Hunting the Hunters

Hex, Owen and Din were called by Zlyena to take out a building full of Demon Hunters, and Elaine went with them. Din and Owen were surprised to find that Elaine was real, and that she really looked like Hex described.

"So, I see that you've been talking about me," Elaine said, a large crow perching on her shoulder.

"What's the crow for, anyways? And why is it almost twice the size of a normal crow?" Hex looked at the crow, who had red eyes.

"This is my familiar, Kalan. Say hi Kalan." She gestured towards the three of them.

"Hello," A low, velvety voice spoke in Hex's head, he guessed that was probably Kalan.

"So your crow knows telepathy?" he asked.

"Yeah, he also knows a good amount of spells." She giggled.

"It is true, I do." Kalan nodded.

"So I'm guessing he's a crow demon or something," he said.

"Actually, yes, he is." She nodded.

"Part of the old crow demon clan, Elaine loves crows, she usually spends her time in the park feeding the crows, that is how we found each other. She is actually called The Maiden of the Crows by my clan." Kalan nodded in agreement.

"So that's where you've been. I was looking for you a couple days ago, Din and Owen didn't believe that you were real, or just thought I was high and was imaging that you had solid red eyes, fangs, and claws." He made a creepy gesture with his hands.

"You were looking for me? Really?" She seemed excited.

"Yeah, so when do we get there?" he asked.

"We're almost there, look, that's the building." she pointed to a building in the distance.

"Oh, alright." He nodded.

They went up to the building, and there suspiciously were no guards.

"Kalan, you might want to use your human form for this." she patted Kalan.

"You may be right about that." Kalan flew up into the air, and a red light enveloped him, and he fell back down. He was tall and muscular looking in his human form, and he wore a black suit with a cape. He brushed his long wavy black hair from his face.

"Wow, he looks more like the warlock instead of the familiar," Owen piped up.

"Don't judge me by my appearance, I'm actually more powerful than he is." she pointed to herself.

Kalan summoned a giant sword that was almost as big as he was that had a gargoyle head on the cross-guard. He rested it on his shoulder.

"Oh, right. I should summon my blade as well." She held out her hands, and red sigils sprang from them, and her sword materialized.

"Yeah, we should too." he got his claws and wings out and summoned his sword, and then looked to Owen and Din.

"On it," Din said, and did the same, and started to play with her fan.

"Alright, I haven't tried to bring my wings out yet but I'll try." Owen nodded, and brought his claws and wings out as well, and summoned his mallet.

"Oh right, my wings." Elaine smiled, and brought her wings out.

"Are we all ready?" Hex asked.

Everyone nodded, and they went inside. The front room was completely empty.

"Is there nobody here?" Owen asked.

"They shouldn't have cleared out with so little time, we only got the call this morning." Hex shook his head.

Elaine walked over to the back of the room and swung open the door. She put her hands up and a large pentagram sigil with a four horned demon materialized, opened its mouth, and fired a laser. A few screams came from the room she fired into.

"I guess she found them," Hex chuffed.

They went into the room after her, and a few Demon Hunters were already turning into yellow goo and dissolving.

"Getting a head start on us I see," Kalan said nonchalantly.

"There should be more, even though there's only three floors in this building." Elaine nodded.

"I'll get a head start in the next room." Hex walked past Elaine, and went straight for the door. He opened it, and there was nothing.

"Well, at least you tried." Owen patted Hex's shoulder.

"I think I should get another chance, at the very least," Hex grumbled.

"Go on, open another one." Owen pointed to the next door.

"Fine, I will. And this time, there'll be some Demon Hunters." he went over and opened the door. There was a Demon Hunter pointing a gun at him. He turned back and closed the door, with a blank look on his face.

"Come on, you found one, go back in." Owen pointed again.

"Why is it always guns?" Hex whined.

"You wanted to kill some Demon Hunters, now's your chance." Owen laughed.

"I would have thought I was fine for a good week after what happened before. I can't believe I'm doing this but alright. Let's see if I'm good enough with the Zoriyan magic." He opened the door back up, and used a Zoriyan spell, knocking the Demon Hunter back and making them drop their gun. He went up and kicked the gun away, then stabbed the Demon Hunter.

