Under the bowels of Barlour, in one of the tunnels that comprised what remained of the ruins the city had been built under, a pile of rubble shook and shifted. A warm light peeked from within, illuminating pathways that had not seen activity in many a year, and grew in intensity as the creature within the mound began to claw itself out of its prison.

With a final heave, Fenn threw a slab of concrete out of the way and crawled out of the tomb of earth and stone that the collapse had dropped with him. Small fires ran through fur at the demon’s head and extremities, making shadows dance along the walls and giving off enough light to see by.  Once out, he turned around and pulled, wrapping the chain around his arms as he freed it.

Now freed, he stood and turned to study his surroundings.

He himself had fallen into a large platform, wide and with a high ceiling, all made of stone. The end of the platform ended on a wide set of stairs leading up. Off to the sides, old rusted tracks tapered off into dark tunnels. The place had a musty smell to it, the air old and stale, and if he focused his attention, the sound of rushing water reached his ears from above. Likely carried in the pipe networks humans built under their cities.   

Looking up behind him only offered a view of the crumbled stone, dirt and concrete. He would not be climbing up the way he fell. 

The hunters were nowhere to be seen. If they had fallen with him, they were likely separated from him by the rubble, or buried under it. Good riddance if the latter was true.

Fenn grunted and climbed down to the base of the mound. He shook his body like a dog, letting earth and debris fall around him. Metallic, plinking noises alerted him of some of the metal projectiles the human had used on him falling out of his shallow wounds. The thought darkened his already sour mood. He had sustained many small wounds in the fight against the hunter, and yet he had little to show for it. His eyes settled on the puncture wound gazing up at him from his massive wrist. The pain meant little. It was only the latest in a long line of injuries the old Hellhound had suffered throughout his life, an insignificant one at that. The wound itself had already began to close, yet the demon’s pride would not be mended so easily. 

Interrupted. The fight had been interrupted. The mere thought sent the flames along his fur into a frenzy.

He had been made to look like a fool. He should have killed the talkative one where he stood, and not even considered sparing the other one his flames. What point was there to testing them? The hunter simply lacked the tools to do him much harm. 

Fenn could not help but wonder if he would have been staring at such an insignificant injury had that not been the case. At that point, it would have been a more satisfying outcome. He only had his pride to blame for this defeat.

The demon huffed, dropping to all fours. Perhaps he was growing complacent in his old age.

Putting the thoughts aside for the moment, the Hellhound plodded forward and up the stairs, letting the fire light his way as he moved out of the hall. Other tunnels greeted him as he reached the next level approach, and the demon’s nose twitched searching for any scents that would allow him to find an exit, but the same old, musty smell permeated each passageway. Some of these had old tracks among them, while others simply seemed to serve as passageways between them. For lack of a better course of action, he chose the closest hallway he could fit in and set down its path, nose twitching and ears swiveling as he went. 

For several minutes, Fenn wandered aimlessly, his only concern that he should somehow loop back into his own trail, until a scent other than the smell of ruin and decay entered his nostrils. 

There were other demons in this maze.

The Hellhound allowed his flames to extinguish and brought its muzzle low to the ground, sniffing at the trail. Fairly recent. At least two of them. There was another smell mixed in to the scent of the demons, but Fenn could not place it. It was foul, even to the Hellhound’s nose, but it made it easy to track.

Fenn set down on the trail, the old warrior’s imposing march replaced by the smooth, silent movement of a predator’s grace. It was not long before noise reached the dog’s sensitive ears. An odd clicking and clacking, like steel softly tapping against the stone floor echoed down the path. After a moment, it seemed to stop, replaced by a chittering noise with an odd inflexion that reminded Fenn of speech. By then, he had no need to follow their scent. The thin, gem-like bodies of the two Hideous glowed with its own inner light, radiated outwards with a pallid, purple hue. 

The demons had stopped at the juncture of a T-shaped corridor, and were currently studying the two small passageways leading forward. Fenn grimaced in the darkness. They were both too small for him to follow through.

One of the demons let out another chittering sound before marching into its chosen tunnel, followed by its companion. Once the click-clack of the Hideous footsteps receded, Fenn sauntered into the small room, letting his flames return.

Another curious development. Those Hideous had behaved as though they were searching for something beneath this undercity. Were they looking for an exit, much as he was? Perhaps, but it seemed unlikely. They were moving with a hurried purpose, and that stench that clung to them like rot… those demons were owned. Something had sent them down here, but for what purpose?

He knew something was happening in this city. Power was being drawn to it, beyond the small demons that seemed to have made this city their home before his own arrival. Fenn himself had been summoned by a powerless dabbler, and still had been able to manifest himself in this realm in an undiluted form, something that would never have occurred had the veil been at its proper strength. Demons moved along the city with clear purpose, the scent of Heaven’s Host had occasionally tickled at his nose, and humans aware of the supernatural’s existence had been flocking to this city en masse. The air was tense with violence, but it had yet to be properly unleashed.

He clicked his tongue in irritation. It mattered little at the moment. He wanted to leave these tunnels, but the Hideous’ efforts had only managed to lead Fenn to another dead end.

