Rise and Fall

It began with a rumble, and then ripples spread across the pools of blood. Stone, breaking, earth tearing. A wall of sound, physical in its intensity. Then coppery, iron and a fountain of corrupted blood.

In that fountain were screaming faces, the shadows of tormented ghosts, heretics and sacrificial victims. It was a gateway of some kind that connected our world to somewhere else.

From that, somewhere, a foot emerged, followed by the rest of something that was once human. Nine feet tall. Dark red skin rippling with muscles shivering with hints of gold. Hands large enough to crush a human skull, ending in razor claws. Wings of veiny leathery skin rose above its head.

Its tail swished from side to side, ending in a club of bone and razor spines that seemed to breathe. The ground shook as it took a slow, ponderous step forward, leaving a trail of bloody smouldering footprints.

The torrent of blood it had stepped from ceased as if someone had just switched off a fountain. So much for kicking it back through that doorway.

Legionnaires never surrender, never falter, and always fight until the last, with bullets, blades, and bare hands if necessary. We did that: spreading out into a line, firing and manoeuvring. We fired everything.

Bullets tore its flesh, grenades mauled its wings, incendiaries burned it, and the single-shot anti-tank weapon someone carried even managed to blow a shallow crater in its chest. Every injury we dealt it healed in a matter of moments.

I wondered where those promised reinforcements were as I swapped clips for the last time, holding down both primary and secondary triggers as Tamara's 'hammer spewed buckshot and solid slugs, its grenade munitions long exhausted.

I snarled in frustration and threw the heavy weapon like a spear. It bounced off the Demon's hide, and it laughed in. I wouldn't say I like "Last Stands" because there is never time to practice and get them right as I flexed my hands and charged. The few of us still standing, down to pistols and knives, did the obvious and charged with me, screaming righteous warcries and probably in fear.

Shapeshifters rarely carry close combat weapons because that is what we are: Close combat specialists. But we struck from every direction, darting in to attack, slash and cut. It finally grew tired of swatting at us like flies and slammed its hands into the ground.

The shockwave threw everyone off balance, and that seconds' immobility was all it needed. A backhand slap threw me across the chamber.

Legionnaire Hernandez's was picked up and squeezed until she ruptured like a grape.

It turned effortlessly, and Legionnaire Damian Squire received a swipe from its talons that cleaved armour, flesh, and bone. He fell to pieces at its feet.

Both were dead before I used my catlike reflexes to turn what would have been a fatal collision with a wall into a controlled landing. There was pain, cold, like an ice pick to the brain, flaring white-hot as I rolled back to my feet.

Somehow, I'd landed next to Tamara, and I giggled. It was the insane laughter of the weak, the dizzy, and those injured in places I didn't know could hurt. Almost immediately, my body started healing: "We should have waited for backup."

I got no answer from Tamara. That was the moment; I thought where life was at its darkest: Alone. Unarmed. I was the only thing standing between a demonic avatar of violence and death, eager to drown the world in blood.

It was the living, breathing antithesis of life. That's when I heard from the Darkness surrounding me, threatening to consume my soul. I felt my heart snap and break, freezing before shattering. Knives of something pierced my lungs when the voice whispered to me that it could fight. I was confused and delirious from injury, blood loss, pain or a combination. Something asked me to let it free to fight and kill our enemy.

It was the Beast that all 'shifters carry locked in a vault in our minds because it was tru;y the weapon of last resort. Its seductive whispers promised it could finish what I had started and kill the Demon if I unleashed the true apex predator.

I unlocked the vault, dropped the mental barriers, and then felt its joy as it poured, hot like molten lead to the forefront of my consciousness. It picked up my consciousness, everything in my mind that made me who I am and embraced me.

It's like sharing somebody else's mind and controlling some of what that body does. But everything looked confused and blurry and jagged around the edges. The last clear memory was of Tamara, the way she looked into my eyes and realized what I had done, what I had willingly become.

It is always complex. I had control; I had influence. It shared its feral instincts, and I was guiding intellect. And I felt the change in a distant, painless way as the Beast took charge, dropping onto all fours as I loped across the floor, a feline on the hunt.

The Demon was toying with the remains of one legionnaire when our roar of rage, anger, and hatred tore through the cavern, echoing off the walls and ceiling, long and loud as my vision took on a red haze. Time slowed as we ran up a wall and pounced.

It saw my approach and curled a wing around itself as if to flick us away. Claws ripped through the sinewy membrane, cut through the bone, and the wing collapsed. We don't remember touching the ground, but I remember jackknifing a foot into the chin of the Demon.

It rocked back a step as we landed atop its head. Feet planted firmly on its cheek and neck, arm pulled back, and we punched forward straight into its left eye with all our strength.

It roared in pain as blood and jelly from its ruptured eyeball cascaded over us. We let go, claws extended, raking its chest and opening vertical furrows until our feet touched the ground. We stopped only long enough to plunge claws into its chest horizontally, three times in rapid succession, going between the ribs to strike at the organ beneath.

