Chapter 39

(Mandy)

I came to tied up with something over my head.

"Ah the demon stirs," a voice said.

The bag over my head was pulled off abruptly I blinked due to the sudden bright light. As my eyes adapted I saw I was sat in a clearing in what looked like a forest. A few vans and other vehicles surrounded the clearing with their headlights blazing, one of them was the phony ambulance that had grabbed me at the restaurant. I saw a group of people standing around, they were all dressed in strange shiny suits and quite a few were carrying weapons.

"Where am I, why have you abducted me like this?" I asked.

"Silence demon, our leader will address you before the hunt," shouted a stern man one of the ones who had grabbed me dressed as a paramedic.

A group of three people approached all wearing the same shiny silver suits the one in the centre had the helmet of the suit on so they looked like some sort of spaceman from an old scifi b-movie.

The person in front who seemed to be in charge reached up and took the helmet off revealing a tall distinguished man with strong features set into a stern frown, greying black hair with a large bushy beard.

"Uncle Richard!" I exclaimed in shock.

"Quiet demon," Uncle Richard said in a stern voice, "You used your tricks to destroyed my brother, his wife, and a great many noble parishioners, even enslaving my niece but your reign of terror ends here."

Suddenly it all clicked into place, "It was you setting up all those kids to kill D!"

"Of course, we had to get your freak body guard out of the way before we could move. Having those brats take your friend out of the picture was merely the penultimate act in our grand plan. Yes my noble knights have been testing you and getting us ready for the hunt learning your tricks and preparing to hunt you. Even a beast such as you must be given a chance for a noble ending at the sword of one of the Knights."

"You're mad!" I cried looking at the ring of angry eager faces.

"As is sporting we will allow you a head start before we hunt you down."

Uncle Richard nodded to one of the people and began attaching his helmet. The blonde woman who had been in the ambulance walked over holding a nasty looking knife, she was grinning like a mad woman, she sliced the bindings holding my wrists and feet then backed off.

I needed to throw them off balance to have any chance of getting away, if I played them at their own game I was sure I was going to loose, they had designed it so that was the case. I whirled and threw a ball of fire dead at Uncle Richard, it hit square on the silver suit and he staggered backwards arms wind milling for a bit before he regained his footing.

He laughed his voice muffled by the suit, "Hahaha nice try demon, one such as yourself doesn't respect the rules of combat but still we are wise to your tricks. This is a fire suit rated to handle any temperature you can throw at it. So let us begin again, you have five minutes then we will begin our hunt. The forest is quite secure, no-one for miles, so you can't take any hostages and no one will rescue you, your time starts now!"

I glanced around then scrambled off into the forest. As I ran I thought, they had been watching me tracking me for goodness knows how long, they knew about my fire, there was a good chance they knew about my other skills as well. I would need to be clever.

I took off my shoes and socks I would undoubtedly need my feet bare before the night was out. It was still light but the darkness was falling fast, I couldn't make out any lights besides the headlights of the vans behind me. I had no idea where I was or how far I was from help. I checked my pockets, nothing they had cleaned me out. I needed to hide but given the way they had just let me run off I suspected they would have ways of seeing through my invisibility. I checked my watch my time was nearly up I needed to keep running or find somewhere to hide. I saw a ditch off to my left still full of dead leaves that might suffice, but how to make them carry on. I pondered how they would be tracking me, perhaps by body heat. Using my powers I quickly created a false trail of heat foot prints leading off into the distance then obscured my own trail by smoothing out the heat as best I could. I dug myself into the leaves and turned on my invisibility to mask any other heat or sounds that might give me away. I lay still in the ditch waiting.

I didn't have to wait long a hunting party of five people all dressed in silver suits covering their bodies carrying firearms. They were waving some sort of scanner thing in front of them.

"I see nothing but trees on ultrasound, thermal shows her going this way," one of them said and they all rushed off after my fake trail. It would buy me some time maybe I could loop back to their vans and escape that way. I waited till I was sure they were gone then I got up out of the ditch I started back towards the clearing someone sprang out from behind a tree kicking me in the chest sending me sprawling to the ground.

"Well well well what have we here," a female voice called out of the suit, "I figured you'd be smarter than they thought."

I scrambled to my feet watching the suited figure warily, "let me go!" I tried.

"Oh no, I've been waiting for weeks to have the chance to finish you up close and personal. All that boring time in the van watching you waiting, it's going to make the kill that much more satisfying."

She pulled a large knife out of somewhere, it looked like the same one I had seen earlier this must be the blonde.

