The situation was not good as I materialized next to a large pine tree in the furthest corner of my front yard, where I would have a good view of the house and the driveway. The house was engulfed in an inferno, and my father’s old Jeep was a burning, nearly unrecognizable hunk of useless metal in the driveway. I couldn’t see the Corvette, but that could mean anything. It could still be in the garage, and burning along with the rest of the place, or the others could have used it to get away if the Gryphons had warned them in time.

Even from where we had arrived at the edge of the property, the heat from the fire was intense, and the smell of smoke and charred flesh hung heavy in the night air, causing me to instinctively recoil. My heart seemed to stutter in my chest, and I could scarcely breathe at the sudden thought that the scent of burnt flesh might be the only sign left of the people I cared about. A hand firmly yet gently squeezed my shoulder, a reminder of my aunt’s presence and of her lessons. Valkyrie warriors do not give in to panic when faced with dangerous situations; we deal with them.

I made a conscious effort to shake off the fear for my loved ones, the anger at the Demons and the Paranormals who were working for them, and the raw fury that someone at the PDA had so obviously betrayed us. Those feelings wouldn’t help me right now; they would only distract me from what was important. We needed to search the area, eliminate any hostiles, and look for signs of Alice, Erin, and Lydia; their presence, corpses, or any evidence that suggested they might have escaped the inferno.

As much as I wanted to, I didn’t call out for any of my housemates. If they were hiding somewhere and answered me, that would only draw the attention of the attackers to them. I could see a lot of large and unfamiliar forms gathered outside my burning home; some were moving, while others were not, and they cast spine-chilling shadows from the blaze that now consumed my childhood home. The ones that were moving were in positions that made me think that they had set up a perimeter to prevent escape, and my heart plummeted in my chest at the thought.

“I don’t like this,” I muttered. “That fire is intense, and it looks like it’s been going for a while. Someone should have shown up here by now: emergency services or the PDA, but there aren’t even any people on the street stopping to gawk. Cars are just passing along the street like there’s nothing unusual going on.”

“That’s not all, take a look at your phone,” Aunt Lin suggested as she glared at her own.

I quickly pulled my phone from my jacket pocket and did so. No bars, and in the middle of the city. Yeah, that wasn’t suspicious at all. “What the fuck?” I cursed as I returned my phone to my pocket.

“They have someone making sure that nobody takes an interest in what’s going on here, and cut off contact from the outside as well,” she grumbled, still glaring at her phone. “Those Demons have been planning this for a while.”

“Some kind of Mage then?” I asked. Fighting Mages could be tricky; we were somewhat weak to magic, and I preferred a straightforward fight.

“Yeah, I can feel the magic at work. Someone has cast a spell to make the normies ignore what’s going on here, like the illusions and mental nudging that’s usually used on Paranormal businesses. They’re probably responsible for whatever is blocking cell reception as well. It feels like the spells have been sloppily connected to the wards against Demons that your mother placed around the property,” my aunt confirmed, not sounding any happier about the situation than I was. “At least that works to our favor right now, since we won’t have to deal with gawkers. That means they have a Divine Mage here, though. Not nearly as good as I am, or your mother was, but they could be a threat if they’re sneaky and clever. Keep your eyes open.”

“You don’t have to tell me twice. This whole situation stinks,” I grumbled as I stepped out from behind the tree. These bastards were burning down my family home, and I didn’t know yet if they had done anything to harm the people I cared about as well, but I would make them pay as if they had.

A moment after my aunt and I stepped out from behind the tree, we were spotted, and calls rang out from one of the hostiles, warning the others of our presence. We set upon them before they could properly react, our andivapn summoned and ready to cut down anyone foolish enough to attack my home. As Aunt Lin became a blur that suddenly reappeared to thrust her sword through the chest of a tall, slender, and dark-skinned Paranormal that I couldn’t identify, I gave Angela the signal and hurled her small angel-wing blade at a large Troll who was closing in on me.

He shrieked in agony as his right forearm was cut almost to the bone, just above the wrist, dropping the assault rifle that he had been raising to point in my direction. Before he could recover, I had Angela recall the chain and blade with an ominous, rapid clinking of the links as they were drawn in and reabsorbed into Penny’s pommel. The chain hadn’t even fully retracted by the time that I closed in and severed the Troll’s head with Demona’s massive blade.

