Chapter 34: Demonic Extraction

Rick perched on the edge of one of the webs, watching the workers move below. Everything was going well and it wasn't likely that he'd need to intervene, he just found it a good way to help him concentrate. After so long in the demon realm - he honestly wasn't sure how long - he was beginning to wonder how long he could last.

The constant strain of maintaining his aura was getting deep into his bones. He'd taken several breaks, one of them quite long, and he still felt exhausted when he went back to it. Though it might be true that he didn't need to sleep, sometimes it felt more like he couldn't sleep. Some element of the human world that he needed to rest and restore himself just didn't exist here.

Though by now he knew he wasn't in serious danger if his aura dropped, he would definitely be heavily inconvenienced. Once word had gotten out about what he had done, demons who could find him had come for him. There had even been a serious attack which he had only warded off by intensifying his aura in an improvised technique that was a mix of what Damian had done before and Emily's blade.

Most of the demons who wanted his attention, however, were simply poor and desperate. Rick felt for them, but he couldn't help every single demon who asked for it. In addition to his own limited strength, there were opportunists and junkies who would waste his blood.

He suspected those were among the minority. So far he had a positive impression of the lesser demons who worked in the mines: they were mostly just folks who wanted to get by. Some might have vices or not work the hardest, but that was because the system was stacked against them. Even hard-working demons like Bftgage and Ythsil couldn't get ahead.

At that very moment Bftgage hopped over the ridge, carrying Ythsil on his head. Rick wasn't actually sure if the demons had any gender, but their voices sounded male and they called each other brothers. Ythsil was much larger and healthier looking than before, but since Bftgage had been fed as well, he was still large enough to carry his brother.

"We're done for the day," Ythsil said proudly, hopping up and down on his brother's head. Bftgage made a shifting motion that Rick had come to decide meant agreement.

"If we work hard, we could finish our quota in just two cycles. And with our whole crew working more efficiently, we could be up for a promotion!"

"This is thanks to you!" Ythsil spat up a bunch of mucus, but it was the proper color meaning excitement instead of illness.

"No, this is your work," Rick said. He meant it, too: given his inability to touch the world around him, he really hadn't had much to do with it. Essentially all he had done was "fund" the brothers and their allies via free blood. Technically they defended him when he rested, so they didn't feel like he pitied them, but it was clearly an advantage they'd never have found normally.

Beyond that, it was mostly their work with a few suggestions from him. With their new strength, they'd managed their quotas and had time to redesign the work shifts. A few ideas had improved safety and made their crew a more desirable position, allowing them to get better workers. It all struck Rick as fairly obvious improvements, they'd just been ignored because they didn't improve the bottom line of whoever owned the mines. Demon lives were cheap.

"If we get extra money," Bftgage said happily, "we should eat with the spiders. They always have the best food."

"Ooh, yes!" Ythsil trembled in glee, then abruptly turned to Rick with a guilty look. At least that was Rick's best guess at interpreting their emotions. "It's not as good as your blood, though."

"Oh, definitely." Bftgage nodded urgently, nearly dislodging his brother. "It's just that we ate there a long ago and we're so nostalgic for it."

"Yes, it was sooo good..."

Most of the time Rick just focused on what was before him, but in moments like that, it was difficult to reconcile the harmless brothers with the ruthless demons who created demonic bonds in the human realm. Rick leaned a bit closer and eyed the two of them. "If the two of you had all the money in the world, what would you do?"

"Sit and do nothing!" Ythsil answered so aggressively that he tumbled off his brother's head before righting himself. The older demon, however, considered the question thoughtfully before answering.

"I think I'd want better work. Something where I wouldn't see the same rocks every day. I'd like to see the world, in our realm and maybe even yours."

"Never mind, me too! We can sit and do nothing in exotic places."

Not exactly what he'd wanted, so Rick pressed further. "Would that mean joining one of the corporations and creating a human bond? That could let you see the world, if it all went well."

To his surprise, Bftgage spat up mucus in disgust. "As if we'd have a chance."

"What do you mean? I have friends who got demonic bonds with demons that didn't look any bigger or stronger than you." Those bonds had destroyed them, but that wasn't the point. Rick felt a bit guilty for leading the brothers on like this, though he was starting to suspect there was something else in play.

"Maybe in the old days, but it's not like that anymore. And I don't just mean with the big blockage that got you stuck here. There just aren't bond jobs like there used to be, not for demons like us."

