Devil's Soul

Chapter 39 (at least I got my phone back)

I think the bullet went straight through my heart, but it was surprisingly hard to tell. All I know is that my chest exploded in pain, and I fell to the floor. I had to focus all my energy on not passing out (or dying). I could feel that the Devil's weird healing ability was still clinging to me, already working to mend my broken heart. The ability was working too slowly on its own, though. If my heart really had been hit, I would die before my heart could heal. I closed my eyes and concentrated on the mending tissue, willing it to expel the bullet and close up the wound immediately. I only had to wait half a second before the bullet clattered to the floor.

I opened my eyes. I hadn't lost much blood this time, but my only change of clothes was still ruined. No one was paying me any mind because I was presumed dead, and it turned out they had bigger problems to worry about at the moment. Rumpels scooped up his gun from the floor with his foot and kicked it into the air. He caught it with a grace that could only belong to someone that was well-practiced. Rumpels had some skills that he'd been hiding. In a mere second, he disarmed each person holding a gun by shooting their hands. The men (and one woman) recoiled, dropping their weapons. Their hands had only been grazed. Apparently, Rumpels was a softie.

But he also meant business. He raised his gun to the big man's head. "If anyone moves, I'll shoot him right between the eyes," Rumpels growled. "You killed my daughter. Don't think for a second that I wouldn't kill you."

I wondered if now was a good time to mention that I wasn't actually dead. Nah, I didn't want to mess up Rumpels' big moment.

His moment didn't last long, though, because it turns out my intuition was right; the room was full of demons, and Rumpels had made a mistake in assuming they were all loyal to the big guy. Things were about to get very messy.

"Kill him if you want," a voice called out. "But how many of us can you kill, before we kill you?"

"Let's count," Rumpels said, his voice low and deadly.

The big man roared and charged forward. Perhaps he'd been meaning to grab Rumpels by the throat, but we would never find out because Rumpels fired, and the bullet went right between the eyes, just as he'd promised. The man collapsed, not too far from me, and his hefty collection of soul fragments began to leak out of his reversed pentagram. The fragments had my complete attention, and I barely noticed the fighting breaking out around me. Only one other demon, a short, long-bearded man, seemed to notice the fragments. He was closer to them, and he looked upon them with fiery, greedy eyes, as they loomed toward him.

Sadly for him, I had my eyes on those soul fragments, and I wasn't letting anyone else take them. I relaxed and welcomed them toward me. They easily switched directions. The baffled demon followed them with his gaze, until he locked eyes with me. I grinned and winked, just before absorbing the fragments.

To say the bearded man seemed spooked would be an understatement. He looked absolutely petrified to discover I was still alive. I almost felt flattered he had found reason to be afraid of me. He had no idea he was facing the least threatening demon in existence.

On a burst of bravery, fueled by the flattery, I jumped to my feet. I was energized and ready to take on the whole room! Every pair of eyes (all red, except for Rumpels' brown ones) turned toward me.

"She has dominion over flesh!" a woman close to me shrieked, and everyone recoiled. A tall, lanky demon, who could apparently dislocate his jaw like a snake, was poised to swallow Rumpels' head. He had hesitated upon hearing the news about my ability, and now he was frozen with his mouth open wide, probably wondering how much I would make him pay for eating my dearest "father." I had no idea why my ability to heal myself seemed so scary to this pack of demons, but it gave Rumpels the time he needed to knock out the demon he'd been wrestling with and slice open the throat of the snake man with a knife that seemed to have materialized out of thin air. Blood poured onto Rumpels' face. He merely wiped it from his eyes and spit it from his mouth, as the snake man fell limp at Rumpels' feet.