A Wolf at the Door

The pair came together in a flurry of slashes and snapping fangs, moving so fast, and it was hard to follow what exactly happened. Pretty sure no human should be able to move that fast without some sort of help. I could tell the moment Svetlana started to tire, though. The bug tail-swiped her, knocking her sprawling, and then the buzzing started again, the little waves moving through the thing’s carapace. It loomed up and spewed that toxic gunk at her, and she only had time to pull her hood up over her head, taking the hit square in the back.

The white of her coat vanished as the smoke rolled, and she stripped out of the parka quickly, leaving it to melt into the snow. That left her in what looked like a Kevlar vest, with mail sleeves attached, covering her from shoulder to wrist. A twist and yank produced another blade from somewhere, and she faced the thing with her shashka in one hand and a reversed dagger in the other. When it came at her again, she met it head-on, the sword defending her upper body as she lunged in to bury the dagger between the first and second segments.

The worm-demon whipped itself away from her, writhing as it tried to scrape the dagger free. Everywhere it touched, it left a blackness behind, and that smudge on the white snow started to move, oozing together like blobs of black mercury.

I recognized that. It was how demons bled, a wispy black fog that would eventually form another type of portal, a big one, ushering the creature back to Hell. The wounded bug was leaving a lot behind. Whatever she’d done with that dagger had hurt it, badly.

When it was unable to remove the blade, the demon came back, raising itself in the air and slamming its entire body down in an attempt to crush her. She leaped to the side, avoiding the smash, but the tail snapped around and took her feet out from under her again. Her head cracked against a tree stump loud enough that I could hear it, and inside I cringed. This was not going to end well.

She didn’t get up. Christ, she wasn’t getting up! I didn’t even realized I’d taken two steps toward the hill until Ivan’s big hand landed on my shoulder, freezing me in place. “Ni

. Watch carefully.”

Despite the fact that every instinct was demanding I dash up that hill and…well, probably get my ass kicked again, I raised the lenses to my eyes, spinning the dial until I could focus in on Svetlana’s still form as closely as I could. “Come on…”

That close, I could see her chest rising and falling. I could see her hand lying across her waist. I could catch the moment her fingers twitched with purpose, easing something small off a clip on her belt. It was small enough to conceal in her hand and though I couldn’t see what it was, I recognized the distinctive flick of her thumb. A pin. She’d pulled a pin on something.

Oh, shit.

Unable to scrape the dagger loose, the demon finally remembered its fallen opponent, and whipped around to face her again. It approached warily, advancing one rattling segment at a time, its mandibles nibbling at the toe of her boot, examining the texture of her pants, feeling its way up her body as she lay there in the snow.

Wait for it…I couldn’t risk yelling, couldn’t distract her, but I willed her to hold her ground, to wait for the proper moment.

Reaching her head, the centipede picked at strands of her hair, tasting it. Finally, satisfied that Svetlana was no longer a threat, it raised up a bit to get a decent strike, its mandibles gaping wide. That’s when she struck.

Her eyes snapped open and she thrust her hand into the creature’s mouth, clear up to her elbow. Whatever she had, she was jamming it clear down the bug’s gullet. She was moving so fast, the thing didn’t even have time to bite her arm off before she’d yanked it out and scrambled away, taking shelter behind the biggest stump she could find.

The demon didn’t bother to follow, hacking and choking, trying to dislodge whatever she’d stuffed into its mouth. Its head whipped violently, the venomous rattle starting again as it tried to launch the foreign object out in a burst of toxic goo. For a moment, I thought it was going to succeed. Then it exploded.

The blast echoed forever, and took half the centipede demon with it. Bits of it rained down, drifting like falling white-hot stars in the night vision goggles, burning in the snow until the entire hillside looked like it was covered in fireflies. The parts that weren’t left burning promptly dispersed, wafting and swirling into a shining disk in midair. I lowered the glasses in favor of putting my hands over my ears, but I could still hear the high-pitched whine, a wail I could feel only in the back of my head. It seemed to go with the portal, like for just a moment we could hear the souls in Hell screaming.

And then it was gone.

Ivan put his binoculars away, and nodded. “Holy hand grenade.”