The road to hell is paved with good intentions. (2)

[singindemonhq]

As we exited the elevator we were attacked by a horde of small, shabby looking demons that seemed to come from nowhere. We must have been making a pretty impressive entrance - our fighters were cutting through them, and they seemed to flow back away from the women, especially from Joan; I can still hardly believe how graceful some of her combat moves are. I was trying to stay behind the cover of the fighters, from long habit, so I was quite close behind her when we first got out of the elevator. But then I remembered some of the new moves that Joan had taught Cathy and me.

I let my distance from the others widen, caught the wall for balance and lashed out with sideways kick that slammed a little grey stink-ball with a knife in each hand back into his friends, six feet away! Oh yeah! I could get used to that! Payback time for the musak! I landed a couple more - and then some damned yellow thing with a mouth as wide as its head came straight at me, foaming; I kicked out again, got it straight in the stomach and didn't even slow it down. I was in real trouble for a few seconds, and then Grant took it off me with a backslash. The whole line-up had changed by then and I seemed to be in a different part of the party.

From there, a lot of it was just a blur, and not just because there was a helluva lot of smoke about. I'd cast everything that might be helpful and could feel every mind in the party - that meant a background of demon-babble that felt like a yardful of turkeys, and various singers. There wasn't as much singing after I narrowed it down to the friends-sense.

I remember "sensing adrenaline" and realising that someone was being dragged into a side-passage by something she didn't like at all, yelling to alert the fighters and then turning back to see something that looked ready to take my head off coming straight at me, I ducked and turned under its swing and someone chopped it down.

Then we were through, and I saw what lay ahead.