The Light of Day

[Vyncent Schwarz]

It was summer in the Twin Mountains. The sun was high above the snow-capped twin peaks (how they were still covered in snow was completely beyond Vyncent) and the golden disc sent brilliant light down onto the thickets of trees of the mountains. On the flatter parts of the mountains dense forestry could be found; glades and oaks and giant redwoods, but the high demon was on the incline of the left-most mountain, and the trees were more flexible and thinly dispersed here. Butterflies fluttered from patches of white and blue flowers, whose stems were waving in the warm breeze, and areas of grass sprouted up from between the stony ground, providing good places to rest and just watch the world go by.

Unless, of course, you were Vyncent Schwarz.

The demon, while everything about him was in complete contrast with the beautiful summer's day, couldn't help but be affected by the warmth and the brightness. He was a fire demon, after all, and even though on the inside he was as dark and twisted as any of his kin, rotten to the core, he could at least appreciate the heat of the sun on his pale cheeks. That, and he seemed to suit the scene quite well. (Though he would likely behead someone foolish enough to tell him that.) His red coat was folded neatly on a small boulder to his right in the shade. He wasn't affected by the heat in the slightest, but he thought it was still best to keep his coat out of the direct glare of the sunlight or else he would risk fading the fine crimson material. An egotist until the end, Vyncent.

"Evelyn," he murmured over his shoulder as he leapt over a small crevice in the incline, seeming to be heading towards something. His sword bumped against his thigh as he landed, Amor safely sheathed at the moment, which was the first suggestion that the demon wasn't in a particularly vicious mood. The breeze tossed his silvery hair out of his eyes, his handsome face turned down the hill now, towards the shape-shifter. "Tell me you didn't get distracted by the flowers again," he rolled his eyes, unimpressed.

Evelyn Paynter, a gorgeous, beautiful, untamed savage whose well shaped fingernails could erupt into wicked claws at a moment's notice, would doubtlessly be distracted by the scenery as usual. Vyncent had seen her rip the eyes from a person's skull without so much as a care. He had seen her perfectly hour-glass shape morph and transform into a lithe-muscled wolf, or an elegant, willowy panther. Then again, he had also caught her braiding his hair while he slept.

The shape-shifter was more than good company for the high demon. Her carnal nature was a match for his own, and her eccentricities matched with his completely. While he felt no emotional tie for her other than the pact they had made in a small, inadequate room at an inn thanks to an incident involving bandits, a dragon and a silver chain, he was admittedly used to her company.

[Angel ♥]

It was a nice day, Evelyn had almost forgotten just how quiet it was away from the towns and cities. Up here they were a good distance away from civilisation, which suited her just fine. She preferred listening to bird song and to the wind rustling through the leaves on the trees, making them whisper, it was much nicer to listen to than shrill human voices on market days, or carriages rumbling past, or the general din that came with people. Bah, people, she didn‘t like them all that much either, though she did have to admit one thing; it was always nice to make them scream.

The shape shifter was content where she was sat, though it didn‘t really take much to make Evvie happy, she had always been the type to appreciate the smaller things in life. From their position on the mountain side she felt as thought she would be able to touch the sky if she stretched far enough (something which she had tried, and failed, to do. She had given up on that pursuit when the tree she had climbed snapped as she tried to grab a handful of cloud.) and the air was fresh and cool up here, her emerald eyes sparkling with concentration as she carefully pierced the stem of a daisy with her fingernail, opening it just enough to thread another little flower through it before repeating the process. Of course she was sat amongst the flowers, where else would she be? Evelyn may be a merciless killer, but she was distracted so easily by bright colours and pretty scents.

She glanced up from her daisy chain as Vyncent‘s voice drifted over the meadow to her, the shape shifter instinctively shaking her head in denial. “Nope not me. I’ve been…ugh…torturing them.” She explained to him, flashing him a bright, innocent smile as he came into view. Evvie was looking quite the picture at the moment, evidence of what she had been up to clear. Brightly coloured flowers were weaved through her fiery hair, petals scattered over the ground around her, and there was a huge daisy chain looped around in her lap which she had dropped and attempted to hide as she demon appeared, realising that she was unsuccessful and changing tactics, holding the chain of flowers up to him. “I thought you might want some flowers too. They’re only little, and not so bright, I swear that must make some sort of difference or be important or something.” She reasoned with a confident nod of her head.

