Darnesh drew his sword. “Boy, get behind your Mother. I will deal with this.”
The frightened child ducked behind his Mother as he was instructed. She did not look amused. “Darnesh”, she said. “It’s bad enough you fill his head with all your nonsense about the Underzone, so he has these bloody nightmares, but you will not validate them now by giving them credence.”
She turned and knelt to the boys level. “There are no such things as monsters, Elim. And even if they were, I doubt that they would be found in a small boys closet at close to midnight on a school night.”
The boy nodded his agreement, but his eyes were on his Father. The sword seemed to glow in the candlelight.
Darnesh tried not to bite. “Woman, you will see this night why I carry a blade against your protestations, at all hours. Now shield the boy.” He flung open the closet and saw …. nothing but his son's good shirt and trousers, the only clothes neat enough to be worth hanging. He felt unable to turn and face his wife’s eyes. He prodded the garments with the point of his sword.
The son spoke up then. “Father, she’s not in the closet anymore, that’s just where she came from. Now she is under the bed.”
His mother tutted loudly and bent to look under the bed in exasperation.
A few things happened all at once. The mother recoiled with a scream, knocking the child over behind her, in her haste to get away. The Father swung away from the closet with a roar, blade pointing at the bed. From under the bed, a voice screamed “ASYLUM! I CLAIM ASYLUM!”
The shouting died down, at least briefly. “Come out, demon”, ordered Darnesh.
“Are you going to kill me?”, asked the voice.
“That very much depends on what you do next. I can guarantee you that if you do not come out I will drag you out and end you where you lay.”
“OK. OK, I’m coming out slowly.” Little by little, a small orange-skinned figure emerged from under the bed. She wore a cream shift dress, small comfortable looking moccasins, and a very concerned expression. “Do you understand what Asylum means?”, she asked.
“Yes”, snapped Darnesh. “I know what it means, you foul beast.”
“Manners, Darnesh!”, said his wife, out of pure habit.
Darnesh frowned. “I know what it is. What makes you think I should grant you it.”
The demon shrugged. “Well, I need you to? If I go back to the Underzone they’ll kill me for sure. And most hunters of our kind are renowned for being a bit thick. You are the only one who has ever shown any restraint.”
At the mention of the Underzone, Darnesh allowed himself the luxury of a little smirk at his shocked looking family. “And what can you offer me in return for this unheard of request?”
“Something valuable”, she said, but before she could answer more fully, the boys closet rattled and rocked on its base. The boy drew back. “That’s what it did before!”, he said.
The closet door sprung open and two equally orange, but very much more violent looking figures stepped into the room.
“There she is”, said one.
“Kill ‘er”, said the other.
Darnesh felt a little put out to be ignored in his own house and stepped between the two new arrivals and the Asylum seeker.
“I don’t suppose you two want to claim asylum as well do you?”, he asked, holding his sword at his side.
“Asylum? What’s that mean? I just need you to get out of the way, human.”
“Well, if there will be killing in this house, it will be me to do it”, said Darnesh bringing his sword to guard. “I suggest you get back through this portal you’ve created, or I will end your time here, and send you back to the Underzone in very small pieces.”
The two demons glanced at each other and lunged. Darnesh smiled. The evening was looking up after all. He parried the first blow easily, and sidestepped a second, before planting his sword in the throat of the 1st demon. Without stopping to retrieve it, he pirouetted away from the dying demon and ducked to his knee under its companions flailing axe swing. A dagger appeared from his ankle and flashed out at the back of the second demon's leg. It fell as if its strings were cut, and Darnesh dispatched it before it even knew it was on the ground.
He wiped his knife on the fallen demons tunic, retrieved his sword, and turned back to the asylum seeker. He chose not to wipe the blood off the sword. It added to the effect.
“Now, what was this about a valuable offer?”, he said.
“I know how to end the Long War”, she said. “I can seal off the Underzone forever.”
