Slaying demons, p.1
Slaying Demons, page 1
part #2 of Damsel Series
Damsel: No More
Slaying Demons
P.S. Power
Orange Cat Publishing
Copyright 2020
Table of Contents
Copyright Page
Chapter one
Chapter two
Chapter three
Chapter four
Chapter five
Chapter six
Chapter seven
Chapter eight
Chapter nine
Chapter ten
Chapter eleven
Chapter twelve
Chapter thirteen
Chapter fourteen
Chapter fifteen
Chapter sixteen
Chapter seventeen
Chapter seventeen
Chapter eighteen
Chapter twenty
Chapter one
“Oh, fuck off!” Hannah nearly growled the words, her new forty-four caliber pistol, one built especially for her by a master gun smith, hitting the first of the five men in front of her directly in the chest. He had green body armor on, and while she didn’t know if it was bullet proof or not, she stepped to the right and re-aimed, to do the same to his buddy.
All five of the men, if they were dudes at all, had full face masks on, hiding who they were at the moment. A thing that she was getting used to seeing, even if that was still weird as fudge to her. Moving back and to the side at the same time, she hit another of the men in the head... Then went down to a hail of bullets from the last two, who had finally decided to open up on her. There were a few shots from the first man as well, since he wasn’t dead yet.
They’d all had rifles, which meant that one or two bullets to her unarmored body assured that she was well and truly dead. That got her to frown, and restart the VR game.
Growling a bit.
“Holy freaking hell. That’s not good enough.” She wanted to scream the words, but her brother, Nate, was sleeping in the other room. He didn’t really do that too easily, it seemed, so letting him rest when he could felt like a good plan. Instead of acting like it was a big deal and pouting because she wasn’t good enough, Hannah tried to do something novel in her life, and think about how to improve her shooting game.
She grinned, since that kind of thing, trying to out think a problem was pretty much what everyone in the world did when they were faced with something like that. Except that, in her life, pouting a bit and seeming sad had taken the place of that kind of boring and rational thing. Because it had honestly been effective. Not all the time, but often enough to make a real difference in her world.
A thing that simply wasn’t going to work any longer. Not now that she was choosing to not be a victim, any longer. People who weren’t victims didn’t take the easy way. Not all of the time.
“Okay... Going head to head with five armed men like that never works. Really, you never even beat three, out in the open, so... don’t let that happen? String them out. Hide, maybe. Also, buy body armor at the start of the round. Then...” She knew the last one, even if it was hard for her to get used to. “Shoot them in the head. Your aim is almost good enough and nothing else takes them down as quickly.”
None of that was new to her. She’d even tried it all before. In different pieces. Restarting the match, against bots, since real players would still eat her lunch, and sitting around dead for twenty minutes each game wasn’t really going to teach her much, she changed the setting of the game world to a stone village in a desert and started over again. This time making sure she had the best armor she could afford.
Then, forcing herself to be alert, she started to snipe at the green clad soldiers from hiding, as much as possible. Only allowing herself to use head shots. It took more than one round of game play to get most of her plan going, after that, but she finally started taking out four, or in one match, five of the enemy for every time they killed her. It wasn’t good enough, since she was practicing for real life, where even one death meant game over forever but it was an actual improvement.
Carl, the asshole who was teaching her to fight with weapons, had told her that she should start going up against real people when she could regularly take on fifteen of the computer-controlled bots to every one time she died. So far that hadn’t been happening for all for her. It felt like that was impossible, instead of being only good enough to take on actual human beings in the game.
Shutting the system down, an hour later, she pulled the headset off, and wiped at her moist face. Her short blonde hair was sweat soaked in places, and her eyes itched and burned, a bit of salt from her brow having dripped into them. That meant catching a shower, normally, except that she had some exercises to do first. It was a Sunday, so instead of heading to the private gym her pal Kate let her use, Hannah started walking in a big circle in her living room.
She had a towel around her neck, to make sure she didn’t drip all over the carpet. That would just be gross, after all. At the same time, barefoot, she started to wear a circle in the cream-colored rug. Letting her weight sink down and forward, relaxing every muscle in her body not needed for the movement, and not lifting her feet any more than was needed to flow in the right direction. She was, Hannah hoped, finally getting the fourth gait down correctly. She wasn’t exactly sprinting, but her funny walk was faster than she could have jogged, by over fifty percent.
Even if it was a new thing to her, she pushed into the fifth gait, leaning over and pressing her rear leg along a slightly diagonal line, turning the flowing shuffle into a smooth skating motion. One that, of course, really wasn’t that at all. There was no glide to it, which was the big benefit to real skating, over running, as far as speed went. The way she was moving kept her foot in contact with the ground longer, allowing her to use more of the strength she had to power herself forward. That was the theory, at least. She didn’t try to do it as fast as she could, since traveling in a circle meant she’d fall down if she wasn’t careful.
Still, her cadence was six steps a second, which the book she had on the subject claimed was only about seventy five percent of what a human could be trained to do as a functional pattern. Her steps, the individual stride, were small though, so she really wasn’t moving all that fast. Not compared to the super types who lived all around her.
