Heart of Glass [manxman]

Chapter Nineteen

When I woke up that morning, I had expectations for my day. A meeting with some underlying tension, an argument or two, teaching some classes, but pushing back twenty fifth-year students while black ooze dripped from the windows, crept in through the bottom of the door, pushed through the air vents, and landed in piles on the floor and desks... It certainly wasn't on my list that morning. Admittedly, it could've been worse. Ooze demons, though disgusting, didn't even make it on my danger list. If they touched anything, they could absorb it and transport it wherever their master chose. They had no real power of their own. Not to mention, they had to be in close proximity to present a threat. The scariest thing about the was the fact that they could regenerate. They were extremely difficult to vanquish, which made for a long fight if a Hunter was inexperienced.

For anyone that had dealt with them before, it was a cakewalk.

"This wasn't on your syllabus, but for today, you're getting a seventh-year demonstration with an actual demon. Do not let it touch you. Do not let it come near you. If you see a pile of ooze so much as touch this desk, you're too close. If it touches you, it's hard to tell where you'll end up and how long it's going to take to find you, so stay back and stay away from these demons, got it?" I glanced back at my students. Most were pressed against the wall without windows, doors, or vents. The others were crouching behind my desk.

Some nodded, while others stared straight ahead, eyes wide and terrified. There wasn't time to do damage control. It would have to wait. As things were, I was working with limited resources and a lack of magic, but I was armed, which was better than nothing. I took one of the handguns out of the holster on my hip and popped the magazine out. I removed the bullets and held them up to my mouth, and then whispered a simple curse in Pirvaec. It wasn't the standard method for handling these demons, but I was out of magic. Containing them and cursing their prison would be much trickier, but the curse would ship them back to their sender, which would be enough for the time being. I wasn't trying anything risky with twenty terrified teenagers behind me.

I replaced the bullets. The piles of ooze began to grow into humanoid forms. Slowly, they advanced. Switching off the gun's safety, I fired, taking out each demon that materialized from the ooze. Once the bullets pierced them, they vanished, taking all the remnants of ooze with them for the sender to clean up themselves.

Once the first round of demons had been dealt with, the ooze stopped coming quite as quickly from the doorway. Piles of soon-to-be demons were still all along the floor. Holstering my gun, I grabbed the broom from the supply closet on the other side of the room and began sweeping up some of the piles, maintaining my distance as I went about it.

"When containing ooze demons isn't an option, cursed bullets work well in returning them to wherever they came from. That means they can come back, but it buys you time until you can figure out how to contain them and curse their prison. Can anyone explain why I'm sweeping up the ooze demon larvae?"

"You're gathering them together so it's easier to send them back them once they start to grow, and you're standing back while you do it so it doesn't touch you if it suddenly forms into a demon."

"That's correct, Chelsea. Very good." I glanced down, taking a few steps back as the piles began to quiver. I dropped the broom next to them, so anything sticking to the bottom of it wouldn't get near the students. Taking my gun back out, I waited for them to grow before picking them off. "Can any of you tell me the best way to dispose of demonic prisons so the realms aren't overrun with ooze demons locked in metal vaults?"

"Burning them," Grayson suggested.

"Or using a vanishing spell, but not one of the normal ones. They're more like magic delete buttons," Holly said.