Creatures of the Ice

Fifth Ice

Fifth IceCreatures of the Mist

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##### Fifth Ice #####

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Wizard at the Day,

Demon by the Night.

Some might have fell and risen,

But some have forever lost.

"It is a necessary evil.”

Cold darkness is the desire I miss. Evil always love to creep up and down mortal vessels. New victims will never fade to replace our old toys.

As expected, Rtona becomes the leader of our group of twelve. Sort of. It is not like The Devil has pointed her out to be, or that he ever mentioned the need to have someone as a leader. But I guess it comes naturally when someone just feels the need to play pretend of being the boss. I don't think it will be a problem to me, and I can play along, as long as she can promise to her heart that she will do everything whatever it takes to eliminate more trespassers at least in double time and will not bother me for the rest of the time while we are not doing our missions.

Unless. That is, if she even have a heart.

The night is set and we are onto snatch our first victim as a large team. The Devil has explained to us that this one sneaky ell has been able to slip away from a number of demons that has been assigned to catch him. Therefore, it is no wonder that he has so many hiding places.

We have our suspicions, of course. Five handful of houses, apartment and warehouses all over the Earth. And Rtona divides us into two and orders to search for all the possible places he went to hide.

I partner with Abel, since she thinks that it will be easier for us to go without own partners. Some have troubles with their new partners, though. Not everyone from the group comes from the same partnership.

My guess really wants the inaugural stop to be at an apartment in Chicago, so we get there with my instinct leading.

The environment resembles a neighborhood of the poor, with lots of old buildings towering rather high around the complex, and the scent that cannot be ignored of something burning and dead. From the color of their choices, it is obvious that they have been living in deficiency for quite a while.

I only have time to take the sight in from the corner of my eyes, before going into our target’s possible hideout. My pale fist knocks on the door of his apartment. And my ears cannot miss the footsteps getting nearer inside. The door pulls open, and I almost thought that it’s really him ─ our target. If it is not for the smell that is giving out from inside, I would have dwelt my scythe by hand. But it turns out that whoever is standing behind the threat-baring door is a human ─ or to be precise, an old lady who seems like to be the caretaker of the apartment.

“Yes?” She asks, face looking very suspicious towards me.

“Is he in there?” I ask, knowing that the old caretaker already knows the reason of why I am here.

“No. Master no here,” she replies, stammering, obvious that English is not her first language.

“Are you sure?” I crook one of my eyebrows, not taking into my head. I try to look inside the dimness through the small gap she lets via the open door, but find no other moving creature inside. Noticing my look, the caretaker quickly shifts the door’s opening narrower.

“No Master here. Leave,” she hisses, fully accuses me, and from the tone, she sounds like I am no longer welcome in the apartment. It is okay, though. I do not need to see anything any longer.

I turn to Abel, who the old lady was not able to see from the small gap that she made from the door before.

“Looks like your gut feeling is wrong, or is that we’re just out of luck. I can really smell a demon’s aura from the inside. He’s just isn’t there anymore,” Abel mutters to me.

“Or perhaps not at all. Something tells me that he left sometime here just not too long ago,” I say to him.

I face the balcony and jump down from it, gaining a silent Abel from behind. My feet land perfectly on the ground, stepping lightly so as to not make a sound and just stay there for some time to just inhale the air that surrounds me deeply and stop depending on my eyesight.

I stand there, perfectly motionless, letting the background echoes of the night city wash through my ears. My mortal skin is white, completely in contrast with the color of the environment. My lips red, fresh like blood. My eyes are brushes of delicate blue in sparkles and various layers, still like statue. My hairs long like the feathers of raven, the sign of the demon.

It’s all completely silent, not a drop of water wavers a puddle, until something changes it.

The change will be the key to open a whole new possibility. The possibility opens the gates of dare to act. An assembly of actions can fuse into a series of incidents, followed by consequences that most just try to ignore.

Too bad that I am not the one who falls in the category of being called ‘most’.

Our suspected target is now on the move. I can sense him from miles away, hiding within the shadows, coalescing with it are the thoughts that I might not be able to see the way he swings his legs. Wrong. I can feel his presence totally fine, smelling each scent of fear even when my eyes are both closed.

Eventually, though, he finally realizes that I know.

He knows.

But it’s already too late.

The moment he decides to step away from the shadows and jumps from the top of his apartment building is the moment when my eyes snap open, locked on him.

The demon tries to run away around the neighborhood, probably circling around the complex, hoping to lose me. What he’s lacking of news about is on how fast I am─

He heads for the impoverished apartment, across from where he owns part of his properties. Humans squeal and go in panic because of the wind and the rush we both caused by running in front of their doors, scattering wreckages that they shouldn’t even use anymore. He then makes drastic turns into the houses of poor, which look almost abandoned except for the people living inside. All the sport of chasing, just to lead me back to where we started.

─And that we’re in a group now.

“Demon Awar, son of Iblis, Arab demon of Laziness, we hereby arrest you and bring you to the Throne of The Devil, as it is his words that you are now here, about to have your last day on Earth,” I say, starting his execution. “You are indeed lucky that no one has been able to arrest you before. You have lived long enough to stay on Earth and create chaos like it is Hell, but now you must pay the consequences of your actions and be beheaded to be presented to your owner. Face the erasure of your existence peacefully, or this will end even worse for you, Demon Awar.”

