh boomed throughout the tavern, causing all the patrons to stare in their direction.
"You are trying so hard to seem less scared then you actually are. I hope you understand how extremely funny that makes you seem, miss."
"Ammablique."
"What?"
"My name is Ammablique." She nodded her head slightly in the formal manner and held out her hand informally. He stared at her hand with a raised brow.
"That is an unusual name."
"It was once very popular or so my father has said."
"Maybe three hundred years ago."
"You would know, yes?" He kicked the stool past her and stood, towering over her, his lips twisted into a snarl as he glared down at her. She cowered, her eyes closed, half expecting him to slap her.
"Who the hell are you and why are you speaking to me?" His voice was barely above a whisper and yet the intensity of it made her quake. She could feel his eyes boring into her, and she desperately wished she could run away but her feet wouldn't move. Nor would her tongue, it felt heavy, swollen in her mouth, and her throat was dry as if she were made of sand and the rains had finally come to an end.
"Um." her lips trembled and she shivered, cold seeping into her bones even as sweat beaded on her forehead.
"Who?" he didn't even sound human. She flinched, the primal snarl of words feeling like the slap he had never given. She stared at the floor, each heave intensifying the burning sensation that was slowly creeping into her chest, like breathing in fire with every gasp, it was as if standing in front of one of the demonic horde. "Who are you?" He stared down at her, she was no more then 25, and yet how she had managed to live that long still astounded him. Most men and women were dead by the age of 15 in this place, only the very battle worn managed to survive and yet this woman standing in front of him exuded a sort of daintiness no longer found in this area, the sort of daintiness reserved only for very the elite, which he found didn't help with the lifespan much. He grabbed her roughly by the shoulders and shook her slightly. “Answer the Goddamn question woman.” He felt her body go limp as she fainted and held her up by her shoulders. He sighed heavily and turned to the bartender. “cheapest room.”
“Up the stairs, first on the left.” The bartender didn't even look up from the glass in his hand, wiping the interior of the glass with the mostly dirty rag. D'Inglist hoped Polk didn't give so little care to all customers taking an innocent girl up the stairs after a dead faint, he could easily be taking her there to rape her and he hadn't done so much as bat an eye, though it was only because they had known each other so long that Polk had remained so quiet on the whole deal, he still felt it was something he should have to ask him about later.
He slung her over his shoulder, grabbed his gun belt and stomped up the stairs to the room. He laid her down on the bed and placed his belt on the floor before sitting down in the wing back chair facing it. He needed to get his anger under control or she might never wake, he knew how overpowering he could be to pure humans but she had caught him completely by surprise, something which hadn't happened in years. She groaned softly in her sleep as he sat there, almost perfectly still, his cheek resting on his fist, watching her, trying to figure out how she knew both his name and his relative age.
Three hours had passed and she had still yet to wake but he sat, perfectly still, as if a statue erected in the chair, only his eyes changing position, scanning the room slowly as he wrestled with his mired of thoughts.
She stirred on the bed but he remained seated. She opened her eyes and stared at the unfamiliar ceiling over head. She rubbed her eyes with her hand and slowly raised herself onto her elbow. Her forehead ached, the power hangover making her ears pound painfully.
“You ready to answer the question now?” She groaned, her face scrunched up as she began to slowly blink, trying to look through the dark in the direction of the voice.
“You will have to remind me of the question, my head is in incredible pain and I cannot seem to recall it.” He raised a brow, her formal way of speaking was rarely taught even to the elites.
“Who are you and why are you asking about me.” Every word he spoke slammed into her, making her head swell with pain. She brought her hand to her forehead and rubbed her temples with her fingertips. She sucked in air between her gritted teeth, making a soft hissing sound before exhaling with a grunt.
He stood slowly, the whole of the room seeming to creak with his very moment as he walked to the side of the bed. Her brow furrowed as she tried to recall who the person near her was, her head hurt just from the movement and she closed her eyes tightly. She held them closed, a flash of a memory of the tavern playing on the back of her lids. Her eyes flew open and she scooted back on the bed, all her earlier fear returning. The hand on her forehead chilled her to her core, even though it was warm and soft. She blinked furiously at the tears that were threatening to fall and swallowed slowly.