The little golden bells on the end of her skirt tinkled merrily as she brushed the stray petals from her lap and rose to her feet, daisy chain still in hand. Her feet were bare at the moment (she had decided that she despised shoes with a vengeance, but Vyncent was adamant that she had to wear them if she was travelling with him), but her shoes were around here somewhere…the grass was obviously hiding them away from her. “You’re bored of it out here already? I thought that you wanted to see the whole world or something, so you could decide where to go?” She asked, casting her gaze over the view. If that was the whole world then she was disappointed, she had been expecting it to be bigger than that. “Maybe we need to go higher? Or, have you picked already?”

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[Vyncent Schwarz]

Vyncent cast a withered glance at the daisy chain as she offered it up to him, the High Demon sighing softly, as if deciding that he was much too comfortable today to actually be bothered with losing his temper and/or shooting fire at Evelyn's face. "I think you'll find that it makes no difference whatsoever. It's all right, though. Come on," he nodded to her, returning to the boulder where his coat was folded, picking it up and shrugging into it with elegance, straightening out the cuffs for a moment or so. "I've decided where to go," he shook his head to her, his silvery hair ruffling up with the breeze. He wasn't smiling, but the cunning smirk was visible even in his eyes. Yes. He had decided where to go.

He beckoned the shape-shifter to follow him once he had checked his coat was falling right, picking his way along the gravel, around boulders and along the incline, seeming confident that Evvie would follow him up. He travelled like this for some time, suggesting that yes, he was going higher up, but he paused all of a sudden to take a sudden tangent to the right. The demon seemed terribly interested in something that was just up ahead from them, since he was no longer even glancing over his shoulder to check that the shape-shifter was there. After another five minutes or so of walking, he paused to brush away some undergrowth, peering down at something and smiling.

The entrance to the mine shaft was nothing more than a simply constructed, wide, black hole in the ground, but Vyncent was examining it as if it held the secrets to life itself. "This is where I want to go," he murmured to no one in particular, one hand resting on the hilt of Amor now. The reason for his wanting to visit the decrepit little hole became clear when a sudden guttural snarl tore from the darkness, echoing eerily and sounding as if it was coming from somewhere deep inside the mine. "I heard this from a mile away," he muttered, smiling again. It was his 'something bad is going to happen if I get my way' smile.

"Want to go and visit whatever it is?" he asked.

[Angel ♥]

”…oh.” She seemed rather deflated as she was informed that the size and colour of the flowers made no difference at all, but she wasn‘t too surprised that he hadn‘t accepted her gift. Vyncent never seemed all that happy with the gifts that she took him, though she supposed that they had rather different tastes. The daisy chain ended up draped around her own neck, her earlier disappointment forgotten at the announcement that Vyncent had decided where they were going. The shape shifter seemed to perk up immediately, flashing him a bright smile before turning around to dart off through the tall grass again in search for her shoes (the punishment for ‘losing‘ another set of shoes didn‘t sound all that pleasant). It wasn‘t all that hard to find them, Evvie strapping the sandals back into place, scowling down at them and wriggling her toes uncomfortably once they were on before shrugging and hopping to her feet. She could deal with them, she supposed.

Asking where they were going never crossed her mind. It meant little to her where Vynce took her, just so long as he let her tag along she didn‘t much mind. Plus, she liked it up here, she liked all the nature and liked how walking wasn‘t boring. Instead of walking around the boulders she scrambled over them, a cheerful bounce in her step. She was quite tempted to shift into a cat so that she could bound around, but she doubted that the High Demon would really be all that happy with carrying her clothes along with him. Staying in her human form would just have to do for now, she supposed. If she shifted she ran the chance of getting carried away with all her bounding around and getting lost, and she didn‘t fancy spending the rest of the afternoon trying to catch up with him again.

Evelyn paused dutifully by the edge to the mine shaft, looking totally uninterested in at first. That changed as soon as she caught a whiff of the strange scent which laced through the air, the girl suddenly crouching at the edge to peer into the darkness, interest shining in her eyes. “I want to go visit! I want to go visit!” She declared, sounding excited, not at all seeming put off by the creatures growling. Whatever was down there, she wanted to know what it was, she wanted to meet it, even if it didn‘t want to meet her.

