We got up right behind them without them noticing. The chaos of their projectiles gave us cover. Two of the decoys tapped two of the marked men on the shoulder. When they turned around, I gave them a mask of sludge and watched them suffocate. By the time the rest had stopped firing and turned around to see what happened, the decoys and I had scattered across the field.

  Half of the sludge men ran away from the crowd, some towards the church and some towards Mickey and Caleb, who were fending off attacks of their own. The other half stayed and fought. One hugged a marked man who tried to sling a flaming ball that smelled like butane, and cemented his arms to his side. I caved his face in with a single punch. Another seemed to get inspiration from the sludge mask I gave the first two guys, and headbutted the arrow-flinging man. I snapped his neck to finish the job.

  A whip cracked over my shoulder and cut a decoy in half. The bald man then looked at me and cracked the whip against my face. It cut through the sludge shell and split the skin on my forehead wide open. Blood cascaded over my eyes.

  “This is the one!” he yelled to the rest of the marked men. There were still five left, and they all turned to me at once. Two of the remaining sludge men slammed their bodies against the bald man from either side, and slowly crawled across his skin until they swallowed him. He lashed at his own face, showing flashes of red as he mangled himself trying to get free. I knew it wasn’t going to work so I turned my attention to the five motherfuckers that still surrounded me.

  “Damn, your guys are getting fucked up over there without you,” I said.

  It wasn’t true. Caleb’s creatures were doing everything they could to protect him, but hadn’t managed to kill anyone yet. There was a pile of gore at Mickey’s feet, but four men still swung at him while he did his best to phase through it. It was bullshit, but it bought me a second.

  My entire right leg hummed, and it throbbed down at my calf. My mark was pleased with the fact that I’d just killed five marked men. I could feel the energy coursing through me already. I smacked the side of my leg, and so much energy flowed through me that I could hardly stand it. I felt more vigor, power, bliss than any man has ever felt. No drug could even try to match the high I felt. Then I looked at the men in front of me and the bliss turned into fury, though the two didn’t feel all that different. It was a pure, indescribable fury, and it felt great. I knew now that I was put on this Earth for a single reason: to kill.

  I raised my arm, clenched it into a fist, and formed a sludge hammer taller than I was. With slime at my feet, I skated towards the marked men. One shot a flurry of glass shards at me; I brought my hammer down on his head and crushed it like an egg. The remaining four shot at me with all of their strength — giant bone darts, spit bombs, steel shurikens, and even a fucking laser — but my sludge shell regenerated impossibly fast now. It was hopeless for them. I swung my hammer into the ribs of the spit bomb man and blood spurted from his mouth. Another swing to the chest and he let out one last raspy breath before falling. The last three saw there was no hope and started to run. I threw my hammer into the laser woman’s back and heard her spine snap from ten yards away. I skated after the last two. They were going separate directions, but they were moving painfully slow. I caught up, skated in between the both of them and aimed my open palms in their directions. A torrent of slime came from my hands and pierced holes in each of their abdomens. I laughed as they tried to crawl away. I shot another hole into each of them, then another and another, carefully avoiding the areas that would lead to a quick death. Their screams got weaker, and I felt myself getting stronger.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  I left those Swiss cheese motherfuckers in the grass to fade away slowly. There were more motherfuckers to kill.

  I went to help Caleb first. He was struggling pretty badly, down to only two of his pets without killing a single man in return.

  “Y’all pickin’ on my little brother? That’s fucked up.” I made a finger gun and cut one of them in half from his nutsack up to his head. The halves of his body folded over each other as they fell. The short haired woman was in this group. She pressed a finger to her ear, and the remaining four men took off running.

  “Seriously? Why is everyone fucking running?” I sighed and took off after them. I brought my finger gun up to my eye, aiming for the hungry bitch’s head, but one of the men huddled them all together and they disappeared into the ground. They just fell right in — didn’t leave a hole or anything.

  “Fuck!” I roared. The urge to kill them burned inside of me, and the fact that I couldn’t pissed me off beyond belief. I slid right past Caleb over towards Mickey, but his work was done. Popped assholes littered the grass and he was painted solid red with blood. He phased forward and the blood stayed behind, cleaning him off.

  “Damn! Those fuckers were fierce!” he said, smiling. “One of ‘em ran away — little bitch — but I think we did what we needed to do.”

  “I know I did,” I said. “Was four enough for you?”

  “You tell me.” He pulled his staff out of his palm and swung it downwards in the direction of the church. For a moment, nothing happened. Then the wall crumbled to pieces.

  “Finally got some range, huh?” I said. “Hope it can fuck up some dirt dogs.”

  “I’ma do more than that,” he said. “I’m gonna pop Alec’s stupid fucking head right off his shoulders.”

  “Maybe. I’m gonna break every bone in his body before you do it though.”

  Caleb had been oddly silent since the fighting was done. He was pale and his face sunk in and made him look thirty years older.

  “You alright?” I asked.

  “Yeah, just tired,” he said. “Hopefully we can get some food and a good night’s sleep before we have to fight this Reverend guy.”

  “You know, you can sit that one out,” I said. “I’d rather you did, to be honest. You helped a lot here today, but that’s gonna be a whole other ball game. I think we should find Shane and you two should go somewhere safe.”

  I thought he would protest, despite his weariness, but he sighed and said “Ok”.

  “Shane shouldn’t be too far off. I think he’s waiting for us,” Mickey said. We went through the neighborhood looking for someone tall, or short, or with wings, but the entire place was devoid of life aside from some sad bushes and dying grass.

  “Is that him on the roof over there?” Mickey said. It did look like someone was peeking over the top of a roof a few houses down. As we got closer, the figure disappeared behind the roof completely, and there was a thud in the backyard.

  “Shane?” I said. There was no answer.

  We ran to the back of the house, and Shane was there, his legs and wings crushed, and his head twisted the wrong direction.

  “I shoulda just dealt with y’all at the very beginning.”

  Reverend Alec appeared in front of us, and he flung a boulder at Caleb’s head.