“If you are going to kill me, could you at least do it quickly.” the laugh that greeted her sounded warm instead of menacing and she smiled weakly.
“I didn't realize that someone in your position really had the right to request anything.” her smiled faded and she shrank away from the hand on her forehead.
“I would really hold still if I were you. If I had wanted to do anything with you, I could have done it already, many times over.” She looked at him, worry filling her charcoal colored eyes, his hand pressing to her forehead once again.
“What does that mean?” He shook his head, he hoped her lack of ability to understand was a side effect of her fainting and being disoriented instead of an overabundance of naivety, then her having lived this long would be incredulous.
“It means you have been asleep for three hours and had I wanted to do anything to you I could have done it and be on my way a very long time ago.” The pain in her head felt like tiny spidery fingers webbed out over her head, she could feel them slowly receding, being pulled forward and out. She sighed with relief as the last of it diminished. She watched him open and close his hand slowly as if it were stiff.
“What did you just do?” She touched her forehead with her fingertips where his hand had been only moments before. She jumped as his face was instantly in front of her own, his eyes dark and menacing.
“Do you think you have the right to ask questions of me?” She blinked, dumbfounded, he was still standing to the side of the bed, he didn't look as if he had moved. She looked down at her hands and began singing softly to herself.
"Sometimes, I feel the fear of uncertainty stinging clear. And I can't help but ask myself how much I let the fear. Take the wheel and steer. It's driven me before. And it seems to have a vague, haunting mass appeal. But lately I'm beginning to find that I. Should be the one behind the wheel.” her voice was soft and it shook with fear but she continued, as if singing somehow cleared her thoughts and pushed away her fear, her tantra of choice worried him and he sat back down in the chair.
“Where did you learn that song?” her voice died away and she looked at him for a moment before quickly looking away. “Christ woman, I have to repeat every damn question I ask you. Are you that deaf.”
“My father...”
“What?”
“My father taught me the song, he has sang it for me since I was very little.” The man sat forward, his face pained with worry. He knew that song, it was an old one, one not many people would know, he knew of four people who would have known that song, two of which could no longer sing it in this world.
“Who was your father?”
“Is.”
“Excuse me? Are you correcting me?” his annoyance was easily visible and she smiled weakly once more.
“I'm just saying, he isn't dead, or at least I don't think he is dead, not yet anyways.” His eyes deadened, as if the light in them had seeped away with her words.
“Why don't you stop trying to be coy and just answer the initial question.” His voice was as dead as his eyes and she looked around the room trying to think of any way she could distract him enough that she could leave, coming here had been a mistake, she wasn't sure what her father had been thinking. This man was evil, how could he have expected her to trust him.
He sighed heavily, women were such a pain, it was smart of her not to answer him, not to trust him, but it just made it more difficult for him. He clenched and unclenched his jaw trying to think of the best way to make her answer the questions he had posed.
He almost missed the unmistakable soft crackle of the fireball, his mind distracted by the situation already at hand. He leapt from the chair, wrapping his coat around her as the wall to the left exploded with furious intensity. He glanced out the new hole in the wall, the dust and smoke screening most of the world outside, but he caught a glimpse of four of them. He picked her up from the bed effortlessly, even her slight weight seeming almost like air to him and bound off the bed, towards the door of the room, kicking through it and running down the hall to the stairs. He hoped the patrons downstairs had been left alone and were at this moment fleeing, he did not know if he could protect them all in such a cramped space against what was at least four Leaphon. He jumped down the last half of the stairs, landing gracefully at the base of the steps and scanned the area. Two more Leaphon were downstairs, the patrons were cowered in the corner and the two were playing an old hand game to see who would win the right to pick the first victim. He knew exactly who they were fighting over, the bartender, the old goat had taken many Leaphon down and the smell of death and war had lingered on his flesh, he smelled delightful to them and D'Inglist knew that even if one of them got him there would be at least one more victim chosen. There had only been six people in the bar when he had com in, including himself, but now there were twelve people standing in the corner, most of which were under the age of 10. He sighed, the children always ran towards the adults in hopes that they would help protect them, it was more likely that an adult would barter with a Leaphon for his or her life by giving the child over instead, Leaphon loved the flesh of children, it was a sweeter more tender meat. D'Inglist was only slightly comforted by the fact that Polk had taken a stance in front of the others. He was a good warrior, he had fought for many years against the Leaphon but he was older now
“Hahaha Lardiz I won, which means, I get to eat the old man who has killed so many of our own. His flesh wont be as sweet but the victory over him with more then make up for it.” Lardiz growled at his companion and turned to a small girl to his right. Her face was dirty and full of fear and she looked as if she had peed herself just moments before, she would be more then enough to ease his bitterness at losing.