Another Troll appeared to take his place, coming in from my left side while I was finishing off his buddy. He was swinging a metal club of some sort at my head, maybe a hunk of rebar, but it was hard to tell with the only light coming from the flames. My body was already moving to counter him, though, and I quickly ducked under his swing, bringing up my elbow for an impact on the underside of his chin and then spinning my body to deliver a kick to his sternum.

The blow to his chin hadn’t been as hard as I would have liked, since I was still off balance from decapitating the first Troll. Sure, he was reeling from the blow, but that was barely a tap for me. If I had gotten any real strength behind it, it would have broken his neck. That was why I had followed up with the spin kick, because I had been taught to never count on a blow taking an enemy out of a fight. Always confirm the kill, or at least that the enemy is out of the fight.

As my new opponent was sent flying backwards with broken ribs and the wind knocked out of him, I didn’t give him a chance to recover. As soon as I was properly balanced again, I launched myself toward him, impaling him through the chest with Demona’s blade almost as soon as he hit the ground. That was two down.

“Did you feel anything from either of those kills?” I asked Penny, though it was mostly directed at Demona, since we hadn’t seen much of her inherent abilities until our previous battle with the Demons.

“Nothing, and I can’t sense our enemies either. I’m sorry, Raven,” my Demonic half offered in apology.

“It’s not your fault, or anything to worry about. At least your abilities work on Demons, and that’s super helpful, given that we’re likely to face more of them,” I offered in return, trying to cheer her up. “We’ll just have to do this the fun way. Attack the enemies we can see, and if someone gets the jump on us, we make sure they’re in no shape to do it again.”

Speaking of someone getting the jump on me, that was when it happened. It was my own damn fault for dropping my guard, though, when I got close to where the front door had once stood. There were unmoving bodies, bloody and scorched, four Gryphons who had apparently done more than just warn my housemates of danger.

From everything Joey had told me, his people were not fighters. They were scholars and information merchants who preferred to keep themselves out of sight, even from other Paranormals, unless they had some reason to show themselves. I couldn’t tell if one of them was Joey or not, even if they weren’t extremely burned and bloody, because Joey was the only Gryphon I had seen, and I had no idea if there was much difference in their individual appearances.

It was while I was staring in horror at their corpses, and clenching Penny’s hilt in raw fury, that a type of Paranormal I was unfamiliar with appeared out of the shadows and jumped me from behind, right between my wings, furiously clawing at me. His claws weren’t even breaking my skin or damaging my feathers, but it was annoying, and I was now in no mood to be fucked with. Dismissing Penny for the moment, I grabbed the first grasping arm that I could reach and yanked as hard as I could.

The action was met with a shrieking scream, like nails on a chalkboard, as the arm was torn from its socket, and I tossed the severed limb into the blaze that had consumed my home. Whatever it was, it got off my back in a hurry and attempted to skitter away, shrieking in agony all the while. I wasn’t about to let it get away, though. It was going to die, along with every one of its pals who had attacked my home.

I teleported to cut off its escape, grabbing it by the throat and cutting off both its air and the ear-shattering shriek, which resolved into a strangled choking sound. I got my first good look at it then, in the light of the flames. It was short, very hairy, and had far too many eyes and arms, even with me having torn off one of the latter. Was it some sort of man-spider? Alice hadn’t told me about anything like that, but she had only really told us about the more common varieties of Paranormals.

It didn’t matter anyway. I needed to finish it off so I could do the same with its buddies and find out what happened to the people I cared about. As much as I wanted to squeeze its throat harder until it suffocated and break every bone in its body, I didn’t have the time for that. It was humanoid enough that breaking its neck made short work of it, and I dropped it unceremoniously, turning to check on my aunt.

She had a woman who looked human in a chokehold, and the woman’s struggles were weak until a moment later, she sagged in my aunt's arms and was dropped to the ground, where my aunt kneeled beside her to look at something that had caught her attention. My aunt quickly called out, “If you see anyone with a weird collar, don’t kill them unless you have to! They’re being forced to act against their will!”

