Page 92 of Red Demon
“Mira?” Faruhar echoed.
“Our friend. She’s got a background with Modtech,” Asher explained. “She couldn’t map the SBO virus to Jesse’s code. If there is no such thing as SBO, that would be why.”
“Where is this Mira?” Faruhar asked, her long legs moving over the terrain with grace.
“Uyr Elderven.” Ash caught his breath. “The research hospital.”
“A Z’har? You’re crazy,” Faruhar huffed.
“Might not have pledged yet,” Asher said. “They gave her three months.”
I could hear the pain in his voice. “I always planned to head to her next, Ash. She’s family. We have to warn her before that pledge.”
Faruhar considered this, her face unreadable. “I’ll see you both to the gates of Uyr Elderven, but you’ll have to find your own way in. Although, I’d appreciate a hand along the way.”
“A hand with what?”
I heard them running toward us, crashing in the underbrush and the leaves of the clearing ahead. I halted as a dozen figures spread out in front of us, carrying a mismatch of weapons and tools, their clothes dirty and eyes glazed with hate.
“Demons,” she said, unsheathing her swords.
Chapter 38
Ruren-sa
One of the ruren-sa let out an ear-splitting yell, a dozen or so ripping across the clearing toward us. Before my mind could catch up, Faruhar was a blur of grace and death, her steel tearing into the flesh of the closest man. I froze, entranced by the flawless execution of her attack.
Ash hissed beside me, drawing his sword, and I kicked my ass into gear.
The first person I ever killed was a bearded, middle-aged man wielding a farmer’s scythe. The second was an Asri woman with a stolen Chaeten blade—lower tech, its steel polished to a gleam. Ash only managed to take down one, while Faruhar danced between the rest in a single breath. Her twin swords, razor sharp, found their way to each heart and neck, felling each with efficient thuds. And when there was no one left to kill, she dropped to check her victims’ pockets.
Asher’s scream sliced through the clearing and I turned to see him on his knees, clutching his head in horror. I saw nothing to fight, no one to kill.
“Let her in quick,” Faruhar called to him. “It’s Bria.”
“No, no, no.” Asher shook in waves, his voice raw.
Faruhar spun on her heel and knelt beside him, her eyes blazing with a fury that chilled me—just as it had when she killed Mal. “Would you rather have her in your mind or a ruren-sa? Let her in.”
My head pounded. “Ash?” I stepped closer, Istaran glowing in my hands.
Asher crumpled to the ground, his scream reverberating off barren trees.
“Fuck,” she said.
The rustling of leaves at my back snapped me back to attention. A woman, her face contorted in a sneer, swung rusty garden shears at my head with all her might. I threw myself to the side just as the rusted metal snapped shut where my head had been.
Adrenaline surged through me as a fresh wave of demons ran into the clearing, too many to count. I swung Istaran, the motion grounding me in the center of the chaos. An immense man with a machete lunged at me. I parried the blow, the clang jolting my bones. I found my focus. This was no sparring session: I must kill or be killed.
My world spun around the gravity of Istaran’s blade. Grunts and the squelch of flesh. Practice had never prepared me for the withdrawal of my blade from living bone. I underestimated how much force it would take, finding I needed to reverse the angle of the strike just right to avoid getting stuck. A woman with a claw hammer gave a wild swing when my blade lodged itself between ribs. I ducked, fumbling for a dagger as her hammer hummed over my head, grazing my shoulder under my Chaeten leather. I retaliated with a throw of that dagger to her chest and finished with Istaran through her neck. Her head rolled, the green in her Chaeten eyes flickering and dying.
“Ash?” I looked for him among the bodies, seeing only a man with a rusty relic of an Asri blade coming at me, workmanship that would have made Galen cry. I sliced him open and withdrew, catching Faruhar’s raised eyebrow.
“You’re faster than when we fought,” Faruhar said beside me, felling the last in the clearing.
I saw Asher across the meadow, hunched and turned away. I bolted for him. He fixed his terrified gold-brown eyes on me, his face pale with a sheen of sweat on his brow. Then he raised his blood-wet blade at me. He didn’t need to swing to gut me. My world went dark; the sun at my center collapsed in.
“Ash,” I whispered. “No, Ash,” I couldn’t lose him too, but I had.
