The gentle hum of the motorcycle's engine and the city's typical, ambient noises were all that pierced the otherwise peaceful night. It was probably around one in the morning, Paige thought, and there were no signs of Cyprus demons in the Mission District of San Francisco, where she was assigned patrol tonight. She rode up and down the streets, her sensor quiet as ever. She even rode up to Valencia for a bit to check out the Downworlder Market that took place on one of the baseball fields, so glamoured that a mundie wouldn't have batted an eye to the seemingly empty plot of grass.
The sensor strapped on her belt lit up and buzzed wildly, indicating three demons nearby. That's strange, Paige thought, wonder why it picked up all of a sudden. Seeing no other cars and being well-glamoured, she cursed the red light and accelerated towards 16th street and Mission.
There was only the occasional homeless man and hooded figure walking around, although she knew none of them could see her. She was as quiet as the night, with the soundless rune scrawled on both her arm and her motorcycle. The BART and bus stations were well-lit, and across the street from them was a thrift store, an asian market, and a smoke shop. Her sensor indicated that the demons would be near the intersection, but the night was so peaceful and there wasn't a creature in sight.
Something in the air shifted, and the hairs on Paige's neck lifted. Her gut made her look back, at the alley between the Rite-Aid and the smoke shop next to it. There, the barbed tail of a Cyprus demon flicked out of sight. She dismounted her bike next to a streetlight, and unsheathed the dual machetes from where they were always strapped on her back. The motion of it was so natural to her, that she didn't even have to think about where the handles were any more. She'd probably unsheathed her swords, Amaterasu and Tsukiyomi, tens of thousands of times in training, probably more.
Silently running over to the alley, she peered inside to see two Cyprus demons stalking a scantily-clad lady of the night. They weren't so uncommon in San Francisco, but the two demons on her tail were. She followed them, perplexed at the odd behavior. Paige knew from her demon behavior studies that Cyprus demons didn't stalk like predators, they just attacked with blood thirst without a moment's hesitation. But here she was, chasing two Cyprus demons, who were themselves stalking a lady of the night.
She turned the corner again. Ah, make that three, she thought. The demon at the head of the group sniffed the air and ran down a corner just beyond her, the other two following suit. Damn it, I can't lose them. Paige sprinted with her beyond-human speed, swords in hand, and turned the same corner-
To an empty alleyway. There was a large metal trash bin and a fire escape, but no demons or woman in sight. Which way did they go? Paige cursed under her breath. Turning the wrong way could put the woman totally at the mercy of three strangely behaving Cyprus demons, who didn't possess the complex idea of mercy to begin with. Hearing a scuffle coming from the street to her left, she turned and ran towards it.
A shrill scream came from the opposite direction. Shit shit shit shit shit, Paige thought. She made the wrong call. She immediately ran back where she came, and went to the other street, the one that would've been on her right. Turning a corner, she found the mutilated body of the woman that the demons had been stalking earlier, with none of them in sight. She climbed up the fire escape around the corner to get a higher view of the block, hoping to find them.
There they were, next to the taquiera and running up the street. There was no time to be perplexed or slow this time, she had to get them before they took another victim.
"Hey uglies!" she yelled at them, successfully catching the attention of the slithering beasts. They hissed, and started after her. She'd battled Cyprus demons before, they got a sighting about once every few months or so, but three at the same time? Ah, but she loved a challenge.
The closest one lunged at her, and she narrowly dodged it's snapping fangs. The other two were looking for an opening to jump, she could tell by their tensed shoulders. Paige held her stance, looking for an opening. Two of them jumped at her, and she flipped upwards, slicing one of them in midair and landing gracefully on the balls of her feet behind the other two. The body of the one she slice folded in on itself and returned to the demon realm.
She lunged at the next demon, which dodger her slice and hissed at her. She was between the two of them now, as they circled her with hungry eyes. Paige shoved whatever fear she felt deep into her stomach, and focused every nerve on anticipating their next attack. It was like going up to bat for a fast pitcher, every sense was heightened and ready for an abrupt movement.
One of them held its nose to the air and sniffed, and slithered passed her, where the other demon was already turning the block.
"By the angel-" Paige said to no one, and sprinted after them.
She was familiar with this street, it was mostly apartments for university students, an auto shop, and a coffee house. A hooded figure was walking down to the bus stop on the corner, the two Cyprus demons following it.
