Chapter 11: A Pity I Have to Eat You – Almost

Finally Eigis paused, pulling back, smacking his lips and licking blood from his face with his tongue. Hiryu no longer felt the demon’s full weight against him or heard chewing. Reaching up, Hiryu scrabbled blindly for a moment, then finally grabbed the knife with his left hand, plunging it into the demon’s lower left side.

The shock of the stab went through them both. Eigis yowled. His right hand scrapped four long, bloody furrows from above Hiryu’s ear and forehead down to his jaw, narrowly missing his left eye, scrapping the top of his shoulder as the demon jerked away. Hiryu lost the grip on the knife. He screamed.

“You!”

Hiryu gasped in pain as the demon’s hand swept back, slamming against the side of his face, bursting open the fresh gashes even further, and he screamed again. The blow almost knocked him down. He just barely kept his footing, gasping. Warm, wet blood trickled through his hair and down the left side of his face, half blinding him.

But after the initial shock, Eigis was not very upset. Actually the demon chuckled as he pulled the dagger out of his own body, the wavy blade dark with his own unnatural blue-black blood.

Hiryu watched, horrified and fascinated, as the wound closed and shrank and soon disappeared without even the trace of a scar.

“A brave but useless attempt,” The demon remarked, cleaning off the dagger, although he made a point to set it down on the floor where Hiryu couldn’t reach it, along with the katana. “Still, I’ll make sure you’ll never use that hand again.”

Hiryu swallowed hard, but still managed a retort.

“I thought you were going to do that already.”

Eigis’s eyes opened wide in surprise, then he laughed.

“Ha. It’s almost a pity that I have to kill you. You’re the strongest, most exciting prey I’ve had in a long time.” Stepping closer, he reached out, grabbing Hiryu’s jaw in a grip that hurt. With a sly smile he leaned close, licking up the trails of fresh blood that ran down half of the demon hunter’s face. “But no matter how much you fight, I’ll eat you up, because you taste so good.”

“Ugh.” Hiryu squinted his left eye closed, disgusted, as the demon’s rough tongue slithered across his closed eyelid and down his cheek.

He tried to jerk his head away, but Eigis didn’t let him, holding his head still easily with one hand. Hiryu couldn’t do anything but grit his teeth and take it as the demon licked him again and again.

“Humans are such touchy creatures, so easily disturbed,” Eigis observed, catching some last drops of blood along Hiryu’s chin as he took his hand away. “I’m only doing this to stop the bleeding.”