Kein’Maddal settled into the recesses of the pitiful human infestation, his wings wafting the stench of offal, sweat, blood, and grease mixed with the tender scent of freshly roasted hare. The unholy mixture of smells only made his stomach ache with hunger, and yet, even for someone like him, a fragment of The Devouring Beast, he valued his freedom over his next meal. Kein’Maddal inhaled once more, and the scent of mother’s milk made his mouth water. Where there was milk, there were babies. Another time.

“Hey, I know that guy,” the slightly larger-than-average man with the strange purple-tinted skin said, daring to point his finger at the majesty that was Kein’Maddal.

He roared his displeasure, his voice rippling the fabric of reality around them and withering the produce in the abandoned stalls lining the street. “You should have paid me the proper respect, little man, and set me free when you had the chance.”

“Nah,” the purple-tinted man said, tugging the elf behind him by her collar. “I’m not an idiot.”

With the tight quarters of the street hampering his full range of motion, Kein’Maddal was only able to apply a light slap with his clawed hand, but it was enough to send the human hurtling through the wood-slatted window of the grocer. Kein’Maddal aimed a second swipe at the elf, but she backed out of his reach. Like a rat retreating into its burrow, she followed the little man through the wall.

***

“Ow,” Sam moaned, struggling to right himself in the tangle of broken wood. He was noting the building code violations and halfway through forming a citation before he stopped himself, slapping his forehead.

“Get down!” Faera screamed. She hit Sam right around his knees, dropping him backwards onto the floor. In the street, a horrendous hacking cough from lungs too big to belong to a human came to their ears. A moment later, black gel shot through the broken window, sinking into the surrounding wood and brick with a faint, tortured wail.

Sam pushed himself to his feet and studied the black goop dissolving the surroundings and screaming in pain. The goop was screaming.

“Come out, little man,” the demon said, peering through the hole, which the ooze was slowly widening. “Or I’ll amuse myself with this colony of mortals.”

“I’ve got to stop him,” Sam said, meeting the demon’s gaze.

“You can’t,” Faera said. “A mortal without magic is powerless to stop a demon. We can use the sewers to--”

Reason battled with testosterone for a moment, and then Sam had an idea. “Could the Tyranus guy do it?”

Faera paled. “Maybe, but…”

“Then I got this.” Sam was already out the window.

He jumped over another slap from Kookie Monster, drove a chair leg with exposed nails into the thing’s neck, then rolled and sent a second strike into its groin. There was no spurt of arterial blood. Odd.

“You don’t understand!” Faera cried. “He’s a--”

Korporate Monkey caught Sam with a backhand, sending him tumbling out of earshot. Sam gritted his teeth and focused on rolling as far as possible. It seemed like nails to the groin elicited a stronger response than to the neck.

Despite what Faera said, he was sure he could make an impression on this guy. Sam was designed for war, designed to kill. And anything could be killed.

Sam leapt to his feet, running as he scanned the street for a weapon, finding nothing but wooden wagons, rope, and smelly straw. He passed by a shop with a burning bed of coals in the center, and what looked like a multitude of rough-hewn steel farming implements. The owner appeared to have chosen discretion as the better part of valor.

Sam rolled into the shop as a massive fist dented the cobblestones outside. He needed something sharp. He was slightly concerned about the lack of blood, but figured all he needed to do was hit Kala Moochie harder to get to the juicy bits. People probably thought demons were immortal because they kept their blood behind a deep, tough layer of skin.

He grabbed a six-foot steel pole and shoved it into the square hole on the anvil, levering the big iron block over his shoulder. It wasn’t more than he could handle, but it was close. Wood splintered as the demon began to tear apart the shop’s supporting beams.

Sam grunted as he pushed himself toward the staircase in the back. The demon’s claws began hollowing out the shop’s interior, the enormous beast bending low to look into the room. Sam humped his way up the stairs, which creaked but held, and got a brief glance of the owner cowering in his bedroom as Sam ran through and jumped out the second story window.

With the anvil riding on his shoulder, and a steel pole jutting out in front of him, Sam fell down at the demon even as it stood up. He weighed two hundred and fifty pounds, and with the extra two hundred pounds of inertia, he figured he was definitely going to reach the demon’s juicy center.

The demon gaped and tried to raise a hand, but it was too late. The pole sank into Kunt Muncher’s face and through its neck, finally emerging from behind a shoulder blade. Sam let go of the steel and slid out from beneath the anvil, his back one big aching bruise. The anvil slid down the steel pole, thudding against the twitching monster’s chest.

