The muscles beneath Shalise’s skin rippled and grew. Skin split at various points on her body, her biceps, stomach, sides. Her neck. Juliana could see the muscles through the tears–there was surprisingly little blood. They coiled and twisted around themselves.
Like the muscles on a tiger getting ready to pounce.
Shalise’s face took on a cruel grin as her teeth sharpened and her eyes flared red.
“And you plan to stop me?”
Juliana smiled, hoping he wasn’t hurting her friend too much, and shook her head. “Nope. I plan to summon you.”
Whatever he expected her to say, that wasn’t it. Shalise’s eyes lost their cinders and the smile faltered.
“Let Shalise go. Tell me how to summon you. You and I can write all kinds of books with your name in them. Maybe even find you a few
Prax cracked his neck to one side then the other. His right hand curled into a fist, knuckles popping as it tightened.
Juliana prepared to jump back, out of reach.
He twisted and threw his fist directly over his own shoulder.
It impacted mid-air with a sickening crunch. Black liquid splattered over Juliana’s face. Most of Prax didn’t make it out unsoiled.
On the ground, a gaunt demon shimmered into being on the floor.
The void opened and swallowed him whole a moment later.
“I shall consider it,” Prax said. “For now, there are more around.”
Juliana formed a helmet and a dagger in each hand out of her flowing metal. “More?”
“At least three,” Prax said, slowly turning his head around the hallway. “Morail tend to despise others of their race, but I suppose that doesn’t matter here. They found and broke out others of their own kind.”
Nodding, Juliana looked around herself with her daggers ready to move the moment anything happened.
They were past the red barriers. Juliana never thought she would miss being able to see into the cells, but at least the barriers provided a good amount of light. The small white lights dotting the walkways left much to be desired.
Juliana couldn’t see anything. Being invisible wouldn’t do much good if she could see them, but she thought there might be some tell. Some shimmering against the background of the hallway or some glimmer in the faint light.
Even holding her breath, Juliana could hear nothing but the beating of her own heart.
Prax swung an arm through empty air.
His arm spun around his back and snapped with a crack.
Jumping forward, Juliana thrust out with her knife where she thought the demon would be. She took care to avoid accidentally skewering Prax.
Something clamped down on Juliana’s arm and started to twist.
Juliana hardened all the metal in her arm. The knife in her hand was reabsorbed into her armor.
In an instant, Juliana’s entire arm turned into a sea urchin.
Black blood dripped down several of the needles.
Swinging her other arm, her dagger cut through thin air.
Juliana brought her dagger down on top of Prax’s captor. She flinched away from another splatter of black blood.
“See,” Prax said, patting her cheek with blood-slick fingers, “you can be worth something after all.”
“Yeah, you’re welc–wait, you thought I was worthless?”
Prax swung a fist over Shalise’s shoulder. Something cracked, but no void opened on the floor.
“There was only one unconscious body being lugged around for the last day or so,” he said. Prax swept a hand down Shalise’s chest. His eyes went wide and he sported a crooked grin. “And it wasn’t this one.”
Juliana opened her mouth to respond, but something crashed into her helmet. She stumbled around, trying to dampen the reverberations. Having a gong go off inside your head hurt.
Lashing out with her spiny arm, Juliana tried to catch her attacker before they moved away.
Her arm sailed through the air and nothing else.
“Stop being such cowards and fight!”
“Oh, they cannot help that,” Prax drawled. “When your primary ability is to cower in the shadows,” Prax kicked a leg out.
Something cracked, cracked again as it hit a wall, and fell into a dark violet void portal.
“You learn to avoid confrontations.”
Juliana was only half listening to Prax; the knock on her head had been unpleasant enough the first time around. She slowly rotated in place, keeping her arms ready to strike.
“Behind you.”
Not hesitating for a moment, Juliana thrust her elbow straight back. The spines on her arm withdrew and formed into a single, barbed spike at the tip of her elbow.
It caught.
Juliana jerked her arm upwards, ignoring the pain stricken cry, and dug in deeper. Her metal spike spread out into another urchin-like implement of misery.
Fingers ran over her armor as the demon lashed out. He started trying to twist and squeeze.
Juliana was fairly certain that there were teeth involved as well. She responded with tiny hooks covering the surface of her armor.
He tried to pull back and ended up dragging Juliana down onto the ground.
With her on top.