At least it felt like they did.
She had to stop her attempt to move fast after a minute, and gasping, she went back to her strange walking pattern. That, the two unusual ways of walking were alternated for a bit. One minute of gasping, with four of a quick, but far from impressive shuffling. Then, to be different, she scanned the room while walking backwards. That was more of a normal type of thing. She was looking around like a freak though, so kept from falling over. That, swiveling her head while not twisting her body too much, was the big trick on that part. She alternated them all, for a while.
Trying to stay perfectly relaxed, the whole time. Sinking into a meditative state while moving, as well as she could. Noticing every muscle in her body, and how it flexed, or, in most cases, didn’t really need to contract at all.
Nate came out of the small guest room, and stood there, for about fifteen minutes, watching her. He seemed to be pretty fit, himself, and had hair even shorter than her own. Rather than point and laugh at her wacky antics, he waited for her to stop, and nodded. Somberly.
“That’s different. You exercising, I mean. I know you said that you were doing that, but it’s hard to imagine, Hannah de Peyser doing that kind of thing on a regular basis. I would have figured that you’d hire someone to do that for you.” The words were a bit dark. Gloomy, even.
Also, clearly, meant to be brotherly teasing.
So she simply nodded and dabbed at the lines of sweat running down her face. Her shirt wasn’t catching most of it on her lower back at all, which was annoying. She ignored that part of things.
“I know, right? I need to get with my tech friend, Tyler, and have a program put in for working with blades, too. I’ve been focusing on handguns, to start with, since, you know, I actually carry one of those around with me and all that.” She also had a knife on her, which was her point. She carried both things, even while walking in big circles, in her own home.
Not the same ones that Carl had lent her, either. She’d finally gone and applied for a concealed carry permit, and gotten her own gear, just before the Tri-D lockdowns had started. No body armor, yet. That was down to the fact that she didn’t think it would ever come up for her. She wasn’t a cop or superhero, so walking around in a full get-up that way didn’t make a lot of sense.
She could, mainly, justify wearing comfortable clothing and carry a blade on her, as well as a handgun. That, the one she had on her hip at the moment, on the outside of her sweatpants, was identical to the new weapon skin that Tyler had put in the game for her. The handle on it was a bit slimmer than what a gun shop would have had in stock, making it look a little funny. It was also a very plain, not being at all snazzy, just plain metallic gray. Black was sinister, but shiny attracted attention. The idea was, if she pulled the thing on her side out, a lot of people might just miss she was holding it at all.
At least the bystanders, in the distance.
Her brother nodded at her then, his gray shirt lettered on the front, with a band name. The Electrics. Hannah had no clue who they were at all. Then, Nate had gotten it at a second-hand store, and probably didn’t have a clue that way either. It had been cheap, fit and didn’t have stains on it. That had been what he’d said about all his purchases as far as clothing went. Even if their father had given him more than enough money to have things specially made. Millions of dollars, in fact.
He’d been gone from their lives for years, barely visiting. Only twice in three years. The month before, Hannah had found out why that was. Her little brother, who had been born with super powers she hadn’t been told about, had been kidnapped by a monstrous criminal freak and held against his will as a slave. Serving the man, often by killing people, with her life hanging in the balance. Hannah had been kidnapped four times over the years, largely due to that threat, as it turned out. Even more people had stalked or even tried to kill her.
Rape had probably been in the plans as well, but no one had ever mentioned that one to her, yet. Not as more than a thing that could have been in the cards if her life had been even a little less fortunate. Probably because they were still trying to protect her from reality. A thing she wasn’t putting up with any longer. She needed to protect herself, now. That meant knowing what the actual issues were.
That and getting ready to handle them.
Her brother had been traumatized by what had happened to him, over the years. She’d heard part of it, from a telepath, so was willing to be understanding when her little brother failed to act like he should have. He’d actually always been a decent enough guy, before he’d vanished from their lives, even if their dad was filthy rich and had given both of them so much money they’d never need to work a day in their lives.
Since he’d been back, Nate had spent something like a thousand dollars. Most of that had been on food, which he was sharing with her. She tended not to shop for that kind of thing, since not having it around meant it was harder to break down and eat. She kind of thought he was telling her something. Like she might be a bit too thin.
That worked for a party girl socialite, but with her new workout in place, even if it looked funny, she’d been losing weight. At a rate that had made the tabloids, or so she’d heard. It meant she needed to stop that, one way or another. She wasn’t giving up her new practice... Which meant eating more was probably in order.
“Breakfast? I need to shower and can’t make much, but I probably need to replace the calories I just burned off.”
Her brother actually smiled. It seemed a bit dismal. Sad and broken around the edges. Still, his words sounded correct. Pleasant and as if that, him preparing the food, was what normally happened in the world.
“I can make something? Pancakes?”
She nodded, since she wasn’t hungry at all. She never was, right after exercise.