Sam sank to his knees feeling triumphant. S4M units were nothing if not problem solvers. He closed his eyes and focused on catching his breath.

The ground shaking was his only warning as the demon tromped forward. Sam sprang to the left, ignoring his aching ribs and the taste of blood in his mouth. A foot smashed down and sank into the stone of the street like it was wet sand, sending up a plume of dust and making the buildings shit themselves in a clatter of bricks.

Sam cast a look up and saw an anvil tumbling through the air toward him like a cannonball. He hopped over it, and the steel mass gouged a hole in the street behind him. Seeing the demon slowly pulling the steel pole from its face, and the wound closing behind it, Sam started sprinting.

Despite the debris strewn along the road, the gawking onlookers, the piss-slick street, and the cold shudder down the back of his neck as the demon chased him, Sam didn’t think he’d ever flown that fast. His feet barely touched the ground. Most of his flight was spent sailing through the air, touching off the walls when he needed to course-correct. He hadn’t moved like that in generations; not since the technicians disappeared and stopped making them do the sadistic ‘Fitness Exams’.

A couple things had been made clear during their interaction: Demons were harder to kill than Sam had thought, and he might need some help.

“Where’s Tyranus!” Sam shouted as he ran, harried by the booming footsteps of the demon. The citizens of the town screamed and ran away, their arms laden with melted steel or bits of preserved indigo blue fabric, probably intent on turning the Mississippi uniforms into pillows or something.

“Where’s Tyranus!” Sam shouted again, leaping over a cart. On the other side was a massive block of stone advertising a mason’s shop. Sam landed, braced himself against the stone and shoved the cart backwards, sending it skittering sideways, its wheels squealing a protest as it slid faster than it was ever meant to travel, in a direction it was never meant to move.

The cart caught the demon’s ankle, and Kim Midol plummeted to the ground with a curse that caused a wave of nausea to assault all who heard it. He just barely caught himself with his wings against the buildings on either side of the street.

While it was off-balance, Sam grabbed a cowering bystander, an old man with really bad teeth. He squealed, his rancid breath wafting into Sam’s face.

“Where’s Tyranus!” Sam shouted.

The old man pointed down the street in the direction Sam had come, back toward the demon. “M-m-main gate. There’s a parade.”

“Thanks!” Sam said, dropping the old man to the ground and sprinting toward the demon. He scrambled to the right, between the demon’s arm and leg as he tried to right himself in the relatively narrow street. The demon sent a swipe at Sam, digging furrows into the brick and wood buildings with his claws.

The beast roared in anger and twisted around, once again giving chase. Sam put his head down and ran. Between the quaking stomps of the demon following him, Sam could hear the faint cheering of a crowd in high spirits. This KM fellow didn’t seem to be interested in anyone other than Sam as the two of them barreled down the street past mud- and ash-smeared, gawking townspeople. That might mean he’d have to make Tyranus interested in his boy here, rather than the other way around.

Sam burst onto the main street, not bothering to slow down for the crowd. Sam was like a fast ship on the ocean, flinging people aside like spray as he hurtled toward the city gate. Moments later, the screaming started as people spotted the very focused demon.

The crowd, thus motivated, began to flow the right direction, carrying Sam along with them. He spotted a big, garish crimson float ahead of him--the tail end of the parade. Sam surged forward, only to slide to a halt when the float turned around and growled at him.

Sam looked up, and up. About twenty feet above him, the enormous red lizard’s head hovered, looking down at him and his pursuer, the upstarts that had crashed his parade. Meanwhile, the citizens of the city vanished into every alley, every window, every open door. In seconds, Sam found himself standing alone in the center of the street between the enormous lizard and the eleven-foot wolf-headed demon.

“Who are you that dares intrude upon my demesne?” the red lizard rumbled.

“I do not answer to--” the demon started, overtop of Sam’s “I was hoping--”

The lizard’s head tilted. Sam realized that, up until this point, it had not been looking at Sam, which had probably been for the best. The lizard’s eyes dilated, its long neck bringing the cabin-sized head a few feet away from Sam’s own. Sam might be able to reach either end of that toothy smile with his fingertips, maybe.

“If it isn’t an S4M unit!” the dragon said, a rumbling spreading through the street as it chuckled. “What a blast from the past! Your team almost killed me once.” The dragon traced a furrow in its scales, scratching beneath its eye. “Where’s T0M and 4NN?”

“Tom’s dead, and Ann’s AWOL,” Sam informed it.

“Shame, I guess this will be a lot less fun.” The dragon’s lips peeled away from the partially-serrated teeth that lined its jaw, its intentions clear.