"Good, only a few more floors of this." Owen smiled.

"I hope we don't see any little kid Demon Hunters," Din said.

"They're mass produced to be pretty much exactly the same, like clones. I've rarely seen a human Demon Hunter, usually they just make them." Elaine shrugged.

"I guess that one was the only one in this room." Hex looked around.

"We're here to rescue some Zoriyans, so let's hurry up. They most likely are at the top floor." She gestured everyone forward.

"I never heard about that, did Zlyena tell you that?" Hex turned to Elaine.

"I thought she told you that too. Guess not." She put a hand to her mouth.

"Nope, I'll have to talk to her about this later." Hex turned back around and opened another door. There was a young looking Demon Hunter with blonde hair that was gelled into a single spike in the front, who was cleaning his gun.

"Wait." Elaine stepped past Hex.

"What is it?" Hex looked at her, confused.

"That's not a regular Demon Hunter, what are you doing here, boy?" She asked the young Demon Hunter.

The boy dropped the pieces of his gun in fear, and pulled a dagger from his coat.

"I'm not going to hurt you. You're human. You should leave this place, it's not safe." She shook her head.

"W-What are you? A demon?" the boy asked.

"That's correct. I may be a demon, but I'm no monster. You need to leave." she said.

"You're… Not going to kill me?" The boy looked confused.

"Of course not. I can tell if you're one of the clone Demon Hunters or not, I have vision that shows me if you have the yellow goo in your veins or not. I'm not killing a young human. I won't tell anyone about this, your secret is safe with me." She gestured to herself.

"But if he's a Demon Hunter, isn't he out to kill us?" Hex asked.

"Fear makes people do irrational things, he's probably afraid of magical creatures, and doesn't hate them." she sighed.

"I'll… I'll be going now." The boy tried to slip past, but Elaine grabbed his arm.

"Don't tell the others, or the next time I see you, I won't hesitate." She looked him dead in the eyes, and let him go.

The boy ran away, stepping over the piles of goo that used to be his brethren.

"I guess I was wrong about you." Hex looked back at Elaine.

"My lady, we do not have much time. Every second counts." Kalan tapped Elaine's shoulder.

"They're planning on killing the Zoriyans that were captured, we need to hurry." She ran over and opened the door. She summoned the same pentagram as before and fired it into the room. Screams resounded but were subsequently cut off as the laser made its way across the room.

"My lady, may I handle the rest of this floor?" Kalan walked up to her.

"Sure, but make quick work of them, and let me know if you spot any other humans." She patted him and pointed forward.

Everyone followed behind Kalan as he went into the next few rooms. He swung his giant sword like it was nothing, One of them almost got away, but Din used her fan's light magic powers to knock the Demon Hunter back towards Kalan.

"Thank you, miss." Kalan rested his yellow goo covered blade on his shoulder and gave a single nod to Din.

"You're welcome." Din smiled at him.

Kalan turned and walked up the stairs, and everyone followed behind him. They reached the second floor, and Kalan turned back to Elaine.

"Do you want to handle this floor, my lady?" He bowed respectfully.

"I did enough for now, how about you, Hex?" Elaine turned to Hex

"I'll take a crack at it." Hex cracked his knuckles.

"After you." Kalan stepped aside and gestured Hex forward.

Hex went up and kicked the door, the four clawed toes on the front his feet, which he was wearing shoe-socks on, made scratch marks, the fifth toe's claw on the back of his foot almost got caught on the metal of the door.

"Still getting used to having your fifth toe on the back of your foot I see." Elaine smiled and giggled.

"It still feels weird, lay off." Hex frowned, and walked in.

"Hey, my feet are like that too, we can talk about it," she said.

He walked in, inside the floor there were cages all along the walls, with purple skin humanoid creatures with silver hair and purple eyes with claws on their hands and feet, like him.

"Wow, I've never seen anything like this before." he said as he looked at one of the creatures that had silver cat ears, short fur all over their body, and a dark purple tail.

