When a man dies, the insects and crawling things descend upon his flesh.
When a God dies, what descend on them? What arrives to devour the lingering spirit, the soul?
The answer came on the thirteenth day after the Titans were slain:
Demons.
Powerful, feeding on the souls of the living and the dead. Demons take on the traits of the Titans they have feasted upon, living in realms hollowed out where their great souls reside, across the liminal barrier.
We pray, always, that this incursion is the last. That maybe there is nothing left, and the vermin have died out, starved. They never have.
They never will.
Book of Thorns, 1:1
ZELITH
Grey was ten feet in front of her, the clawed digits of the demon drifting between Zelith and her. The red growth continued, getting worse as Zelith tensed, ready to move. The claws drifted closer, as Grey let out a growl and took a step closer.
A flurry of movement. The creature surged forward, threatening to crush Zelith and Grey, sapphire limbs below a mask that looked almost human, red hair emerging below a burning crown of horns above. Zelith jumped to the side, Grey slashed at it.
Then…everything was upside down. Time slowed. Blood dripped down as Zelith’s head collided with the stone, her broken horn screaming in agony as she fell, struggling to her elbows as she looked towards Grey.
She froze, the ringing pain worse, as she saw her own legs, still mid-collapse, next to her, Grey’s eyes flaring with panic. As her face began to narrow, fur spreading across it, her expression grew tense, like something was pulling at her.
Behind her, Zelith could see the hazy, indistinct shape of Lasiar, a hand held up as blood began to drift out of Grey’s mouth through the air towards him. He looked down at Zelith, raising an eyebrow, before waving a hand. A blur, a whistling sound.
Darkness.
White, black. A flash. Ink pours across marble floor, a flood, as a cloaked figure strides across.
Grey was ten feet in front of her.
The clawed digits of the demon danced through the air, Zelith’s eyes widening as she let out a horrified gasp, turning to Grey and raising her hands to cast.
“HE’S RI-”
Claws. Cold. Her vision faded, the last horrifying moment before her vision went dark was her head rolling backwards, no longer connected to the neck.
A night sky, filled with so many stars, spreading out across the mottled dark blue and black expanse.
Then, they blink.
Ten feet. Claws three inches away. Grey in sight, Lasair unseen. Jaw set.
Alive. Somehow. Figure that out later.
Grey stepped forward. The creature surged forwards. Zelith didn’t move, letting the carapace-like torso of the demon hit her as she moved her fingers, a familiar pattern, one of the simplest ones she could think to do.
Part of the wall began to collapse, drained of its density as Zelith quickly looked to see where Grey had ended up. Zelith felt a surge of pain as her left arm was cut through, but she was already raising the left, looking at Grey.
Memorize where she is. Remember.
Zelith’s blood screamed as Lasair was suddenly visible behind Grey, casting himself as Zelith felt like all the blood in her body was being gripped by an invisible hand, slamming her into the stone with a violent thud.
An armored beast, a hulking figure with a head like a crocodile’s, body pulsing with heat. The creature had four eyes atop its head, and as it roared Zelith could see another four at the bottom of its jaw, like it had two faces mirroring each other. As it screamed, wings of blades and flame erupted from it, a single deafening roar erupting from it.
KEIN.
The demon slams forwards. Density drawn from the wall, closer to the right now. Left hand pulled as quickly as she can as the claws soar past.
Density moved to Grey’s armor right before the second clawed limb slams into the hunter’s torso. Strong enough to stand up to it, knocked back.
Lasair emerges. Shift in the bricks. Grey held in place, blood ripped from her body. Claws. Darkness.
Grey ten feet in front. Demon slams forwards. Density, movement. Lasair kills Grey. Death. Darkness.
Ten feet. Move. Density drawn from further left. Wall explodes, revealing Lasair behind. Grey saved. More claws. More death. Over and over and over and over. The demon can’t be touched, Grey’s claws passing through it, like the ones above. Again. Again. Again.
Zelith, sitting at a desk, notes written out in scrawled, mad patterns. She’s wearing the sapphire blue scarf and darker vests of the student’s uniforms at Lahrii. Her shattered horn has been replaced at the top with ivory, and her eyes have bags under them, clearly exhausted.
“I know you can see me. I remember this,” she says, voice hoarse. “I calculated it, afterwards. Eighteen hours, total. Second by second. Loop by loop.”
The glowing eyes turn, locking with Zelith’s unseen perspective.
“You need to drag her out. Then Grey can finish the job. You don’t have much time. Remember…you are demon blood, born from the rot of Kein.”