Rick shifted around and bent down to face them fully. "Explain more. I haven't heard anything about this."

"Really?" Ythsil peered at him in surprise. "I figured all the humans must have seen the new Super Lucrim things!"

"It's Advanced Lucrim," Bftgage said. The words sent a shiver through Rick's body and he understood even before the demon finished explaining. "Lots of poor humans used to get little demonic bonds, so there was work for demons like us. But whatever this Advanced Lucrim business is, it helps poor humans get by and makes them poorer. So they're even riskier for the corporations, and a lot of the bigger demons are phasing out the smaller human bonds. From what I hear, they sound really worried that it will unbalance our whole economy."

"You never said that!" Ythsil rounded on his brother in surprise. "Were you keeping secrets?"

"I just didn't want to worry you, brother. Life is hard enough without worrying about the problems of the biggest demons."

As they spoke, Rick just sat there and thought about it. He hadn't considered the consequences of the Advanced Lucrim stations beyond the way they preyed upon the poor. Poor humans. Maguire Incorporated was proud of how it disrupted the lending economy, and apparently they disrupted the demon economy as well. That might explain why the demon leaders had met with the CSLA so aggressively. Could it also explain the lucrim anomalies around Branton?

A flare of red distracted all of them. Rick looked up without much interest to see Damian float in. As the days passed, they'd met more than once, so this was hardly a big deal - whatever Damian's true purpose had been, Rick suspected that he'd finished it and gotten bored. Usually they met outside town, though, so this was the first time the other human had visited the mining pits.

Did that mean anything? Rick decided to act as though it did and stood up to greet the other human as he landed beside them.

To his surprise, Damian grimaced at the sight of the two demons hopping by their feet. "What are you doing with... wait, have you been feeding these things? Why?"

"What else was I supposed to do with all this time?"

"You do realize these things are barely better than the scum crawling in the wastelands? They'll never be anything here and they'll probably never touch the human realm. They're completely useless to you."

"Hey!" Ythsil tried to attack Damian's leg and was immediately pushed back with a surge of aura. "We're right here!"

Damian didn't even seem to have consciously noticed the movement, instead staring at Rick with a look of disgust. "I'm serious about this - how much blood have you given? It was all a waste. There is literally not a single thing that they can give you that you couldn't have gotten a thousand times over from a more powerful demon."

"Maybe," Rick said carefully, "I don't care about that. I might not have benefited much, but this mine is a better place to work. That's more than you accomplished, unless you've been secretly negotiating trade deals all this time."

At first Damian stared at him, seething with hatred... and Rick recognized that hatred from the first time they had met and Damian had started the fake fight. The other man gave him a brief grin, then turned away. "In any case, we're leaving. Very soon - my contacts couldn't give me much warning. So I suggest you get your things in order soon." With that, he bounded away to the edge of the city.

That left Rick with the two demons. Ythsil made a sad burbling sound, while Bftgage just shook his head and spoke slowly. "I knew this day would come, yet I'm still glad for you that you're going so soon. We won't forget you."

"Will you be okay without me?" Rick bent down beside them and, for the first time, tried to touch one of the demons on the head. It didn't quite work, his hand fading into them a bit, but that was actually a good thing because it meant he didn't need to suppress any revulsion from all their slime. Ythsil shook back and forth violently, mucus tears in his eyes, but Bftgage nodded.

"We've advanced more in these few cycles than we could have in a year otherwise. Now that the mine is running smoothly, we'll be fine unless a bigger demon takes everything from us."

"Yes, it's still the law of the wild out here." Rick set a hand on Bftgage as well. "Maybe not so different from the human realm, in some ways. If I gave you some blood to keep, would it just get taken from you?"

"Yes, most likely."

"Then this will have to be my last gift." Rick pulled out the black needle again and pricked his finger one more time. This time he did it more than once, giving each of the demon brothers three drops. He'd wanted to leave them a small supply for emergencies, or if another demon got injured, but accepted that it wasn't possible. Both of the brothers glowed with their new strength.

As Rick got to his feet, he struggled not to stumble. He felt anemic - it wasn't from loss of blood alone, but he'd definitely given something of himself each time he granted blood. Once he'd fully straightened, Rick stared out over the mining pit, wondering if this had all been stupidity on his part.

Yes, the mine ran smoothly and fewer demons suffered, but he'd never see them again. The demon brothers were thanking him tearfully, but for them that mostly meant vomiting up mucus. Realistically, they might all end up squashed by some stronger demon, if they weren't slowly suffocated by the actions of Maguire Incorporated and the biggest demonic firms.

