I wondered how many Hunters it took before the Org swore off sending us to the Lust side of Hell. Not that there was really a side as such, but sins of a feather often flocked together. It was easy for a fallible human to fall too many of the vices of Hell, but for some reason Lust had unacceptable risks. Eric Redd, the killer of all demons, may have fallen to Wrath, but at least it didn’t feel icky.

A grimace on my face, I stepped back into the corridor, the empty casings dropping from the revolver. Wight stepped in front of me and blew his…

I sighed. The proclamation that I would not allow anything to ruin my birthday mood was slowly starting to suck away at…

Hells damn it. I turned and started back down the passageway. The hollow clunk of an empty shell following Wight racking his shotgun. I worded my thoughts carefully.

[At least they died doing what they loved, Eric.]

My eyebrow raised toward him, but it wasn’t a conversation I was keen to keep rolling. Instead, I was more bothered by how far along this passage was taking us.

[Demon magic. It was a summoning ritual.]

I waved a hand at him, trying to get his words to shoo from my tiring brain. The fact that it wasn’t just a demon orgy I had interrupted, but also ‘magic’ made it worse somehow. Someone far away was having a good laugh at me, I was sure of it. Probably Frank.

//Room with two to your left. Ahead two medium approaching, left of the junction.

That might be why I couldn’t see too far ahead. The drab amber was another wall with a couple of angled off-shoots. Once again, I found myself in tunnels with a rail gun. Closed doorway on the left came up.

I gripped the handle and slid it across, jumped into the small room, and found a sleeping demon with my knife. Wight was right behind, stabbing the second target multiple times before they had a chance to wake. Cautiously, I spun and closed the door.

//Targets have rounded corner and approaching position.

Wight held the shotgun up to his shoulder, pointed at the door. I glanced around the room, having a dim view of the decor. Scrolls hung upon the walls, sigils and runes that reminded me of my patron’s room back home. Almost made me feel bad for killing these demons. But it did not.

//Close now. Contact in five.

I pictured how close they may be for it to be five seconds. Narrowed my eyes as if I could see through the wall. Did they know we were here?

“Ritual probably went wrong, again.”

“If Thu’gnu-u doesn’t stop blowing the heads off our acolytes….”

“That’s not all the worm won’t stop blowing.”

The voices, chuckling, passed our door and kept on going. We probably should have shot them there, alerted them to stay in place while we put a cannon through them. No use crying over unspilled demon guts. It was only a matter of time before they found the ruined ritual and what we had done to it.

[I have an idea]

He gave me a series of hand signals in quick succession, his clawed hand switching between different gestures. Interestingly enough, I knew exactly what he meant. I stepped forward and grabbed the door handle. Swung it wide open and stepped out, as he slid into a crouch below my leveled gun with his shotgun up.

The two demons turned. They were slightly taller and dressed in dark robes. Compared to the plainer ones of the so-called acolytes, these had bands of colors around the hems and sleeves, one red and the other pink.

“Who the f-“

The whisper of the demonic abilities twisted through my ears in a pleasant way. Twenty shots illuminated the corridor between us and our opponents. Ten bright crimson, ten darkest black. The demons tried to bring up some manner of shielding, but it was too late.

Five a piece, they were both burned through and scoured into ash by our shots. Convulsing as their bodies struggled to come to terms with their demise, they dropped to the ground to lay still.

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

Wight shook a hand, black mist pooling from it as if he was burned again.

[Perhaps unwise to repeat that action so soon.]

“Ah, it looked great, though.”

[It did, but I can feel myself weaken.]

I nodded. While he may be a source of overwhelming power, the Org didn’t want him attacking and breaking whatever rules they had inscribed to the pact vessel. In pushing against these limitations, he was wearing himself out.

“Just go for normal shots. Let me do the big stuff for now, then.” I grinned. He needed to grow in power to catch up to me.

//Incoming, unknown source of energy.

We turned back down toward the end of the corridor. Certainly we had probably shaken up the hornet's nest now, with three of the five important demons dead. Somehow, I felt the energy before we saw it.

[Dive!]

I didn’t need telling, already tensed and halfway through the motion. A crackling wave of dark power encircled the whole passage, like a brief wall of electricity that clung to the edges. As we both dove through the air, it passed us. Pinching pain ran down my arms where they had been closest. That faded into an ache right before I struck the stone floor. Back at my feet as soon as my limbs could take me, I saw the fourth demonic spell-caster standing at the end of the tunnel.