The wall behind the vision of Zelith cracks.
“I’m sorry.”
GREY
As the teleportation faded, Grey’s eyes narrowed on the demon looming behind Zelith. She looked human, to an extent, but elongated and covered in carapace, with clawed limbs and a horrifying human-like mask of a face below her burning horns.
She took a step forwards, claws at the ready, red flares dancing along Grey’s arms as she snarled.
No matter the cost.
The next moments were a blur. A flash of blue, spellfire manifesting from Zelith even as she was slammed forward by the demon. The next thing Grey knew, the wall behind her exploded.
A claw hit her armor, but somehow it deflected it, pushing her back. Zelith barely dodged a set of claws, weaving through the air in a way that somehow perfectly evaded harm, before another spellflash spun Grey around, the stone below her feet shifted, putting her face to face with an elderly man, his clothing a strange mix of business attire and a butcher’s apron. A hand was moving up, but Grey had dealt with mages before, her claws lashing out and tearing into the man’s arm.
As he yelled out, a hiss of air escaping his lips, Grey grabbed him by the lapels and slammed him into the wall, the older man crumbling to the ground.
Spitting at the blood mage’s crumbled form, Grey turned to see Zelith, almost out of breath and standing between her and the demon. As the witchblood stood, flames began to dance across her intact horn, a red-hot glow in her bones.
“Cut the bitch apart,” Zelith snarled, sparks emerging from her mouth, before the stars manifested around her, Zelith disappearing from sight.
ZELITH
Everything was fire.
It was right, of course. That vision. Born from the rot of Kein, the Titan of War. The burning one. Lurking below the cold, the logic, that burning red instinct smoldered. A teleport could get her into the liminal plane…the “child” had clearly lied about the basement being seven-folded.
The spell concluded, Zelith assaulted by a sudden chill. Even as her body burned, she stood in an echo of the chamber she stood in. The ugly red growth, that inverted white and black flash, the hand of Mindol, all stood there, but everything else was vague, like smoke reflected on a lake.
Everything except for the demon.
As Esme turned, Zelith was already running. The chill was absolute, and she could feel her limbs starting to freeze over. The power of Kein had given her a window.
A claw passed through her right hand even as she tried to dodge, a cut slicing through her palm, more vital heat escaping through the open wound. As the hand began to freeze, Zelith clamped it onto the demon’s hand, stars flaring before her other as the frost kept covering every inch of her.
No matter the cost.
GREY
It was only a second, but it felt like eternity. As Grey ran forward, there was a blue and red flash, the demon hissing as Zelith stood next to it. Not questioning, Grey did exactly what Zelith had said. Claws made contact with the flesh of the demon, the carapace slicing with ease. The creature had hidden between space for so long, built around never being hit, that it had next to no defenses when exposed to the breathing world.
A howling roar, a few deft strikes. With a tearing sound, Grey grabbed the demon’s shoulder and the bottom of its horrible mask of a face, claws digging in for purchase as she flexed, tearing the head off of the rest.
As black blood began to spill out onto the floor, Grey let out a series of heavy breaths, heart pounding with victory and exhilaration, before she turned to Zelith, standing where she’d appeared, between Grey and the rift in the center of the room.
“Lily, we did it!” Grey roared, moving over and clapping a hand onto her lover’s shoulder only to immediately freeze. Zelith’s shoulder was ice, frozen to the touch, and with dawning horror Grey looked over Zelith. She stood, like a statue. As Grey watched, her right hand seemed to almost…split.
“No, no, *no*, Zelith!” Grey growled, grabbing as carefully as she could to Zelith’s shoulders. As the rift began to flare, the red growths receding,the building around them shaking violently.
Grey locked eyes with something inside the white-and-black rift, for a second. A vision of Zelith, haggard, in some blue getup. But for that second, Grey watched as the other Zelith’s face split open, the skin receding to reveal a mass of eyes and teeth, a horrifying grin on whatever the thing was, before the rift vanished.
Grey’s attention turned back to Zelith, breathing heavily as she looked at the mage in her hands.
She needed healing. Magic. Something. But there was nobody nearby. Nobody who could do anything.
Looking up towards the ceiling, Grey snarled. She had no idea how deep they were, but she had to try.
Star lines. Teleportation. One shot.
With a blue flare of light, the pair vanished from the crumbling underground sanctum, leaving only the rotting demon and the unconscious lord of the house to their eminent fate.
Strike The Horizon 