His blood sprayed all over the children quivering in front of him, a large hole where his forehead and right eye had been. Lardiz blinked a few times before squealing in pain, his hand held over the part of his face that was now missing.
“I wouldn't be so quick to assume you will have either of them.” D'Inglist put the woman in his arms down on her feet, his other arm raised and holding an old smoking Taurus Raging Bull. He watched the second Leaphon turn around and charge at him. He fired again, the bullet tearing at the flesh on the demons shoulder, the momentum knock the demon off course. “Polk, the cellar.” The older man nodded his head and ran towards the bar, his hip sliding across the smooth top surface as he vaulted over it with ease. A loud click was followed by an even louder bang as the trap door slammed into the floor. D'Inglist shoved the woman roughly towards the bar. “In!” The group of children stood staring at him, the blood running down their faces and soaking their clothes. “Unless you want to die.” D'Inglist turned and faced the two crumpled demons, they were wounded but not dead and he knew that sooner rather than later they would regain their senses enough to fight, no need having people getting in the way of that.
The group of people scrambled, trying to get onto the other side of the bar counter as fast as possible and yet it seemed as if they we going far too slowly. Polk stood there silently, helping the little ones down with one hand while his other held a long jagged edge knife. Ammablique stood next to the doorway, letting the younger children go in before her.
“Will he be okay?” Polk glanced to her and then back in the opposite direction, trying to keep an eye out for any more Leaphon that might come through the door, he knew, from far too much experience that they hunted in packs.
“If there is anyone that would be it, it would be him.” He reached down and pulled out a small bottle, no bigger then his hand, and the clear liquid slosh around inside.
“What's that?”
“The best protection I can give, now get in.” He tilted his head towards the opening of the trap door. Ammablique looked between the door and the man before her.
“What about you?”
“What about me.”
“Aren't you going to come in?”
“No.” D'Inglist clenched his jaw, stubborn old brute.
“You know damn well you will just be in my way.”
“I'm forty-seven years old. I should have been dead a long time ago by all accounts.”
“No need to push your luck today.” D'Inglist looked over his shoulder, his features softer then Ammablique had ever seen them, even when he slept he looked like hardened stone and yet right now, she could see the look of a man who was desperately trying to hold onto the last bit of his own personal history. This man whom her father said had lived many lifetimes over, how many of his friends and loved ones had he seen murdered, how many had been lost on the way to being great, how many had he grieved for. She looked down at her hands and then off to the side. Didn't make him any less of an ass though.
“If not today, then tomorrow, or the next day.”
“Then live till then.”
The two demons, both severely wounded were now standing, not even ten feet from D'Inglist, their eyes glowing with a bitter hatred.
“You will pay for this.” Lardiz hissed through a mouth that twitched with each word, part of his face slumping off his twisted skeletal frame. The demons body emitted a soft red light, the edges of his wound concentrating the light, his face looking like it had been burned away and his flesh, at the edges, turned to glowing coal. Lardiz hissed again, clinging to his face once more, the agony of the new pain feeding to the previous one. The second demon watched, the clear horror of understanding twisting his features with fear.
“Sanctified bullets?” the laughter that rang out from behind D'Inglist was dark and foreboding, filled with anger and malice and made Ammablique's head throb. “D'Inglist. Fancy meeting you here. I see you've met Lardiz, or really, he met the end of your ancient piece of junk.” The two wounded demons took a few shuffled steps backwards letting the new Leaphon through as he flipped his hand nonchalantly in the direction of the weapon now pointed towards his chest.
“Not really a piece of junk if it can still do that.” D'Inglist nodded towards Lardiz, who now stood quietly, the blood from his wound slowly pooling on the floor, the viscous liquid making a sickeningly sticky sound as gravity pulled it to the ground.
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