“As I can,” she answered as she searched around and made her way to an opening across the room from them.
As she walked, Elan looked cautiously around, still intent on locating the source of the voice that had spoken to them. She was less than willing to deal with a disembodied voice if she had any choice in the matter. It smacked too much of demonic magic.
The white walls of the facility gleamed with a purity of color that she’d rarely seen, and only in the clouds in the sky. No speck of dirt marred them, no smudge, no imperfection of any kind. It was unnatural, as much so as the demons but seemingly in the precisely opposite way. She really didn’t know what to make of it as she reached the end of the corridor and found that it branched both left and right, and there was a large door ahead of her.
The door opened as she approached it, causing Elan to hesitate as she looked both directions and then inside the small room the door had guarded.
“What is this?” she mumbled, confused.
The room seemed to serve no purpose she could fathom. It was just a small, empty room, as unnaturally white as the rest of the place. Elan sighed and stepped back a moment before looking to the right and taking a step in that direction.
A hiss and a bang made her jump as a chunk of wall slammed down in front of her, blocking that direction. Elan stumbled back, then turned to her left. She was less shocked when the same thing happened, blocking that hall as well.
Irritated and more than a little frightened, though she refused to admit as much even to herself, Elan turned to head back to where she’d left Caleb and the children, only to again jump back as that direction, too, was blocked to her.
She turned slowly around and looked intently at the small room for a long moment.
Elan seriously considered just sitting down and stubbornly waiting out whoever was doing this to her, but the others didn’t have the time.
“Fine,” she spat, stepping forward into the small room. “Are you happy? Here I—”
The door hissed shut behind her, leaving her locked in the room as a blinding white light enveloped her.
*****
“What do we do?” Simone asked helplessly as they watched the demons finish rounding up the rest of the people who had been sheltering within the temple.
Kaern shrugged. “Well, I know I’m not cleared to initiate a transport, and I doubt you are… That would be a bit of coincidence, but even if you are…I have no clue where she went, or even if there was a functioning receiver on the other end. They could be dead, Simone.”
“I’ll believe it when I see it,” she hissed, “but that wasn’t what I meant. What about them?”
Kaern glanced to the people who were being rounded up and sighed. “If we save them, we’ll draw attention to ourselves, Simone. We’ll have to run. There will be no chance of tracking the kids.”
“You yourself just said that was unlikely anyway,” she said. “And there are children out there.”
Kaern gritted his teeth, hating the situation on more levels than he cared to consider at the moment, but knew his companion well enough. Simone had a soft spot for children, which was why she had looked after and trained so many orphans after…well, after. There was no way she would just ignore this, even if it were tactically or strategically the smarter thing to do.
Besides that, he recognized the demonic breeds standing there in the light. No one, especially no child, deserved what they would do with their prisoners.
“Alright,” he said. “On my lead, take out the black ones first. No mercy, no quarter, Simone. Those things are walking nightmares. They die first, or we die screaming.”
She nodded firmly, shifting her grip on her blade. “How tough is their skin?”
“Like armor,” he told her grimly, “and their blood is toxic to humans, so keep your mouth shut and try not to get it on your skin, especially in your eyes.”
Simone grimaced but loosened up on the blade’s grip so she could get better power with her swings. “Not making this easy, are you?”
“I’m not the one setting the players,” he said simply. “I’m just calling the play. On me, Simone, just like old times.”
“Old times,” she said in agreement as she followed him out, covering his left side flank as Kaern broke right.
There were no shadows for them to drop out of, so the pair relied on speed as they closed on their targets with blades lifted high. Neither yelled or did more than grunt softly as they brought their blades down in power strikes that bit deep into the armored, black demons.
Simone’s blade bit deep, cutting a third of the way through the demon’s torso, eliciting a roar of pain from the shocked demon as she bore down on the blade, and she swept it out, cutting even more as she did. The black-green ichor of blood pulled from the wound spattered the floor as her blade arced down and around. She spun in place, sweeping the blade in a full circle, and then brought it down again in another power strike that sent her foe rolling to the ground, less its head.
Beside her, Kaern had gone straight for a cleaving stroke that left the head itself attached to his foe’s body, just in two very separate pieces. He kicked the body down when it began to topple in his direction and moved on to the next, blue sparks of lightning beginning to dance along his sword as he did so.
The commotion didn’t go unnoticed as they fought. Several demons guarding the prisoners had their attentions redirected. It was a moment that proved fatal, as they were swarmed by previously beaten down humans who now had nothing left to lose.
Simone was sweating in short order. The strength needed to penetrate the armor-like hide or carapace or whatever the hell it was the demons had was not insignificant, and it was wearing her down quickly to keep up the pressure needed. As she pushed through the strain and pain, Simone watched as Kaern cut his way nearly effortlessly through the hulking demons and, not for the first time, wondered about her sometime-ally and often-time friend.
He didn’t speak much of his past, but she knew he wasn’t human and she knew his past was painful to him. He hated demons with a fire that she’d rarely seen in humans, and even then only in those who had personally witnessed and experienced the sorts of atrocity that demons could inflict on their loved ones. Kaern’s hatred seemed deeper even than that, though it was tempered by the man’s tired pessimism.
Simone pushed those thoughts away as she charged another demon, thrusting her blade straight and true with a scream of effort as she felt the blade resist for a moment before suddenly sinking deep through its chest and coming to an abrupt halt against the armor of its back. Simone glared into the black eyes that stared back, shocked at her, and slowly pushed her blade out with as much strength as she could to hold the demon at a distance as blood gushed out along her steel and coated her hands.
“Yeeeahhh!” she screamed as she wrenched the blade clear and let the demon fall to its knees.
The fighting around her was still going on, but it was clear that the tide—inside the temple, at least—had shifted. The demons were all caught in losing fights or trying to run, something she noticed that Kaern had no interest in allowing.
He’d charged ahead of her, and she now ran to try and catch up as he cut down lesser demons with casual strokes, focused on something she couldn’t discern for herself.
What is he doing?
Kaern beheaded a final demon as he reached the goal his charge and kicked a human to the ground with a vicious blow. The man skidded along the stone, seemingly stunned more by the fact that the blow had casually destroyed his defenses before sending him to the ground.