The sun was just coming up when all of our calls and discussions were over. The lab had found a possible match between our victim and the blood collected at the Andrieopov home. Adamsky had been read in on the full situation and had made some suggestions to tweak our strategy. Oddly, he did not seem phased at all upon learning what I was capable of.

In front of Andrieopov's home, a black sedan pulled upm Three figures piled out of it – Special Agents Lynn Burke and David Adamsky and Detective Dina Genovelli. They walked up to Professor Andreiopov’s door and knocked. The doctor himself answered the door and invited them all into his study. Without waiting to see if they followed, he headed there on his own.

The other three did, indeed follow him, and once in the study, Dina introduced her companions to him.

“Ah, I see. Are you here to make an arrest then?”

“Maybe. Is … is your sister home?”

“She is in her room, resting. She had a very taxing evening.”

“I can imagine,” Dina answered sourly.

“Since we are playing verbal games, I suspect you have nothing but circumstantial evidence?” he suddenly said, his eyes showing a mixture of challenge and amusement.

“I am not at liberty to comment on that. Could you go get your sister?”

“Why don’t I go get the knife instead? You know it caused the killings, right? You take it, let us go – we will leave town, leave the area, be destitute, homeless for a while – should be suitable punishment – and we will swear never to mention ... Indigo.

“Hmm – tempting offer,” Dina answered. “I am not sure my partner would agree though… He is pretty much a law-and-order type.”

“And you are willing to take occasional liberties?” Andreiopov replied, his smile wider. “Is that why he is not here with you?”

“No, this is a federal case. Crossed state lines. I brought the FBI here as a courtesy. You will have to convince them that your plan is sound.”

Lynn looked at him for a moment, then answered: “Can… can we see the knife?”

He opened a drawer in his desk. Inside was a portable glass case, holding the Demonblade. He slid it across the desk. “I would advise against opening it. It… you know what it can do, right?”

Lynn looked up and met his gaze. “We have an idea, but perhaps you could enlighten us?”

“It … talks to anyone who holds it. Tells them their darkest desires. Promises them the world if they just give it a sacrifice. Only a person of very strong will can resist its siren song.”

“So we take the knife, the killings end, and you and your sister vanish?” Lynn said after studying the case for a moment.

“Yes, that is my offer.”

Adamsky’s voice suddenly boomed through the room: “No!”

Everyone turned towards the source, who stood dramatically framed in the doorway to the room. Adamsky continued, in his typical laconic fashion, with one more word: “Baltimore.”

The Russian winced. “I had hoped that had gone unnoticed. You have figured that part out too? Curse that sister of mine. If she had not used the blade on her disgusting husband, she would not have needed those other kills. I can be discreet - if I wish to…”

Suddenly the dagger vanished from the case and appeared in his hand. Power flowed visibly into him, and he grew, bloating slightly, his eyes flashing deep red. “You should have taken my offer – now you will all die…”

He leapt up onto the desk – as I dropped my Adamsky disguise: “Not today, Andreiopov,” I announced, grabbing his arm and spinning him around just as I had done with the biker earlier.

He laughed. “Then you do not know – I am not Andreiopov – he died years ago – I am The Demonblade!” He managed to twist around slightly, my grip not as firm as I had hoped – and his eyes flared up.

A bolt of flame shot forth from his eyes and erupted into a ball of blistering heat against my skin.

I pushed him away and dove behind a display case. Lynn and Dina had also sought cover.

“He shoots fireballs?!” Lynn called out in shock.

Dina, from just outside of the room, called out to me: “Can you shoot fireballs?”

The creature calling itself Demonblade laughed and ran out of the room, into the main hall. “No, I cannot – can you?”

“Hey, I'm not the blue-skinned shapeshifter who can juggle trucks, am I?”

“Good point…”

Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

“Maybe if we go after him from three different directions, we can catch him off guard?” Lynn offered.

“Better plan than we had,” Dina replied. “On the count of three we spread out and try to box him in?”

“Agreed.”

“One… two… three…”

We all moved in different directions, each heading to where we expected to find him – right in the center of his collection.

He stood there, beside a broken case, a large weapon – one I later learned was called a morning star – in one hand, the Demonblade in the other. A faint orange aura surrounded him, like the shadows of a fire.

He roared his defiance at us: “Come on, all of you. One at a time or all at once. I am The Demonblade!”

He was much larger than he had been, the eyes still glowing orange, the face twisted into a bestial mockery of Dr. Andreiopov’s. I considered reaching for my gun but decided my own physical abilities were more of a threat to this thing and took a step towards him. As I did so, two unexpected things happened at the same time: first, a shot rang out from a fourth direction, grazing The Demonblade’s arm and causing him to turn away and see the real Adamsky, who had just arrived.

Second, something massive crashed down through the ceiling, landing heavily on top of me and forcing me to the ground. It took all my strength for me to rise to my feet under the weight of Andrieopov’s sister, now bloated and twisted with power, but not so much as she had been last night, nor as much as her brother was now. She held a meat cleaver in one hand and a large chunk of wood, probably torn from the floor above, in the other.

