Demon Hunters: Last Class

Episode 43: Toni- Last Class

I awoke to the sound of Di hurrying through the words of one of her incantations. The bushes and roots around her broke through the ground or reached out like grasping claws. Following the directions of her hands, they wrapped around Brute's neck. For an insane moment, I thought she was killing the big groundskeeper, then I made sense of what I saw. A wooden neck brace fused with his tree bark skin. He grunted and tried to sit up, but she pushed him back down.

"Let the magic settle, I don't have much energy left. I won't be able to do this again."

He nodded and laid back, allowing the plants to do their work. She turned to me as I sat up.

"What happened to that stink-breathed sonofabich?" I looked around frantically as memories flooded back. "He didn't get Lyric, did he?"

"No. Lyric got him. Toasted him with lightning." She pointed at a smoking corpse. Someone had piled twigs and branches on it and a small fire had started. "We'll cook what's left. Just in case."

I nodded in agreement. "Just in case. Where's burnt girl?"

"With Fabian." She barred my way as I got up and moved towards her. "She's burned out all of her ki. I felt the last of it rush out of her as of the last bit of Lyric rode out on the lightning. She's alive, but she'll need time to come back."

I didn't understand. When I said as much, Di shook her head like a doting mother on a sitcom.

"She's used up. Black says once you've stepped over your threshold, your mind and spirit flee your body in search of–"

"In search of what? Peace, Nirvana, Shangri-La, Disney World!" I was crying, remembering warnings from Nena and Andrew. "A mystic must never spend all of themselves or risk the consciousness leaving with it."

"She'll return," Di said, but it was one of those rare cases where she seemed unsure. "We still need to get back. Andrea says inkmen have tried the front gate and were turned back. They might come over the walls at other points. It isn't safe here."

I looked up at the horrible tree, where lifeless bodies swung in the strong evening breeze.

"Do you feel that," Di asked. "That's no natural wind. We have to go. Brute, can you stand?"

Brute got up slowly. He tried to speak, but the words came out a raw croak.

"Help us."

She gestured towards Lyric and Fabian. The Sword girl was still out, the side of her face darkening from her beating. I grabbed Reed and we followed Di towards the school proper.

Sounds of steady gunfire grew louder as we passed Black's shack. The familiar stink of cabbage was a welcome smell after so much had happened. A wounded hunter laid in the grass along the path, beside him was a puddle of tar. Sword House was on fire and groups of kids were making their way towards Shield. B-ko impaled a man in filthy rags with a makeshift spear. He shrieked in demon and his body burst into a mound of gnashing teeth. Anchali blew off its arm and then its head with her shotguns. More inkmen cartwheeled up the path, overtaking a pair of boys and cutting them to ribbons.

"Do we go home or get to the Headmistress's house," I asked, though I knew what I wanted to do.

My— our bug-out bags were still in our rooms. Things had snowballed, one event into another. We were prepared to run, but our stuff was safely in our rooms and not on our backs. Glancing back at Brute, lumbering behind us, I remembered Lyric was out of the game. We needed to get her somewhere safe and making a run for it wouldn't help her at all.

"We get the wounded to Nena and we report. Then we go back for our stuff."

Di read my mind, yet Blair was way ahead of us. She called to us as we followed the bend in the road that would take us to the headmistress's house. In her arms and over her shoulders were our bags. She looked terrible, but she moved with purpose. An inkman reached for her and a hunter sniped him from a second floor window. She reached us, out of breath and sweating. Di reached for her bag and Blair shook her head, squatting and covering her head.