The barrage of needles ended far too slowly. My heart raced for far too long afterwards. Needles rained down from the sky and patted my back; they weren’t falling fast enough to penetrate my skin, let alone my jacket. I stood up slowly, trying to put as little pressure on my hands as I could.

In all, the damage wasn’t so bad. The short black needles hadn’t gone in any deeper than a centimetre. However, they started fading as soon as the last needle rained to the floor. That was when blood started oozing out. I could deal with that. Mostly, I was just stunned that I was somehow alive.

When I looked up, however, the reason why became apparent. The needle shot hadn’t been aimed near me. Standing well ahead of the pack, Markus’ whole body was coughing up rivers of smoke. His suit had so many holes in it that I couldn’t fathom why the tattered thing hadn’t yet fallen off him. His chest, his face, his arms, his legs, everywhere but his gloves which he’d somehow protected during that ordeal, were torn, and the wispy form beneath was riddled with holes.

He turned to me and flashed his fangs. “If I could feel this, I’d be screaming right now,” he screamed.

At that moment, the Sisters decided it would be a good opportunity to float down and shove the camera in Markus’ face.

“Markus!” Clotho cried, voice filled with excitement. “Tell us how you survived a close-ranged needle shot from Wrongtonk!”

The haures had his hand half-way into the inventory. He turned and fixed the camera with a rictus grin.

“As you can see, not very fucking well,” he said.

Then he pulled out a Rise and Shine, uncorked it, gulped the thing down in one go, and fell face-first onto the road, stiff as a board.

A flash of panic overcame me. My hand was empty—the last time my hand had been empty… it should not have been empty! Frantic, I began searching for my knife. As I searched the road, I forgot where I was. Survival was an afterthought. The only thing that mattered to me was having that knife back in my hands. I dropped to my knees and clawed mud in the hopes it had been buried somehow. When that turned up nothing, I turned to the burning lithium pits. It could have fallen in. What did it matter if they were burning? I was dead without that knife; a few burns were nothing. I figured I could make a deal with one of the demons in exchange for a Rise and Shine. It was all so simple.

As I was about to hop down into the flames, a hand touched my shoulder and I jumped. Whirling, I bared my teeth and was ready to lunge at my attacker like a wild animal. However, it was only Enzi. Her face showed genuine concern and I think that helped me realise what I’d been doing.

“Algier, it’s okay,” she said. Then she held a hand forward and presented my knife.

I snatched it from her and gripped it tight. The effort sent spikes of pain running down my arm. I pressed the knife close to my body, and everything was alright now. I’d survive—I know now why I felt that way, but back then the thought felt as natural and as right as breathing.

Things became a little clearer after that.

“I’m fine,” I croaked. “Keep running.”

“What do you mean, run?” Volce shouted as he popped up behind Enzi’s shoulder. “We’re too far away from the trees, squishy brains!”

Enzi’s face fell. “I’d hate to agree, but someone really will get eliminated if we don’t stop this attack. I know very little about this weapon. How do we stop it?”

I shook my head. “You can’t block it,” I managed. “You have to intercept the bullet at range. But doing that is near impossible. It’s a flying bullet and we don’t have—”

The enepsi placed a hand over my mouth. She gazed at me with a determination so fierce that I doubt I’ll ever forget it. In her hand she gripped a sword. The thin blade had turned slightly translucent; the flames danced across its partial reflection, making it seem like her yellow dress was on fire.

“Run,” she ordered in a voice deep and commanding.

As soon as those words left her mouth, her right eye snapped shut and the skin of her eyelid moulded closed. Then the pupil of her left eye dilated until her eye was nothing but a black void, discoloured only by a dull ember that smouldered deep within like starlight.

The moment her hand left my shoulder, she was racing down the road with blinding speed. As her slippered feet hit the cracked pavement, they grew rounder and the toes larger. Her feet stretched until they were long enough to form a new section of thin leg that she utilised to lope along the road with graceful ease.

Have you ever watched as someone made a choice that you knew was wrong, but you so wanted them to be right? That was Enzi, burning ahead of us, leaping over flames that Markus couldn’t put out in his taciturn state. For the first time since I’d met her, I was genuinely awed by her.

As I watched her go, a hand grabbed my jacket and yanked me forward.

“We must move,” Toll said, staring me dead in the eye.

Volce helped by pushing his whole weight against my back. “Gawk later, weirdo.”

We reached Markus in a few seconds. As we passed, his head shot off the ground and he cocked an eyebrow at us.

“So Aglier, about my offer—”

“Too late.”

Volce hooked a hand around Markus’ collar and yanked the demon up, with some assistance from Toll. Next thing, we were all together, trailing Enzi.