I barely heard her as the sound of gunshots from my right and several blossoms of pain distracted me. My attention was quickly drawn to whoever was shooting at me. Thankfully, their bullets weren’t enchanted, so they weren’t piercing my skin, and any internal damage from the impacts was being quickly healed by my regeneration. The bullets had all hit my right side: head, shoulder, arm, and hip, so I was pretty sure my phone was safe, but I liked this jacket, and now it was going to be riddled with bullet holes.

“Shooter to your right,” Angela helpfully supplied.

“Thank you so much,” I replied gently. Penny was trying, but it was dark, and the fire was making weird shadows, so I couldn’t blame either of them for missing something I did as well. It took a moment for me to spot the shooter, hiding behind the burning wreckage of my father’s Jeep. It looked like another Troll, but I wasn’t sure until I pulled myself into the Holy Plane and then back into the Material Plane, directly behind him.

He didn’t realize I was there until I had broken the arm holding the gun, and he was screaming in pain. Yup, it was another damn Troll, but from what Alice had told me, Trolls usually had their fingers in anything dirty that was going down. Oh, and they eat people, so I was now doubly worried for my friends. “One chance, Asshole. What happened to the women living here?”

Instead of answering me and earning a small chance of living through this, once the bastard stopped screaming, he yelled, “Enough with the fucking fire, the place is already toast! Get out of here and take care of this bitch!”

That was a bad decision, one that resulted in me punching through someone’s head for the second time that night. When I started my training, I probably would have thrown up at the thought of that, but I had gotten used to stomach-turning visuals, and the bastard had deserved it. Also, I didn’t really have the time to think too deeply about shit at the moment; that could wait until after the battle was over. I could freak out about killing actual people for the first time, and probably empty my stomach, when everyone was safe. For now, I was focused on the task at hand and worried about Alice and the others.

Then I heard it. Gunshots, coming from behind the house, were barely audible over the roaring of the flames, but I was certain that was what I had heard. That meant that people were fighting back there, probably the others. So, I did something that I should have probably done on arrival.

I sent my thoughts to my girlfriend. "Alice, I’m here. Are you and the others okay?"

“Please answer,” I thought desperately, but a column of fire erupting from the direction of the house and heading straight for me made me realize that I still had other problems right then. My eyes went wide, and I quickly rolled to the side, using the remains of Dad’s Jeep and the Troll’s body as cover. I was very much not fireproof; we had discovered that during my testing with the PDA, which meant that whoever was attacking me now was going to be a problem.

I was just peeking around the Jeep when Alice’s musical mind voice made me almost cry in relief. -Thank fuck you’re here, Raven. I’ve been using water magic to give us some cover, but we’re pinned down on the beach, and Erin is out of ammo. I was able to contact my parents, and they’re on their way with their team and another, but it’s going to take some time, and Lydia is in bad shape.-

What the hell happened to Lydia? How did these assholes even manage to get the drop on them with the Gryphons keeping watch? Unfortunately, those answers would have to wait because I had a bigger problem to deal with, and it was getting closer with each second I wasted. "Hang in there, Alice. I’ll be with you in a minute or two, once I finish with the bitch who torched my home."

-Hurry,- she pleaded as I tried to focus on what was happening in front of me.

What was approaching me from the inferno, hurling flames the entire way, looked almost like a Demon. She was tall and slender, with crimson skin, large curling horns atop her head, and flaming hair and wings. She was also very naked, but that was to be expected with all the fire she was throwing around. That shit was hot, and if she had been wearing any clothes earlier, they would have probably combusted and turned to ash while she was at ground zero of the conflagration that was consuming my home.

I summoned Penny once again, and as soon as Demona’s hilt was in my hand, I thought, “Angela, chain, and light it up!”

Honestly, though, I wasn’t holding out much hope of this working as anything more than a distraction, and my aunt had her hands full with an Ogre at the moment. If that woman was able to get inside the wards on the property, then she probably wasn’t an actual Demon, even if she did resemble one. Demona hadn’t sensed her presence either, which solidified that in my mind, so I doubted that Penny’s anti-Demon abilities were going to be effective on her at all, except for preventing her from teleporting away, if she had such an ability.

