These two were good.

For all of the bragging and posing, Joseph and John knew how to fight. Inquisitors trained from birth in several different types of weapon. That knowledge and skill was infused into their minds and bodies. Raw stats were one thing, but knowing how to use a weapon was another. If they couldn’t keep up with me due to my speed, strength and endurance, they had to rely on what they had that I didn’t.

Fighting someone who was better than me was frustrating. John had correctly assessed that getting hit at all by me was a recipe for a slow and grinding defeat. The cheap weapons they wielded would snap in two at a light touch from Stigma, leaving them completely defenceless. They kept their distance and picked their moments to strike carefully.

The newbie was keeping it cool under pressure despite the frustration he felt. A personality deficiency was nothing in the face of instinct. Even if his mind and body were at odds, he would do as John commanded. Neither of them had landed a hit, but in return I couldn’t close the gap and smash them with my supernatural power without risking a blade through my eye-socket.

That wouldn’t kill me – but I wanted to keep both of them in working order.

But just as they waited for me to make a wrong move, I was waiting for them to do the same. I stepped in towards Joseph, getting onto my knees and throwing a spinning swing – but my other hand was not idle. I clutched a handful of dry earth and threw it in his face as he tried to counter me. He received a mouth full of grit, blinding him enough for me to attack again without him fighting back.

Lacking any other options, he held his sword flat and did his best to block. Just as I had expected, the sword shattered into pieces as it met the edge of Stigma. I yelled and heaved my entire body into the throw. Joseph could not hold back the torrent of strength that smacked him in the chest as he tried to block my attack. His feet were lifted clean from the ground, and his body was sent tumbling through the air like a struck ball. He came down across the yard, sliding and hitting his head against the brick foundation of one of the surrounding houses.

“Joseph!” John cried. I was already moving out of the way as he tried to stab me in the back. John knew that if he let me get close to his friend, the fight would get a lot, lot harder. He attacked with all of his ferocity, coming at me again and again with precise poke and slashes. It was difficult for me to keep up. John had been fighting for decades longer than I. His footwork, positioning and ability to feint his next attacks were keeping me on my toes.

Demonic strength or not, Stigma was a big and heavy sword. It still took longer to strike with it than John did with his. The momentum was dangerous – but it was also easier to avoid than a smaller weapon. John wasn’t going to fall for my dirty tactics now that he had seen it happen to Joseph. He inserted himself in the space between me and his fallen ward, who was trying to stop his eyes from spinning after being blasted halfway across the city.

“Give it up!” John demanded. I held Stigma up horizontally across my chest, but John changed trajectory suddenly mid-swing and aimed for my hands. I tried my best to keep it away from my digits by pushing it upwards and out of the way, but John was persistent to a fault. Instead, it hopped over my hand and came back down against my forearm.

The edge of his sword sliced down across the surface of my skin, but rather than cutting through the weaker armour and slicing me to ribbons - John found an usual amount of resistance. The sword had gotten caught on something and it wasn’t bone. The woollen sweater was not so lucky to escape unscathed. A large gash had been cut through the fabric. I took my chance and jabbed John in the nose using that same arm, cracking him across the bridge and sending him stumbling back with a gasp of agony. I’d held back, but the angry blotch of black and red that bloomed immediately after made it clear I broke something.

I held up the injured arm and found something more concerning than mere blood and gore. The skin had peeled away like dry leaves. Instead of a gruesome look into the interior workings of my left arm, I was now presented with a selection of pitch-black scales. John’s reaction was one of horror – his mouth open and body quivering.

“You’ve turned into a damned demon!” he cried. It looked like Benadora’s guess was along the right lines. I stared at it, unsure of how I really felt about turning into some kind of reptile. If it irritated John and the Inquisitors though, I was always ready to lean into it.

I smirked and reached out for one of the dangling threads, ripping it away and exposing even more of the strange texture that lay beneath. It was starting to spread up towards my wrists and hands. It looked like it would soon encompass the entire area. In this case – it had protected me from an otherwise bothersome injury. I’d be picking and pulling on the dead skin like a kid when this was over, because it was hard to resist the siren call of making it worse for myself.

My hand drifted up to where I had located the horns; “I don’t feel like a demon just yet. But being a human doesn’t mean much around here. You seriously think the average person is going to realise there’s anything wrong?”

Tahar could walk around most towns without a problem. There were several human-adjacent species in this world, like the Ashmorn, Tahar’s avian people and the Stallin. Seeing someone with claws or horns was more of a curiosity than a source of worry. Judging from Benadora’s guesswork – even the most well educated of scholars did not know about the true origins of the Blackblood. What were the odds of a random citizen knowing anything?