The enepsi drew back the thin blade as she came towards the intersection. She planted her feet and skidded to a halt, then slashed her sword horizontally and slowly, in march with her brake. An unnatural wind gushed out and belted the rising flames. The largest were severed by the wind, the smallest were snuffed out entirely.

Once she’d stopped and the dust settled around her, Enzi drew herself to her new full height, at least thirty centimetres taller than Markus and Toll, and a whole fifty above me. The smoke had cleared before her, giving her full sight of the sniper. And the sniper a clear view of her. She was using herself as bait.

Enzi swiped her fingers through the air as she sorted through her inventory, then stuck a slender hand into a pocket to nowhere. When she pulled her hand out, it was coated in a thick layer of red-hued ash. Smoke rose from her hand where the ash burned through her form—a risk any demon had to take when they wielded the remains of their brethren.

She held the sword aloft. With her ash-coated hand, she gripped the blade and slid it along. Where her hand passed by, the flames no longer reflected along its surface. Rather, I saw the flames through its surface, which was now only identifiable by a iridescent sheen where its edge had once been.

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Once the enepsi reached the tip, she threw her hand aside and tucked it behind her back in one smooth motion. Smoke wisped steadily off her fingertips, her palm, and I could easily make out the nicks that parted her palm and the pads of her fingers. She poised the sword in front of her.

The sword had been fed, not just with the ash of a demon long erased but with the corporeal form a two name demon. It was excessive, I thought, but as was the way of a demon, Enzi was taking no chances.

Once her preparations were complete, Enzi faced me and nodded. Without a word, without an utterance of her plan, I knew what she wanted. Here was the spot, she was telling us. This was where she was going to achieve the impossible.

“Stay together!” I choked out.

“We’ll be a bigger target that way,” Volce cried.

“That’s the point.”

Of course they didn’t understand. Without the time to explain her plan, Enzi had left me no choice but to guess. That was something only a human could do: improvise, adapt, survive. Take the oddities of the world around you and make a superstition out of them. I wanted to believe in Enzi. I wanted to believe that my plan would work. Therefore, I convinced myself that I knew her thoughts, knew the cold calculus of a demon.

And for what, a chance to live another day in this Hell, to spend the rest of my fragile life at the beck and call of demons just like them? Or maybe it was instinct taking over, urging me to live on for no other reason than because I could.

The smoke vapour vanished from the distant rooftop. The shot was prepared, the sniper taking aim. I pushed with every last bit of strength I had, to get to that one spot of safety behind Enzi’s back.

The flare pulsed a warning, that the sniper would fire soon. Enzi’s one void-like eye stretched and bulged forward as she zoomed her sight in on her enemy. Then everything happened so slowly.

The flare flashed hot and bright. At that moment, we passed behind Enzi’s back in a group. The enepsi’s face stiffened in total concentration. I saw the briefest flash of air being melted into plasma as the bullet tunnelled towards us. Enzi’s eye darted left and right, then fixed on the flashing bullet.

I expected a wild shout, a daring slash—an act grand enough to fit the moment. However, a demon cares little for such frivolities. Enzi was calm, collected, and used the most efficient movement necessary for her impossible task: she drew her arm back, took a short step forward, and thrusted.

The first thing I felt was an overwhelming pulse of air pressure. At the moment of her thrust, I was dead centre of the intersection. The wind struck me like a club and sent me tumbling back, unable to breathe. Volce landed on top of me and held onto my jacket for dear existence as the wind threatened to send him flying. Next I heard a whoosh so violent that it rattled my ears: the strike from the sword as it carved their air like it was vaulting through the void of space. Then a bang an instant later when the air pressure of the blade sliced through the bullet.

The bullet connected with the ground a moment later, but in two places, not one. On either side of us was the dreadful thud of a needle shot impacting with earth, then needles bursting out to either side and away from us. I covered my head instinctively, this time making sure not to drop the knife. However, I felt nothing: no pain, no force from the impact too quick to trigger my nerves, nothing.

Finally, the roar of Wrongtonk’s fire caught up with the bullet and echoed a thousand times off the quarry.

The wind settled. The heat of the flames and the dense smoke came rolling back in. We’d survived another needle shot by some crazy act of talent. Our saviour, Enzi, turned to face the four of us who were now sprawled on the ground. The sun haloed her and she flashed a smile.

“I won’t be able to do that for a while,” she said. Then added, “I’m all out of ash.”

It was a subtle misdirection. Yes, she was out of ash, but anyone—or at least, any human—could see she was suffering. There was tension lining her eyes and her movements were sluggish. She was enduring the pain, the only kind of pain a demon would ever feel: the ash of a fallen demon invading and intoxicating her body. Perhaps she could swing her sword again, but not with that kind of force and definitely not precisely enough to cut a bullet in half.

