Andrew knew that he had to take the fight to those bastards at CDR-higher. If everything Dr. Myers said was right, then everything really was rotten to the very core. He’d have to cut it all out himself.
He tried getting up from the bed, only to find a pair of handcuffs latching his arm to the frame. For a second, his mind paused. “What the hell…?”
The shower suddenly stopped running. Andrew heard the curtain move, some clothes shuffle around, and then some footsteps. The door opened, revealing someone Andrew knew before.
Gwen wore only a tank top and jeans as she pointed her rifle at his head. “You’re awake.”
Andrew’s eyes widened as he looked down the barrel. He didn’t need super vision to see the bullet chambered inside. “Hey! What the hell are you doing?! Point that somewhere else!”
“Should I?” she calmly asked. “Five CDR members go into that hole, but this one survives unscathed. Hardly a scratch, but plenty of scars that looked like they healed overnight. Sounds suspicious doesn’t it?”
“I–” Andrew could hardly get a word out; the situation was stressful as it was. “You gotta believe me, I’m being set up!”
“Yeah, set up by something.” Gwen’s cold voice didn’t change once in tone, just as her rifle didn’t shudder once from target. Getting comfortable, she scooted a chair over and kept her sights on his head. “Explain everything you know, everything about yourself, and the reasons I shouldn’t blow your brains out onto the wall.”
“Gwen–”
She charged the handle. “Now.”
Well, it wasn’t like he had a choice. Andrew told her everything like his life depended on it—mainly because his life really did depend on it. He told her about the nightmares, the story of Dr. Myers, Emily, and then the failed mission. It felt like both a confession and an interrogation; he was both guilty and innocent.
By the time it was over, Gwen finally lowered the rifle. “Hm. That’s crazy.” She proceeded to unlock his handcuffs before sitting back down.
“You don’t sound surprised in the slightest.”
“I’m used to being surprised,” Gwen sighed. She laid her weapon on her lap and leaned back in the chair. “I knew something was wrong when I didn’t see any of you guys come out of that hole. I had a sneaking suspicion something was up, so I commandeered a patrol car for a road that coincidentally was closed off last week.”
She made a quick gesture with her hands, specifically of her hand turning over. “Idiots didn’t even see the roadspikes when it hit them. I doubt I need to explain to you the specifics from there.”
Yeah, that seemed plausible enough. It was nice that they could actually talk their minds without repercussions; they were already fugitives. “Can I at least ask where we are?”
“Motel on the edge of the island. Still under construction, these areas, so criminals like pushing their hidden lives here. It’s also where they stuff refugees, poor immigrants, and all the undesirables,” Gwen said. “Things get pushed around here and there, so we’re under the radar here.”
“We?” Andrew asked.
“Yeah. We are in this shit together,” Ashely replied. “I don’t know what compelled me, but I had the feeling you weren’t a batshit traitor, or something was happening. Call me naive at the time, but I figured that we’d somehow set things straight somehow. You know, get to the bottom of what happened.”
Andrew chuckled. It all sounded so stupid, considering how much they were going against. Simply put, they had pissed off the wasp’s nest. Their faces would be put up on every social media post, every broadcast, and every police lookout. Andrew wouldn’t be surprised if there was a BOLO already out for them.
“I guess we’re kinda fucked,” Gwen dryly laughed. She peered out the blinds; there didn't seem to be anything out there, other than drywall highrisers and shuffling bodies. “For the record… about your team… I’m sorry it all…”
“Don’t talk about it. Please don’t talk about it,” Andrew muttered. He wanted to push their pained faces to the ground, so he could bury it once and for all. But even then, it would only take a blink for their faces to come right back out.
***
It wasn’t long until nightfall. The two of them remained sitting in the motel room like prisoners of their own volition. While Gwen did her best by ditching the cop car and uniform, she wasn’t sure if they were safe. One wrong step could end it all.
Still, she was able to lay low enough to go outside and get themselves some food. With Andrew still in the room, she returned with some bowls of rice and chicken. “Not sure if your diet’s any different, now that you’re a demon, but I got you a bite.”
The two of them shared the meal in subsequent silence. There wasn’t anything to talk about; just a brief peace to ruminate on. Needless to say, too much crazy shit happened.
“Wait,” Gwen said in the middle of chewing. “Can I see your hand real quick?”
Andrew obliged, reaching his arm out.
She quickly sliced a brief cut onto his wrist.
Andrew retreated his arm. “Fuck! What was that for?!”