I almost threw Angela’s flaming angel wing blade at her throat to end this fight before she could get close enough to make my bad day much worse. There was one little problem with that, though. There was a collar around her neck, and it was radiating magic that I did not at all like the feel of. It was just like my aunt had tried to tell me earlier, when she choked out that other woman. This woman was being controlled against her will, and that meant she wasn’t another attacker; she was a victim.

“Shit, kill the flames for now, Angela, I don’t think they’ll do much good anyway,” I thought as I considered this new hiccup. My Divine half quickly did as I asked, and the pale flames receded from her blade and the chain.

Instead of cutting this fight off at the head like I wanted, I had to go to plan B, as soon as I figured out a plan B that would subdue her without killing or seriously injuring her. It would also be nice if I could get out of this without being turned extra crispy. Sure, I could probably regenerate to the point where it wouldn’t look like anything happened at all, but it would hurt like a bitch and probably take more time than I had. I needed to get to the others, cover their asses, and find out what had Alice so concerned about Lydia.

She was within fifteen feet of my cover now, and I needed to surprise her. She was using arm and hand motions to direct the flames, as near as I could tell, so pinning her arms would probably restrict her, but the current position of her arms would make that very difficult, if not impossible, at the angle she was approaching. There had to be another way of taking her down without either of us getting excessively injured.

Fuck it, there was no time to think about this. I was going to have to do it fast and dirty, and while I had the bare bones of a plan, I would be doing it by the seat of my pants. I just hoped that Penny’s chain could stand the heat of those flames.

I focused on the Light of the Divine within me, clearly envisioned what I wanted to happen, and then enforced it upon reality, as I was taught. A bright light flashed, right in front of the woman's face, barely longer than a couple of seconds, but it had been a quick spell that I hadn’t had the chance to devote much power or time to. It was not nearly as bright, powerful, or long-lasting as the light I had summoned before the battle with the Demons earlier, but it did the job.

The woman stopped, reflexively shielding her eyes as she was blinded. And during that brief reprieve, I made my move. I jumped out of my cover, whipping Angela’s blade out in an arc as I did so. She flew true, her chain wrapping around my very hot opponent as she was recovering from my improvised flash bomb, and then, as soon as the chain had her properly ensnared, I yanked her violently off her feet and toward me. Her eyes briefly widened as my fist connected with her temple, and then she collapsed like a rag doll.

“Good job, Kiddo,” my aunt’s voice commented. Apparently, she was finished with the Ogre, so hopefully, I would be able to go help the rest of my family now. “She’ll have a headache when she wakes up, but probably no lasting harm. By that time, I should also have that collar off her, and she’ll be a free woman, so I doubt she’ll hold it against you, and I can cast some healing magic on her if she needs it.”

“I need to go; the others are pinned down behind the house,” I told her as quickly as I could get the words to leave my lips.

“Go. I’ll catch up as soon as I get that cursed thing off this woman,” she replied with a hateful glare at the collar.

I didn’t bother replying; it would waste time, and time was of the essence. I launched myself into the air with the powerful beating of my wings, flying over the burning house, closing my mouth and squinting my eyes against the thick smoke and wincing at the heat. I was through quickly, though, and immediately scanned the backyard and the stretch of beach that were included in the wards.

I couldn’t see Alice and the others in the darkness, but I could see the huge wall of water that my girlfriend had pulled from behind them to cover them on the shoreline. She also managed to fire a high-pressure water blast that knocked one of their attackers back toward the backyard, causing the others to drop to the ground to make themselves smaller targets as they continued firing short bursts. I had no idea that my girlfriend had the raw magical power or the strength or will to do both at the same time, especially with the size of that water wall. I guess I wasn’t the only one who was training hard during my absence.

I didn’t think she could keep it up for much longer, though, so those attackers and their assault rifles needed to go. From above, it looked like they were mostly Trolls and Goblins, physical attackers without much inherent magical ability, which certainly explained all the guns. There were eight in total down there, from what I could see, and I was pretty sure that they all fit that description since none of them were actively using magic to try to breach Alice’s barrier.

