--------------------

Home. Home wasn’t exactly a small town where everyone knew everyone else, but neither was it a large city. Instead, home was more like a moderately sized town, or more accurately, a suburb of one.

Just a minute earlier, I’d stepped through the blurring in space that was formed by the anchor, and arrived home. I stood in the middle of the street, right in the center of downtown. However, there were no cars racing past, nor where there people going about their business. I was immediately struck with the similarity to Australia.

“Oh shit,” I whispered, feeling a knot of cold dread forming in my stomach.

I felt a surge of worry as I knew full well that nearly everyone from my old life might very well be dead and gone, torn apart by an army of daemons. My friends at school…my teachers…and of course…Dad. I grimaced, clenching my teeth and gripping my bow more tightly.

I’d arrived fully armed and armored. I had my bow in hand with a full quiver on my back. My sword was strapped to my side, ready to be used the moment a daemon got within close striking distance. And I’d also taken a lesson from Ionne and had come with several backup weapons. I had a short sword strapped to my quiver as well, one that was just a little longer than a good dagger, and I had a small axe as well.

When Freya had told us about our mission to my own home town, she’d given Lindrell permission to heal me from my fight with Jass so that I’d be in better shape to fight. After an infusion of jatta, all my bruises were completely healed, as were my broken fingers. Even my missing teeth had partly grown back, but they felt weird and uncomfortable as they continued to do so.

We hadn’t departed immediately, not when we had five triads to gather and prepare. That gave me enough time to charge all my weapons with essence, getting them ready for use.

I glanced around at the other Val Kyr who’d arrived with me. There were sixteen of us in total, though Lindrell was in charge of the entire group. Gretchen and Lei were there, along with Natalie, who was filling in for their fallen notru. Bethany and Fleur were present as well, along with Jass.

Earlier today, Freya had pointed out that Jass and I might one day have to fight side by side, so I wasn’t sure whether Freya had assigned Jass’ triad to this mission in order to prove a point…or whether it was just coincidence. When Freya was involved, I wasn’t sure that I really believed in coincidences.

“Our information says that the incursion began four days ago,” Lindrell pointed out with a grim expression.

“Four days is a long time,” Natalie said, giving Julie and I sympathetic looks.

“I believe you are familiar with the area,” Gretchen said, looking to Lindrell who nodded.

“Yes,” Lindrell answered with a deep scowl. She glanced to Julie and I, adding, “And I’m not the only one.”

There was a moment of silence before Lei pointed out, “What are the odds of the daemonites just happening to launch an incursion in the same place where two Val Kyr had recently been recruited?”

Julie and I shared a worried look at that. Lindrell didn’t answer that, only taking her axe and using it to point at several of the Val Kyr.

“We’ll split into two groups for now,” Lindrell said. “Gretchen, your triad is with mine. The rest of you, search down there…” She used her axe to point down one of the other roads. “We’ll stay close enough to reinforce each other if necessary.”

Our groups had barely split up and gone our separate ways when I saw the first daemon. Shannon gave warning just a second before I sensed it as well. It was a fairly small daemon, something that looked a bit like a two headed hairless cat with a ridiculously long tail. I raised my bow but Gretchen beat me to it, sending an arrow right through the creature and killing it. We continued on our way, keeping a close watch for any other daemons.

A minute later, we encountered our second daemon…or at least what was left of it. The daemon had been a unicorn, but was badly torn up and had been left in the middle of the street. My first thought was that it had been taken out by another daemon, but then I looked closer. There were bullet holes all through the thing, as well as through some parked cars and the sides of the nearest building.

“This is fairly recent,” Shannon said as she looked down at the daemon. “The haunts haven’t come for it yet.”

“Then there may be survivors,” I whispered, feeling a surge of hope. Obviously, someone had killed the daemon, and I seriously doubted it was the daemonites.

Shannon nodded faintly at that, then pointed out, “But we don’t know how many…or if they survived this encounter.”

“At least this is one less daemon for us to deal with,” Lei commented, casually holding her massive Warhammer over her shoulder. “I hope that whoever did this is still around.”

We all nodded agreement at that, though Julie and I shared a hopeful look. Lindrell reached out and put a comforting hand on my shoulder, then nodded to Julie. “If there are any survivors, we’ll find and protect them.”

Just then, I noticed something else on the edge of my awareness and turned to look, only to see a shadowy figure gliding across the road. It was a haunt, and it was going straight towards another daemon body, one that I hadn’t even noticed before since it was mostly hidden behind a car.

