A Darker Shade of Sorcery (Sample of now published novel.)

Chapter Seven

  Although Arantay loathed his monstrous side, he knew it was useful when battling demons.

He moved with the inhuman speed he'd been cursed with, uncorking the monster's beak from its body amidst a welter of ichors. Blood splattered over his unnaturally pale face and scarlet hair.
After many missions in a plethora of peculiar realms, he'd managed to keep the fear of monsters locked away, but his own evil terrified him more than any demon.

Snow fell hard. Bodies fell harder.

The snow was blue here, a shade lighter than the crystalline trees surrounding them. They were in the ice jungle of Eltika, where the undergrowth was littered with a thousand ice shards and the tree vines emitted vapour cold enough to cause frostbite.
Arantay took time to survey the battle before his next opponent. His fellow demon hunters Lok and Tyrell fought on either side of him.

Lok looked like an angel, with his bright blonde hair and kind face, whilst Tyrell resembled the devil, darkly handsome and hair black as night. Ironically Lok was the most devilish of the three.

"So," said Lok as he hewed another demon in half, "we're missing out on the mission with those sexy alien girls, for this?"

Arantay dodged a Yeti-demon's claws and hacked off its head with his enchanted blade. The monster's head was promptly lost in a whirlwind of snow. "We've also got a recruitment mission next," Arantay replied.

"Damn it." Lok took his anger out on a centipede-like monster, causing its innards to spill out like spaghetti. "That mission sounded awesome. Why do we get stuck with a boring one? We can go to Earth anytime."

Beside him Tyrell used fire magic to burn another fiend to smoking embers.

"They've already given me extra sorcery training this month, like I need it," Lok continued, proving his statement by shooting a bolt of lightning at the next demon in his path.

Demons pressed in all around, but Arantay moved like a phantom reaper, claiming his harvest of blood and brains.

"Who do we have to collect then?" Lok said amiably, ducking as a demon swiped for his head, merely cutting off a strand of his hair instead.

Arantay shrugged. "Some American girl."

"I thought there was a British boy too?"

"Tarensen said the boy is too important for us to collect," replied Arantay.

Lok snorted. "Sure he is. They told me I was important when they found me too."
Lok ducked the pincer of his foe again, before transforming his fingers to daggers and punching out the demon's eyeballs.

"Don't worry, there should be some good missions coming up soon," said Tyrell, his vibrant blue eyes blazing and copper skin streaked with demonic remains.

"Orc armies are amassing in several worlds and more and more Dark-Venators are letting demons into peaceful realms."

"When don't they?" Lok replied sarcastically, shearing off an ant-demon's antennae.

Arantay listened to his companions talk as he darted left and right, dismantling monsters to mangled ruin. He leaped to the side as an elephant-headed monster charged at him, horns encrusted with green gore.

Tyrell conjured a ball of acid and threw it at the beast. The acid magic drenched the demon and burned the skin from its bones. Arantay grimaced as the flesh sloughed off and the monster crumpled.

"We just learned that spell in Extended Sorcery class," Lok chuckled. "You nerd."

Arantay finished off the last demon by stamping the fiend's head to pulp.

As the battle ended, Arantay took a deep breath. It had taken almost a century to control his other side and he still needed a moment to get himself under control.

"Always good to have a little clean up," said Lok. "Let's go tell the snow-elves we've sorted their problem."

"Any others in the area?" Arantay asked.

"Hold on." Tyrell's body went slack and Arantay knew he had astral projected into one of the pterodactyls flying above them, temporarily borrowing its eyes.

A moment later Tyrell returned to his body. "One left, he's escaping."

"No he isn't." Lok sprinted up one of the sapphire snowdrifts.

Arantay followed, in time to see a demon with a wolf's head and the body of gorilla conjuring a portal and jumping through it.

Arantay and his companions raced after the demon, leaping through the gateway half a second before it closed.

They emerged on a world with a sky smudged by purple-stained clouds and lime-coloured lightning that struck the orange marshland around them.

"There," Arantay shouted.

The lupine monster was cunning, unlike most lesser demons. It was already flitting through a second portal as they arrived.

They threw themselves into the next gateway, Lok swearing in annoyance.

Arantay blinked as the colours were sucked from his surroundings. This new realm was sepia toned, making Arantay and his companions appear as if they were in a black and white movie. The demon was already on the move again, however.

This time the hunters were not only flung into a new realm, but into the middle of a battlefield.