What Lies In Me

Chapter 20

Sssssssss-THUNK!

A red hot chunk of material embeds itself in a tree, sizzling and flickering as it burns and chars the wood around it. The hot matter soon melts, and the liquid trickles down the tree and evaporates, leaving behind a hole and a large swath of burns.

"Demons have a different form of life than humans do, and it takes a different set of circumstances to kill one." Malah says, teaching us as we try out the weapons. Sadie lowers her gun and listens. "We demons, being in physical form, do take physical damage, just as whatever material form we take on would. This alone will not kill us, but will weaken us. If our physical body is destroyed, we will shrink down to a core, which appears as a small rod in this world. It takes time, whether we are wounded or destroyed, for us to regenerate our bodies. The only way to 'kill' a demon is to seal him away while he is only a core, unprotected by the physical body he or she had. This will sever his attachment with the physical world and send him back into the abyss."

Malah stops talking, seemingly finished. I nod my acknowledgement and turn back to the selection of weapons my friends have been trying out. Jackson has taken a liking to the laser disks, as he cut a tree in half the first time he threw one. He since then has found a powerful directional magnet and has been practicing tossing the disks and calling them back.

Tony, lacking the dexterity to toss the disks accurately, has been rummaging through the bag looking at the melee weapons. There are a couple of powerful stun sticks that he set aside to use later, as well as a couple of bladed bracers.

Sadie has spent all of her time since we traveled to this clearing firing every gun that Malah brought along. Every time that she finds a gun that she likes, she finds a place to put it on a belt that was in the bag. So far she's got a small flamethrower, a mini-cannon, and it looks like she's adding the plasma blaster she just tried out to the belt as well.

Since I have my unique abilities and the gauntlet that Tony gave me, I simply brought with me a large metal rod from Jackson's nearby basement. By barely pricking the palm of my hand, I can turn this rod into a bat, a spear, a sword, a small shield, or even a metal covering for my left hand. I don't feel the same effects of fatigue that I felt after using my abilities several times. This gauntlet does the trick. I haven't lost much blood at all in this session.

Malah seems pleased that we are enjoying using the weapons. It seems strange to me that she is so willing to disclose the weaknesses of the demons and allow all of this weaponry to fall into the hands of the people around me. They are not bound by the same contract that I am. They can do whatever they want.

When I asked her about this earlier, she shrugged and smiled. "We're friends, aren't we?" is what she said. How can somebody thousands of years old be that naïve?

I shrug and continue fiddling with the rod. Hmm... I wonder if I can make a gun. If I use my blood to contort the metal into the shape of a gun, and compress the airtight barrel of the gun around the air inside it, then that would create a pressurized air tank. Then I could mold a bullet from the front of that tan-

KLAM!

The entire front of the gun-shaped metal in my hand shatters, jarring my hand and sending shards of splintered metal shooting in the general direction I was pointing. They whiz off into the woods, leaving nobody harmed. My friends all jump at the sound, and I flinch backwards. My hand is numb from the shock.

Malah is the first to smile and relax, realizing what I just did. "That's the kind of ingenuity that will keep me from needing to protect you. I would suggest making the barrel a little longer next time, though."

No kidding. I still can't feel my hand. Tony comes over and examines the gun fragments, curious as to how it functioned. Sadie and Jackson are somewhat interested, but they return to trying out their weapons after a moment. Soon Tony joins them as well.