We were moving, staying on its left side as our clawed hands cut into its flesh, spraying its molten hot blood that sizzled against the stone and our skin, focusing our attacks on its left knee.

Claws sliced, dicing meat and flesh; instinct took over, my head snapped forward, and fangs latched on to the exposed tendons in the leg of the Demon. Biting deep, tasting the heat, the raw chaos of its power in its blood. That gave me a split-second pause.

The Demon grabbed me by the back of the neck and pulled. It bellowed in pain, tearing me off and then hurled me again.

Cats are far more flexible and agile, which allows for gravity-defying acrobatics. Pain flared. Several teeth had been punched out of my mouth. Bones in my arm and shoulder were crushed and broken. But the power in its blood healed me at the moment of injury.

Feeling the pain of the injury being inflicted and healing all at once is unbearable for those few overlapping seconds. It makes you see stars and also wish you were unconscious.

I landed, healed, but aching as I howled and lunged forward again, running the chamber wall, keeping us to its left. Always from the left, it's blinded side. The Beast agreed. We lunged again, but it turned to compensate for its blindness, causing us to miss its tree-like neck but to carve furrows into its chest instead.

My claws found purchase, and we raked and slashed at its torso, reopening already healed or healing wounds upon both of us. It grabbed me again and hurled me across the cavern.

Blood. Copper. Iron. Rancid. Decay. Iron. Tamara. It took less than a second to process the scents. The sights took a few seconds longer. She'd propped herself up against the wall. I had seen death, at this point, tasted it. But Tamara smiled at me and unclipped her war knife.

The blade was polished to the highest sheen imaginable. Even in the dark, it seemed to catch and reflect what scant bloodred light there was. A runic inscription ran along both sides of the 15-centimetre blade.

The Demon still stood, favouring its right leg. We took a moment and were in motion again; this time, I agreed as we faked left, then cut across to the right. The blade slashes through the tendons at the back of its knee. It roared and staggered.

A fist slammed into my flank, and my ribs cracked beneath the punishing blow; its impact robbed me of momentum and sent me reeling towards the wall. We flipped, somehow, healing partially and used the wall as a springboard; we went for the throat to end this.

Fangs and claws lanced its neck, cutting through the granite-like skin. Blood splashed my face and eyes, burning me with heat, fanning the primal beast rage within me. The blade in my hand flashed again and again to the side of its neck. I could smell the power, a musky headiness in the air from its flowing blood, spurting and gushing with every blade plunge.

It tottered and finally collapsed to its knees, half its neck sawn away. Demons inhabit a human host body. Some basic tenants and rules of human biology still apply.

It stared at me with its inhuman obsidian-shaded eye, its jaw working soundlessly. We pulled our hand back, the blade spinning in our fingers, and then drove it home through the already ruined eye, driving it into the brain. A cruel twist and pull back.

It slumped over, gave a final gasp of disbelief, and then it began to smoulder, smoke rising from its flesh as it began to burn, slowly filling the air with a toxic reek that was somehow capable of overpowering the haze of everything else.

Whatever it was within me was quiet. It was still there, lying on its side, like a cat basking in the sun. I heard it, a purr so loud it was practically a rumble.

But only in my mind, only I could hear it. It stood and stretched lazily, then turned and walked away, vanishing like smoke. And all in my head was suddenly silent and peaceful. I was alone in my head again, aching, sore, bloodied, and bruised. Damaged but not bowed.

I suddenly remember falling through a glass coffee table with shards of broken glass knifing through me and wishing that was how I felt. That was a paper cut compared to this. Every breath and heartbeat sent waves of pain that made everything hurt a little more than it did previously.

I studied the knife in my hand blade, now slightly dull, coated in demon blood and turned my attention to the now gently flaming corpse. I grabbed the nearest gun and checked it: Empty. But it recognized my fingerprint. I gripped the trigger and let the integrated camera record the Demon's slowly burning and disintegrating corpse.

I spat on the corpse. I just wanted to sleep for a thousand centuries. Somehow, I'd looked over the edge of the abyss into madness and came back sane enough to tell the tale. I could taste the blood, tainted, toxic, in my mouth. I couldn't get rid of the taste, but I wasn't sure if I wanted to. It tasted strangely fitting, and it still does.

But I could not sleep, not yet. The pounding in my head would not let me sleep for a while, and I had so much left to do. I holstered the weapon and reached into a back pocket, pulling out a somewhat flattened but intact ration bar. I tore the top off with my teeth and sucked down the contents.

The Beast receded its final thoughts or feelings of satisfaction and pride at the end of a successful hunt. It smirked at me, and for once, I smirked back. It had earned this momentary right to be cocky and proud, of itself, of us.

Then my thoughts snapped around, and I turned and ran to Tamara.