Even weeks later, Lily couldn't say what possessed her to do it, but she didn't run when faced with the monster. She took her lighter out of her pocket and lit another cigarette, putting it in her mouth.

The smoke filled her lungs, sitting dense and heavy in her body. She felt the warmth spread from her lungs, pushing its way through her veins, filling her entire body with a trembling, shivering energy. She raised her hands up into fists, each finger on each hand violently shaking with wrathful heat.

"Come on, come on, come on."

----------------------------------------

The car screeched down the road, rubber raging against asphalt.

"Slowpoke," Charlie muttered, seeing the car in front of him going painfully slow compared to his barely-in-control vehicle. He gripped the wheel tight enough that he could feel his bones creak beneath his skin. He spun the wheel and swerved across the double yellow line into the lane of oncoming traffic. He floored it, tearing past the other car.

"Christ, you're gonna get us killed before we even get there," Evan muttered from the passenger seat. His eyes were closed, still dealing with the flow of information about the devil presence at the football game.

"School's up ahead, get ready to rock," either Charlie didn't hear Evan's backhanded comment or he just chose not to acknowledge it.

"I'll take overwatch position, you run into the field?" Evan rubbed his hands together.

"Yeah," Charlie licked his lips, "Like usual, I'll be doing all the actual work fighting devils. You just get to sit your ass the in the car and peep on the action with your little gadgets."

"I'll be making sure your unobservant ass doesn't miss anything," Evan snarked back, "Again."

Again, Charlie either didn't hear the insult, or chose not to reply to it.

The car burst into the school's parking lot and screamed to a stop clumsily halfway in between two parking spots. Evan rolled down the window on the passenger side of the car releasing three small black drones out the open window. They silently took to the air. When Evan closed his eyes, his vision split into three different views provided by the cameras attached to each of the drones.

While Evan released his drones, Charlie exploded out of the car and sprinted through the parking lot.

"Inventory," Charlie whispered. Red energy crackled around his ear, and a tiny earpiece found its way there, formed ex nihilo. A sleek black pistol formed in his hand at the same time.

"No guns!" The newly-formed earpiece yelled in his ear. It was Evan, lecturing Charlie again, "There're still people at the field. You can't go in too hot."

"Not like this can get much more public," Charlie griped.

"Don't go with guns, it'll make too much noise and people'll panic more," Evan replied, "I'll cut all the stadium lights in the field, so it should be dark enough that people won't be able to see too clearly if you're going in melee."

"Fine by me," the gun disappeared out of Charlie's hand in snap of scarlet light, replaced with a blade as long as Charlie's forearm. The sword had a slight curve to it, coming to a wicked point. It was coated with foul-looking dark yellow liquid, flowing from some unseen source. When the liquid ran off the edge of the steel, it dripped onto the asphalt below and hissed, scorching black marks onto the parking lot on contact, "Showtime."

The universe, apparently, agreed with Charlie.

He felt it before he felt it. Heat washed over him. Then the explosion that rang in his ears. Then the smoke that curled its way up from the bleachers on the football field ahead.

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

"Evan," Charlie raised an eyebrow, "The hell was that?"

"On it," came Evan's terse reply, "I'll get eyes on whatever made that explosion."

Charlie sped up. His legs moved with inhuman force, hopping over cars in single bounds. In one casual jump, he'd hopped the fence that separated the parking lot from the football field. When he touched down back to the ground, the lights had flickered off, casting the whole place into perfect inky blackness.

Occult Vision — Level 10

But Charlie was more video game character than human at this point. Sparks of red flared within his blue irises, piercing the darkness. He narrowed his eyes and zeroed in on the shark monsters. Monsters. Plural. He probably should have been looking out for that from the beginning.

Oh well.

"Alright XP bags, who's first?"

Charlie danced out of the way of fleeing players and spectators. With a flashy twirl of his sword, Charlie pounced on one of the shark monsters. The blade hardly met any resistance as it met the monster's flesh, burying itself to the hilt into its stomach. The monster cried out, its flesh smoking and burning where the sword's caustic edge had met its body. Charlie gave the sword's handle a twist before pulling it out of the monster and running off to face the next shark creature. The monster collapsed to the ground and dissolved into the ether.

"There's a lot of them. Like a lot a lot, and more are popping out of the ground. Evan, you know where they're all coming from?"

"Hard to say. They can dive right into the ground and pop back up, so I can't pinpoint where they're all coming from."

"Fantastic," Charlie moved onto the next monster, brandishing his sword.

"Hey, were there any other sorcerers you saw at the school beforehand?" Evan's voice rang in Charlie's ear as he made quick work of the monster.

"Uh, don't think so?" Charlie ran ahead towards where smoke was still rising from the bleachers, "There someone else on the scene?"

"One sec, lemme reposition my drones. Hard to get a clear view from my cameras with all the smoke that's blowing arou—oop, careful, on your right—"

Charlie glanced over to his right, where a dorsal fin was swimming through the ground right beside him. Charlie grasped his sword with both his hands and jammed it down into the dirt. A scream rang out from below the ground.

"—but there's definitely another sorcerer here. Some girl. She's got a cigarette in her mouth. Some kind of smoking-related fire power, would be my guess."

"Cigarette?" Charlie's lips twitched upwards, "Thought there might've been something weird about that girl."

"Something you wanna share?"

"There was a girl I talked to right before I exorcised that first devil. Lily, I think her name was?" Charlie explained as he bolted down the length of the football field, "Didn't think she was a sorcerer, but been wrong about stuff like that before."

Charlie made it to the end of the football field. He jumped up the half-collapsed bleachers, squatting at the top. Below him, the scorched, half-dissolved corpse of one of the shark monsters lay on the ground. In front of it, Lily stood, wide-eyed and seemingly in a catatonic stupor. The smoke that came out of the cigarette that hung loosely from her lips swirled with red energy, a telltale sign of sorcery.

"Hey! Smoker girl, Lily! You didn't tell me you were a sorcerer!" Charlie grinned, "You should've started with that."

Lily turned to him, blinking with pure incomprehension.

"What."