She came at me with the knife and I tried to dodge but she still slashed me cutting my upper arm. We danced round each other for a while with her slashing at me every now and again it became apparent that she was just playing with me. I needed to do something drastic something she couldn't counter. I focused on her emotion her sick thrill of the fight and the kill to come. I twisted her mind so that rather than excitement she felt fear a terrible fear. Almost immediately her movements started to become erratic the fear I had put in her head feeding on itself growing. She began slashing at things that weren't there. The growing dark and her fear making her see things. I dodged and while she was slashing at something I became invisible and clambered up a tree. She was still slashing at things her laughs gone now cries of terror, I was a little concerned I had broken her mind.

Two figures came running out of the dark, the woman screamed and flung the knife at them.

'Just what I don't need, reinforcements, ' I thought.

"What are you doing!" cried one of the newcomers, "Are you crazy?"

She continued to spin in circles pulling yet another knife from somewhere slashing at unseen enemies and crying out. She suddenly turned and ran off into the forest screaming, she ran straight into a tree at full speed and feel down unconscious.

The other figure watched her for a bit and then muttered, "crazy bitch!" and the two of them walked off.

I sneaked down, the woman was out cold. Looking down at the silver clad figure I suddenly had a thought in the fire-suits the people all looked the same, the woman was a little shorter than me but it seemed these suits were not well fitted anyway.

"What the!" called a voice from behind me. I span round to see one of the figures who had obviously come back and seen me moving even with my invisibility up.

'Careless!' I mentally admonished myself.

The man started trying to get his gun out but the big gloves of the fire suit made him clumsy. I decided to try fire again, while my quick hit on Uncle Richard hadn't worked it had been an unprepared desperate move maybe if I really focused and threw everything I had at the suit it would break.

I brought my hands together to focus the heat and then concentrated holding the fire in creating an intense ball of fire. I made it hotter and hotter confining it to a small area so I could focus the heat more effectively holding in the fire amplifying the pressure. My hands glowed with blinding white light and the flames twisted and churned in the unnatural ball of bright white hot flame. I poured as much heat as I dared into it then hurled the fireball at the man. There was an almighty shockwave as I released the heat from its containment and a loud roar, the fireball changed from a ball to a sort of cone of fire directed at the man. It blasted through the heat shielding of the firesuit like it was paper, physically tearing it off him in a huge blast of flame. His clothes underneath were also frazzled in seconds and the air filled with the sickening smell of burnt hair and flesh. The blast tossed him back like a rag doll and he smashed into a tree and collapsed to the ground. I guess he was out cold as he made no move to put the fire out. I fell to the ground suddenly weak as a newborn kitten. The blast of fire continued on it's path tearing the branches off several trees. It also set a huge swathe of undergrowth ablaze. It was a 40 meter long flaming arrow pointed right at me. I weakly staggered to my feet I had to get moving before someone came to investigate. I managed to extinguish the man he didn't seem to be too badly burnt the blast had knocked him out of the path of flames before his suit had failed completely. I was in two minds about what I had done to him yes he was trying to kill me but still the thought of roasting him alive turned my stomach a little.

I started pulling the unconscious woman out of her suit and putting it on myself. Once I was done I tied the woman up with strips of cloth torn from her clothes. I put her in the ditch I'd hid in earlier and covered her over with leaves. Hopefully she would remain undiscovered for long enough so I could escape. With the flaming destruction nearby hopefully my attackers wouldn't think that I would be hiding among them.

I made my way back towards the vans. There were a few people in the suits standing around. I could make out Uncle Richards voice. As I approached one of the suits turned towards me.

"Any luck?" Uncle Richard asked.

I shook my head.

One of the others spoke, "The beast made false tracks going off into the forest she must have hidden along the way and taken another route."

Someone came running out of the forest, "I just saw a massive blast of fire and found Seven badly burnt and unconscious!"

"How did he get burnt the fire suit should protect us," one of the people said sounding worried.

"Calm yourself," said Uncle Richard, "What did it look like."

"I'm not sure, the suit looked torn but there was a lot of fire damage," the man who had run out of the forest said.

"The beast undoubtedly tore the suit with her demon claws before using her fire, our suits will still protect us if we are careful. We will do what we can for Seven when our work is done. Was there anything else?"

"When I was searching with Seven before we split up we came across one of our number driven mad, they were running around with a knife slashing at thin air."

"The demon must have destroyed their mind. Do you know which of us has fallen?" asked Uncle Richard.

"I don't know I think it was Five given the knife but I'm not sure."

"She always was a little unstable, still we must remain strong. Take the scanning equipment we must locate her again, if it comes to it have a dog team on standby."