Nightmare in Allentown

The highways leading into Allentown were scarcely populated with cars this late in the night. Persia's SUV peeled off Interstate 78 into the city, the tall street lights strobing as the vehicle traveled forty miles per hour faster than the speed limit.

The scenery of large acres of farmland flanking her shifted into business outfits, shops, and restaurants; all closed for the night. Compared to Hermosville, which never slept, it was as if the entire city turned in for the night. Well, everywhere was deserted except the street blocked off by an army of police cars, their red and blue lights flashing.

Stepping out of the vehicle, with her knights following behind, she noted that law enforcement had sectioned off a full block of townhouses. A haze of yellow light bled into the sky with plums of black smoke in the distance. The distinct red of a firetruck caught her attention nearby.

"Hey! This is a crime scene." An officer talking into his radio noticed them approaching. "Turn back! I repeat, turn back!"

Persia didn't even break her stride. "Do I look like I need to pay attention to a word you uttered? Stand aside, mortal."

The officer reached for his taser yet froze in fear as she and her knights, in full-body armor of black, accented with red, walked by him, ripping off the yellow tape markings in the process. Persia half hoped he'd try something. However, present matters outweighed any sense of satisfaction derived from dealing with weak mortals.

As she guessed from afar, one townhouse was engulfed in a fiery blaze. And the fire would spread down the rest of the houses if the firefighters battling it weren't proficient enough. Mason watched the action from the middle of the street, a lit cigarette in his mouth, and his full frontal section simmering with orange light as a testament to fire's ferocity.

"I was beginning to think you developed cold feet," he said when she reached him. Her eyes narrowed into slits. However, Mason stared ahead, unbothered. "They've been beating on this fire for half an hour. If you ask me, I couldn't tell you who is winning, the firefighters or the fire?"

"Where is the crime scene you stated was caused by demons?" she asked. "All I see is a house fire."

Mason took a long drag of his cigarette. "You sure? I'd look closer if I were you."

Refocusing her attention, she pried her eyes off the fire that drew everyone's interest and noticed the state of destruction of the other neighboring townhouses. Their sidewalls had large holes punched into them, with fragments of wood and debris littering the lawns. Where the holes were present, deep chunks of grass and earth were gouged out. It was as if a train had run along the sides of the houses, smashing through each wall, and ending in the house consumed with fire.

"The fire is destroying the evidence," Mason added.

Her face scrunched up with anger. The firefighters would achieve nothing but have key evidence ruined. She leaped forward into the blaze.

"Stand back!" she yelled.

The firefighters paid her no attention until a pointed tower made of ice grew from under their firetruck, ripping into the metal and pushing the 500lb vehicle into the air, well beyond their reach. Only then did they notice her glowing eyes and the Eye of Arixxer spinning beside her.

"Stand back," she warned.

As the firefighters scurried away, she opened her palms, channeling the abundance of energy locked in the floating artifact by her side.

Winds of frost, colder than the chilliest winters, erupted from the air surrounding her and rampaged down the sides of the spreading fire. Soon a tornado of ice frost and smoke locked the inferno in, arresting the oxygen supply and dropping the temperature so much that there was no heat left to burn.

As the fire withered away, Persia raised a brow, because she felt some heat in the house that wouldn't die. So she encased said source of heat in an ice prison and signaled her knights to follow her. Mason tagged along as well.

Over half the house had been consumed by the fire, the remaining section charred beyond recognition. The stench of smoke, almost overbearing, assaulted their nostrils as they parsed through the wreckage, trying to make sense of it. Save for Persia, who knew exactly where to go, stopping at the ice prison in what used to be the kitchen. Even now, the thing burning threatened to melt her ice and would have succeeded if she wasn't aware and fighting it.

"What is it?" Mason asked.

"I intend to find out." With a wave of her hand, the ice prison, shaped like a round coffin, came closer on ice platforms. Then the upper portions retracted, revealing the upper body of a dead human. It was mainly a torso with stumps for legs, charcoal-black and smoldering-red with intense heat. The head was missing. She pulled out a vial of holy water and sprinkled it on the body. Other than the hiss of water striking fire, nothing else happened. "This isn't a demon."

"That holy water is quite handy," Mason said. "Don't suppose you fancy a trade?"

Her cold look was the only answer she gave. Parting with their sacred holy water, birthed from their devout faith in the eternal master? She couldn't think of anything more preposterous.

"Grand Master," a knight called.

When she regarded him, the knight held up a vial of holy water and sprayed it into the air. Immediately, the air lit ablaze in red simmering trails, the telltale signs of infernal energies.

Mason caught on. "It seems we were right. They were here."

Not only that, from the patterns hidden in the red flames, coupled with the sheer scale of it, she could tell the demon was powerful. By her estimates, which were spotty at best, the demon had more power than Therkoth, the Pitblaze, who appeared a few years ago.

"So that round of cleansing you did years ago proved inadequate." Mason fiddled with his lighter, another cigarette in his mouth.

Her brows arched, and her eyes narrowed on him. How many more aggravating remarks could this mortal make before her intrusive thoughts of plunging an ice dagger into his eye won over?