It was what he'd done, though. Rick waved goodbye to the workers one last time, then pushed off the ground and floated out of the mine. Though the moments spent sailing through the air should have been contemplative, he just found his thoughts turning to the things that really mattered, back home.

He swallowed his fears and just focused on Damian. When the other young man heard him land, he turned around with a grin. "You said all your tearful goodbyes?"

"What was all that bullshit earlier? The poor things barely have any self-confidence as it is, you don't need to treat them that way."

"Ah, but I was mostly interested in how you'd treat them."

"Just what is that supposed to mean?"

Instead of answering directly, Damian pushed off the ground to move away from the city. Rick moved to follow, the movement now coming naturally, and kept his gaze fixated on the other man. Eventually Damian answered. "This isn't a good time for secrets, since we're going to be meeting our bosses quite soon. But we'll have to talk after we get back to the human world, and that could be interesting."

"Oh, don't give me that." Exhaustion and anemia and days spent in the demon realm had entirely eroded his capacity to tolerate bullshit. "What the fuck is your whole deal?"

"That's not a conversation for an insecure location, but let's just say that you aren't the only one who has fought arrogant Birthrighters. In my experience, everyone in this world pushes down those beneath them in an effort to climb higher. I wanted to see if you'd do the same... and since you didn't, maybe we can work together."

That was all well and good, but Rick found himself focusing on the earlier Birthrighter comment. "Have you been researching me?"

"I researched everyone in the top twenty. Didn't you?"

"No! I've been focusing on actually getting work done." Abruptly Rick remembered what Pan Zhou had said, though that felt like a lifetime ago. "I suppose that's useless, isn't it? If this is all a game to everyone and they're just going to shut it down."

"Oh, it's not a game. You shouldn't count on it lasting, but you could get something out of it if you play your cards right."

They reached the edge of the city and Rick looked back... and to his surprise saw one of the demonic caterpillars trundling after them. Bftgage and Ythsil sat on its head, along with a number of other demons. He recognized a few, like a spider who sold tea near the pits, but others were unfamiliar. They were all waving in farewell, or vomiting, or whatever they did.

"Aww, how sweet." Damian shot him a mocking glance and Rick decided to just lean into it, putting a hand over his heart.

"You're right, it is. It turns out the real demonic bond was the friends we made along the way."

Damian cracked a real smile for a second, then leapt away. Though Rick waved back to the collected demons, he soon bounded on and the demonic neighborhood of Branton was out of sight. He caught up with Damian in the middle of an empty space of wilderness.

It would have been a good time to talk, but Rick had a feeling he'd just get evasions. So he just tried to focus on his aura, despite the fact that it was increasingly giving him a headache. At this point he could probably drop it, but now it was a matter of pride. This period in the demon realm might have been mostly useless, and he might have missed important moments in his sister's life, but at least he'd get some aura training out of it.

Then the pale sky above them turned dark. It peeled away and Rick saw stars - real, actual stars from the human realm. After the endless sameness, he nearly wept.

Yet a moment later, he saw the air roiling. Apparently the artificial rupture produced exactly the same entities, now spilling out into both realms. He automatically put up his fists, but could he even fight here? Whatever the things were, he had a feeling they would have no problem fighting.

Before the half-visible creatures reached them, power hit the demon realm like a meteor. Rick spotted the head demon from before hurling massive balls of fire, while his boss calmly gestured, flattening circles of the entities into pulp.

And between them tore Emily, both aura blades blazing. She cut through all the entities in her path, fixated intensely on him. She moved so quickly that he was still stunned when she arrived, suddenly in front of him and staring into his face.

"Are you alright?"

"Uh, yes." He'd been overjoyed to see her, but she looked so serious he-

"Then we're extracting." She grabbed the front of his shirt and jerked him skyward toward the rift. Damian had joined the others and their group was quickly returning, the heavyweights easily destroying all nearby entities.

This time, however, the demons stayed in the demon realm and the humans retreated to the other side. When Rick plunged back into the human realm he gasped violently and was nearly sick, his body lurching in a way that he'd never felt before, in all directions at once. He barely got a glimpse of the humans and demons nodding to each other from opposite sides of the rupture before it closed and suddenly he was back on normal asphalt in the real world.

It was nighttime and rather dark. He could feel the wind. His stomach growled and he had strange pains all over his body. None of that mattered: he was back.