“A haunt,” Julie said unnecessarily. She clutched her spear tightly, though she knew as well as I did that the haunt was no threat to us. Still, it looked pretty freakish so I was a bit tempted to shoot at it too.

The haunt reached down and touched the daemon’s body, and it vanished, just as the daemons had at the mall. Once the haunt was finished, it looked in our direction though made no move towards us. It was obviously waiting for us to move away from the unicorn corpse. Once we all backed away, it came over and made that daemon body vanish as well.

“Let’s continue,” Lindrell said, already continuing down the street.

We’d barely gone a dozen yards when Gretchen suddenly snapped around and fired an arrow at a building. A daemon, that looked something like a slime covered monkey, fell from the wall of a building where it had been climbing. A moment later, as if using this as their signal, a half dozen more daemons burst out of shattered shop windows and open doors.

“Nasty,” I said with a sneer, firing an arrow at a small flying daemon, hitting it and pinning it right to the wall.

“Agreed,” Lindrell commented, charging forward and swinging her axe at a spider daemon.

Julie touched her spear to the ground and one of the Pac Man daemons which had been rolling towards us, began to sink into the concrete. The concrete hardened again, leaving the daemon trapped as Lei smashed it with her hammer. At the same time, Natalie was performing a similar maneuver on the other side, causing one daemon to start sinking into the ground, then impaling it with her spear.

“Watch the sky,” Gretchen stated, right as she fired an arrow at one of the flying squids. However, that squid thing wasn’t alone and had another one with it, so I shot the second one.

A moment later, I snapped around and fired another arrow at an approaching mass of tentacles and spikes. My arrow went straight through its body, but didn’t seem to hit anything vital. However, Lindrell cut it in half with her axe and the two halves continued to move, so I didn’t feel quite so bad. She chopped at it a few more times, cutting it into half a dozen pieces before it finally stopped moving.

“Persistent pests,” Lindrell commented, making a show of kicking one of the pieces, which squirmed a little in response.

Suddenly, the sound of a gunshot echoed through the air, making all of us freeze and look in the direction the noise had come from. It was the opposite direction from where our other group of Val Kyr were, which meant one thing.

“A survivor,” Natalie said, absenting impaling a dead daemon with her spear and then looking to Lindrell.

Lindrell brought two fingers to her lips and let out a loud whistle in order to signal the other group. A moment later, she let out two more whistles, using a whistle code to communicate with them. I’d heard about the whistle code and how scouts would often use it to communicate with their triads, but I hadn’t yet been taught the code so had no idea of what Lindrell was saying.

“Come,” Lindrell said, starting to run in the direction the gunshot had come from. The rest of us ran behind her.

Several more gunshots led us straight to the source of the noise, which was only half a block away. There was a three story building with a prominent sign for a real estate office hanging off the front. The gunshots had come from the roof, and the target of those gunshots was obviously the large manticore that was trying to climb the side of the building.

“Watch the stinger,” Lindrell warned us. Then she looked straight at me and said, “Now would be the time to use your bow.”

“Gotcha,” I responded, notching an arrow and transferring most of the charged essence from the bow into the arrow, and then releasing it. The manticore moved at that moment, so instead of hitting it in the neck like I’d intended, I caught it in the shoulder, creating a large hole but not killing it. “Damn…”

The manticore roared in pain and immediately started charging towards us. Gretchen fired a shot at the creature, and her arrow glowed with charged essence as well. As soon as her arrow struck, the daemon was thrown back, as though hit with a massive amount of force. This was the first time I’d seen Gretchen use her special trick, and it was rather impressive. The manticore was still moving, but I had the feeling that half the bones in its body were shattered.

“That’s one way to do it,” Lei said before she charged forward with her hammer. The manticore made a weak attempt to strike at her with its tail, but she easily avoided that and slammed her hammer into its head, killing the daemon.

“That was a nice demonstration for the civilians,” Shannon commented, gesturing towards the roof of the building where several faces looked down at us. “But we aren’t finished…”

I didn’t bother asking Shannon what she meant about us not being finished since I was already aware of the other daemons approaching. They’d been gathered nearby, apparently keeping their distance from the manticore until it was killed. Now they were starting to emerge, with half of them coming towards us while the other half seemed intent on following the manticore’s example and tried going for the people on the roof.