“Almost enough to make you think that this ‘demon’ thing is a load of old horseshit.”

“Only a demon could act as you have.”

“You know that’s a lie, but you said it anyway. It doesn’t matter what species someone is – they’re all capable of doing terrible stuff. Who are you to judge whether I’ve made a turn for the worse? You don’t know anything about me.”

I charged at him. John scrambled to his feet and made the exact same mistake that Joseph did, trying to use his sword as a shield instead of moving out of my way. Stigma came down with a deafening clatter, chipping away a piece of the steel and flinging it dangerously into the air. With each attack I pressed the point.

I yelled, “Blind, ignorant, old fool!”

With one last strike, his sword was shattered into dozens of small pieces, tumbling down to his feet. He stumbled back and collapsed next to the still unconscious Joseph, narrowly avoiding losing his head. The fear in his eyes told me everything. He had no more cards to play. This was a last-ditch effort to stop me – to regain his place amongst the elite.

“I guess I understand you on some level. Always fighting to be the one on top.”

“We’re nothing alike,” John said, wiping blood away from his eyes.

“You’re telling me you don’t do this for our own benefit?”

“Not everyone is as selfish as you.”

“The only people who can afford to be selfless are the ones with money, but you don’t see them doing much charity. You’ve got a cosy gig in comparison to most people.”

John took a turn for the sullen, “You don’t have the faintest idea of what I’ve sacrificed, or how hard I’ve worked to get where I am today.”

“Why should I care? You didn’t listen to me – so I’m not gonna’ listen to you. That’s how it works.”

With everything said and settled. I decided to put them both out of their misery and finish this fight. I lifted Stigma up into the air, but in the scant second between me moving to kill John, he had reached into his pocket and retrieved a small pistol. I was too slow to react, only realising that he had one last trick as he was pulling the trigger. With the quality of their other weapons, I didn’t think that he could have procured a catalyst launcher.

“[Concuss!]”

The only reason I didn’t end up with a hole blown through me was because John was no mage. The launcher was a small, handheld device. Effective offensive magic demanded a larger power compartment and plenty of skill. He could still learn a thing or two such as the spell he had decided to cast – one that blinded and deafened me with a loud, white hot explosion.

I swung wildly in front of me, but I didn’t meet flesh or bone. I could hear John grabbing Joseph by the collar and making a run for it – but for the life of me I couldn’t find them. My vision was completely blacked out and my sense of balance had been completely destroyed. There were very few equalizers in a world that relied of stats, but incapacitating your enemy worked no matter how much HP they had…

“Fucking bastard!” I roared. They were already long gone. I could feel it.

I stumbled back and found solid footing against the nearest wall. John had clearly though better of trying to get close and getting clocked with another punch. If things didn’t go his way, Joseph would pay the price too. It took almost ten minutes for the ringing in my ears to die down. As I expected they had both fled the scene.

So much for that careful plan of theirs. They had failed on first contact.

But the fact that there were Inquisitors creeping around the city left me uneasy. I had no doubt that they’d try a similar trick on Cali or Tahar given the chance, and I believed Tahar was too gentle to harm another person even in self-defence. I had never known an Inquisitor to adopt this kind of strategy before. I thought that Petty-King John was just another silver-spoon autocrat too disconnected from how the world worked to follow up on chasing me. It spoke to how deeply trust in his abilities had been shaken by my assassination of Forester. He was desperate to pull out a win versus me, but so far, the only thing he had gotten was a broken nose.

“Bastard,” I muttered again. He had gotten one over on me because I had started assuming too much. Even the ‘noblest’ and most rigid people would throw out a surprise or two when push came to shove. John was desperate enough to hunt me down without the Inquisition’s support, that meant he was also desperate enough to use underhanded strategies like the catalyst launcher. All’s fair in love and war. I would have done the same in his position. Distract the enemy, relocate and live to fight another day. There’s nothing more precious than your own life.

I wasn’t happy about it though. I was already a paranoid lunatic, so having the constant threat of them ambushing me was an unhappy revelation on top of many others. I’d need to keep my eyes open for them, or try to take the initiative by tracking them down and killing them. Joseph took a hard fall but I could only assume that some weak healing magic would fix him up for another go. John’s broken nose would be a much harder task. I was at a loss as to what to do with myself. Just when I had started making plans to move on for another job, John had to show up and throw a wrench into the works.

I decided that finding Cali and Tahar was most important. It was unlikely that they’d have launched a simultaneous attack on us. I turned the other way and headed out of the backstreet. I’d check the hotel first and then look for signs of trouble. If only I knew what Cali was going through.