3 SCOTT

Bowen does date nights small.

Fairy lights tangle through the fig trees on Herbert Street, pretending winter can’t bite. The Coral Sea breathes beyond the breakwater—hush in, hush out—like the town is trying not to wake itself. Inside La Piccola Marina, a busker’s guitar smooths over clinking glass and low talk. For an hour, Scott Masters and Faith let themselves be ordinary.

He’s shaved—she insisted. Demonslayer, his one sword, is at home in its scabbard, leaning against the cedar chest like a sleeping dog.

Faith’s fingers find Scott’s.“You know, it’s been a year since Hideaway Bay. Your parents must be so proud.”

“Yeah, they are, since we moved in with each other, life has been so much clearer,” Scott said, looking in her blue eyes. They both smile at each other and sip on a glass of St. Hallard’s wine.

The barman nudges the TV volume up for the footy. The picture stutters—

—and snaps to BREAKING NEWS.

They look from their gaze and turn to the television, interested.

On the Samsung flat screen, a Handheld phone footage lurches across a Sydney street. Sirens. People running. Something too big and wrong vaults a car and vanishes out of frame. The chyron burns at the bottom:

SYDNEY UNDER ATTACK FROM MONSTERS.

Audio catches a beat later: a woman’s thin, hopeless crying; helicopter rotor thump; a rain of glass. The phone swings and freezes on a taxi roof where a furred shape stands howling in daylight. Blue lights smear the frame.

Faith turned from the television to Scott, who had that look on his face.

“Scott… that’s Sydney.”

“Yeah.”

He drops notes on the bill. “We’re going.”

Scott picked up his jacket and put it on, while Faith picked up her purse.

They step into Herbert Street with that caption still burning behind his eyes.

From a distance, a faint sound of wings could be heard, “What is that?”

I don’t know said Scott as they crossed the road to the truck.

The wind changes—metallic, sharp. Wingbeats thread it, too big for gulls.

A shadow banks over the clock tower and drops, skimming awnings, trailing the stink of carrion and ozone. “Ah, ah, food, feed I must.”

It comes low and fast: not a harpy, not a bird, not anything a sane person would name. Skin like scorched parchment stretched over bone. Wings webbed and ragged, edges smoking as if it carried its own chemical burn. Eyes glowing a bruised gold.

Claws scrape sparks from the bitumen as it screams in two voices—one shrill, one buried in gravel.

“Faith, get to the car!” Scott barks.

Faith sprints for the 1980’s back to the Future tribute Hilux. The creature pivots midair, tracking motion with the simple intelligence of a hunting thing—smart enough to pick a target, dumb enough to do it in front of him. “Ah!” it hissed.

Scott’s boots slide on the wet road as he hauls open the tray and closes his hand around the old aluminium bat. No tricks. No symbols. Just leverage and timing.

“Come on, then!” he shouts, squaring up.

The demon shrieks and dives, wings cracking thunder. Talons reach—razor-long, wet, black.

Scott swings. The bat cuts air, missing by inches. The gust off its wings hits like a wave, knocking him sideways. He rolls, boots scraping asphalt, comes up ready again, breath loud in his own ears.

“Come on, you bastard!” he spits, planting his feet as the night terror demon swooped around in the darkness, readying itself for another attack.

At the same time, Faith fumbled for the keys at the Hilux’s door, she then finds the key and opens it. She quickly jumped in and slammed the door shut as the night terror swooped above. Faith nervously fumbled the keys in her hand and tried to start up the 80s Hilux truck. “Come on, start, you piece of—” Once, twice—the engine coughs—then roars alive. Headlights blaze through the rain.

The demon laughs—at Scott, at effort, at the smallness of towns. It drops lower, skimming close enough that the heat of it prickles his face.

“Smiter!” it roars, voice doubled, the word shaking windows— as it perched itself on a power pole that had a transformer under it.

Its eyes burn hotter. Flesh splits along old seams; smoke hisses from the cracks as if something inside it is overheating.

“You cannot defeat us all.”

“OK! I will start with a smelly shitbag like you first,” Scott says, measuring the arc for a second swing.

The demon dives off the power pole and banks for another strike, eyes flashing like molten glass, body unfurling for his head. As it flew towards Scott from the corner of the demon’s eye, he could see a set of truck lights as it drove at high speed towards it.

Faith floors it.

“Scott! Down!” she yells.

Scott hits the deck and rolls out of the way.

“Here goes nothing,” she says through her teeth.

Tyres scream. The bull bar hammers the demon mid-dive.