Julie cried out, “Sandworm,” using her spear to gesture towards the daemon she was referring to.

The daemon was a massive snake, with a two foot diameter, crimson scales, and a large toothy maw that looked a bit more like a shark than a snake. The daemon was slithering towards the large front window of the real estate office, obviously intending to get into the building that way. Without a word, I raised my bow, released the rest of the stored essence into my arrow, and fired a single shot. The daemon’s head exploded and the body collapsed, much to my relief.

Gretchen let out what I thought had to be profanity, though I didn’t know enough German to be sure of what she said. One of her arrows struck a daemon and bounced off its thick hide. I charged my bow again and fired another charged arrow, blasting a nice hole through the daemon but not enough to kill it. My second charged arrow added to the damage, but the daemon continued coming towards us, at least until it was close enough for Lindrell and Lei to both hit at once.

“Look,” Gretchen said, gesturing to several smaller daemons that were climbing the wall, obviously trying to get to the people on top of the building.

I readied my bow to fire another shot, but the people on top of the building took a part in their own defense and opened fire as well. One of the small daemons fell off and then a second. Gretchen released an arrow to take out a third and I followed her example, catching one of the small flying ones that looked to be ready to dive at them from above.

Gretchen and I continued focusing on our ranged attacks, killing the daemons who were going after the people on top of the roof, or at least drawing their attention to us instead. While we did that, Julie and Natalie took positions to the sides of our group, creating walls, sink holes, and waves of concrete to slow the daemons and channel them towards Lei and Lindrell, who tore through them with ease. Shannon didn’t have a bow so used her sword, dodging in to quickly strike at a daemon, then backing up again out of range.

All the noise and bloodshed was drawing even more daemons out of the woodwork, and they kept arriving and swarming towards us. Fortunately, the other group arrived to reinforce us, and without a word, joined in the fight. More arrows flew through the air, and Jass managed to hit another of the flying daemons, which fell to the roof, and from the sound, was quickly finished off with a shotgun.

“I haven’t had this much fun in ages,” Bethany called out cheerfully as she tossed a grenade towards a cluster of daemons. “We can’t play with the fun stuff back home…”

“Only you would call this fun,” someone else called out to her.

With sixteen Val Kyr, we quickly took care of the daemons that were swarming us, and all the remaining ones either ran away or realized it would be too dangerous to attack. I looked around, sensing a few daemons in surrounding buildings, but they were no longer an immediate threat.

“It looks like we took care of this batch,” Bethany commented with a grin, using her claymore to poke at a dead daemon. “The haunts will feast tonight.”

“We aren’t finished until we’ve taken out the daemonites,” Lindrell reminded her. Then she looked around, scowling intensely as she did so. “So far, we haven’t seen any daemonites. Have you?”

“Oui,” Fleur answered, gesturing off to the side. “I saw one watching from a distance, though the fiend appears to have fled.”

“The rats won’t abandon this place that easily,” Natalie pointed out. “They’ve invested too much in this incursion to abandon their foothold.”

“There are other survivors,” Jass volunteered. “I spotted people watching us from windows when we came to join you.”

“And speaking of survivors,” Shannon said, gesturing towards the survivors we’d just helped.

We waited for several minutes as the survivors made their way down from the roof and finally came out the front door. There were four of them, three men and a woman, and all were armed with rifles or shotguns. They came out cautiously, watching us with expressions of mixed curiosity and suspicion.

The man in the front wore a dirty and torn police uniform, and from the way he was approaching us first, I assumed he was acting as their leader. The woman also wore a police uniform, though hers was a bit cleaner than his, though not by a lot. Of the remaining two, one was a stocky guy with a hunting rifle held firmly in hand, while the last was a middle-aged black man who looked familiar, though I couldn’t place where from.

“Thank you for your help,” the cop said carefully as he looked us over. I could imagine how odd we all looked to him, a small army of women wearing armor and wielding medieval style weaponry. “If you don’t mind my asking, who are you ladies…and what are you up to?”

“Who we are is a little complicated,” Lindrell told him with a sigh. “But as you can see, we were sent here to hunt down and kill the daemons.”

“Sent by who?” the cop asked suspiciously.

Lindrell smiled faintly and responded, “As I said, that is a little complicated, but we are here to help.”

“You know what these things are,” the female cop stated, giving Lindrell a suspicious look.

“Are there many other survivors?” Julie abruptly asked, her voice filled with both hope and worry. That seemed to make the survivors relax a little.