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[Vyncent Schwarz]

At another time and place the demon may very well have accepted the daisy chain that she threw about his neck; Vyncent eccentricities were endless, and what he would deny with a furious passion one day he could accept with open arms the next. Today, however, his mind was focused on the whatever-it-was in the mine shaft below them, so all thoughts of holding her clothes while she shifted into an animal, keeping an eye on her shoes if she lost them, accepting daisy chains and bunches of weeds and having dandelion seeds blown into his face fell rather short on his list of things he felt worthy of noticing. Vyncent smirked as she crouched next to the mine shaft, the demon uncovering a few wooden steps leading up to the edge of the shaft with his boot.

"That's what I like to hear," he nodded to the shape-shifter, leaning down next to her to sniff at the strange scent that laced through the air out of the mine. The scent of Gnomes was old; they hadn't used this place in a while, and the only thing that remotely worried Vyncent was the height of the chamber which they'd be going into. Then again, if there was previously a mining expedition here, odds were that the height of the shaft could be anyone's guess. "Let's go, then," he laughed to himself after a while, rising to his feet and leaping easily over the edge without even a hint of caution, descending down into the first slope of the mine shaft.

The scent of damp wood and dirt filled his nostrils the second Vyncent landed on the soft earth, the demon resting his hand habitually on the hilt of his beloved Amor, just in case anything decided to leap out at them. It was cold below ground level, the golden sunlight never reaching the darkness down there, the cool air clinging to the High Demon like a wet cloak. Vyncent wrinkled his nose and let a few black flames spark up spontaneously at his feet, flickering with every step he took and warming the air around him. There, that was better. The were-light of the flames also provided what was, in its vaguest sense, a torch, and the wooden beams of the mine shaft became visible around him.

[Angel ♥]

Caution didn‘t even cross Evelyn‘s mind as Vyncent leapt down into the darkness, the shifter waiting just a moment for him to land and move out of the way before she gracefully slipped over the edge and down into the dark mine shaft. The bells on the hem of her skirt seemed loud in the confined space, Evvie wrinkling her nose up as she straightened up, shivering as the cold settled over her. “It smells old down here. Who‘d want to live down here?” She questioned, instinctively keeping her voice low to stop it from echoing off the damp walls. She wasn‘t all that sure she liked it down here, the walls were too close, and it smelt odd, and it was cold, and everything about it was uninviting. She was starting to doubt whether she really wanted to meet the creature that chose to live down here in the dark.

“You think that it‘ll hide from us? Or it‘ll try and rip us to pieces? I‘m thinking that it‘s gonna try to rip us to pieces.” She murmured to him, still sounding rather cheerful as she moved to follow him, sticking close. These tunnels could go on for miles and miles, and she didn‘t want to get stuck underground all alone. You heard stories about cave in‘s, about the rooves of mine shafts falling down and trapping people in underground tombs. Then again, she could smell the Gnomes that had once worked here, and she trusted their handiwork more than she would if this place stank of people. Try as they might, regular humans just couldn‘t meet the Gnomes mining abilities.

“What‘d you think it is?” She asked, not liking all the quiet down here. Everything was so still, she felt like she needed to keep talking to make this place feel alive. Vyncent‘s flames helped, she supposed, but the dancing shadows kept making her think that something was trying to creep up on them. “You think maybe it‘s a bear? No…doesn‘t smell like a bear, doesn‘t smell like anything I know…”

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[Vyncent Schwarz]

"I imagine," Vyncent mused, his voice a quiet purr in the darkness, "that whatever it is that lives down here would be the type of thing that would want to rip us to pieces. Not only that, but it would probably be the type of thing that nothing else really wants to come into contact with." He smirked, unable to help it. Something potentially deadly that had decided to make its home in the Twin Mountains? Vyncent wanted a piece of that, out of bloody curiosity if nothing else. His footsteps echoed eerily in the mine-shaft, the demon walking slowly, but with confidence. It was all about the image when you were wandering into the unknown. If that image was wrong, you would probably end up eaten before you could figure that much out.

"A bear...?" he glanced down at her. "...No, a bear wouldn't be able to climb out of the shaft. It'd die down here. What's down here is something that wants to be here. I don't know what it is either," he grinned. They travelled a little further before the descent became suddenly very sharp, even the sure-footed Vyncent having to reach out and touch the earth and stone to stop himself losing his balance. "I guess this is where the Gnomes would get into their little carts and trundle off to their doom," he decided with a smirk, shrugging his shoulders and sighing as he looked down, wrinkling his nose at the scent of damp. Without warning another rumbling growl echoed up at them.

