Only Human by Candace Blevins Page A

and let the killing energy rip out of my fingertips and streak towards his chest. Once I’d pierced his heart I went straight up and then right, left, and back right to take his head off. When I do this, they die, they don’t just get sent back to wherever they came from. The other six scattered as I killed the first, and Aaron managed to take one down while Nathan had another engaged. One of them streaked towards me and I aimed at him and let the energy stream from me into him, but he locked some sort of shield around him, and it absorbed the laser — draining me. I shut the flow of energy down as quickly as I could, but I was suddenly drained beyond the point where I could just refill and go again. I could barely stand on my own, and felt myself wavering, but I used every ounce of physical stamina I could muster to stay upright, pull a throwing knife, and fling it towards him.
    Whatever his shield was made of didn’t deflect the knife and it went into his chest, a perfect throw. It wouldn’t kill him, and likely wouldn’t even send him back, but it would take him out of the action a few minutes, at least.
    The other three demons were headed to the squad car, and I had no idea where Panda had taken Denny. I spoke in a normal voice to tell Panda to get the chief to the middle of the field, and I forced my muscles to walk towards the three demons likely headed their way. I heard fighting and assumed it was Panda trying to engage them and I sprinted, even though I knew I was using the last of my physical energy and would likely collapse soon. I wasn’t sure if my mind was playing tricks on me or not, when I arrived to see Abbott taking down the last of them.
    When I realized he’d taken care of all three (not dead, but injured enough they’d have to choose to either die here or go home to heal) I turned on my heel to make sure Nathan and Aaron were okay.
    “We’re good,” Aaron assured me. “All but one are either dead or have gone back to their realm.”
    I looked at the spot where the one I’d taken down with my knife should be, and noted my knife wasn’t on the ground, as it would be if he’d gone back to his plane of existence.
    Aaron pulled me to him and quietly told me to incinerate the body of the one I’d killed.
    “I can’t,” I told him. “I’m completely drained.”
    He grabbed my hands and pushed energy into me, fast enough it hurt, but it was enough I could focus heat inside the chest cavity of the body on the ground and blow it up, then do the same with the head.
    He kept pushing energy in, but there was too much going on for me to accept it, and he backed off when I screamed in pain. Ignoring his look, I barked orders at Nathan to take off and look for the one that got away, looked at Aaron to let him know we had a job to do and I didn’t want to talk about it, and then headed off to look for the remaining demon as well.
    Aaron had given me enough energy to keep me standing and moving at least a few minutes, but not enough to do anything metaphysical.
    We covered the wooded area until we reached a small subdivision, but none of us could get a location on him. A demon running around on our plane of existence was worse than bad, but even worse, I had a horrible feeling this was an upper echelon demon. I’d never seen anyone or anything who could shield themselves from my laser, much less drain me in the process. I’d felt the energy of the first two and assumed they would all be the same type or level or whatever. Next time I’d feel the entire group.
    Denny joined us, and I looked at him, all business as I asked, “Any leads on finding whoever brought these things here? I need to know what they did to bring them, and I need to know if they have any control over the one who got away. Do you have any idea how bad things can get if this one can run around and wreak chaos on things with no one controlling him?”
    “Sorry, Kirsten,” Denny said, his tone also professional — a cop talking