Into the Twilit Gloom (2022)

1. Demonhunter Patrol

The blade ripped free as the beast dissolved in a cloud of ichor.

Frankie ducked the spray of acid with a squeak. It never got old, having highly corrosive demon blood squirt through the air whenever a demonhunter got a kill. At least, it hadn't gotten old to her yet.

"Totally smooth."

Well that was on brand. Her best friend never did miss an opportunity for some deadpan humour. She straightened up, brushing her hair out of her eyes, and glanced over her shoulder at her. "That wasn't me squeaking. Nuh uh. There must've been a mouse somewhere, totally." She fumbled for her sheath, wonkily sliding the blade home.

Meg sloshed through the patch of marsh towards her, tall and thin, ginger hair verging on auburn in the setting sun. "Mmm, sure. And don't do that, you'll ruin the wood." She batted at Frankie's hilt with a pale, slender hand. "It was still covered in ichor."

"Was it?" Frankie pulled the blade free a couple of inches. Her friend was right. It was smeared with a layer of black demon goo, and the scabbard's lacquered wood was already steaming. Her heart started to sink. "Well, shit. Ambourne's going to kill me." Hetchworth Hall's weaponsmaster was not known for her patience.

"Uh huh." Her friend was fiddling with her long plait. Her leather armour had a muted gleam in the low sun, both the vambrace and rerebrace pockmarked by ichor splashes, and her silver sigil ring glinted on her finger. "Maybe a restock is a good shout?"

Frankie abandoned the scabbard to its melting, looking up with wide eyes. "Wait, you mean a stash? We finally get to open a stash? Unsupervised?" Stashes were usually reserved for independent, adult demonhunters.

"I think that might have been the idea when they sent us all the way out here. You know, the complete middle of nowhere." There was a point to that. Meg's eyes were darting around the soaked weeds, and Frankie's followed. Classmates had been sent on assignment to places they could easily restock at a station, or even at the school itself, but no. She and Meg had been sent to the wettest corner of Kent, where their idea of public transport consisted of a fully functional miniature steam railway. Not exactly what most people would term civilisation in the 21st Century. And not exactly where a young demonhunter could get much adventuring experience, either.

It really wasn't what Frankie had in mind for her first real demonhunting placement. There was a lot less demonhunting and a lot more sodden patrolling than she'd expected. She didn't like to think how much less practise they were getting than the rest of their class, just because they were in Kent's equivalent of the abyss.

That did beg another good question. She patted her sweaty hands dry on her leggings. "Do you think there's even one here? I really don't want to have to walk the whole way back to Dymchurch. We might as well just give in for the night if we do that." A three-hour trek across marshland in the dark was about as appealing as it sounded, even if the summer warmth meant they wouldn't be demonhunting icicles by the time they arrived.

Her friend was already delving into one of the many pockets of her cargo pants. "Well, let's see." She fished her phone free, and Frankie peered over her shoulder. A few years back, one of the seventh-year students had turned out to be a complete computer whizz, and now his app came pre-installed on all work phones issued to demonhunters. Frankie had no idea how it worked, but somehow it kept track of station and stash locations, tracked traces of demons and beasts, and even texted them emergency alerts. The whole package. There was absolutely zero doubt in her mind that the dude was an actual life saver.

"Here we go." A flashing dot had appeared on Meg's map. "There's a church nearby, and the stash hasn't been accessed in a while. Should be good to go. St Thomas à Becket?"

Frankie raised an eyebrow. That name was peppered on churches, pubs, schools, everywhere all over the county. "Him again?"

"Well, very famous martyr, happened in Kent, probably quite popular with the medieval locals who built the place." Meg was already climbing out of the patch of marsh, onto a slither of more solid ground. Water had splashed at the thin material of her cargos. At least they were going to dry fast in the summer heat. Frankie swept her hair out of her face and followed on, biting back an admittedly naff response about the lack of naming variety in the 12th century. The two of them started to trudge towards the road.

The sun dipped below the sparse line of trees on the horizon, casting the sky a bright shade of coral pink and stretching their shadows out far behind them, and then with a final wink, it was gone. Everything on the marshes was so unbelievably flat, with the possible exception of the bundles of bushes and trees that shadowed the roadways. There, in the distance, was the church, a lonely silhouette against the twilight. It was sat alone in a sheep field.

They both jumped the wire fence, scabbards and hilts clattering, and waded between tufts of knee-high grass and piles of sheep droppings. The animals themselves roamed around the church, balls of fluff that chomped at the greenery. Their boots sucked into the wet peat, so they made for a narrow wooden causeway trampled into the marsh. It saved their feet getting any more wet, at least, as it bridged the maze of watercourses that stood between them and the squat brick structure, and without it, Frankie was certain that she'd end up slipping on the wet grasses and tumbling in.

"Odd place to whack a church," she muttered as their boots thudded across the bridge. "You know, the absolute middle of nowhere?"

Meg snorted a laugh. "This whole place is that." She glanced over at her to see her composing herself. She smiled to herself. "In all seriousness, though, I was reading the guidebook, and this is, like, a lost village?"

A lost village? It'd probably sunk into the peat. "Huh, that's pretty cool." Frankie looked up at the brick building looming over them. It was simple, with no tall stone belltower that was typical with medieval churches, but she had a renewed respect for it. It'd sat here, amongst the ditches and drains, besieged by sheep as it watched the rest of the village sink into oblivion.

Kind of poetic.

Meg was already rounding the nave, and she hurried after, dodging a couple of rogue sheep. Her friend was at the side door, tugging at the handle. "It's locked."

"Hang on." Frankie reached for a sheath on the back of her belt. "I got it." With a yank, a short blade came free, barely worth calling a knife. Its edges were dull, its handle worn and perfectly rounded to her grip, but the magical engravings in the metal glinted as she rounded on the door. She slid it into the gap above the handle, swept it downwards, and –

Click.

The heavy door swung inwards a couple of inches. Frankie pulled the blade free and slid it back into its sheath. "See, I'm useful sometimes."

"Mmhm." Her friend's eyes were rolling as she pushedon the wooden door. It opened with a creak and they stepped inside.