At this point, all of the demons from our group has surrounded Awar from every point of the place. Abel appears just right beside me, eyes eulogize on me for a split second ─ almost looking natural as he shifts his gaze to the accused objective.

“Ha, you think you can catch me just because of your number? There’s a reason why I never get caught before, you know?”

Being cocky, I see. But that is what they always do.

Just before being beheaded.

But of course this won’t end without─

Awar takes out his sword, which looks like a very long tail of a fox, with sharp edges on its each side. He swings the sword back, making it clunk in the air with snapping sounds of metals scraping against each other, and then he swings the sword forward. The foxy sword launches on the members of the group, instantly making them jump back to avoid the sharp cuts it is trying to create. One demon stands on his position, the one that known as Tomducious, Rtona’s partner. He catches the end of the tail by his hand, his flesh not being harmed even one scratch as I can see. Tomducious pulls the sword towards him, making the whole sword overstrung. What he doesn’t expect next is when the Demon of Laziness snaps the sword harder to his side, making Tomducious being lifted completely and being slammed to the opposite side of where the stands. Tomducious lands in a crash landing on another member named Saldovo, causing both of them to create an opening. Awar tends to run away by using the avenue, but Rtona has already set her eyes on him. She hisses, and her back highlight red hair turns to snakes, hundreds of their fanged rictuses ─ all long and slithering through the air like taking a fast swim. Awar seems to be thinking the same of what she is going to do before, so he flicks something small ─ a crystal stone made of salt ─ to Rtona’s present snake-like hair and they all hiss in pain all together. That is, when most of the members are concerned of their failed princess, that Awar uses the chance to really escape from being trapped in our little circle.

─me chasing the prey.

“Mark my words, slaves of The Devils! I am no longer the Demon of Laziness, but the Demon of Trickery!” He pauses long enough to announce his change on his title, echoing laughter of victory though the dark, night sky.

His victory will not last long, though.

I depart from my spot before bidding any goodbyes, eyes already set on Awar. He starts on jumping the ceilings, and I do the same thing nonetheless. It is a few seconds he takes before looking back and spotting me smirking evilly towards him. He flinches, but smirks back. He increases his speed, jumping from one building to another so skillfully. I do the same, increasing the speed of my feet like it is almost time to really fly. I have my own way when it comes to jumping, though. It has become too mastered that I even have time to do a backflip, a few curvets, rolls like dancing, and even a freestyle jump, before landing perfectly with my own two feet again.

Awar is aware that I am getting closer to him. That is why he throws the same small stones at me, really testing his luck because I can dodge them all like drops of harmless rain.

“Having fun in running, isn’t it? But you have to do better than throwing trickery stones at me if you want to survive, oh Demon of Trickery.” I really have no idea where that mockery comes from, but it does seem to prove itself useful by making Awar more afraid of me.

We are on lowering buildings now, but soon Awar sets his eyes on something rather too tall for him to reach.

So he flies.

Setting both of his grey wings free from the back of his spine, he flies up to a rather massive building up ahead. I can hear his laughter of victory once again. He knows that not every demon has a pair of wings. But that does not stop me.

I jump as high as possible from a medium-height building, reaching only one-tenth of the massive one. When I am close to the glasses, I release my hands by shifting them into two gigantic crescents that sizes are even beyond by body. They both resemble the half-moon that is hanging lazily on the night sky, reflecting shadow and kill. I use them to hook myself from falling, crashing the windows completely where my sickle hands are hanging on. I look up, just for a moment to notice the surprised look on Awar’s face. That is even enough to pump my sickles and work myself from climbing the tower. The sickles move like a spider, using each penetrating cambered edges to rise higher. I count myself five steps before making the final jump and lands on the top.

I shift my hands back to normal just in time, too.

“Is that all that you’ve got? Because if so, then I think the title Demon of Trickery will be no more very soon. But that’s okay. I’ll let you have it brought along to your end,” I sing, words coming from somewhere I do not control as well.

In a split second, my right hand melts and harden into the shape of my beautiful yet wild scythe, signing a death sentence to an end. Awar’s austere look is shown in front of me, and if he were a human he would have been sweating a gallon right now. But he is not, and he will not having anything else left to be concerned soon.

Jumping so creepily in a dislocated position, I let Awar take the sight in as I swing my scythe hand to cut off his head.

The last expression he makes out is terror, so the head looks extracted in a weird-kind of scary way.

“Abel, I think you better take this one before I puke on it,” I mention the decapitated head corpse.

“What are you saying, Frost─” He lets out a few curses in Greek once he gets by my side and takes a look on the corpse. “That is serious sickness, alright,” he says, but he doesn’t look like he can puke on it as I want to. I shift my gaze far away from the head.

“By the way, did you just curse? I never heard you do that before.”

“Well, that only proves that there is still a lot of me you don’t know of. But seriously, this is serious mess. I would have never cursed except for this one case. You’re too into the hunt, in my opinion.” I can feel him start moving from the corner of my eyes. Picking up the corpse, I think.

“You can bring the head. I’ll take the body.”

This group work lacks serious coordination. This group work is serious a lack of coordination, though. If not, would I even need to move?