Chapter Three:The Night They Attacked Me

Evangeline didn’t wait to argue as she turned and ran. Her heels pounded the concrete with sharp, echoing cracks, as though each step was cracking open the skin of the earth itself. Her breath came in sharp bursts, eyes darting across the dim garage as shadows lengthened and warped around her.

Behind her, those shadows hissed as they missed.The garage began to change; at least, it felt like it. The air thickened, as though tar filled her lungs.

Plop!

Plop!!

Plop!!!

Fluorescent lights overhead flickered violently and went out one by one in rapid succession plunging her path into a tunnel of strobing doom.

She shot past the first row of cars, weaving between bumpers and columns. From behind, a jagged screech tore through the air - metal like claws dragging across steel, something fast and heavy scrambling over the hood of a car.

Malik had taken to the ceiling again. He was the tallest and fastest, a sickening blur of bone and sinew that twisted like a serpent in midair. His limbs bent at wrong angles as he stalked her upside-down across the pipes, his red eyes glowing with malicious delight.

The second in command, Skarra, was the brute. She could hear him snarling, his claws punching deep into the walls as he used raw force to propel his bulk between the pillars.

And then there was the third, the female one, Nyra. The one who had tried, and was still trying, to gut her.

Evangeline’s lungs burned as she reached for the steel service door near the generator room.

She rattled the handle, but it was locked, of course.

A whisper of breath passed behind her. Her hair rose upon hearing the rustle. A change in the air.

As she spun... but it was tooo late.

SWIPE!

Nyra lunged, claws arcing toward Evangeline’s throat.

She quickly dropped, barely avoiding death.

The demoness missed by inches, her momentum sending her smashing into the concrete wall behind with a bone-jarring crack. Dust exploded from the impact as her shriek of rage echoed like a banshee.

Evangeline didn’t stay to watch.

She rolled to her feet and bolted, this time ditching the idea of stairs or doors. Instinct screamed at her to move - just move - before those things corrected their trajectory.

Malik dropped from the ceiling and skittered toward her on all fours, hissing through needle-like teeth. His claws tore through the floor paint as he advanced, faster than a human sprint.

“We smell the Mark, chosen girl,” he hissed, voice filled with static and rot. “You reek of prophecy.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Evangeline shouted, dodging around a pillar and vaulting over the hood of a nearby sedan.

She landed hard, her side screaming from where Skarra had grazed her earlier. Blood soaked through her blouse, hot and slick. She gritted her teeth and pressed on.

“I’m just a surgeon! I’m not chosen for anything!”

Nyra emerged again, her body slinking low and fast, her eyes blazing with hatred. Her once-feminine face was stretched into a rictus grin, mouth dripping with thick black saliva.

“You dare compare us to vampires,” she seethed. “Those simpering bloodsuckers suckle the night like infants. We are older. We are fire.”

"You all crawl out of the same pit, far as I’m concerned!” Evangeline spat as she swerved around a support beam.

That did it.

Nyra shrieked - an unholy sound that shattered the remaining garage lights above - and charged. Her claws scraped up sparks as she lunged again, hate burning from her body in waves.Evangeline ducked and rolled, but this time she was truly too late.

Nyra’s claws caught her across the ribs. The pain was instant and searing, like fire beneath the skin. She crashed hard into the floor, sliding under a parked SUV, blood smearing behind her like a trail.

Malik crouched at the hood of the car, peering underneath, his face upside-down and twisted in delight.

“She bleeds well,” he rasped.

Skarra leapt onto the trunk behind her, landing with an earth-shaking boom.

“You’re marked, girl,” he growled. “Don’t bother running. The seal is on you. We feel it in your bones.”

Evangeline crawled forward, ignoring the pain, her eyes searching desperately.

There, a dropped wrench lay, left by a mechanic, and she snatched it.

'A foolish weapon,' she thought, with a grimace, as she braced herself. 'but better than dying with empty hands.'

Skarra lunged first, arms wide, teeth snapping.

She twisted at the last second, slamming the wrench upward with a savage cry. It connected with something solid, his jaw. A sickening crack echoed as he reeled backward, gurgling black ichor.

But it was only a second, then Malik was there.

He grabbed her ankle - cold claws like vices - and yanked.

She screamed as her body was dragged backward across the concrete, her back scraping through glass and dirt, her side a torrent of agony.

Malik leaned over her, breath hot and sour.

“Your blood will crown a new age. The King waits.”

“Kill her,” Nyra snarled, limping forward. “She’s already unraveling.”

As Malik raised his claw, she couldn’t move nor think.

Then, from the bite on her wrist...

A bolt of fire erupted from her wrist, where the strange wolf man had bitten her five years ago. The mark throbbed like it was awakening, causing Malik to jump away in fright, almost getting burnt. It glowed faintly now, pulsing beneath the skin like an ember.

Malik froze as he looked at her wrist.

“No,” he rasped, jumping on her again. “Not yet awakened. But soon…”

Then the world tilted.

Evangeline twisted violently and jabbed the wrench into his throat with every ounce of adrenaline she had left.

CRACK!

Malik screamed, falling backward, clutching his throat as black bile sprayed across the floor.

She scrambled to her feet, tripping as she ran toward the elevator shaft.

She didn’t care where it went - up, down, into Hell - anywhere was better than this.

Behind her, Nyra shrieked in pure rage.

“I will skin your soul!” she heard as Skarra thundered toward her again.

She reached the elevator panel, slammed the emergency call button, but there was no power as the demons aura had killed the grid.

She spun to face them, hands up, wrench bloodied, and lungs aching.

Malik was rising again, slower now, black fluid dribbling from his mouth.

“You are marked, Evangeline Cross,” he said, voice deeper. “You will not leave this world untouched.”

The wrench fell from her numb fingers.

She backed against the wall, heart in her throat.

“Please…” she whispered. “I don’t know what I am.”

Nyra’s claws gleamed. “Then we’ll carve the truth from your bones.”

Skarra lunged again - too fast.

Her body then tensed, as she screwed her eyes shut, waiting for the final blow...