The Gathering Dark by Christopher Golden

held lightly in his right hand.
    “Gentlemen, I hope you will do me the favor of not shooting me, either accidentally or otherwise,” Kuromaku said.
    Then he jumped down to the cobblestones and raced across the space that separated him from the demon. It continued its attack, thrusting its deadly tail again and again at the cathedral as though by sheer evil intent it might tear a hole in the fabric of the wards that protected the place. Its chittering wail had grown even louder and higher pitched and Kuromaku wondered for a moment if the demon was smarter than it seemed, if indeed that scream was not its voice but some effort to find a frequency that might destroy the barrier that kept it from ravaging that holy place.
    The katana felt warm in his hand as though the metal were alive. His legs pumped and he sprinted toward the demon from behind. It had barely noticed the bullets that had torn into its flesh, had punctured at least two of its eyes, viscous yellow pus now seeping from those wounds. All of its malign attention was focused on the cathedral.
    But now, abruptly, it stiffened and fell silent for an instant before whipping around to face him.
    “Damn,” Kuromaku whispered.
    The police and their guns presented no danger to the thing, but it had sensed him coming. It could feel what he was, or perhaps merely what he meant to do. Somewhere nearby the sirens of approaching police cars grew louder and there were screams from hidden onlookers, and yet there was a kind of desolation to the Montmartre now, as though some hideous apocalypse had already occurred. The place had become a battlefield.
    Kuromaku felt right at home.
    A war cry tore from his throat as he raised the katana with both hands and leaped into the air, legs tucked beneath him. The demon’s stinger tail flashed in the sunlight as it punched toward him, too fast. Kuromaku brought his blade down and it clanged as the metal scraped along the demon’s tail. He had parried it, but nothing more.
    Now he landed on the ground in a crouch, only feet in front of the monster. Close enough to smell the putrid stench emanating from its punctured eyes and to see the intelligence and bilious hatred in those that remained. Its pincerlike maw opened and clacked shut several times as though it were yearning to tear into him, perhaps to consume him. If he tried to retreat, it would impale him with that tail.
    Kuromaku rolled forward and rose again in a single smooth motion that ended with the katana whickering around in a sidelong arc that severed the demon’s foremost pair of legs. Black, fetid ichor spilled from its wounds and it rocked backward to compensate for the loss of those appendages. He snapped into a combat stance with the sword above his head, pointed directly at the demon’s face, then thrust it forward, plunging it into another of the thing’s glowing yellow eyes.
    He had seen it all in his mind—he would bury the katana in one of the demon’s eyes and the beast would rear back. Kuromaku would ride it forward and then cut, slicing the blade across and down, blinding the demon completely.
    But the demon did not rear back. When his blade entered its eye, the abomination pushed forward, pincer-mouth snapping loudly as it tried to reach him. The katana sank too deep into its mass, and when he tried to tug it out or cut a wider wound, the blade grated against bone. The demon drew back, scorpion tail suspended just above it.
    The sword was trapped. Kuromaku struggled to free it even as he glanced up and saw the gleaming black dagger of its tail descending. In an eyeblink it would split his chest, shattering bone and tearing flesh.
    Kuromaku evaporated. His body, clothing, even his sword turning to mist. The demon’s tail cracked cobblestones and it shrieked in fury at his disappearance. But Kuromaku had not disappeared. As nothing more than mist and awareness he slipped along the ground beneath the demon. Its tail was dangerous, but that was not its most