Emily grabbed his shirt and pulled him to his feet. The way she stared at him, he worried that he'd somehow done something wrong, then without warning she leaned in and kissed him.

Her lips were soft and it was surprisingly gentle after her intense attack, yet he was too shocked to enjoy it. Mostly, he was relieved that she wasn't angry with him... and that he hadn't been sick earlier. As it was, he managed to kiss back a little before she pulled away. The pained look in her eyes left him uncomfortable, and when she spoke her voice actually broke a little.

"Rick... if I ever seem cold, or take you for granted... thinking about you being dead..." She leaned in, clenching a fist in his shirt. He automatically put an arm around her back to hold her closer. In a strange way, this was more intimate than the kiss: he'd never seen Emily vulnerable in that way before.

Unfortunately, it only lasted a moment before Damian sidled up beside them. "Hey, not to interrupt, but I see you're busy. Seems like this would be a bad time to talk business, so... we'll reschedule our discussion later."

Minutes ago, Rick had been planning to pin him down and demand answers. Now, with Emily holding him like that, it seemed much less important. Though when he glanced down, he saw that Emily was glowering at Damian with a death glare to kill all other death glares. Her hand still gripped his shirt, but it seemed like she was back to normal.

Damian ambled away, so Rick turned back to Emily and gently took her shoulders. "Is Melissa okay? Wait, how long have I been gone?"

"She's fine, and forty three days." Someone else would have softened the blow, but Emily just hit him with it and he reeled.

"Forty three? It... it didn't feel anywhere near that long..."

"I've never gone myself, but I'm told that humans have trouble tracking time in the demon realm. As for your sister, we've been in touch while we tried to determine if there was anything that could be done to help you." Emily bit her lip, recalling past irritations. "The most I could do was join this operation to extract you. But I called Melissa and she should be on her way."

"And... her CLAT? God, I missed the whole thing..."

"That's for her to talk about." Emily's voice was clipped, but her gaze was softer than usual. She slipped under his shoulder and put an arm around his back. "You're okay now, Rick, you made it. All you need to do now is rest."

Actually getting a bit of comfort from her was amazing, but Rick wasn't sure that was actually true. Was the CSLA going to blame him for this in some way? He had missed an entire month's quota, did that mean he was fired? Would they add insult to injury and charge him for the extraction?

Yet when the woman in the green pantsuit approached, she didn't seem so menacing. "The Central States Lucrim Authority apologizes for all of this, Richard. If you agree to waive your right to litigation, we'll give you back pay for this period, overtime for the additional hours, and merits proportional to your previous work. In addition, we'll be negating your quota for the next week so you have time to recover."

He knew it was manipulative, but he didn't care. Even at his best, it would be suicide to go up against the CSLA and try to sue them. Exhausted as he was, he barely managed to read through the text she showed him on her tablet before he signed off on the agreement at the bottom.

That seemed to be all that she wanted. The woman glanced at his signature and then tucked the tablet under her arm. "This is part of the job. If you're sticking around, decide carefully." That said, she walked away, stepped into an unmarked dark vehicle, and drove into the night. All the other employees had left as well, leaving them alone.

Exhausted as he was, Rick managed to dig out his phone. It was working again - it hadn't even lost any charge - and brought up his portfolio. The numbers ran together, but the main thing was that not much had changed. His lucrim mass had increased with his training, but less than a normal month.

That felt unfair in a stupid way to his weary mind. He'd endured over a month in the demon realm, shouldn't he have gained some massive new legendary strength? But no, it was only a weak improvement and a bit of overtime at work. And a... demon mass?

"Emily... what the fuck is this?"

She glanced down at the screen, then immediately patted him on the back. "Don't worry, it's not as dangerous as it sounds. Basically, you've been credited with a certain amount of lucrim from a demonic organization. You can redeem it toward a better demonic bond if you sign a contract with them."

"But I don't want a demonic bond." He felt a flicker of guilt thinking of Bftgage and Ythsil, but he knew it was their predatory masters who would be offering the agreements. "Can I just... get rid of it?"

"Possibly, but they're going to be hounding you with offers for a while. It's not the worst of your problems, but it'll be a bit annoying."

"Great." Rick might have complained more, but at that moment a taxi stopped on the road beside them. Melissa scrambled out the door and leapt for him.

Rick dropped his phone to the ground and embraced her. Holding his sister tightly, all of the rest fell away. He didn't even think about his portfolio a single time until he collapsed into sleep at home.