The Devil's Heir

Chapter Two: Slaughter in the Streets

The explosion’s shockwave knocked Elias off his feet. He hit the pavement hard, ears ringing, the taste of blood on his tongue from where he’d bitten his lip. Screams filled the air like a living thing. People trampled one another in blind panic, desperate to escape the growing inferno two blocks away.

Elias pushed himself up, legs shaky. The towering demon hovered above the shattered skyline, its laughter booming like artillery. Chunks of masonry rained down as another building collapsed under the heat. Cars lay overturned, their alarms screaming uselessly.

He should run. Every sane part of him screamed to run.

But that thing inside him—the restless shadow he had buried for years—pulled him forward. Toward the fire. Toward the monster that had named him.

“Get out of here!” he shouted at a woman dragging two small children. She stared at him with wild eyes before bolting down a side street.

More portals flickered open across the sky—smaller, jagged tears. From them poured lesser demons: hunched, scaly creatures with blade-like limbs and glowing red eyes. They dropped into the streets like locusts.

Elias ran toward the epicenter, weaving through the chaos. He didn’t know why. Maybe to help. Maybe because running felt like a lie.

Sirens grew louder. SDS reinforcements poured in from the outskirts—those who had survived the initial slaughter outside the city or had been held in reserve. Armored personnel carriers screeched to halts at intersections. Officers spilled out in disciplined waves, heavy rifles and specialized anti-rift weaponry raised.

“Form perimeter!” a sergeant bellowed. “Suppress those lesser demons! Priority on the big one—bring it down!”

Elias ducked behind an overturned bus as the battle ignited.

The SDS opened fire. Heavy-caliber rounds laced with holy silver and rift-disrupting plasma tore into the smaller demons. Screeches of pain split the air as several creatures burst into black ichor and ash. Officers moved like a well-oiled machine—teams laying suppressive fire while others advanced with shoulder-mounted launchers.

For a moment, it looked like they might have a chance.

The towering demon—Kargoth, Elias somehow knew the name without knowing how—turned its burning gaze on the new arrivals. Its massive wings beat once, sending a hurricane gust that flipped vehicles and slammed officers into walls.

“Pathetic,” it rumbled. “You send lambs to the slaughter.”

It dove. The battle turned into a massacre.

Kargoth landed in the middle of the street with earth-shaking force. Its claws swept through a squad of officers as if they were paper. Three men died instantly, bodies torn apart. Another officer fired a rocket directly into the demon’s chest. The explosion bloomed bright, but Kargoth barely flinched. Smoke rose from charred scales, but the wound was already closing.

Elias watched from his hiding spot, heart pounding. He saw an officer—a young woman with a scarred face—empty her entire magazine into one of the lesser demons before it impaled her through the stomach. She kept firing even as she died, teeth bared in defiance.

Another squad tried to flank the giant. They activated energy barriers and unleashed a coordinated barrage. Plasma bolts scorched the demon’s wings. For a second, Kargoth staggered.

Then it roared. Hellfire erupted from its maw in a wide cone. The barriers shattered like glass. Officers screamed as they burned alive, armor melting into their flesh. The smell of charred meat rolled over the street.

“Fall back!” the sergeant shouted, voice cracking. “We need heavier ornaments! Call in the—”

A lesser demon leaped on him from behind, jaws clamping around his neck. The man’s scream cut short.

Elias’s hands trembled. He could feel heat building in his palms, an unnatural warmth that begged to be released. *No.* He clenched his fists. He wasn’t a part of this. He was just a guy who worked in a bookstore. Nightmares didn’t make him a warrior.

But the voice from his dreams whispered again, faint but insistent.

*My son… rise.*

He shook his head violently.

More SDS units arrived, desperate to turn the tide. They brought heavier weapons—anti-material rifles and experimental rift anchors designed to close portals. Officers laid down covering fire as engineers tried to set up the anchors. Bullets ricocheted off Kargoth’s hide. One lucky shot took out the eye of a lesser demon, sending it thrashing wildly into a storefront.

Still, the demons were winning. For every lesser creature felled, two more poured from the widening rifts. The officers fought with suicidal courage—charging even when retreat made sense, unloading clip after clip until their barrels glowed red. They were killing themselves with their own bravery, throwing lives away against an enemy that outmatched them in every way.

Elias crept closer, staying low behind wrecked cars and rubble. He helped a trapped civilian pull himself from a crushed sedan, then pushed the man toward safety. “Go! Don’t look back!”

A lesser demon spotted him. It screeched and charged on all fours, claws sparking against asphalt.

Elias’s instincts took over. He dove aside as the creature slashed, its blades gouging deep furrows in the ground. Without thinking, he grabbed a fallen officer’s sidearm. The grip felt strangely familiar in his hand. He fired—three shots, center mass. The demon staggered, ichor spraying. A fourth shot to the head dropped it.

He stared at the gun in disbelief. How had he done that? The pressure inside him swelled. Power crackled just beneath his skin.

Kargoth noticed the disturbance. Its remaining eye narrowed, scanning the street until it locked onto Elias. A slow, knowing smile spread across its monstrous face.

“There you are.”

The giant demon raised its clawed hand. Hellfire gathered again, brighter and more concentrated this time. Officers screamed warnings and poured fire into the beast to distract it, but Kargoth ignored them. The attack was meant for one person.

Elias tried to run, but his legs felt leaden. The world slowed. He saw the fireball launch— a roaring comet of crimson and black hurtling straight toward him.

At the last second, he threw up his hands in a futile gesture.

The explosion hit the street ten feet away. The blast lifted him off his feet like a rag doll. White-hot pain seared across his side as flames licked his clothes. He tumbled through the air, crashing hard into a pile of rubble.

The impact drove the breath from his lungs. Agony flared through his ribs and shoulder. Blood trickled from a gash on his forehead, stinging his eyes.

Elias tried to push himself up, but his arms gave out. The world spun. Smoke choked the air. Distant gunfire and screams sounded muffled, as if underwater.

He collapsed face-down onto the broken concrete, vision fading to black at the edges. The last thing he saw was Kargoth’s massive form looming closer through the haze, stepping over the bodies of fallen officers like they were nothing.

The heir had been found. And the monster he had spent his life running from had finally come to claim him.