Page 29 of Knight’s Dominion

Another scaled crimson leg appeared, claws sinking into the blacktop that was now bubbling around the glowing orange hole the Hell beast was dragging itself out of.

It roared again and used its massive, muscular legs to explode free, landing with a ground-shaking thud. The hole beside it began closing.

It was doglike except red and scaled and had two heads, one eye each. Its mouths hung open, lips peeled back, yellow teeth dripping drool. It shook its heads and twin holes, its nostrils, flared.

Both heads lowered, nosing a half-dead demon, then each snatched one up in its jaws. The sound of bones crunching, of flesh being torn filled the night.

“What the fuck do we do?” Gunner yelled.

Chaos glanced at Zenon, hoping like fuck he’d seen a creature like this in Hell. “Will cutting off its heads work?”

They watched the beast eat its way around the circle of death, filling up on the sacrifices littering the ground.

“They’ll just grow back. You can’t stab it in the heart, either. It doesn’t have one, or any other vital organs. It’s immortal.”

There were only a few demons left, and the male in black had backed away, so the beast was between the knights and him.

The demon vanished.

Chaos growled. “Someone’s cloaking him.”

They didn’t have time to worry about the demon, though, because the invisible barrier around the creature shimmered—

Then it was gone.

The beast picked up the last two bodies and tossed them down its throat.

Chaos and Gunner gripped their swords and Zenon swung his axes. “If we can hack it up, cut off its heads, its legs, maybe we can weaken it enough to lock it down. Keep it headless, buy some time to work out how to kill it or send it back,” Chaos said.

His brothers dipped their chins.

The beast’s heads swayed on its long necks, the movement snakelike as it turned to face them.

They braced.

The beast roared with so much force the ground shook and launched at the closest target. Gunner’s battle cry rang out, sword gripped in both hands. Zenon and Chaos ran toward their brother, but the creature was fast. Faster than it looked.

It beared down on Gunner, jaws wide open. Gunner raised his sword.

But instead of reaching Gun, it collided with an invisible barrier, it’s huge body hitting it like a brick wall before flying back.

Someone or something had stopped it.

The Hell beast screamed, loud and piercing, lifting goose bumps all over Chaos’s skin, then turned and fled.

They took off after it.

It ran past cars, people on the sidewalk. No one paid it any attention. The beast bumped a car, sending it a meter from its original position, a store window smashing when it’s tail whipped around. People stopped in their tracks, someone screamed, but they weren’t seeing the beast, just the destruction it left in its wake.

The creature was still being cloaked.

They took flight, going after it, but somehow it vanished into the shadows.

Chaos turned to Zenon on his right, the wind whipping his hair, snatching the fury in his voice. “Where would it go?”

“It’s full, and the summoning would have drained it of energy. Somewhere it can hide and rest.”

“How long?”