He had almost left the tunnel when a soft breeze caressed his fur. Fenn turned around, staring at the wall, and caught sight of a small hole amidst the stone. Blue, sterile light filtered through the small opening, along with the smells of smoke and rain. And blood.

Fenn glanced over his shoulder, focusing his senses to make sure the Hideous had gone far enough. When silence was all he could hear from the tunnels, he gave the wall a rough shove. Cracks spread through the impact. A second blow crumbled the wall, letting Fenn walk out of the ruins and into a smooth, circular tunnel with metal tracks running down its length. Close by, Fenn could make out the electric light that tended to accompany human occupation in this era. 

He moved up the tunnel and climbed up to the platform, carefully studying his surroundings. The stench of blood was stronger now, but there were no corpses to be seen. Humans must have fled the area already. 

He found the nearest way up, two of those moving staircases humans called escalators, and awkwardly crawled up between them, him being too large to make use of them himself. Up the top, he found a barrier, seemingly designed to limit the people who walked down into the station. Fenn tore it out of the way with a small grunt of exertion.

It was there that he found the first casualties. Three humans lay dead, bodies torn by sharp teeth and claws. Two of them had been gunslingers, evidenced by the blue uniforms and small firearms near the bodies. The last one was too torn up to make out much of anything. 

One of the culprits’ bodies lied still between them, body riddled with the gunslinger’s small projectiles. A small creature, by Fenn’s standards, the size of a large dog, its body an ugly mockery of Fenn’s own. Reptilian tail, thin hips and rear legs, with a larger torso and obscenely-muscled shoulders. Its maw was bloodied and full to the brim with gaping fangs.

Fenn’s eyes narrowed, now recognizing the smell of minor demons among the stench of death. Bloody footprints led ahead, in the direction pointed by the signs with the word ‘EXIT’ on them. 

Naturally.

He forged ahead, after the trail of blood, and ignoring the shops and counters that littered the walls of the station, all either shuttered down or otherwise abandoned.

The sounds of gnashing teeth and tearing flesh announced the presence of the small demons even before he turned the corner. There, he saw large, wide stairs leading out to the city air. Before the exit, three Minions fought over the remains of a single human, barely recognizable as a male at that point. Mercifully dead, blood pooled below him, staining what Fenn assumed were his possessions. A blanket, a cup filled with the metal that humans used as a currency. 

Propped against the wall, Fenn could spy a cardboard sign that read “PLEASE HELP”.

Laughter escaped the beast’s throat in a low rumble.

The Minions turned at the sudden noise, and scrambled back at the sight of the Hellhound with a string of surprised hisses. The sound quickly turned into angered snarls as they began to creep forward, seemingly intent in protecting their meal. As if Fenn was interested in carrion. 

Pack hunters by nature, the Minions began to fan out as they approached Fenn. It was all instinct. The beasts were rabid and mindless, not easily cowed, and as such prime target for strong demons who sought fearless, expendable forces. Their name reflected that. 

A shame Fenn did not much care for the mockeries.

As the monsters approached, the Hellhound took a deep breath, the spaces between his scales lighting from within with a warm light, and belched out a tongue of fire at the closest one.

A shrill whine escaped the thing’s lungs as the fire engulfed it, burning its skin and working its way into the minion’s mouth and insides.  No sooner had the lance of flame devoured the first of their kin that the other two darted in.

The first one ducked low under the fire, snapping its jaws at Fenn’s exposed throat. The Hellhound closed his jaws and grabbed the Minion mid-leap, his powerful digits closing around the thing’s neck. Claws futilely scratched at the hardened scales of his arm before Fenn threw him to the side, into one of the shops surrounding the hallway. The beast crashed against a glass window, shattering it and falling somewhere within.

A weight settling on his back, near his neck, informed him of the position and intentions of the other Minion. Fenn slammed his palms against the ground, forcing himself upright in a sudden, explosive motion. Of course, the halls were not meant to house something three times the height of a normal human, and he felt his back crashing against the ceiling, crushing the smaller demon in the process. Reaching around his neck, Fenn grasped the disoriented Minion by the arm and slammed it to the ground, before bringing his arms down on it like hammers. After the confrontation with the Demon Hunters, the feeling of snapping bones was immensely satisfying.

A scuttling sound alerted him of movement and he glanced up to catch sight of the minion he had thrown against the glass sneaking away towards the stairs.

A snarl escaped Fenn’s throat as he launched himself after the small beast. Seeing its cover was blown the Minion erupted into a single-minded sprint up the stairs. It had barely reached the outside of the building when the Hellhound’s massive weight settled atop it, slamming the beast into the ground. Its limbs shook as it tried to struggle out of Fenn’s grip, but the demon’s fangs closed on the Minion’s neck. With a powerful wrench, the monster’s neck stretched out with a cracking noise, and it stilled.

Fenn stood away from the Minion and looked around him, licking the blood from his muzzle.

Sniffing the air, his nose wrinkled. The same scent which had lingered on the two Hideous within the tunnels permeated the air like a thick oil. It filled him with anticipation. It seemed as though whatever he had been waiting for since he was summoned would soon come to pass.