Demon Hunter 5

"This one's my favorite, though. I polished it and even put chain mail around the handle for a better grip. What do you have to say for yourself?"

Bob looked it over in amazement; he turned it over and stared down at the perfect straightness of the blade. "Thanks."

Dillon noticed a pair of slightly rectangular plates with blades pointing forward, and another pair of rectangular plates, much longer and also rounded to a half-cylinder, with blades curving up.

"What are these?" he asked, picking them up.

"Stand up and I'll show you," Jeff instructed.

Dillon stood up, and Jeff picked up the smaller rectangles. He fastened a strap hanging from it around Dillon's wrist, and did the same with the other. He then fastened another strap around Dillon's palm.

"Hand blades. Makes your punches more deadly. Now for the shin blades." Jeff grabbed the other pair of bladed plates and kneeled in front of Dillon. He fastened one strap behind Dillon's knee and one just above the tennis shoe Dillon wore. "Shin blades. Makes your kicks deadlier."

Dillon looked over the polished steel plates and nodded with a smile.

"And for you, Alex," Jeff started as he dug through the backpack. "New knuckles!"

He pulled out a pair of black gloves. Each had a steel cap over the knuckles, and between the cloths were metal plates. The sewing work was patchy, but wasn't a serious problem.

"Nice stuff, Jeff...but why?" Dillon asked.

Jeff reached once more into his bag and pulled out a small book. The ancient item was wrapped in old, scratched, and faded leather. Inside, the papers were brown with age and limber with use.

"Because of this."

Jeff flashed by the pages, flipping through until he stopped near the middle of the book. He turned it around and pointed to a string of words, obviously written in a hurry, and handed it to Dillon.

"It says here that, and I quote, ...The longer the Black Pearl stays undisturbed, the more power it gathers. Eventually, the Pearl will gain enough power to unleash all the terrors and evil of Hell onto Earth. All good would be demolished, and evil would finally have enough power to attack heaven to get to the Black Pearl in the Castle of Vaardock...' and it gets unreadable from there. It starts again right here: ...The only way to stop the growing evil of the Black Pearl, one of these two choices will have to be made: 1) Demolish evil from the face of Earth, or 2) Destroy the Black Pearl. Obviously, the only possible scenario would be to destroy the Black Pearl.

To destroy the Pearl, it must be cast into the Lava Pool of the Arsen the Dragon. The Arsen Dragon is naught but a mindless fiery monster that has nothing on its brain but killing and maiming. Likely, it will not care about the pearl, but is very territorial. After obtaining the Pearl, you must slip past it and to its pool. The rest I have already explained.' It ends there."

"Well, that explains that," Bob remarked from across the room as he practiced with his sword.

"Why don't we just call the army or something?" Alex mentioned.

"Because only one with hunter blood can pass between the worlds," Bob said. "We're on our own."

Everyone was a little intimidated by that. Sure, they've fought demons before, but...a whole world of them?

Suddenly, Dillon's head snapped up. "Mom and Dad's weapons!"

The group followed Dillon and Bob down to the basement.

The basement looked like a normal basement: old furniture, couch, and other things of the like. One cement block wall was clean and uncluttered with nothing hanging from it.

They walked down the wooden steps and stepped onto the thin seventies-style carpet and waited at the foot of the stairs as Bob and Dillon stepped carefully through the rubbish towards the clean wall.

Dillon snapped open a small keypad; it was the type of thing one would see on a lock to a garage door. He punched in a four-digit code and immediately the wall slid up.

Inside was a rack of weapons.

"Pick your poison," Dillon said, waving his arm towards the wall.

Jeff immediately stepped forward and picked a sleek black crossbow off the rack. A strap hung under the crossbow for easier carrying. He pushed a button above the thumb grip, and the arch of the bow popped out of the sides. A pump was attached underneath the arrow shaft; by pulling the pump back, the bow would pull back into place, and the arrow would slide in ready to shoot. The arrows came in cases of five, and slipped in under the butt of the crossbow. The arrows had silver tips, better for easier kills.

Jeff grabbed a few cases full of arrows and stuffed them into the side pockets of the cargo pants and stepped out of the way for Bob to pick his weapon.

Bob grabbed a black shotgun from the top rack. The gun was also pump-action, but shot silver slugs and held eight rounds. Bob snatched a hard-cased thigh strap that held twenty-four more slugs.

Ashley stepped up and grabbed a rectangular gun. It was, in fact, a rectangle, but at one end was a square hole that provided a handle, trigger, and finger guard. She looked it over and noticed that the gun took magazines of bullets just above the handle in the back. The magazines held twenty-five hollow head bullets filled with garlic each. Taking the remaining magazines off the rack, she moved away and made room for Dillon.

Dillon carefully took down his father's samurai sword and held it in its scabbard in his right hand. He stepped away and Alex examined the rack.

Finally, she picked what looked like a long tube with a handle on it. At the end of the tube was an arm brace. The gun was a garlic bomb launcher. It only held one garlic bomb at a time, but the thing packed quite a punch. After the initial impact of the grenade, garlic seeped out as a vapor and killed and vampire demon in the vicinity. Though the garlic didn't have much of an effect on normal demons, the compact hardness of the bomb was equal to the power of a shotgun slug from a twelve gauge.

"One more thing, guys." Dillon entered another code in the keypad, and the rack of weapons slid into the ground. On top of the rack, hidden in the wall, was a wall of pads.

In the end, the team wore their normal clothes with pads over them. All wore black elbow- and kneepads with black cloth covered demon-steel plated vests. They wore black fingerless gloves and black combat boots. After all, they had to be ready for anything.