They needed something else to shoot at, to take the heat off my girlfriend. I winged downward, and toward them, and once I was in position, I pulled in my wings to stop gliding and let myself drop. I landed right on a Goblin’s back with a sickening crunch that had him scream, and then he went still underneath my boots as I stomped on the back of his neck.

Before his companions fully realized what was happening, I had already swung Penny in a vicious arc to behead one of the Trolls. Two down, six to go. Including the one that Alice had blasted backward, who seemed to be the smart one of the group. Instead of rejoining the potential slaughter of his pals, he started firing at me from a safe distance as soon as he got his wits about him again and managed to roll into a decent firing position.

I responded by using one of his buddies as cover, dismissing Penny to rake my claws across his face and lifting him bodily into the path of the bullets. He practically vibrated in my arms as he was riddled with bullets. Trolls have pretty tough skin, fire-resistant, and thick enough to keep small arms fire from fully penetrating. Those assault rifles packed a bigger punch than your average handgun, though, so I was pretty sure that my shield wouldn’t have lived even if I didn’t snap his neck.

One of the Goblins was torn between firing his weapon at me at close range or getting the fuck out of there. I didn’t give him the time to do either. His head was well within range, and while I was still using the Troll’s corpse as a meat shield, I delivered a quick kick to the Goblin’s face with enough force to snap his neck and put an end to his indecision.

In the minute that it had taken to do all of that, the three remaining opponents within striking range, a Goblin to each side and a Troll at one o’clock, raised their weapons to fire at me where I didn’t have a handy meat shield. I took a couple of bullets to the arms and shoulders, and another just behind my ear, but they needed enchanted bullets to seriously hurt me, and that’s not what they were packing. I felt the sting, of course, but they didn’t penetrate my skin, and the bruising was already starting to heal as I pulled myself into the Holy Plane, dropped my meat shield for the Mist to play with, and then returned three steps behind my previous position.

I popped back into existence just in time to see the two Goblins get filled with bullets that passed through the spot I had been occupying seconds earlier. Teleportation is totally overpowered; no wonder Demons enjoy using it so much. As for the Troll, he was right beside me, and I casually backhanded him with as much strength as I could muster. His head snapped back, his neck crumpled with a snap, crackle, and pop, and he was likely already dead as his body bounced across the sand, like the world’s ugliest beach ball, to land in the surf with a loud splash.

Then I very calmly walked toward the last one, who was again trying to fill me with bullets, at least until he realized that the clicking sound his rifle was making meant he had run out of ammo. There was a breath of silence before he started begging, “Please, don’t hurt me. I… Ultir made me do this.”

I didn’t believe him for a second. A moment ago, he was happily trying to add new holes to my body, and he could have cut and run at any point during the attack if he didn’t want to be there. I smiled and did my best to sound soothing, despite my anger, as I said, “I’m not going to hurt you… she is.”

The dumbass Troll had an instant to look relieved before the confusion set in. That was about when my aunt dropped out of the sky behind him, and Oddrún’s blade burst through his chest in a spray of blood. “You took care of things quickly,” Aunt Lin commented as she pulled her andivapn free, wiped the blood off on the corpse, and made the sword vanish.

I nodded absently as I quickly double-checked to make sure I had gotten all of them. We seemed to be the only ones moving, and I couldn’t spot anyone or anything else, save for Alice’s wall of water. I almost sagged in relief that this was over with, but I still had more to deal with. Instead, I started hastily moving toward Alice and thought toward her, "All clear, you can drop the wall of water and relax now, my love."

-Oh, thank fuck- the relief in her musical mental voice was palpable as the wall of water collapsed onto the sand of the beach with a splash. There was a bit of panic, though, too, and as I reached the three figures on the beach, Alice looked thoroughly exhausted as she collapsed on the sand beside Erin, who was holding an unconscious Lydia. My best friend seemed laser-focused on the child-like form of the Imp who had raised me, quietly chanting under her breath.

“Are you both okay? What’s wrong with Lydia?” I quickly asked in concern.

It was Alice who answered me, the song of her mind weary and worried. -I don’t know what to do, Raven. Lydia was hurt; she wasn’t breathing. Erin managed to revive her by doing some of her Shaman stuff, and it looked like the wound was healing, but she won’t wake up, and Erin’s having trouble keeping her stable!-