The Andre Miller Saga

Andre Miller 8 The Gauntlet

Andre and the others had come to Tilly's shop predawn to get equipment and items they would need for their trip out of the city and towards Birmingham, Alabama. They were nearly packed when the demons charged through the door. They had wanted to avoid a potential confrontation with demonic forces, but the demons had been waiting for them and had other ideas.

Tilly swung her silver sword and lopped off the horn of the third demon that had entered the building. Kyle launched it back out of the building with a shove rune, bounding it 50 feet down the street.

Meanwhile, Andre and Frankie were busy fighting the second demon. Frankie using his long kris knife and Andre with his holy sword. They were slowly carving it to pieces as it couldn't make up its mind as to which of them to attack.

Caleb had the first demon through the door wrapped up in a trapping rune and was battering at it with his mace. The demon's head was almost pulp, but the rune held it in place so Caleb kept swinging.

Andre spun his sword in a long arc and sliced it into the demon's leg, causing it to fall prone. Frankie capitalized on the moment of exposure and sunk his knife into the exposed back of the demon's skull, causing it to twitch spasmodically and then lay still.

The rune holding Caleb's demon faded and it fell to the floor in a heap, Caleb moved around it and made for the door to see the situation outside just in time to see the last demon cut down by two other mages on the street. "We're clear in here! Let's move to the street and help the others!" he shouted.

The five of them moved out of Tilly's Shield and onto Pumpkin Row, the local magic district in the city. It was the second time in two weeks that demons had launched an incursion against the Row, the first had led to their crushing defeat, and this second time wasn't going any better for them.

Dozens of mages called the Row home or had their shop located there. The demons had launched their attack just after dawn when most of the shops were preparing to open. The alert went out quickly and the demons were met with a quickly formed wall of mystic shields, and blasts of magical energy.

A large demon, the size of a bull, charged down the street towards Tilly's shop and the five friends who had just exited the building. Frankie saw it first and shouted out a warning to the others. The bull demon was met with three shove runes at the same time from Frankie, Kyle, and Caleb, knocking it off course and slamming it into a light pole nearby.

One of the attack mages from down the Row summoned a magical lightning strike and blasted the bull demon on the back as it was struggling to rise from its impact with the pole. It twitched for a few moments and then lay still, partially embedded in, and welded to the light pole.

The fighting continued as the demons kept coming in waves and were just as quickly cut down. Mages learned quickly and they refused to let a demonic attack, no matter the size, go unanswered.

At some point during the attack, the mystic police arrived and added their force to the defense of the Row.

Three hours later the last of the demons lay dead or dying, a dozen or more of the mages were wounded or dead, and everyone was covered in sweat, wounds, blood, and demon filth from the extended battle.

Andre leaned against a nearby wall, "I am entirely too old for this kind of thing anymore."

"You and me both, brother," replied Caleb. Both men were in their mid-50s and had been practicing magic for the majority of their lives.

Frankie wiped off his knife and slid it back into its back sheath, "They seem to be getting serious about getting to us."

Three nights ago, the demonic forces had attacked Andre and Caleb's office in an attempt to kidnap or kill Frankie. They knew he had a destiny and that there was something special about him, but had not a clue as to what it all meant. "Yeah, we just have to hope this discourages them for a few more days till we can get out of here and on the road." Said Tilly as she headed back for her shop to start dragging the demons onto the street where they could be picked up and disposed of by the MPD.