“A lot of people are still alive,” the female cop answered, much the relief of both Julie and myself.

Shannon nodded, then added, “Most places don’t do so well during incursions like this…” I nodded at that, remembering Australia. Obviously, I wasn’t the only one either as Gretchen, Julie and Shannon all tensed.

The cop snorted. “We had a bit of a warning…but not much.”

Lindrell gave him a sharp look. “What do you mean?”

“About a month and a half ago,” the male cop explained grimly, “one of these things attacked the local high school…”

Julie and I shared a look at that and I noticed Lindrell tense as well. “Continue,” she told him.

“One of the teachers saw the thing and hid in a classroom until it was gone,” the cop continued the explanation while Julie and I both listened intently. Ever since I’d been taken to Val Halla, I’d been curious about what had happened afterwards. “Afterwards, two teachers were found dead…torn to pieces…and there was the body of another man we couldn’t identify.” He paused at that, then shook his head, “Another teacher was also missing…along with two students.”

Suddenly, the bald black man blurted out, “Ms. Lindrell…”

Lindrell turned to look at the man, recognition appearing on her face before she said, “William.”

It was then that I suddenly recognized him as well. This was Mr. Decker…one of the math teachers at school. I hadn’t been in any of his classes so hadn’t recognized him until just then.

“She’s the teacher that disappeared,” Mr. Decker told the cop, who suddenly stared at Lindrell with a look of surprise.

“Indeed I am,” Lindrell told him, gesturing to Julie and adding, “And Julie here is one of the students who escaped the daemon with me.” I noticed that she hadn’t included me in that, which was no surprise. My changes would have been a bit much to explain, not to mention really embarrassing for me.

The cop’s eyes went wide and he demanded, “What’s going on?”

“Please, tell me of what happened after that,” Lindrell gently insisted. “I’ll answer what questions I can afterwards, once I have a better idea of the current situation.”

“No one believed Jacobs,” Mr. Decker announced, apparently deciding to give Lindrell the benefit of the doubt. “I mean, there was plenty of evidence of some kind of wild animal, but no one imagined it was something like this…” He gestured to the dead daemons that were scattered about.

“Most people don’t believe in daemons,” Shannon agreed. “It lets them sleep better at night.”

“The evidence was…confusing,” the male cop admitted reluctantly. “Everyone had their theories, and some were pretty wild. People became afraid that some rabid bear or dangerous monster might still be around, so began to load up on weapons… And when the first reports of these things came in…”

“We were ready for em,” the stocky man added with a look of smug satisfaction. I looked at him, imagining that people must have been calling him paranoid, so the appearance of the daemons had just proven him right.

“And we were quicker to believe the reports and respond to them,” the female cop said with a deep scowl. “Not that it did a lot of good. We lost power, the cell phone towers went down, and those things have completely cut us off from the outside…”

Gretchen looked at Lindrell and simply said, “The daemonites…”

“This is the most populated area they’ve ever tried launching an incursion,” Shannon said with a nod of agreement. “And it seems that they planned ahead…”

“Daemonites?” the female asked with a suspicious look.

Lindrell looked to the other cop. “Please continue.”

The male cop nodded at that and reluctantly continued, “It was pretty damn bad, and probably about half the town was killed before we really got organized…” He paused as a haunted look passed over his face. Then he shook his head, as if that could clear out the images. “Once we started getting organized, we got as many people as possible to the school to hunker down until this is all over. We’re pretty heavily guarded, but we still need to go out for supplies…”

“We have a lot of mouths to feed,” the stocky man added.

Lindrell stood there with a thoughtful expression, then said, “If you’re organized, then I assume you have a leader…”

“Yeah, we do,” the male cop answered, still looking just a little suspicious. “Back at the school.”

“I’ve always wanted to say this,” Bethany abruptly blurted out. Then she smirked and announced, “Take me to your leader…”

Lindrell glared at her but it was Fleur who pointed out, “I hardly thing this is a time for levity.”

After a moment, Lindrell turned her attention back to the cop. “As my tactless companion indicated, we do need to speak to your leader so that we may coordinate your defenses. I know you have many questions, but I’d prefer to wait until then before answering them as I don’t want to have to keep repeating myself.”

“I guess I can understand that,” the male cop responded, though he was obviously frustrated by the wait. He looked like he was bursting with questions, as were the three people with him.

