6°47'56.7"N 5°16'33.8"W – Yamoussoukro, Ivory Coast

  21.05.2024 - 09.40 UTC +00.00

  My jaw ached as I clenched it. I pushed myself into a tight smile.

  “If you have hurt him, I swear to all that is unholy, I will gut you.”

  “Hurt who dear?” the Haunt’s voice asked, through the phone.

  “Don’t play coy; if he is not safe, there is no holding me back.”

  I knew they knew what I meant. They did not answer. A moment later, the phone was hung up. I turned to Julien.

  “I hope you have…”

  He tackled me, throwing me to the ground. Before I could push back, he forced a mask on my face. It was a breathing mask with a military-grade filter. He wore one too, and his eyes shone blue.

  I did not have time to react as a smoke grenade was launched through the window and into the abandoned house, right into the middle of the room. Julien tumbled away from me, and I lunged into the middle to grab the pouches.

  As I secured them, I held my breath to kick in my Bloodsense. I had to understand what we were up against.

  “I count eight hearts,” I shouted to Julien, somewhere lost in the smoke.

  “Let them in,” he said.

  I fought my instinct to run away. We were still in Julien’s ward, and that ought to be an advantage. I drew my firearm, slowly walking and crouching toward one of the corners of the room.

  The hearts I could sense were walking; their pulse intensifying. Three were coming from the main door, and I could sense them closing in. The other five were approaching all the windows and walls of the small house we were in, surrounding us.

  One other heart in the room with me, Julien’s heart, was pumping blood fast.

  I released the safety of my weapon, useless as that would be with all that smoke. My Bloodsense could help my aim, but I would only see them if they were standing right in front of me, and the ones coming in were grouped, confusing my senses.

  As the smoke thickened inside the room, three pulses ran in hot, pushing on the door to bring it down.

  I took a few steps back to have the wall behind me.

  The smoke swirled denser by the second, and I saw again part of Julien’s chalk markings:

  sans étincelle

  without spark

  I took a deep breath and formed a plan. All I needed was to recall the layout of the house. I retraced my earlier steps that day. How it looked when I first stepped in with Drissa…

  I instinctively took three steps to the right – that’s where the closest window should have been.

  My palm got sweaty holding my firearm as seconds passed. And then, I felt a man’s pulse beating just next to me, albeit behind the wall, outside the house. He was alone. As I crouched, I counted each beat of his heart, propagating through his bloodstream, and I started to hum in low vibrations.

  I needed to be absolutely in tune with him.

  I held my breath to stabilize myself, jumped up, aimed my firearm at the window next to me, and shot. The glass of the window shattered, but my aim was true right to the man’s heart. I felt his last breath as his heart tore open by the bullet.

  I crouched again and rolled to the side, trying to follow the steps of the three men entering the house.

  I heard no follow-up shots; instead, slashes and screams.

  Julien’s heart was slinging around them, waltzing among them, and slitting their throats. With every slice, Julien’s heart beat faster, and somehow every step he took and every strike he made, they always landed true. He did know everything within his ward.

  I felt my breathing stalling, as I tried to track Julien’s manic slashing through the smoke.

  All I needed was to place myself in the right place.

  And then, one of the men’s bodies tumbled next to me, bloody carvings covering all over his body and face.

  Would you look at that? Julien could fight.

  “Four down, but more to come,” I said, warning Julien.

  And as if on cue: a car stopped by in the nearby street, five more hearts entering my range of Bloodsense. We were outnumbered and could only rely on our Curses to maneuver through the smoke.

  But I had a few seconds to act before the next wave of soldiers cam in.

  I tapped my fingers on the wooden floor.

  One, two, three times.

  “Come out, I know you are here,” I said, speaking in Dida. And as I did, a couple of small black spiders jumped out of the cracks of the floor.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  Mystaria rufolimbata, a pair of nice crab spiders. I put them in my hands.

  Jump, I whispered.

  One jumped through the window, and one jumped to the man whose slashed-up body had landed near me.

  The tiny spider crawled into its mouth, its step more confident than the next.

  “More are coming,” Julien confirmed.

  “Oh, they sure are!” I said in Dida.

  I counted to three, giving time for the spiders to acclimate to the sparkless bodies. A simple hex would be enough to keep them running – no need to make them my thralls like I had tried with Kouadio.

  “Spark,” I commanded, just as more armed men approached the house, “I give you life, for you to take more!”

  I could feel it in the way my breathing changed; both spiders crawled to the dead men’s hearts, ready to make their weaving nests and spawn their controlling threads.

  I smirked and lunged in the direction of Julien’s voice and heart.

  Appearing through the smoke, I noticed his arms were doused in blood, holding serrated daggers in each of his hands. Blood was trickling down his clothes.