The thing sprawls across the bonnet, screeching, gouging the hood, talons punching dents like fists. “You can’t defeat me, human!”

“No,” Faith snaps, “but that can!”

She slams the brakes.

Momentum does the rest—flinging the demon backward into the transformer and power lines that strung above the street.

The lines sing. Blue-white fire races across its wings, outlining every bone. Sparks pour from its back and pinions; smoke threads its joints and spits across wet road.

The creature twitches, hovering for a heartbeat—wings flapping raggedly, muscles refusing instructions.

Its head snaps toward Scott.

Then a different voice forces its way out through the dying throat—lower, harsher, like something else is pushing air through damaged lungs. Just a message delivered by whatever put it here.

“Smiter… we are many.”

The powerlines scream. Current crawls up the poles and bursts across the wings. The thing convulses, catches fire, and drops—slamming into the gutter in a hiss of steam and ash.

Faith jumps out, rain streaking her face, running straight to him.

“You okay?”

“Yes.” Scott steadies her as she clings.

She looks over his shoulder at the smoking heap. “And what the hell was that? Why did that thing come for you?”

He nods once. “Not too sure. But, message received.”

Across the restaurant window, the TV still loops the grainy footage of George Street—sirens, fire, chaos—and the same headline burns along the bottom:

SYDNEY UNDER ATTACK FROM MONSTERS.

Faith’s voice shakes. “No. No, no. You’re not thinking?”

“Thinking what?”“That look you have, I know what you’re going to say and. You’re not going to that.”

“Looks like I have to, Faith.”

“Well, I’m coming.”

“No,” Scott says—too quickly. He cups her face, thumb brushing away rain and salt. “You stay here. Lock up. Get your brother. If this spills north, Bowen’s going to need you.”

She glares through tears. “You don’t get to leave me behind.”

“I don’t want to,” he says, roughly. “But I need to know you’re safe. If that’s Sydney…”—he nods at the TV—“…then I can’t fight looking over my shoulder.”

She stares at him, angry and scared and loving him enough to let him go.

“You come back to me.”

“I will.”

“Promise me.”

“I promise.”

He presses his forehead to hers.

“I love you. You know that?”

Faith smiled and replied, “I love you too.”

They kiss as the power transformer sparks in the background, while the night terror melts away to a liquid and deforms its body in a bubbly decomposition.

They drive the two blocks home with the windows down and the radio off, listening to a night that has learned a new note.

“First of all I’ll need Demonslayer, fuel, and first aid. I’ll take what’s left of the Hilux. You take the Prado. If anything feels wrong—sirens, sky, power—get inland. Go to your mother’s. Do anything but stay here. Don’t wait for me.”

“I’m not running.”

“It’s not running,” he says. “It’s keeping the lamp lit.”

“If you can’t call, text me a full stop so I know you’re breathing.”

He kisses her—long enough to hurt, short enough to leave them both standing. “I’ll bring the truck to the door.”

In the bedroom, he lifts Demonslayer from its scabbard; the blade takes the light like a tool pulled from the box when the job turns ugly. He shoulders a pack—gauze, tourniquets, water, flares—checks the old satphone, slides it in. On the hall table, he leaves a note that only says: Ditto.

At the door, Faith stands in his jacket, hair pulled through the collar, trying not to cry again. He pulls her into one more hug and feels something settle in his ribs—resolve, not romance, the mental click of committing to a hard road.

“I’ll watch the news,” she says. “And any chatter on the net.”

“Keep an eye on the neighbours,” he says. “If anything weird shows up, you take them with you. Lock yourselves in the panic room. Lights off. Curtains closed.”

She nods, swallows a bitter pill, and she knows what he must do; it wasn’t fair, but Scott was the Smiter, a holy guardian of this realm. He kisses her one more time. “Go, before I regret it,” she said with a tear in her eye.

He steps onto the porch, the weight of the sword finding its place across his back. The Hilux turns over—steady, sure. He pauses at the gate and looks back; she lifts a hand and holds it between them like a bridge.

“Come home,” she says and crosses he arms after holding his fingers in hers.

“You are my home,” he answers—and he means Sydney is something between here and there, whatever is going on there has to be dealt with.

He sets Demonslayer—sheathed—on the passenger floor within reach, climbs in, drops it into gear, and rolls onto Herbert Street. In the rear-view, Faith stands on the porch with her arms crossed against the rain. Bowen tries to be small in the mirror. The road south unspools in his mind as distance, fuel stops, and what he’ll do if the wrong shapes show up again.

He doesn’t know anyone in that city.

He doesn’t have to.

He knows what he is again.

The Smiter.

And Sydney needs his help.