Incubus 1 Read online

  For the past week, Brianna had been wearing regular clothes, though she still wore her battle suit underneath it. However, right now, Brianna was only wearing the battle suit, which was currently glowing with blue lines of light that ran across it like computer circuits. Her suit had a unique feature called Artificial Physical Enhancement. Those blue lines were basically the same as his physical enhancement magic, except the suit did all the work for her. What’s more, she was holding the Germinius Sword in her hand.

  “Brianna?” he asked again, feeling the hairs on the back of his neck prickle.

  “I just received orders from Custodes Daemonium.” Her eyes held an agony that caused his breath to catch in his throat. Her next words sent his mind into a spiral of shock. “They ordered me to kill you.”

  Chapter 5

  Anthony felt like he was going to choke. He stared uncomprehendingly at Brianna as she gripped the Geminius Sword in two hands and shifted into a battle stance, right leg sliding forward, left leg back, knees bent. While she looked like she was getting ready to attack him, her eyes contained a sorrow that he couldn’t fathom, that made him wonder.

  “Do you… really have to do this?” he asked.

  “I do,” Brianna confirmed.

  “You can’t disobey them?”

  At his question, Brianna’s face twisted into a pained grimace. “I… can’t. You do not understand what it means to be a part of an organization like Custodes Daemonium. I am an orphan. I have no family. Custodes Daemonium took me in when I was nothing but a child living on the streets. They gave me a home, trained me to become a part of their organization, and gave me a purpose in life. Without them… without that purpose and their training, I might not have lived to see the age of five. I can’t just disobey a direct order from them.”

  Anthony did not know what he was supposed to do or how he should think and feel in this situation. He wanted to be angry that Brianna was about to try and take his life, but he partially understood how she felt. Her feelings for Custodes Daemonium were likely similar to his feelings for Lilith… well, his feelings for Lilith sans the impassioned lust.

  Lilith had taken Anthony and Calvin in when they had nothing. She gave them a home and a family even though they could never give her anything of equal value. Anthony was so grateful to her that even now, more than a year after she died, he resisted his incubus nature to stay true to her. Back when she was alive, she could have asked anything of him and he would have done it. He might even be willing to kill someone he was friendly with for her.

  So as much as Anthony wanted to be upset at Brianna, he couldn’t. That said…

  “You know I can’t let you kill me,” Anthony said as glowing blue lines appeared on the surface of his skin. Mana drained from his body as he activated simple physical enhancement magic. His limbs and core were strengthened. Even his heart felt like it was capable of pumping more blood through the body than ever before.

  Physical Enhancement was a very basic skill. It was a spell that simply pumped mana through the body, increasing all physical aspects to superhuman levels. Of course, this magic was more complicated than just that, but that was the gist of it. With Physical Enhancement active, Anthony’s limbs became stronger, his body sturdier, and his organs more capable.

  As he activated his magic, Brianna gave him a sad smile, her battle suit beginning to glow with the same blue lines as his body.

  “I know,” she said.

  And then she attacked.

  Her first attack was a simple stab; there was no extra maneuvering, no feints. She just closed the distance between them in less time than it took to blink and thrust out her sword toward his chest. That said, the attack was so fast a normal human would have never seen it coming.

  Anthony stepped aside and twisted his body as the sword pierced where he’d been standing. This wasn’t enough to secure him a victory, however, and Brianna proved that when she twisted on balls of her feet and swung at him again. This time her attack was a diagonal slash from the ground up. Anthony leapt away from her, which let him avoid being carved open from his left hip to his right shoulder. Even though he’d managed to avoid her last attack, the woman came at him again, spinning her blade around in a deadly dance as she slashed at him with a strong overhand swing. Her cut was so clean he could feel the air being cleaved.

  It was easier to dodge this time than it was the first time they had met. She might have said she was going to kill him, but Brianna clearly wasn’t giving this her all; she still felt reluctant to fully commit herself. Her movements were slower, less refined than before. Despite having said she was going to kill him no matter what, her heart was not in it.