“You pay for interference!” She bellowed in a roar that only held traces of her voice. She swung the cleaver at my head.

I dove under her slash and rose up, striking her in the chest and sending her flying back into a case full of antique armor; glass and pieces of armor scattered around the room at the impact. At that moment I felt an impact against my back, and I went tumbling across the room to land at her feet, just as she regained her footing. My back was in agony, I later learned from his morning star, I forced myself to stand just as she tried to bury the cleaver in my shoulder. The impact hurt almost as much as the spiked head of the morning star had but failed to pierce my flesh. If my form were not somewhat fluid - a benefit of being a shapeshifter - my left arm would have been at least dislocated, if not severed by that blow. I knew there was no way I could take both of them on alone. Fortunately, I heard several gunshots around me and could hear most of them slamming into The Demonblade's hide. Unfortunately, I knew the bullets were at best a distraction, the equivalent of biting flies to him. Glancing back, it seemed the other three were keeping him off balance and disoriented.

During this momentary distraction I felt something hit me and shatter - the wooden object the sister had been wielding was now reduced to splinters, and the cleaver struck my head. My ears rang but again it did not pierce my flesh. I realized that, as long as we were fighting both of them, our best bet was a stalemate, so I had to remove one of them from the fight fast. A slap against the side of my head made the room spin for a second, but then my thoughts were clear enough to see a course of action. I dove forward, slamming my head into her stomach, and wrapped my arms around her waist, and then set out to do something I had never done before; I rose to unsteady feet and leaped into the air.

I have a limited, clumsy ability to fly, but had never attempted it before carrying a load, let alone one as heavy as the one I was straining to lift at the moment. I felt us slam into the floor above, and then into the ceiling above that. As we soared almost straight up into the air, I felt my burden grow lighter - initially I thought maybe I was just getting better at flight, but then realized she was getting smaller. It seemed the farther away from the knife she got, the less power she was able to draw from it.

I was looking for a secure place to leave my passenger when suddenly her weight surged and I felt something dig deep into my back, felt a trickle of blood, and cried out, releasing her - as she fell to the ground, I saw that she now held the ancient knife. She was falling too fast for me to intercept - and I was not quite sure I wanted to - until I saw she was headed down to a busy street where several people were standing around pointing up and just watching the show we were putting on. I groaned, and focused as much energy on speed as I could manage.

She crashed to the ground almost two full seconds before me, mercifully not landing on any bystanders but shattering a large section of sidewalk, and I could tell the shrapnel had caused a few, hopefully minor, injuries. She had risen to her feet, only slightly injured by the fall, and had begun brandishing the evil weapon at the screaming crowd. As she swung at one person - I did not have time to see if it was a man, a woman or a child - I managed to slip in and get my uninjured shoulder up under her arm. I heard the knife clatter to the ground and heard her swear in Russian. In the same language I replied that, not only did I not know who my father was but also did not know my mother. The response seemed to make her pause for a moment.

That moment was all I needed - putting everything I had into speed, I slammed into her, painfully hard (for both of us), and forced her back to slam into a wall hard enough that I felt that impact as well; the wall almost gave way. She was dazed, giving me the time I needed to run back to the fallen knife and launch myself into the air.

I heard the knife, or something acting through it, singing into my brain, making promises of power and control. “If you know who and what I am,” I growled at the weapon, “maybe we can talk. Otherwise just shut up.”

I was high enough that it was beginning to be difficult to breathe; I shifted position, relying on momentum to keep me moving for a short while, shifted everything out of speed and into strength, and using gravity itself for leverage, hurled the weapon as hard and far as I could. I heard what I thought was a sonic boom, as I began falling Earth-ward.

I enjoyed the feeling of a free fall until I was close enough to see the ground rising up quickly enough to pose a threat, then split my energy evenly between speed, strength and toughness and shot back toward the battle on the street.

Andrieopov's sister was still very large and very angry but not as monstrous as she had been. I felt fatigue creeping in and knew I could not let it take me; I bounced her head off the wall, knocking a small hole into said wall and, at least temporarily, knocking her out cold, and then hefted her unconscious body, and raced back to the house where my partner and the two FBI agents and the thing that was once Andreiopov were fighting.

The professor was handcuffed with two sets of cuffs. “Took five bullets after the knife vanished just to knock him out, and he’s not even bleeding,” Dina informed me.

“About the fifth weirdest thing I’ve seen.,” Adamsky added, feeling unusually verbose.

Burke considered this for a moment. “Considering, ah, Indigo here as number two?” she asked, and he nodded.

“You met something weirder than my partner?” Dina asked, incredulously.

“Indigo knocks the guy in New Orleans who claimed to be Frankenstein’s Creature down to third. I think that mummy in Atlanta was still the weirdest”

“Yeah,” Adamsky elaborated eloquently.

“You guys really are like the X-Files,” Dina commented.

Adamsky gave her a blank look and Burke said: “an old TV show with two FBI agents investigating monsters.”

Adamsky shrugged at this, while I made a mental note to see if I could find this show as I had no memories of it.