“HOLD!” the demon boomed. “I must kill the mortal. Any other outcome would be to renege on my agreement. Give him to me, or I will end you and your paltry, limited, mortal demesne here, lizard.”

The lizard’s attention snapped back to the demon, its lips peeling back from arm-length fangs as a low rumble shook the dirt on the cobblestones.

“Wow, are you going to take that shit from him in front of your people, Tyranus?” Sam asked, aiming to add fuel to the fire.

“I know what you’re doing, and while I find it amusing… I will not tolerate it.” The giant jaws snapped open, gaping in front of Sam like the gates of hell before the dragon lunged.

Sam flung himself backward, narrowly avoiding becoming two severed legs and a smear on the cobblestones.

Kein’Maddal roared and leapt forward, trying to kill Sam first--or at least prevent the dragon from killing him. Sam rolled to the side as the giant demon’s foot collapsed the street where he’d just rested.

For a breathless moment, the two powerful beings stood nose-to-nose. Then Kein’Maddal tackled the dragon’s long neck, pushing Tyranus onto his back feet. The dragon raked at the demon’s chest with his claws.

Watching the two titans smash each other into buildings, Sam realized that now was a good time to make an exit.

“Tyranus,” Sam shouted, waving his hands above his head.

The dragon’s eye rolled toward him as he landed on his back, collapsing a brick shop.

“Let me know when you’re having fun!” Sam flipped him off.

He didn’t expect the gout of flame to shoot over fifty feet. Sam threw himself to the side, but the fire welled up and expanded, filling every corner of the street as it rushed toward him like an oncoming train.

In the billowing fire, Sam could just barely make out Faera’s form, silhouetted against the glaring flames. Create a bookmark, Echo Alpha. The elf twisted her hands in front of her in a complex ritual that seemed to wind in on itself, and then thrust her hands palm-out with a shout.

The fire spilled around the two of them, conforming to some invisible dome that was projected outward from her hands. Sam felt the intense heat scorching the hairs of his eyebrows and scalp, so he could only imagine what Faera was going through. She let out cry of pain, and fell to her knees when the torrent of fire stopped, leaving them surrounded by a burning hellscape. They stood at the very point of a cone of unscathed buildings. Change directory to the Sierra folder.

Sam scrambled to his feet and grabbed the shaking elf, who had tucked her hands against her chest. She was trembling and her eyes were distant, staring blankly into the flames in front of her. Sam tried to pull her to her feet, but her rigid fetal position made it difficult. For the sake of expediency, he decided to take the Viking route, shoved an arm around her waist, and threw her over his shoulder.

Sam turned the corner a moment before a second blast of flame glassed the streets again. Sam glanced at the brightly-glowing stone behind him that flowed down the gentle slope of the street like syrup.

“We need to leave,” Sam said, kneeling down toward the sewer grates he’d seen a man flee into earlier, Faera still balanced on his shoulder. The grates were far too small for him, but a few good kicks shattered the weak masonry holding the bars in place, and Sam slid into the blackness of the underground, pulling the insensate elf along with him.

Sam scuttled down the smelly river of sewage. The ceiling was a mere five and a half feet high, so he had to run almost doubled over, carrying the elf. Even as his nose got used to the smell, his back began to complain.

But his discomfort wasn’t important. What was important was following the sewage to the river and getting the hell out of here. Sam shook his head, wondering what had possessed him to give the dragon the finger. He reviewed the scene to distract himself from the growing protests of his spine.

It was the mention of Tom and Ann, he realized. He hadn’t had time to think about them the last couple weeks, he’d been so busy fighting for his life. His dreams, on the other hand, were nothing but a highlight reel of his greatest failures, the implant made sure of that.

Sam glanced down at the elf in his arms, recalling the spell she had cast. She could do magic, too--that was news to him. Come to think of it, though, maybe spellcasting was a lot like martial arts. Maybe a guy who trained for twenty years could beat a guy with a gun, but there were a lot more guns than there were martial arts masters.

Even if you knew how to blow someone up with your mind, it was still probably a lot easier just to shoot them. Sam had assumed she didn’t know how to use elven magic, but that seemed not to be the case.

In light of this new discovery, Sam started forming a plan. If he took a rest and set her down, she’d probably get some kind of nasty infection in her wounds, which would interfere with said plan. She was too valuable to set down here. Not to mention, cute.

Sam scuttled through the tunnels, hunched over in the dark as he navigated away from the earth-shaking sounds of combat. He probably looked like some hulking monster with a taste for women, escaping with the fair prize it’d stolen away in the night. Sam chuckled.