  As he dodged her attacks, Anthony wondered what he should do, wondered how he could get her to stop trying to kill him. Was there anything? He didn’t want to fight her. Even if he had the strength to stand on even ground with her—which he didn’t—he would not wish to fight against her. She was too good a person.

  While he was trying to think of what he should say and do, Brianna came at him with a powerful overhand slash. Anthony twisted out of the way. Then he had the good fortune of witnessing the wall he’d been backing into get sliced straight down the middle. He gazed at the line she had cut with a grimace. That sword of hers really was dangerous.

  As he backed off to gain some distance, Brianna turned around and stared at him with those red rimmed eyes. Her lips were trembling.

  “You look like you’re about to start crying again,” Anthony said.

  A sob racked her body, though she did an admirable job of not releasing a single tear. It looked like she was being torn apart from her desire to follow Custodes Daemonium’s orders with her desire to not kill him. It re-confirmed his belief that she was a good person. She didn’t want to do this, but she was being forced to because the organization she was a part of believed he was too dangerous to let live.

  “How can I not be frustrated by a situation like this?” Brianna said through gritted teeth as she readied her sword again. She spun the double-bladed weapon around and adopted a stance with her feet spread apart, knees bent, and body poised to pounce.

  “I guess I can understand where you are coming from,” Anthony said.

  “Is that why you aren’t trying to convince me to stop anymore?”

  Anthony shrugged. “Maybe I’ve just realized you won’t stop because I ask you to.”

  Brianna pursed her lips as though she wasn’t sure what to make of his statement. Her grip on the Geminius Sword tightened, to the point where Anthony could hear the leather grip creaking. Several magical formulas on the surface of the two blades began glowing bright blue, and Anthony sucked in a breath when he felt an incomparably sharp aura spread from the weapon. It felt like he could get cut from just the aura alone. He could tell Brianna was about to get serious.

  And yet, just before she could actually attack him, a massive explosion that was so loud it echoed across the city forced their attention away from each other. They turned toward the source. Several miles away, plumes of smoke rose in the air, and the night sky had turned a slight red as fire spread across several buildings. Anthony sucked in a deep breath when he realized where that fire was coming from.

  “That’s close to the hospital!”

  Anthony stopped paying attention to Brianna as he turned around and blasted off the ground, a foot-shaped imprint left where he’d been standing. He raced through the city streets with reckless abandon. As he ran, the sound of running feet appeared behind him, but he didn’t care enough to turn around. Buildings and street signs blurred by.

  At some point, people began appearing too. He didn’t know why at first, but he realized Brianna must have set up a barrier around their apartment so she could battle against him without any civilians getting in the way. There were a number of different kinds of barriers someone could create to keep people away.

  Most of the people were staring and pointing at the fire as they whispered to each other. Anthony igno
red them all as he ran. Despite how the hospital was about twenty miles away from his apartment complex, he still made it in less than twenty minutes by pushing Physical Enhancement to the absolute limit.

  Gasping as he placed his hands on his knees and hunched over, Anthony ignored the sweat dripping down his body and looked at the hospital. It wasn’t burning. The buildings around it were. It was odd, but the hospital seemed to have miraculously avoided being caught in the explosion. He didn’t understand how that worked.

  Yet even as he stood there, loud screams came from inside of the hospital, and then several people surged out of the front entrance, their eyes wide with terror. Anthony didn’t understand at first. However, when several rabid looking therianthropes emerged from the hospital and attacked a nurse, he realized what the problem was.

  Anthony didn’t think twice as he stomped on the ground and burst forward. He reared back his fist and gritted his teeth as he channeled more mana into it. His target was the therianthrope that had leapt into the air, pouncing toward a young woman in a nurse’s outfit who was lying on the ground.