Too slow, my arms lagging from the damage sustained. A wall of red appeared as he darted away, my shot just causing the shield to ripple in surprise. Blocked, not pierced.

[He may try the same tactic again.]

Then we’d have to pursue. My feet were already moving, reloading my weapon just because it was fun rather than out of necessity. Wight wasn’t far behind, but kept space just in case we had to dive again. There was a humming noise in my ears as we got closer to the corner, but I couldn’t work out the source.

//Target has stopped about twenty feet back from the corner. Wide chamber, with three weak hostiles.

I slid to a stop a couple of feet before the bend in the corridor. Turned to Wight and flipped my hat off of my head. He caught it on the end of the shotgun, and then with arm fully extended, peaked it just around the corner. At the sound of crackling, he withdrew it, just before spiked rods of demonic energy zipped past, striking the wall further down.

“I know I said no explosives, but…” I stuck the revolver around the corner for a little blind-fire action.

Ah, sweet comfort. I heard the sound of the shield going back up; the demon expecting a normal shot, perhaps. My gun was back to the side just as it hit. The explosion blew hot air down the tunnels, before a chain reaction of secondary effects lit our surroundings in roving colors, the sound of splitting glass and sparks of energy lasting more than ten seconds after the immediate blast.

//All four neutralized. Suggest backtrack to other route.

“Noted.” I raised an eyebrow at Wight, who was scowling at me. “What? Old habits die hard.”

Although firing the mortar was probably a bad idea blind. If there had been a door frame or outcropping right in front of us, I’d have just blown my hand off, which would have soured my birthday some. Especially whatever activities I had planned later with Pearl.

[I just don’t like backtracking.]

“Really?” I shrugged as we walked casually the way we had come. “Aren’t half our adventures in places we have already been before?”

[That’s different. Less walking, usually.]

“What do you think of David coming over tomorrow?” I changed tact to hopefully keep his mind off things. It wasn’t even that far.

[Perhaps that question is better leveled at the Rodney.]

//Stick to the Quest, guys.

I smiled, his command clearly given through clenched teeth. It was unfair for me to prod him, but-

A flash of light illuminated the corridor, blinding me briefly. But I knew it. This was Boofu. My gun went up, but he had already acted. A gout of green flame blew from his open palm, washing over us. I dove backward, for all the good it would do, and pulled the trigger repeatedly - mostly in reflex from the pain.

The flame washed away, and I reloaded. But he was no longer there. A spray of dark blood was on the back wall, but nothing that looked fatal.

“Wight?” I croaked. My body moved with sharp agony as I righted myself. My patron was standing there, hunched over, face in one clawed hand while the shotgun hung limp in the other. Parts of my slacks and jacket split and fell from me as I stepped over to him. “You doing okay, bud?”

He lifted his head up toward me. The feathers around his face were singed and his eyes had been burned out of his face.

[I’ve been better.]

The empty pits in his head slowly filled back in with red light and the burned edges of his feathers softened.

“Not sure I like that magic demon,” I said, finally relenting to the fact that magic was a thing. “But that sort of trick can only work a certain amount of times before he gets caught out.”

[Hopefully each attempt doesn’t involve me taking the brunt of the attack.]

I nodded, but it looked as though he could regain his eyes a lot quicker than I could. Not that I was keen to admit to using my patron as a human shield. Demon shield. My hands ached and I could see they were burned, but my own regeneration was working on fixing them up.

//I can’t seem to track the target. Be wary.

“This brute we have to kill. Is it an assassination thing, or do we have to go through a tournament to face him?”

[It’s your birthday, Eric. What sounds more cliche?]

Tempting fate, I tingled with excitement. Although a tournament might be a bit of a downer when I blaze through each combatant with a Hell Cannon. Perhaps I could make a better show of it. Either way, I’d probably do better to focus on the task at hand.

We rounded the corner back near to the elevator, passing it and heading down the left side passage. Even if the big magic demon himself could teleport about, we might as well go through and kill all the underlings as well. Tidy the place up, whether it got us extra credit with Frank or not. I wasn’t actually sure what-

I ducked by instinct as a blade of burning amber slipped through the wall at my head height, almost impaling my overworking brain.

The shotgun rang out and put a foot-wide hole through the wall into a room. Stone and whatever furniture that lay within turning to ash, as a voice growled out in pain.

“Ah, you fucker! That’s my most magical spell-casting hand! Demon magic spell-casting!” The voice faded away as he ran.

My right eye twitched.