"I'm not done with you yet, get back here!" Paige shouted at them, and they briefly acknowledged her with a glance, more interested in the hooded person that leaned against the bus sign. "Alright, that's it." she muttered, and ran towards them, swords in hand. The demons realized her approach and readied for the fight, looking annoyed if anything.
The person leaning on the bus sign turned to look in her direction, his hood falling off to reveal red headphones on his ears and a look of incredible surprise mixed with fear.
"What the fuck?" he shouted, as Paige slices and attacked the last two demons in a deadly dance. Once their corpses disappeared, she sheathed her machetes and looked up at him with a curious expression, realizing that the young man saw everything, by the look of fear aimed at her. His headphones were off now and his hands were up. "I don't have any money I swear." he said, voice quivering. "What the hell was that?"
Paige looked at him. "You can see me?" she asked.
"Yeah, you whipped out two machetes and attacked those monsters three feet away from me, that kind of thing's sorta hard to miss." he shouted, and motioned to the spot on the pavement where the demon corpses lay not more than a minute ago.
Paige crossed her arms. "Ah, you're a mundie with the sight."
His eyebrows crinkled and he tilted his head. "I'm a what with the what?"
"Don't worry your pretty little head about it. Try to forget what you saw." she said.
"Forget?" the boy said, a hint of exasperation mixed with his confusion. "What's going on here?"
"Honestly, I'm asking myself the same thing. Yeah, you have the sight, but I don't understand why the Cyprus demons were stalking you. They usually just attack outright. You should've been demon-meat a block ago." Paige thought for a beat, and nudged her head towards 16th. "Come with me, Lorenzo will want to speak with you."
"What meat?"he asked. "Did you say demon meat?" Paige was walking back to the block where she left her bike, and he caught up with her and was now walking beside her. "Where are we going? Who's Lorenzo? Who are you?"
Paige massaged the bridge of her nose. "One question at a time please." She felt a twinge of guilt after saying that. It wasn't the poor guy's fault that he'd just witnessed one of the scariest scenes of his life. Why was she so prickly all the time? Paige didn't understand herself; she felt bad when people brushed her off but she brushed others off all the time. She stopped and looked at him. "Look, I'm sorry, you must be in some sort of shock right now. I'm Paige, and I can answer some of your questions. What's your name?"
The young man looked up at the sky, a his mind obviously a billion miles away from the city smog. He looked back down and gave a strange look to Paige, a mix of desperation and fear. "I'm.. Dorian." he said, and looked at the street as if it were strange and new, something he'd never seen before.
"Are you okay?" Paige asked him, trying to be warmer than she usually was, for the mundie's sake.
"I... don't know." Dorian said. "I mean, bodily yes. Mentally shocked, but that's not even the half of it. I don't know where I am, and I'm not sure how I got here, or what I've been doing for the past year."
"What do you mean?" Paige asked.
"I mean, it's like someone reached into my brain and erased all my memory of the last year." the young man replied, brushing a hand through his brown hair that was ruffled by the hoodie. "Do you know how I can get my memories back? Do you guys have like, memory demons or something?"
Paige was dumbfounded. She followed a group of oddly behaving Cyprus demons... and ended up talking to a mundane with the sight, who just so happened to be placed in the middle of an unknown city with no recollection of the events in the past year.
"No memory demons." Paige said, studying Dorian, whose eyes held their truthfulness. "Well, occasionally a demon will ask for a memory in payment of a service, but those are usually the greater demons." She started walking again, Dorian beside her, and they turned the corner onto Mission. "What's the last memory you have? Maybe it'll give us a clue as to how to get you back to where you came from."
"I... can't remember any names or faces. It's like, the more I think about it, like I am right now, the more it disappears." They were almost at the bike now.
"That probably means the memory wipe took place not too long ago. You remembered your name, but I doubt there'll be much else left by the time we can get help. I'm sorry." They were by the Rite-Aid where she left her motorcycle, and she looked up at him. "We're going to go to the San Francisco Institute. My cousin is Lorenzo, he runs the place. You'll be safe, and we'll figure this all out, okay?"
Dorian nodded, the streetlight making his brown eyes dilate. He looked at up at the glowing sign of the Rite-Aid. "San Francisco, huh? Well, it's nice to know where I am at least."
Paige mounted her bike and smiled sympathetically. "Hop on and hold tight, Nob Hill is a bitch."