  As the woman screamed, he appeared on her left and threw out his fist, which collided with the therianthrope’s face. A loud bang like the firing of a cannon echoed across the street. An explosion of air spread from the point of impact. Anthony had put enough power into his punch that the therianthrope’s jaw broke when he struck it, and the therianthrope, who had no traction to defend against his attack, was sent flying away from the nurse. The creature landed on the ground, rolled for several feet, and struck a light post, which bent and toppled over.

  “Ha… ha… you okay?” he asked the nurse, glancing at her.

  “I… oh… um… yes?” The nurse blinked several times as though she couldn’t figure out what was happening.

  “What happened here?” asked Anthony.

  “I… we were attacked… demons… they just showed up out of nowhere and began attacking everyone in sight…” The woman’s voice was shaky as she explained what was happening. “I don’t… I was just doing my rounds when the buildings on either side exploded, and then demons suddenly appeared… and then…”

  “I understand.” Anthony held out his hand to the woman, who looked at it in shock for a moment before accepting it. He pulled her to her feet and said, “I’m sure the Academy Island Private Security Forces are already aware of what’s happening. You should get out of here and find somewhere safe.”

  “R-right.”

  The nurse didn’t disagree with him, and she was soon running away from the hospital. At about the same time, Brianna showed up, slowing down her run into a light jog as she caught up with him. She still had the Geminius Sword in her hand. However, she wasn’t attacking him and instead was staring at the hospital.

  “What is going on?” she asked.

  “I don’t know.” Anthony turned toward the hospital entrance. “But I have to make sure my brother is okay.”

  “I… I understand,” Brianna said. “We can hold off on settling the matter between us until after this.”

  Anthony wanted to return her words with a sarcastic comment, but he didn’t have the time. He raced into the hospital. The moment he entered the lobby, Anthony could see the pandemonium that was occurring inside. A pair of demons were located in the entrance lobby. Like the one outside, these two were therianthropes. However, like all the other rogue demons he had fought in the past few days, these ones seemed different… more feral.

  The moment he appeared inside of the lobby, the therianthropes turned to him, let out ferocious howls, and raced forward. Anthony gritted his teeth as he moved aside, dodging a leaping therianthropes by the skin of his teeth. He spun around on the ball of his left foot and launched a reverse heel kick into the rogue demon on his right. The creature was already moving past him, so his attack sent it sprawling to the ground.

  At that moment, the other therianthrope tried to attack him, but Brianna appeared on his left and swung her Geminius Sword around. Several flashes of light appeared before Anthony’s eyes. Each flash created a thin incision line along the therianthrope’s body. Nothing seemed to happen at first, but then Brianna leapt back and blood burst from the therianthrope’s body as it split apart.

  “That weapon of yours really is the most dangerous thing I’ve ever seen,” Anthony muttered, warily eyeing the double-bladed sword in her hand.

  “It’s the latest and deadliest weapon designed by Custodes Daemonium.” Brianna shrugged.

  “I really don’t want to be cut open by that.”

  “…”

  Brianna said nothing, but her silence was enough.

  Anthony and Brianna didn’t remain in the lobby for long. They raced into the hallway, found an elevator, and took it to the third floor. Both of them felt a chill down their spines when they stepped out. Even so, they sped through the hallway while keeping an eye out for any enemies.

  “This floor is… surprisingly empty,” Brianna muttered, her eyes narrowed.

  “I don’t like this at all,” Anthony said.

  Anthony was getting bad vibes. The hairs on his arms were standing on end, his scalp was prickling, and his heart felt like it was trying to blast his chest open. He didn’t know why, but he was a nervous wreck as he reached room 343.

  The door was not locked, which was something else that bothered him. He was certain these doors were locked when visiting hours were over. Only the head nurse on the night shift should have been able to open this door, yet it opened for him when he stepped up to it. He took a deep breath, banished the fear permeating his heart, and stepped inside.