“Your hand.”
They both looked to find that his wrist was already in the process of healing. Granted, it wasn’t a particularly deep cut, but the miraculous healing was still incredibly fast. “Well I’ll be damned, you really are a demon.”
“Did you not believe it the first time?”
“I did, but I also wanted to see what would happen. Maybe you were gonna transform into your true form and murder me.”
“Do you want to be murdered?”
“No. I just wanted to know what would happen,” she shrugged.
Then, for the next moment, utter silence ensued. It wasn’t like earlier, where it had a scent of peacefulness interrupted only by the sound of chewing. This time, it was like the walls, themselves, stopped creaking. Quiet. Too quiet.
Footsteps in the hallway. A knock on the door. No voice to follow it.
Andrew and Gwen shared a brief glance. Enough to convey a paragraph with a look. Gwen grabbed her rifle and handed Andrew a pistol.
“I’m gonna check the peephole,” Andrew whispered.
He walked behind the door with his pistol aimed at whatever could be behind it. Andrew leaned over, put his eye behind the little glass, and looked for whatever could’ve knocked. “Well?” Gwen whispered.
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Nothing. Not even a stowaway rat. “I don’t see any–”
A spike suddenly jutted from the peephole, piercing Andrew’s cornea. “Shit!”
The door blasted open as more spikes fired through the fragile frame. Andrew’s body absorbed most of them, though some shrapnel scratched Gwen’s face. “Get down!” she yelled.
The demon walked through the opening with a smug smile. Like with Emily, the Chief, and even Andrew, he was a demon that could easily pose as an ordinary human. Wearing a leather jacket, jeans, and boots, the only inhuman trait was his arm, which spiked out with regrowing flachettes.
Gwen blasted her rifle, but the demon absorbed the gunfire with his demonic arm. Like shooting an armored porcupine, the bullets could hardly scratch through the spikes. The lead that did get through just made tiny bullet holes that slowly regenerated.
It didn’t take long for Andrew to pull the shrapnel off his body. The spike in his eye was the worst; it was as deep as a nail and hurt like a bitch. “We gotta get out of here!” he yelled.
As soon as Gwen ran out of ammo, Andrew tackled the demon to the ground. His mind flashed back to bootcamp, where they did grappling drills he never used until now. He took immediate control of the legs and snapped the hell as quickly as it could.
There was an audible crack and an audible yell. For a second, Andrew thought the fight was all over.
It would’ve been, if he was fighting a human.
Andrew was backhanded by a spiked arm. It had the force and the build of a mace, knocking him to the other end of the room. “Andrew Cheng, you’re already dead!” the demon yelled in a slightly distorted voice—a side effect of his possession. “Our lord wants you alive, but I’m willing to make exceptions!”
“Fuck your lord,” Andrew panted. He grabbed a nearby chair and chucked it.
The demon smashed the chair midair. “Why do you keep fighting? Look around! Your partner has already turned tail!”
For a brief moment, Andrew realized that Gwen had disappeared. Weapon gone and all, she seemed to have jumped out the window of the motel. Considering they were on the ground floor, that was a no-brained escape.
“As soon as she finds her buddies, it’ll be over for you,” the demon growled. “Might as well just let your true self come out and join us. Either that, or they’ll send the CDRs after you.”
“You forget the other option,” Andrew coldly said. “It’s where I kill you and throw your skull into the ocean.”
Suddenly, a light peered from outside. With the howl of the engine, a car rammed right through the wall. Smoke, ash, and concrete exploded—the demon was pummeled to the wall. It didn’t take long for Andrew to jump inside and find Gwen in the driver’s seat.
“They teach you how to hotwire a car in the police academy?” he coughed.
“I had a rough childhood. Now shut the hell up and grab the rifle!”
They drove out onto the deserted road and left driftmarks on the asphalt. Andrew held the rifle and looked out the window; it hadn’t been half-a-minute before he saw a figure chasing after them. “Of course he’s still alive,” he scoffed. His time in the CDRs had taught him how hard demons were to kill.
You’ve got no chance, Andrew. But I do.
“Hey! Andrew!” Gwen briefly slapped him awake as she weaved between the few cars in these parts. He hadn’t even realized he was syncing in and out of consciousness. “Good God, this isn’t the time to be sleeping!”
Let me into your heart, and I’ll let you have his powers.
“Andrew!”
Spikes suddenly fired around them, narrowly missing Gwen’s head by a hair before lodging into the rear-view mirror. While the two of them were mostly unscratched, the car wasn’t so lucky—the wheels were riddled with enough spikes to call them cactuses.
