Knights of the Grey City

Chapter 36 - ESCAPE

We ran, but there was nowhere to run. Demons crawled up out of the earth, swooped from the sky, and started to meld from the buildings, reaching with claws and hands and wings to attack us.

I slashed and tore as I ran, destroying them before they could touch me. Huang flew overhead, desperately attempting to keep Katie safe in her human form. I heard Katie shriek a swear word, and then the Firedrake suddenly unfurled overhead, burning with flames.

"You good!?" Huang demanded.

"As good as can be expected!" she exclaimed. "The entire world wants to kill us right now!"

"Follow the unbroken buildings!" Huang called. Now that Katie was in her other form, we were able to put on considerable speed, pulling ahead of the endless wave of demons. Up ahead, the Grey City looked normal, but behind us, it barely seemed to be made of physical material anymore.

The force of the demonic energy closing in on us was so strong that it actually hurt, my spatial sense sending waves of pain up my spine. Even my Leviathan instincts had decided that there was no staying and fighting this.

The ground under my injured feet suddenly heaved, pushing me off balance and sending me staggering to the side. I caught myself, but not before the enormous head of a stick insect, rising up out of the earth itself, snapped its mandibles shut on my tail and stopped my movement completely.

I wheeled around and slashed viciously at its face until it was forced to let go, but demons were already surrounding me. Grasping claws came up from the earth to trip me up and demons descended from the sky to harry me. I roared and put on a burst of speed, tearing through as many of them as I could at once. Miraculously, I broke through the wave and my feet hit solid ground again. I ran as fast as I could.

The Gargoyle and Firedrake had pulled ahead into an area that was starting to look familiar. The buildings there were grey and solid. I forced my injured body to move faster, to close the distance, but just before I made it into the familiar streets ahead, something heavy slammed down on me.

All the breath left my chest; I felt bones break. I dragged in a breath and rolled to the side, narrowly avoiding another attack, something slamming into the earth just near my shoulder.

The demons, I now saw, were not just forming out of the ground and the buildings. They were forming and melting together into some kind of giant. Right now, it just looked like an inky mess with claws and wings sticking out of it at odd angles. It was already the height of a small apartment building. It had managed to form a kind of arm out of itself, a long appendage that ended in a point rather than a hand: that was what it had used to hit me. As I scrambled back to my feet, it loomed over to try again.

"Go, Camilo!" Huang called. He flashed past overhead, shining brightly. He started to fly circles around the forming colossus, peppering it with attacks. The Firedrake joined him a moment later, listing to one side on an injured wing, but unleashing an inferno as she flew.

I staggered on, struggling to breathe. I leaned into my instincts, using them to keep myself moving: the human part of Camilo was overwhelmed. The Leviathan, though, knew it could keep moving if it needed to. The grey buildings up ahead seemed so far away.

One of my feet gave way and I staggered, barely able to catch myself. It seemed the wrist joint on my front right leg was broken, and putting additional weight on my injured back feet was only making progress slower. I could feel a strange haze settling in, the mind and instincts of the Leviathan starting to lift.

I knew all too well what that meant. I was going to revert to my human form any moment.

I heard a heavy impact behind me and Huang went tumbling overhead, batted away like an insect from the colossus. Katie swooped by a second later, her normally graceful, spiralling flight now jagged and desperate.