  Once inside, Anthony glanced at the bed, but his attention was immediately forced onto the figure standing beside the bed. It was a man. He had skin so pale it looked translucent. He had dark hair that was combed to the side. The black tuxedo he wore created a stark contrast with his skin, but it also lent him the refined air of a gentleman. He was turned away from Anthony and Brianna, staring at the bed, but when he sensed their presence, he turned around.

  Red eyes and sharp fangs met Anthony’s gaze. He sucked in a deep breath.

  “You must be Anthony Amasius.” The man turned around, placed his hand against his waist, and bowed, much like a gentleman who was introducing himself to a compatriot might do. “It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance. My name is Frederic Bloodstone.”

  The sound of feet shuffling against the ground let him know Brianna had adopted a fighting stance, but he was not focused on that right now. First, he checked to make sure his brother was okay. When he saw the steady rise and fall of Calvin’s chest, he breathed a sigh of relief. Only then did he fully focus on the man before him.

  “What is a vampire doing here? What do you want with my brother?” he asked.

  The vampire, Frederic Bloodstone, smiled. “It is not your brother I am after. While he is indeed a curious case, my purpose for this visit is you.”

  “Me?” Anthony narrowed his eyes.

  “Surely I do not need to spell it out for you.” Frederic’s smile widened, revealing more and more of his sharp, elongated canines. “You are an incubus, a rare breed of monster that has not been seen in centuries, and you are currently without a single bondmate and therefore incredibly weak. It would be a mistake on my part if I did not take advantage of this rare opportunity.”

  Anthony’s heart thundered against his chest as he realized what this man wanted. Blood. His blood. His legs shook, but he tried not to let his fear at this situation get to him. He had faced off against the Vampire Lord Cane alongside Lilith and his fellow bondmates. He had not shown fear then, and he would not show fear now.

  “I see. Vampires require the blood of humans to sustain themselves, but they also grow stronger by feeding off the blood of other monsters,” Brianna said, eyes narrowing. “So you wish to consume Anthony’s blood in order to gain the strength of an incubus. Is that it?”

  Frederic finally looked at the woman by Anthony’s side, his eyes narrowing slig
htly when he saw the blade in her hands. He shifted a little. Anthony had the sense that this vampire was wary of the Geminius Sword—not that he could be blamed. Vampire or not, the weapon Brianna wielded could cut through his body like a hot knife through butter.

  “I see you are a War Maiden from Custodes Daemonium. You are correct. I wish to consume the blood of this incubus and claim his powers for my own.” Frederic’s eyes narrowed. “I do not know what you are doing here with this creature, but I’d like to ask that you not get yourself involved. I’ve no quarrel with your organization.”

  Anthony didn’t know what Brianna would do in this situation. Technically speaking, her best option would be to step back and let this vampire deal with him. If Frederic drained his blood, Anthony would die, which would accomplish Brianna’s goal of killing him, and she wouldn’t have to lift a finger. At the same time, if this vampire gained his powers, who knew what might happen.

  Brianna snorted as she stepped forward. “You must be delusional if you think I’d let you drain Anthony of his blood. The powers of an incubus are dangerous. I cannot allow such powers to fall into the hands of anyone, least of all a person like you, who would turn so many therianthropes into ghouls to do your bidding.”

  “I would not worry about those therianthropes,” Frederic said with a dismissive wave of his hand. “They are not real people—just clones I found to do my bidding.”

  Anthony narrowed his eyes as he slowly connected the dots. “I see. So those rogue demons that attacked Nametech were actually clones you discovered in their research facility. You turned them into ghouls and let them loose in the city. While the ghouls distracted the Academy Island Private Security Forces, you would locate me and wait for the opportune moment to attack and steal my blood.”

  “Hmph. You are awfully sharp.” Frederic looked disappointed that Anthony had discovered his ultimate goal so quickly, but he must have decided not to let it bother him. “Yes, that was indeed my plan.” He spread his arms wide before dark waves of black energy wafted from his body like miasma. “However, knowing what my plan is does not mean you have the ability to stop it.”