Well. It would have been a growl if they had been above ground. But they weren't, and this time it filled Vyncent, seeming to go right through him and making the ground under them; already unstable and damp; give way. "Oh, crap," he grumbled just before he went plummeting away into the darkness. He'd almost been expecting that. The darkness simply swallowed him up, the demon cracking his head on a rock as he tumbled down into the depths of the mine-shaft. He was out cold before he knew it, landing hard in God knows where. He'd probably be pissed about his muddy clothes when he woke up again. If he woke up again. Or if whatever was down there didn't get him first.

[Angel ♥]

”…Oh, so it‘s not going to be too happy with having visitors?” She rubbed at the back of her head, wrinkling her nose up as her gaze flitted around. The further they went down the tunnel the more she thought that this was a bad idea. It was starting to seem that this creatures, whatever it was, really wasn‘t something that she wanted to meet after all. Evelyn may be fond of deadly animals, but dark, dank tunnels? No, she wasn‘t enjoying them one bit. The chill was sinking through her skin, sinking right down to her bones. The air felt close down here, everything felt too close. She was starting to lose her nerve now, moving closer to Vyncent, reaching out to hold onto the edge of his coat to make sure that she didn‘t lose him. “I don‘t like this, I changed my mind, let‘s make it come to the light or something?”

The shape shifter was forced to let go of his coat as the ground began to slope away from them,, biting her lower lip as she concentrated on staying on her feet. Her gaze could barely pierce the darkness now, all she could see of Vyncent was the pale glow of his hair. If she lost sight of him she might just lose her cool, because if it weren‘t for him and his flames she wouldn‘t be able to see a thing. “I hate Gnomes and their mines.” She decided, nodding to herself. The next time she saw a Gnome she may just have to maim them a little, to make up for this awful experience.

She was about to open her mouth to say something else when the growl filled the air, making her whole world shake. No, really, the whole world was shaking. Fuck. She had barely worked out what was happening when the ground gave way under their feet, Evelyn giving out a cry of alarm as she plummeted down into the dark void. This little adventure was getting worse and worse by the second.

She landed with a thump, though she managed to land on something soft and avoid breaking anything. Well, the something soft felt like it was Vyncent, but she couldn‘t be too sure. The demon must have been knocked out because the flames had gone out, leaving them in total darkness. “Vynce…Vynce…you ok?” She shuffled so that she was knelt next to him, cringing to herself as she reached out to try and find his face, trying to check if he was at least breathing. A growl rumbled in her chest as she looked around blindly. The creature had hurt Vyncent…oh, it was going to die.

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[Vyncent Schwarz]

Vyncent was alive at least; it would take more than a little bump on the head to take him out. He didn't seem injured apart from a few scrapes, and from the cut from the rock he'd hit his head on which trickled blood down his forehead from under his hairline. Other than that, he was just muddy... and unconscious. The whatever-it-was in the deep mine shaft below them seemed much closer now. When it growled again, the sound was disconcertingly close, filling the shaft and bouncing off the walls. Vyncent groaned at the noise, the High Demon stirring and wincing as he realised his back hurt (from where Evvie had landed on him, not that he knew that). "The hell...?" he grumbled, slowly opening his eyes.

The ground shook under him from footsteps down in the darkness. Well, footsteps wasn't exactly the right word. Something was moving towards them, slowly and precisely, but the steps it was taking were heavy enough to make the earth shake. Vyncent tried to shake away his grogginess, pushing himself to his knees and reaching out to put a hand on the wall as he swayed. "Okay. This isn't a good day any more," he muttered, black fire exploding to life around them in a circle. The demon turned to look over his shoulder, sighing as he found Evvie. "So you're down here too. I was hoping you'd still be up there to find something to get me out. Oh, well..."

The footsteps (for lack of better word) were growing closer now, not that Vyncent seemed in any way concerned. He was still coming around and checking his head was still on the right way. Hacking up monsters could wait a few minutes. He wrinkled his nose as he brushed the earth and soil from his clothes, though the half-darkness made it a difficult, and kind of pointless, job. He had just hauled himself to his feet when the deafening, inhuman screech pierced the air behind them. Vyncent cringed, the sound setting his teeth on edge. "That's not ideal," he murmured, his left hand finding the hilt of Amor, drawing the black-bladed sword as he turned on heel and spun around.

