Ten feet.
That was the distance between me and a flesh-eating demon that wanted to rip my face off.
The Somnient stalked toward me, a stocky, compact beast that looked like a demonic pit bull with a cavernous mouth of spiky yellow teeth. The smell of sulfur and rotten eggs poured from its mouth, making me want to vomit. It dragged its gnarly claws, leaving a trail of melting snow and rocks behind it.
The beach around us was filled with snow-capped rocks. Running wasn’t an option.
Behind me, the ice cracked on Lake Linette, the city’s great lake that was oh-so-beautiful in the summer, but a major problem for me now because I had nowhere else to run. In the overcast sky, the lake was a gray wasteland, its waves frozen in mid-crest.
I stepped back, and my foot hit a rock. I tripped and stumbled, but I regained my balance, jumping onto the rock.
The Somnient growled, baring its teeth.
“Seriously,” I said. “You have nothing better to do than eat people’s minds from the inside out, do you?”
The Somnient roared.
“It’s negative bazillion degrees outside,” I said. “Shouldn’t you be hibernating?”
The Somnient closed the gap, pouncing onto a rock.
“I keep hoping that one of these days when I talk to you demons, that you’ll talk back, and we can conversate or something,” I said. “Actually, forget I said that. I don’t even want to know what your voice would sound like. It would probably sound like the apocalypse.”
I jumped backward, landing on another rock nearby. Needed to keep my distance.
I hadn’t seen a Somnient since I killed the demon king a while back. The demon population decreased since then, and Somnient sightings were down across the city, which meant I could spend less time demon hunting and more time doing things I loved, like being with my cousins, drinking Prosecco, watching Star Trek…
Any day I didn’t have to deal with these dream-eating demons was a good day.
Now I had to figure out exactly how I was going to dismantle this demon before it made a mess of my client’s dream.
The bitter cold wind blew, damn near knocking me off the rock.
That’s the kind of winter we were having in Kemiston this year—it was cold, even in people’s freaking dreams.
A dreamlike voice spoke from above.
“Didn’t take this bad boy long to show up,” Destiny said.
She was watching the dream, even though she wasn't physically with me. On a day like this, I envied her for not having to do the hard work.
“Won’t take me long to get rid of him,” I said.
Reaching into the air, I felt dream ether pulsating all around me. It buzzed through my body.
I grinned at the Somnient.
“Last chance to repent for your foolish ways, talk to Jesus, or do whatever it is that you demons do to be saved,” I said.
Nothing. The demon didn’t even crack a smile.
“Okay,” I said. “Now it’s time for me to rip your face off.”
“Cuz, strike your pose and do a quarter turn,” Destiny said. “You know, like they do in the magazines.”
“Really?” I asked. “You're giving me posing directions while I fight?”
“Not me,” Destiny said. “It's the client’s photographer.”
I pulled the dream ether into my hands, and I willed it to become bright lines of light that swirled all around me like an overexposed photo.
I extended my hands as if I were shooting the light at the Somnient.
Winking, I willed the rock to disappear, knocking the Somnient onto its stomach.
“More,” Destiny said.
“More?” I asked. “That wasn’t good enough?”
“The wizard tech thingy won’t work right unless you keep going,” Destiny said. “He says to drag this fight out a bit more.”
“Has this photographer ever fought a Somnient before?” I asked. “I shouldn't let this thing live for too much longer.”
“Girl, will you just shut up and pose?” Destiny asked angrily.
Sighing, I composed myself.
The demon jumped to its feet.
I smiled, putting on my best confident smile, imagining myself in a photo shoot.
Because I was in a photo shoot.
Well, kind of.
A real life demon hunt slash photo shoot with no camera, that is.
Ever since we saved the city from a nightmare train hell-bent on death, we were minor celebrities. The city’s news magazine wanted to feature us. Darius was recording my every move with one of his wizard tech thingies that I had no idea how to explain.
“Time to have some fun with this,” I said.
I flipped into the air, spinning several times as I willed the dream ether to gather above me.
*********
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