“Sounds good. Some kind of fruit or something, too? I’m in training.”
She flexed then, or pretended to. It got a nod, instead of a laugh.
“I can see that. Good. Anyway, go shower. I’ve got this.”
She didn’t take her time, even if there was nothing much else going on for the rest of the day. The next morning she was supposed to meet with Kate, so that they could start filming her friend’s reality show. It was literally called, “Life of Kate”. The idea, originally, had been to have Hannah in it, as Kate’s dippy, spoiled, socialite friend.
Like she had been in season one.
Then she’d gone and started working out, gave up drinking and drugs and had, boringly enough, started working on a national food bank project. Just as a plague and then an economic depression hit. Meaning that her pet project had suddenly become the only source of food for a whole lot of people. That, the project, was going well enough that she didn’t have any real reason to work on it that day. A thing that, while relaxing, was leaving her at loose ends.
Being locked inside all the time was incredibly boring.
So much so she’d even bothered to learn about the Tri-D virus. A thing that hadn’t been isolated at all. She didn’t get the science behind it, but that was a big deal, it sounded like. Its name was just due to the fact that it had been found on the same day, in Damascus, Denver and Dubai. So it was called Tri-D. It also caused a delirium and people would, after running around like loons for two weeks or so, just fall down, dead. Some of the people with it became violent, so that was a danger as well.
Not enough people had it yet to be a real problem, but the news coverage, when she’d bothered to look, was freaking out about how bad it could be. Possibly. In the future. Still, the lockdowns felt over the top to her, so far.
She showered, keeping her large folding knife in the soap dish, so she wouldn’t be unarmed, and wondered what normal people did on weekends. If it had been two months before, she would have been just getting to sleep, about then. It was nine in the morning, on a Sunday, after all. Now she’d been up for hours already. Exercising.
Nate was right. That really didn’t sound like her at all.
She snorted, nearly choking on the water that poured over her pale flesh. Instead of whining about it, she blew out, hard, and tried not to make the same mistake again. Her throat hurt, as did her nose, which she made herself ignore. Then she soaped up, scrubbed and made a point of patting herself dry with a fluffy yellow towel, before moisturizing and actually bothering to put on some makeup.
Hannah hadn’t been doing that a lot, lately, which meant that, when she looked into the mirror, arranging her face, she noticed that she was looking... Good. Finally. There was no bruising left from the last attack and she seemed a bit lean, but not in a way that couldn’t be artfully covered with paint and salves. That and baggy clothes.
That meant, dressed in loose, but not ratty, clothing, a gun on her side, and a knife in her front right-hand pocket, she went to the kitchen to find that, almost insanely, her brother had produced a tidy mound of food for all of them, already. It looked good, too.
“Nice! I can’t cook at all, yet. You can teach me how to do that?”
Her brother grinned. A rare, real seeming, thing.
“Yep. Carter kept us on a boat a lot of the time, when we weren’t working. He had a guy, a master chef, that he’d kidnapped, and forced to work for him. Pierre. Anyway, he taught us all how to cook, since there wasn’t a lot else to do. We weren’t allowed to listen to music or watch television. So, I can actually manage a kitchen pretty well now.”
She didn’t smile, but nodded. It wasn’t normal for Nate to talk about his time away. Making light of it, or too big of a deal, might be the wrong move. Then, she was pretty certain there were no right ones.
Changing the subject, she tried to sound halfway intelligent.
“I’ve been kicking around the idea of body armor. I don’t think I really need it, but in the simulations, I live a lot longer when I have it.” Nearly twice as long, in fact.
That got a nod, as butter and real maple syrup were put on the table. There was already a pile of pancakes and an array of sliced fruit. That, she noticed, was heavy on melon that day. Not even thinking about it, she took that first. It was the habit of a lifetime to fill up on fruit and vegies, first thing, then have a tiny bit of the rest, to be polite.
Nate waved at the other offerings.
“You need four pancakes, two tablespoon of butter and about half a cup of syrup, along with the fruit. At least if you’re replacing the calories you burned off already.” Then he shrugged. “As for body armor, you’ll want to go top end for that. Get shear thickening fluid impregnated, since that gives some stab resistance. At least class two. Some kind of impact resistance built in as well. I don’t know anyone who does that kind of thing, state side. Your friends in The Requiem might have people for that? You should do it. Having it and not needing it is better than the other way around and money isn’t really an obstacle for you.”
She took the vast amount of food mentioned, thinking that she wouldn’t be able to eat it all, and nodded.
“Right. But no one who wants to hurt me will call ahead, will they? I’ll never have it on at the right time.”
That had Nate tilting his head, as he ate several bites of the golden disks on his own plate.
“Won’t you, though? I mean, sure, not all the time, but having something like that under your clothing when your weird friends need help is a good start. Or if we hear about a new threat coming in. That can happen, if you’re paying attention. You should look into it. For real. I should, too. I’m not bullet proof or anything. I don’t want to go around fighting or killing, but life doesn’t always give you a choice that way. If you have to do it, being protected is important.”