The creature was just pulling itself through a mine shaft in front of them, leathery wings folded awkwardly in the small space. Its reptilian head was ridged with sharp spines, rows and rows of razor sharp teeth glimmering eerily in the light of Vyncent's flames. The wyvern emerged from the mine-shaft with all the grace of a sack of potatoes, much too big for the confined space underground. "Oh. Shit," Vyncent commented to himself, tilting his head.

[Angel ♥]

Evelyn bristled as the unknown creature growled again, the shapeshifter sat in a crouch, body held tense, as though ready to spring at any second. Her eyes had reduced to slits in an attempt to aid her vision, not that it was doing much good. She relaxed slightly as she realised that Vyncent was starting to come around, her gaze finding his slumped form through the dark, not that she could see much more than a variation in the darkness, a slightly lighter patch that had to be the demon's pale face. Well, at least he was alive. That was a plus point, not she only had to rip this monster apart for hurting him, not for killing him.

"I fell too." She explained quietly, her gaze flickering above them for the first time, though all she saw was more darkness. "I could shift and fly back up, but I can't see…and I doubt we have time." She mumbled, moving to crawl closer to Vyncent, looking dazzled as the fire exploded to life, providing them with a much needed source of light. "I think we made it mad…don't think it wanted visitors." She lifted her hands to her ears as the creature screeched, wincing at the sound. Oh, that wasn't pleasant, that couldn't be the sign of anything good.

Evelyn had straightened up to stand by Vyncent as the creature came into sight, her eyes widening, half in wonder and half in fear, as it dragged itself through the mine shaft. She was quite obviously impressed by it, studying it closely before she glanced up at Vyncent. "You know, I'd like this thing if it wasn't planning on eating us."

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[Vyncent Schwarz]

"We definitely don't have time," Vyncent commented quietly, narrowing his eyes and backing up by Evelyn without realising he was doing it, his hand securely on the hilt of his rapier. If the wyvern got even a little bit closer, he was almost guaranteed to throw caution to the wind and rush at the giant animal. Vyncent didn't react well when cornered.

"I guess we're just going to have to fight it out," he rolled his eyes, as if this wasn't exactly the adventure he'd been planning when he'd first spotted the little mine-shaft in the Twin Mountains. A thin smile crossed his face as Evvie spoke again, the high demon shaking his head and sighing. "No, I think it really wanted visitors. Food must be pretty scarce down here," he supposed, watching the wyvern dig its claws into the soft earth beneath them, and flap its bat-like wings (well, as much as it could) in the confined space.

Eventually it let out an ear-splitting screech which sent Vyncent cringing to one knee with his free hand pressed to his head, the demon growling a curse to himself and glaring through the twilight at the gigantic beast. "I'd like this thing if it weren't planning on deafening me," he agreed with her, scrambling to his feet again and rubbing his back, glancing across to her. "You landed on me, didn't you? Don't lie to me, I can feel where you tried to break my spine," he frowned. There were, however, much more serious issues to consider right now.

Like the wyvern.

"Okay, let's go say hello," he nodded eventually, drawing Amor in the half-light and listening to her mournful song fill the small cavern. It soothed his headache a little, at least. With that, and with his blade glinting ethereally, Vyncent leaped at the creature.

[Angel ♥]

Fight it. Well, even Evelyn could have guessed that from the moment they had first heard its screech. That noise had dispelled any ideas of befriending the creature; it had been filled with hunger and threat, and she knew that animal instincts won out over any attempts at reasoning. "I'm not food." She pointed out, just in case Vyncent had missed that one. She pointedly avoiding shifting into any animal which had the danger or being caught and butchered for meat, and she wasn't going to fall foul of some monster which saw people as snacks.

Her growl was low, rumbling in her chest as she watched the creature warily. It was between them and the way out, so they choices were to either kill it or to get around it and run. Vyncent didn't tend to run from a fight, and she had to admit that her own fight or flight instinct generally tipped in the favour of fight. Faced with the wyvern, however, and its ear splitting screeching, she was rather inclined to high tail it out of there. But the High Demon had chosen to fight, and Evelyn was a loyal little pet, so it looked like she was standing at his side and hoping against the odds that the wyvern wouldn't catch her with those claws, or teeth…

"I landed on you, you deserved it." She pouted to the demon, momentarily distracted from the doom dragging itself towards them. "It's not my fault, you obviously wanted to catch me…"

All idea's of bravery left the shapeshifter as the wyvern screeched again. Her hands clamped firmly over her ears, the sound seeming to vibrate through her whole body, chasing any logical thought out of her mind. She shook it off as she realised that the sound had stopped, a grim determination in her eyes as Vyncent drew Amor. Well, it was now or never. They might as well meet fate. Her shift was graceful as she followed Vyncent, leaping out of her clothes, landing in her favoured tigress form, the area too concealed for anything much more powerful. With a snarl she darted forward to follow Vyncent, claws flashing in the werelight.