Undisturbed, Mason leaned closer to the body, studying its details. "I have a sneaking suspicion who this body belongs to. Of course, we've got to run forensics, to be sure. One thing's for certain, the body belongs to a superhuman."

Pulling her gaze off Mason, she looked past the car-sized hole in the sidewall into the other house. "Our goal is to figure out why the demon was here."

She, along with the knights, combed through the other affected houses. All houses carried signs of infernal presence and a battle that charged like a tornado through the properties. The most damning element of all were the dead bodies littering the houses, in varying states of disfigurement. One thing the bodies had in common was decapitation, their heads missing. 

She studied the neck stump of one such body, what appeared to be a boy in his early teens. "His head was bitten clean off. See the serrated flesh along his neck?"

Mason nodded. "So we are looking for a demon who feasts on human heads in the largest suburb in the city. What a fucking shitshow."

She traced her hand along the body's torso, noting the missing limbs. Apparently, the demon favored limbs as well. The demonic profiling in her head grew more detailed with each piece of evidence they uncovered. However, she still needed much more. After all, thousands of demonic species consumed human flesh.

"We found a survivor," a knight said, in the kitchen's doorway.

Following the knight into the kitchen, they spotted a small girl huddled in an overhead cabinet. The girl's body trembled as she hugged herself and hid her face. 

Mason closed the distance, requesting paramedics via his earpiece. "Hello, we won't hurt you. We're the good guys. The police, you see?" He pulled out his HAVEN badge. "What's your name?"

"A-Alice," the girl muttered, perking up.

"OK, Alice, I'm here to help. Let me help you, ok?"

The girl nodded, streams of dried tears on her face. Mason carried her away, out of the house, and placed her in the arms of a paramedic. On his way past Persia, some symbols on the Eye of Arixxer started glowing and blinking. With a quick glance, she understood its message. 

"I have questions for the girl," she said when Mason returned.

He shot her a quizzing look. "That can wait until later. The poor girl must be traumatized."

"No, I don't think you understand what is at stake."

She spun around and followed after the girl. Mason called behind her, but she ignored him. An ear-piercing scream rang from outside. Shit. She broke into a run, her teeth grinding when she reached outside. The paramedic lay dead on the front lawn, blood gushing from her neck. A hundred yards down, the small girl fled on all fours.

"Watch out!" Persia screamed, propelling herself into a powerful run. Her full body armor clanked and rattled, but did little to hinder her long strides as her red cloak fluttered in the wind. The girl leaped onto an officer, too shocked to react, and tore into his face with her jaws. It was a savage affair, as the officer choked on his blood, while chunks of flesh were ripped off his face. 

When the girl jumped onto the roof of a car, looking for more targets, a HAVEN agent peeked around the back of another car and unloaded a full clip of rifle rounds. The girl fell off the car and dropped lifelessly onto the tarmac. The agent drew near, her rifle leveled at the dead girl. However, Persia knew better. She summoned a volley of ice darts and shot them at the girl. The darts impaled the girl at blinding speed, eliciting real, dying screams.

"Thanks," the agent said, realizing her grave mistake.

Persia nodded, kneeling beside the dead girl. Her knights quickly assembled around her. The quick notable feature of the girl was her torn lips that extended to her ears, which allowed her jaws, lined with jagged teeth, to open in a monstrous manner. Down her arms, she noted the long sharp claws and taut muscles. These were all features not present on the girl when Mason had carried her. Her eyes were full black, her tongue long and forked. She tested the girl's reaction to holy water. Faint shimmers of red light flashed. But otherwise, the girl didn't burst into flames like actual demons.

"Is she the one we're looking for? The demon?" Mason said with heavy breaths, finally arriving.

Her cold eyes acknowledged him. "You were mere moments from the jaws of death. Thank whatever false god you worship because if we weren't there, you'd be bleeding out amongst the other dead. She likely acted docile in the house because my knights and I were too powerful to challenge."

Mason tipped his head, lighting another cigarette. "My gratitude lies in a smart boss who brought you from halfway across the world and my keen mind for calling you out here. You didn't answer the question. Is she the demon?"

"No, she is a spawn, a mortal turned into a demon's servant by infernal means." She stood to her feet. "If I had to guess, with the way we found her, the demon hoped to throw us off its trail by using her as a decoy."

"I see. If you weren't here, I would've thought nothing of it, seeing her as the demon that caused this mess while the real culprit fades into the shadows. That begs the question, what does the demon want? You have any idea?"

"As a matter of fact, I do," she said. "But first you must tell me the identity of the burning body in the first house."

Mason glanced back at the burnt house, where his agents started entering with their guns raised. "That'll be one, Hugo Sanchez, aka, LaFlame. Was a fledgling superhero. Turned to drug dealing to finance gambling debts. Had the ability where once lit, his body never stopped burning unless he wanted it to. Again, we will need further forensics to verify my claims."

"Then I'm certain we are dealing with a Tsuchigumo. They look like giant spiders with humanoid upper bodies, with a keen taste for human flesh, preferably the heads."

"Why?"

She watched as one of her knights set the girl's body on fire. As the flames set in, crackling and casting orange light on everyone present, she replied. "Because they steal the abilities and memories of any head they consume."