We all started walking in the direction of the school, but it was obvious that our four survivors were impatient for answers. Mr. Decker asked Lindrell and Julie, “What happened to you…? Why in the world are you dressed like that?” However, Lindrell merely gave a few vague promises of answers once she’d talked to their leader.

Several times, we saw daemons, and the archers amongst us quickly either killed them or discouraged them from approaching. I had to admit that Jass was a pretty good shot, though she was obviously ignoring my presence as much as possible. She refused to look at me or acknowledge my existence in any way, which was perfectly fine by me. As long as she ignored me, the two of us should be able to get along just fine.

One of the smaller daemons moved fast and wasn’t discouraged, and it made it all the way to us before several notru responded at once, sending a wave of concrete to knock it back. It went to lunge again, but Fleur hit it with an arrow, which was immediately followed by three more arrows from other archers.

“How the fuck did you do that?” the stocky man demanded, staring at us in stunned disbelief.

“You aren’t normal,” the male cop accused us, pausing to give us another suspicious look. His hand was clenching his rifle tightly, as if he was thinking about using it.

“No, we aren’t normal,” Lindrell admitted, already continuing on her way. “But we aren’t your enemies either. In fact, we are your best chance at surviving this incursion.”

“She’s telling you the truth,” Julie added.

We made it the rest of the way to the school without further incident, other than a few minor daemons being killed. The sight of my old school made me gasp in shock. The fence around the school had largely been knocked down, but there were a lot of trucks and busses parked in front of it, forming a sort of wall. People were crouched down on top of the vehicles, and on top of the school building itself, some of whom were holding binoculars but all were armed.

“This looks like a scene from one of those apocalypse movies,” I whispered to Julie, who nodded agreement. I half expected to see Mad Max around somewhere.

“We found these ladies wandering around,” the male cop called out to the guards. “I’m taking them inside.”

Lindrell turned to some of the other Val Kyr and said, “If this is where the survivors are gathered, then we need to help secure them.”

“I’ll run a roaming patrol around the school,” Gretchen volunteered, gesturing to Natalie and Lei, indicating that she meant her triad would.

“They’ll need a couple kaern to help keep watch for daemons,” Lindrell added.

With only a little more discussion, ten of our Val Kyr split off to help guard the school while the rest of us went inside. I immediately noticed that there were obstructions in the hallway, obviously intended to slow down any daemons who made it this far as well as to provide cover for the guards, who were armed with everything from shotguns to a machete.

As we walked down the hallway, I looked into several open classrooms, which were filled with people. I was amazed at the number of people hiding in the school since I’d never imagined there would be so many survivors. And even better than that was the fact that I recognized some of them.

“I just saw my neighbor, Mrs. Kravitz,” Julie whispered to me, right before peeking into the next classroom, obviously looking for her family. I did the same.

When we reached the gym, I saw that the floor was covered with cots, sleeping bags, and blankets. A lot of people had been sleeping here and were still gathered around, sitting around and talking. However, half of the space was obviously being used as a hospital, as everyone in that area appeared to be injured or patched up.

In the middle of the gym, several tables had been set up in what looked like some kind of command center. Standing behind one of the tables, while bending over and looking at a map, was the man who was obviously in charge. He looked gruff and grizzled, radiating an air of dangerous competence. Of course, I instantly recognized my dad, though this wasn’t the drunk who’d sunk into self-pity but the man I remembered from my childhood.

As I stared at my dad, I was struck with relief, fear, and guilt, all at the same time. It was an unbelievable relief to see him alive, to see him healthy and in better condition than I could have hoped for. But I was also afraid of how he’d react to the new me, to having me become a girl. And of course, I was also guilty over the way I’d run off without even letting him know I was alive.

“This is David Sorensen, the man who’s been leading us,” the male cop said, gesturing to my dad.

“What’s this?” Dad demanded, looking up at us.

“We found these ladies out fighting the monsters,” the cop told Dad with a shake of his head. “Using swords and axes…”

Dad’s expression was unreadable as he looked us over, then his eyes went to me and suddenly went wide with a look of shock and recognition. After just staring with his mouth open for a moment, he blurted out, “Lynn?”

“Hello David,” Lindrell quietly said from beside me, suddenly making me realize that she was the one Dad was staring at…not me. Lindrell turned to stare at me for a moment with a strange expression, before returning her attention to my dad. She almost looked afraid as she took a deep breath, then announced, “It has been a long time…my husband.”