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[Vyncent Schwarz]

Vyncent's sword clashed with the wyvern's claws through the gloom, the High Demon hissing a curse and growling as he scrabbled with the creature. It was difficult to fight in such a confined space - he would be the first to admit that. The darkness and the wicked sharp claws (and teeth) of the wyvern were not helping matters. Vyncent dodged back out of the way of a blow intended to take off his head or rip out his throat or something equally as grotesque, the demon ducking down and remaining quite suddenly completely still, and quiet.

He was far from happy about being so close to the dirty floor of the mine-shaft, but he figured that as long as it was too dark for the wyvern to see him properly, and he was quiet enough so it couldn't hear him, he could get the advantage and attack it while it was confused. He didn't bank on it smelling him out, though. Vyncent's mistake became all too clear when the wyvern came barreling out of the shadows and slammed into the High Demon with an ear-splitting screech, sending them both skidding across the floor.

Amor flew out of his hand and clattered across the mine-shaft with a rather upset little scream, and Vyncent was now covered in mud and in a lot of trouble. He snarled through the darkness, fighting tooth and nail with the dragonette and getting caught under its claws and leathery wings.

[Angel ♥]

The fight was vicious. There wasn't enough room to manoeuvre in the cramped tunnel and it wasn't long before Evvie found herself separated from Vyncent; somehow she had ended up behind the wyvern rather than in front of it where all the real danger was, and where she could do any real damage. Her snarl bounced off the walls as she leapt on the creatures tail to stop it from thrashing around, her claws digging in under it's scales. The narrow tunnel made it difficult to fight, but it also made it difficult for the ugly monster to turn around and eat her. That was always a plus point, not getting eaten.

It wasn't, however, good enough. Vyncent was still up there and, call her stupid, but Evvie couldn't abide the thought that this wyvern could catch him in it's jaws and just chomp him to pieces. She could have just turned tail and ran, disappear into the shadows, shift into an underground creature and work her way back to the surface, but she was rather loyal to the high demon. If he was staying to fight then she was staying to fight, no questions asked; running didn't even cross her mind. Well, running away didn't.

The shifter had never been the sharpest tool in the shed, and up the wyverns back and over it seemed to be the perfect way to get to Vyncent's side. She didn't, however, count on the creature rearing up when she was half way there. It moved with enough force to throw her up against the ceiling, Evelyn cracking her head (but thankfully not cutting it) before flopping back onto the creatures back, dizzy and limp. That had been a bad idea.

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[Vyncent Schwarz]

'Staying and fighting' may have been what Evelyn assumed Vyncent was doing, but currently, and the High Demon could vouch for this, if running away was a possibility, he'd be on that like a wildfire. Unfortunately, between trying to hold the dragonette's snapping jaws shut and attempting to wriggle out from under its huge mass, getting the hell out of there was a near impossibility. "Hold. Still," Vyncent hissed at the creature as it thrashed its serpentine neck. He imagined not being able to open its maw, and therefore bite his head off, might be annoying it a little, but Vynce wasn't planning on letting go until he was away from it.

He snatched in a deep breath before finally releasing its jaws from his grip, scurrying away underneath it. Oh Jesus, that hadn't been a good idea. The wyvern screeched - again - as it buckled Evvie against the cavern's ceiling, sending rock and dirt and possibly the roof falling down around them. The shape-shifter ended up slumped on the creature's back. Vyncent was under it.

Oh bollocks.

Between scrabbling claws and needle sharp teeth, Vyncent somehow rolled out from under the thing, one arm wrapped around his middle. He didn't know if it had broken his ribs or slashed his stomach (and he did not care to look), but suddenly breathing and moving wasn't quite as easy as it had been. Something whipped out from the darkness, slamming into the side of the demon's head.

Everything went white. He hit the floor.

When Vyncent came to, the thing was gone. At least, he hoped it was gone. It was silent, and that crack across the head by the thing's tail had possibly concussed him for life, but for now, at least, he was still alive. He opened bloodshot eyes to look around in the dark. "Evelyn," he called. God, he hoped that thing had crawled back into its hole. And Evvie better not have died.