Without hesitation, Toll shot off in a whirl of feathers. Markus was the next one to go. Despite being a one name, he couldn’t outpace Toll, though he wasn’t too far behind.

I was picked up by the collar of my jacket and tossed forward. Stumbling, I caught myself and forced my legs to move.

“I’ve done everything I could,” Enzi told me, forcing a smile. Her hand was buried behind her back so we couldn’t see how torn up it was, but that didn’t stop the white smoke from rising above her head.

“It all comes down to luck now,” Volce said from my other side, then he winked at me. Subtlety was not his strong suit.

At that, I took a few seconds to regain my breath and we were all running. Ahead of me, Enzi’s form slowly returned to its norm: her legs grew shorter and her foot shortened back to its usual form. Her right eye opened back up and the left pupil shrank, which I only noticed when she peeked over her shoulder to beam at me. Her sword’s blade was solid once more, just plain thin steel. I recognised that sword, now.

Gale Cuts Through The Trembling Leaves. Class 4, a general weapon. A blade that slashes through everything, just not everything here. When you slash or thrust it, the blade will gush out and strike at a place far ahead of you, wherever you want that blade to strike. However, the further away you wish to strike, the more ash is required to deliver that blow.

All rabdoses require ash to function, with the exception of stoic rabdoses like my knife. Enzi had poured a lot of it in, and then some. After all, Gale is one of the greediest rabdoses in the Culling, and one of the deadliest if in the right hands.

But with her last attack expended, we were in a dire situation. Our one defence was spent. The line had spread out as every demon decided to leave it to something less that luck. Markus could probably tank another shot. Toll was fading in and out as something they gripped in front of them, out of sight, was causing their body to turn to mist. Enzi’s transformations could save her at the last moment if she was fast enough. Volce was the embodiment of luck itself, which ironically guaranteed his survival.

Which left only me and my knife. I doubted could stop a needle round with it, and I certainly couldn’t stop fire.

Toll was the first to escape the fiery pits, evaporating into the air at the last moment as they blurred towards the trees. I still had thirty seconds left, I think. The minimum time between Wrongtonk’s shots was thirty-two seconds, though the koryf was firing considerably slower than that.

After that? The trees were still a while away. A minute, at least, maybe five—I don’t remember. Everything was painful, breathing the fumes was torture, and time seemed to stretch into infinity. I kept my head low and used my lapel to cover my mouth, but it didn’t help the frequent coughing fits that threatened to stop me in my tracks.

My vision was going hazy. If not for the gentle pulse of Mary, Jill, and Jane’s flare, I wouldn’t have realised a shot was coming soon. I started to lament.

This shouldn’t have been happening. I’d gambled everything on this plan and none of it was working out. If only I hadn’t been stuck with these terrible demons. If only I’d started in a better location, with better weapons. If only I’d been a little more lucky.

The moment that thought crossed my mind, I caved. I tapped onto the line that connected me to Volce and drew deep. That familiar bubbling rage and confidence roiled within me, clashing violently with my doubt and loathing. I just needed to run and leave everything else to chance. And let chance would break that fucking koryf.

I raised my head as much as I dared. A wind picked up and the smoke parted before me, making it easier to breathe. With one great cough I spat up the soot that had been building in my lungs and I kept running and running and running. Beside me, Volce stared at me slack jawed.

And despite how poorly things had gone so far, I knew my plan would succeed.

The flare pulsed brightly. I didn’t bother ducking; didn’t need to. This time, I heard the explosion first and the cry of the mighty weapon echoing from the quarry.

I looked sideways and, as expected, a building was collapsing—the sniper had fired at the town rather than at us. Then there was another shot. And another. Softer, more like a crack in the distance, but so numerous as to sound like an animal’s call. A veritable barrage, coupled with distant shouts and the pop pop pop of return fire. The koryf sniper leapt from one rooftop to another, trailing ash behind them.

Bullets flashed white hot into the sky and clipped the koryf’s wings mid flight. The demon came tumbling down and crashed onto a rooftop in a puff of smoke, then fell inside as the tiles collapsed under them.

I heard more shots, then the flare shrunk and winked out of the sky. The sniper had been erased.

The gunfire eventually slowed. Then, after a few more seconds, it was dead silent. All I could hear was the crackling of flames behind me.

Third partied: a fight occurs, both teams expend resources, and while they’re both hurting, a third party comes in and mops up the points. It’s also a damned good reason not to stay put for too long.

Relieved, I dropped my pairing with Volce. My lungs were clear now and the pain dotting my arms was forgotten for the time being. I was last into the cover of trees, but that was fine by me.

Despite the short hiccup, my plan was going smoothly.