  “My ward can be useful only as much,” he said through the mask. “We need to run.”

  “My Sparked will distract from the side. We leave from the other window,” I explained as quickly as I could, while gunshots were fired from outside. Bullets sprayed the house, and splinters flew through the smoke.

  Julien nodded and ran to the back of the house, finding the furthest window from the commotion. I could feel my Sparked being shot at, but I willed them to mend.

  They needed to stay up and fire as much as possible.

  “Kill your allies!” I shouted, following Julien.

  He started pulling planks from a fortified window, and I ran to help. We didn’t have the time for this, but I also sensed no one with a pulse from this side of the house, so it was our safest choice. After we pulled out the second plank, I jumped out, and Julien followed suit.

  We landed in an alley behind the house, connected to houses next door. I could hear cars pulling through on the main street. Whether they were more of these men or local authorities, it did not matter. The main streets were not safe.

  “We need to take cover, they are inside the house already,” Julien said, “they will get to the window soon!”

  We both sprinted and jumped into the alley of the neighboring house. Bullets shot through the air, hitting where we were standing just a second ago.

  We needed a means of escape and a diversion. Luckily, my two Sparked still worked.

  “Protect me,” I said to Julien.

  I had to take matters into my own hands.

  “How am I supp-

  ? ? ?

  I shot another of my friends right through the head, as his bullet pierced through mine. The pain was excruciating, but I was invincible, a god. I felt threads pulling my head together, stitching it up, as their promise echoed in my head: we keep you alive, to kill them all. Kill your allies!

  You are no god yet, but I can make you one.

  A woman’s voice, the one that had asked me to kill my allies, in my head. She was me, and I was her. I had never met her, but I knew this was her gift.

  Tell me what I have to do.

  I grabbed the machine gun from a body nearby. I was unsure if it was me who had killed him or someone else. It did not matter.

  Look around. Are there any cars?

  I looked to the side of the main street. Two SUVs with enhanced shields.

  The ones we came here with. Two of them. A third is on the way.

  Grab yours and drive through the back alley.

  And then the voice left, leaving me only with this longing to hear it again.

  ? ? ?

  I shot and I shot again, spraying with the gun. Two more of the same men, dead. I did not care. I just had to reach the second car before the third arrived. And suddenly, a voice echoed, the one that had begged me to kill.

  You! You have to blow them up.

  Yes! Yes, I had to! An amazing idea. I dropped my gun and ignored everyone trying to shoot me. A few bullets hit my legs, but I was invincible. Spiders had nested inside of me.

  There were two SUVs on the road, the ones we arrived with. The first was taken care of by someone else.

  Take from the second and neutralize the third.

  The voice commanded, and I would do exactly that.

  I ran as fast as I could. I sprang the second car’s doors open and shot the driver before he could react. He thought I was his friend, and perhaps I used to be; I knew him. Now he was red paste in the driver’s seat.

  There was no time to properly do this. I grabbed the case with the equipment and grabbed as many grenades as I could, placed them in the case, and started running.

  This will be glorious! The voice echoed in my head, and I teared up. I was getting emotional – this would be glorious!

  I ran as fast as I could in the street to the third car, now heading right at me. I smiled widely, and I looked at my allies, my friends, in the front seats. They did not understand, but they soon would. My mouth felt dry as the car almost reached.

  I pulled the pin out of one of the grenades.

  “Can you see me?” I shouted at the sky, asking the voice, but it was gone.

  ? ? ?

  “Demi!” Julien shouted as I jumped back into my body, panting even more intensely. We were still taking cover behind the fence, in the same alley. Julien was now holding my gun. He fired some more warning shots and then ducked behind the cover –our enemies fired back. “What are you doing?”

  “I am getting us out of here,” I answered. As I did, a series of explosions in the main street shook the ground, with flames rising past the height of houses. Julien turned around, startled, and I grabbed my gun from his hands.

  I stood up and started shooting at the men who were now running towards us. One jumped to take cover, but the few bravest crouched to take a better shot at me.

  “Demi, are you mad!” Julien asked, perhaps forgetting who I was.

  All the monsters were mad.

  Within a smoky apartment, I was not much of a threat. But outside, with a clear line of sight, the threat of a bullet was always higher for my enemies. I could see their heart beating, and the best they could do was delay me.

  A black SUV, with one of my Sparked men in the driver's seat, drove through the alley and in our direction. The men in front of me jumped up, startled.

  I shot them all, one after the other, always aiming for the heart guided by my bloodsense. They shot back. Only one hit, pierced through the right side of my head.

  I felt my flesh peel off and drop to the side, as my head was ready to unravel. Spiders crawled on me – they would not let that happen.

  “Get both of us in the car,” I said to Julien, and I collapsed right as the SUV reached us.