The ride became uncontrollably bumpy. It swerved to the right, no matter how hard Gwen pulled. “Hold on!”
They smashed into a random shack—the airbag deployed. Gwen was scratched up while Andrew’s wounds were already healing. Momentarily coherent, he kicked the door out and pulled her weak body out the window.
Give me control.
He had to shut the voice out of his mind as he saw the dark figure standing twenty feet beyond him. With the moon as the only source of light, Andrew could only see the silhouette of a man and his demonic arm. His automatic rifle wasn’t going to help him here.
Do you think your tiny gun is going to do anything? You have no APE, no team, and no real weapon. You are a human trying to survive in a world of demons.
“Shut up…” Andrew muttered.
I know your mind. You’re thinking that if the Sergeant can fight hand-to-hand with a demon, then you can too. But guess what, Andrew? You aren’t the Sergeant. In fact, you got her killed. You got them all killed.
Before he knew it, the demon had its horrid hands wrapped around Andrew’s neck. The blinks of unconsciousness had simply allowed him to walk up to him unassailed. He couldn’t even muster the energy to grab the dropped rifle on the ground.
But there was still something growing beneath Andrew’s eyes. Not strength, but pure hatred. Everything felt like fuel ready to be burned, especially this sack of shit trying to choke him. “Killed them…”
“Are you begging?” the demon laughed.
Andrew managed to squeeze his words through. “They… killed them…!”
Andrew’s arm transformed into a heavy mace of spikes before smashing into the demon’s jaw. That one strike was enough to force the bastard off. “You killed my team! You goddamned demons killed my team!”
There wasn’t a single other thought than hatred. It was as if he had unwittingly signed a negotiation with the demon in his head, as he didn’t even realize that his arm mirrored the demon’s arm. “I’ll put you in the ground myself!”
Charging face to face, the two demons clashed with one another like copies of the same sword. Andrew fired his spikes, the other demon did too. Both were quickly covered in each other’s blood as they landed strike after strike.
Mace to the jaw.
Mace to the ribs.
Spike to the eyes.
The same story repeated, as they slowly regenerated their wounds. Equal powers, they were on equal ground. “Is that all you got?” the demon coughed. “Have the Beast of Envy, so you think you can copy me? You’re nothing but a second-rate of–”
Bullet to the back of the brain: a hole that went from one part of the skull to the next. He fell.
Gwen held her rifle with exhaustion in her breath. “Lucky shot. The demon’s still alive,” she wheezed. “I thought it would be easier, but all I did was cut off the shitty parts of his brain.”
Andrew’s anger slowly dissipated as he looked at the body before him. Catharsis had been denied, but vengeance was temporarily sated. Euphoric adrenaline was eventually replaced by somber remorse.
With your so-called secondrate copy, you still managed to come out as his equal. You must take his power.
“No, I don’t wanna become like him.”
Spare him a painful death and take his demon. With my help, I can eat his soul and eat his demon.
Andrew hesitated. He was verbally arguing with a voice in his head, but Gwen didn’t seem to have any reservations. If anything, she seemed more willing, than ever, to enlist the help of the other side.
“Ha,” Andrew dryly chuckled, “you sound a lot more like gluttony.”
Sins circulate. We can do whatever the mind conjures.
Looking at the body, Andrew realized that there wasn’t going to be another easy chance like this. Without any real power, he was nothing but an easy target for the Pentagramists. “I don’t want to kill innocent people for their powers.”
But guilty people?
“Fuck ‘em.”
He placed his hands on the demon’s head and felt the soul whisk away from the body. Andrew thought he heard something scream somewhere, but when he regained consciousness there was nothing there. Nothing, but a lifeless body with a clean hole.
Just as the Beast of Envy promised, Andrew could call upon a mace-for-an-arm. It was easy too; a well-intentioned thought was enough to conjure it like a flick of the wrist. So much power for seemingly little cost.
“Gwen, I–”
“You don’t need to explain,” she said. “What’s the plan?”
Andrew stood there for a moment, looking at his new arm. He activated and deactivated at will, like a fresh weapon in his arsenal. “There’s one person who can help us. Someone who works at the lab, though I doubt they work there any longer.”
“Why not?”
“Because,” Andrew replied, “with what she knows, they’ll surely call her crazy. Crazy enough to be in the New Changan Mental Institute.” Needless to say, they were going to need a new car.