Lord of the Manor -- Section 11

[Your reward for your patience is another section today. Enjoy.

[Also, you may not have known, but 'amused' only has one 'm,' and 'managed' only one 'n.' It's amazing what you can learn from spell check.]

    "What is he?" asked Michael. "Some kind of demon king?"
    "More like a queen bee," said Sticks. "A king bee? A bee lord. Whatever. Can you just grab him? Getting him down here wasn't exactly easy."
    Michael wasn't moving, so Maddie shoved the tray into his hands and took a firm grip on the demon king's shoulders. She jerked as Sticks scampered up her arm, his bare feet feeling slightly like sandpaper, gripping her skin. Then he launched himself through the air in a graceful leap to Michael's shoulder.
    "And now," said the small bodyguard, "we go inside."
    Maddie adjusted her grip--under the wings? what about the claws on his arms?--and finally pinned the air demon's arms to his side. He moaned softly, and shifted, and Maddie was grateful he was stunned. She lifted and grunted--the demon king was heavier then she expected--and noticed he smelled like pine and cold, though she hadn't ever thought that cold had a smell before. She felt no heat from the fire around his head. She held him up at arm's length, his wings pulsing absently and obscuring her vision, and she looked around.
    It was quiet.
    "Now THAT is creepy," said Michael, then he closed his mouth, as if embarrassed that he'd dared to open it. Maddie understood the feeling. After the chatter and taunting and singing, the cursing and shouting, the rush of hundreds of wings, the quiet was heavy with the weight of an unholy church. There were no more flying demons, but stretched across the lawn, clinging to the bushes and the manor house, filling every branch of the nearby trees, were hundreds of air demons, their wings perfectly still.
    Their eyes on Maddie.
    "What do we do?" she whispered.
    Sticks started to talk, coughed, and changed his voice to a whisper as well. "We walk slowly toward the door, and you keep a good grip on his lordship there."
    "But they're on the path, too," whispered Michael.
    "They'll move," said Sticks, but his whisper lacked confidence. "You go first, Maddie."
    Maddie nodded and stepped around Michael and toward the light peaking out through the stained glass window near the servants' entrance. Ten feet to the nearest demons, then eight feet, six, and Maddie found her steps getting smaller. They were glaring up at her, eyes bright. One demon, his tear-drop wings like a moth's, flexed the talons on his hands, open and closed, and showed no sign of moving.
    "Keep going," whispered Michael.
    Of course. That was easy for HIM to say. The black butterfly wings brushed against her arms, surprisingly firm and dry, and she took another step. She was looming over the creatures now, like Godzilla on his way into Tokyo, but she suspected Godzilla hadn't felt quite so nervous. She took another step.
    And the sea parted.
    As the demons backed away, a quiet rustling, Maddie breathed out, not realizing until then that she'd been holding her breath. Step, and the crowd backed away further. Another step, and a real path was beginning to appear.
    "You're doing great," whispered Sticks, and Maddie found herself laughing--a voiceless, disbelieving, terrified kind of laugh. A girl demon dressed in what looked like thistles spat at her, but kept her distance. Maddie decided she could handle that. They could be as mad at her as they wanted, as long as they stayed back. The quiet pressed in on Maddie's ears, without even the usual city noises of cars and buzzing street lights to erase the emptiness. Just step after step, and the parting demons, and her own blood, loud in her ears.
    The door was closer. Much closer. Maddie started to hope, and her eyes kept flicking between the demons in front of her and the door that was now maybe thirty feet away.
    The demon king shook his head, sharply, side to side, and flexed his arms out against Maddie's hands. She kept her grip--not easy to do, but she managed--but she stopped walking. Froze, actually. Everything froze. The air demons stopped, watching. The demon king relaxed, and Maddie started walking again.
    "You'll never make it inside," said the demon, his voice a pleasant tenor.
    Maddie froze again and jumped as Sticks landed on her shoulder.
    "Of course we will," said the bodyguard. "You're the master demon, here, and they won't willingly hurt you, or let you be hurt."
    The master demon laughed, his ribs shaking under Maddie's fingers. "This one won't hurt me. Anyone looking at her can tell she doesn't have the stomach for it."
    Sticks' voice was hard next to Maddie's ear. "She may not, but I certainly do."
    The master demon's voice was still amused. "Of course you do. I've seen you before and know what you're capable of. But you're not the one holding me. And, now that I've had a chance to rest, neither is she."
    Sticks started to shout something, but Maddie couldn't tell what before the master demon jerked his head to the side, sinking his teeth into Maddie's finger. At the same time he bucked in her hands, slamming her hands apart with his arms and snapping his wings back, buffeting Maddie in the face. She tried to keep her grip, but it was too much. She dropped him and staggered back.
    Sticks tried to leap from her shoulder, but her shift threw him off balance and he missed his target, crashing into a small crowd of demons as the master demon lifted up into the sky, laughing.
    "Run!" shouted Sticks, grabbing a demon with dove wings and hurling him into a cluster of creatures rising into the air. They were all taking to the air, like pigeons in a park, and it was almost beautiful, but their screaming was too terrible for that. Wailing, shouting, and the playfulness was gone. They wanted blood.
    Maddie ran. She didn't know if Michael was behind her, or where Sticks was, but her legs were pumping, and she knew it wasn't far to the door.
    It was too far. The first cut was on her arm, and she tried to strike out as she ran, but hit nothing and lost her balance, lurching forward. The second cut was on the back of her leg, just above the tendons. It hurt worse than any cut she could remember, but at least she could keep running, struggling to stay on her feet. How far could the door be?
The third demon to hit her didn't just cut. He collided with the side of her head, and the world surged up to crash into her ribs and hip.
    THAT'S IT, she thought, trying to swat away the demon and get onto her hands and knees, both at the same time, and she couldn't manage either. She knew she was shouting, but couldn't hear herself. Something scratched her ear, and then her arm beneath her elbow, and then Michael was standing over her and shouting, swinging the platter just as awkwardly as he'd swung the broom. Suddenly Maddie could hear him.     "Back off! Back off! Back OFF!" he yelled, over and over.
    And the demons did.
    At least enough of them for Michael to help Maddie to her feet. They ran toward the door--only feet away!--that opened in front of them, Sticks hanging from the door knob. Maddie was the first through, then Michael, and then the door closed, and Maddie sagged to the floor, her back against the wall. Michael dropped the tray and it clattered to the stone tiles. The stone was cool under Maddie's hands, and it felt good as she breathed, in and out, almost gasping. Michael leaned against the wall and sagged down next to her, their shoulders touching--well, his shoulder pressed against the side of Maddie's arm--and Maddie was grateful for the contact.
    "We made it," she said.
    Michael nodded.
    "Welcome back, Master Aches," said the demon butler, standing in the hall with his suit impeccably tidy and his wings neatly folded. "Am I to assume that we'll be entertaining tonight?"