"These are the Zoriyans, I'll open up a portal to get them out, you take on any Demon Hunters that try to stop us," Elaine said, and opened up a portal.

Kalan walked up to one of the cages, and his hand morphed and grew feathery claws. He took one swing at the lock, and it fell to the floor. He continued to walk to the rest of the cages and cut the locks off all of them. All the Zoriyans emptied out of the cages and surprisingly made a single file line to the portal.

"I would have thought they'd stampede or something, that's weird," Hex said.

"They are much too polite to do such a thing." Elaine laughed.

Hex stared at one of the Zoriyans with long, spindly fingers and light purple arms. Their face hidden by long silver hair, a cowlick next to their ear.

"That's a Sanoday, they are almost extinct. It's sad to see one had been captured, although their escape will be celebrated. She's waiting in line because she doesn't put herself above others." Elaine pointed to the Zoriyan Hex was staring at.

"I've never actually seen a magical creature before I became one so this is a little surreal for me," he said.

"That pair of Zoriyans next to each other are Chronoloids, they are the type of Zoriyan that Zlyena is." She pointed to the two near the back of the line that had bat wings on their backs and sharp cone-like horns sticking out from their short silver hair on the upper sides of their heads.

"What are the cat ones called?" Hex pointed to one of the Zoriyans that he saw earlier.

"They are called Kala, their body is covered with very soft fur, and they love getting petted on the head." Elaine smiled as she pointed in the same direction.

"So they're part animal? Did they evolve from cats?" he asked.

"They were created with the leftover energy Zlyena had after she helped create the cosmos in the far away galaxy she is from," she said.

"Did they have cats there?" he questioned even further.

"Something similar to them, yes." She nodded.

"I'm glad there aren't any children among the captured," Din piped up, visibly distraught.

"They're gonna be okay Din, just be prepared to protect them if any Demon Hunters come." Owen turned to her, and brandished his mallet.

"Why is this happening? What were they going to do to them?" Din asked.

"You won't like the answer," Elaine said.

"I need to know what happens if I fail," Din said.

"Either slavery or death, Zoriyans fetch a high price at auctions, since they are so rare. If they didn't, there would be no survivors." Elaine slowly shook her head.

"Nobody deserves to live like that. I either win or I die," Din said.

"Whoa, hey, Din, it's alright. We have Elaine here, we can't lose," Owen said.

"I may be immortal, but I can still die," Elaine said.

"Let's hope that doesn't happen," he said.

"How do you know you can still die?" Hex asked

"Not dying wasn't in my contract." She shrugged.

"Well, no Demon Hunters have come yet, and almost all of the Zoriyans are through the portal, we should be good," Owen said.

"I hope so," Din said.

They watched the rest of the Zoriyans escape through the portal, and everyone sighed in relief when the last one went through. Elaine closed the portal and looked back at the rest of them.

"Sorry you weren't able to use your mallet, friend." Elaine frowned, looking at Owen.

"Oh, it's fine, I don't really like fighting anyways." He laughed.

"Let's get out of here," Hex said, pointing towards the open door.

"I wonder why there were no rooms on this floor." Din looked up to the stairs going up to the third floor.

"This is probably the holding area," Elaine said.

"Are there more kinds of Zoriyans than what I saw?" Hex asked

"Yes, two more, but they are even rarer than the Sanoday. My mother is actually half-Zoriyan, which is why in her Zoriyan form she has lighter skin." She smiled.

"That's cool, we can talk more about it on the way out." He started to walk out.

"Thank god we didn't need to go to the top floor, the Demon Hunter boy made me too uncomfortable." Din shivered as she walked behind Hex.

"I'm sure he's fine, let's get going," Elaine followed Din and Hex

"Yeah." Owen nodded and walked with them.

"Yes, my lady." Kalan bowed and followed his master.

They left the building while Elaine talked about her mother's exploits. She had heard that her mother was a great warrior from Zlyena and had been told stories of her incredible feats. Her mother had wasted entire buildings of Demon Hunters back in the day. They thanked her for her story and parted ways, heading home.

Read the rest of the book here: https://www.moonquill.com/book/113