Chapter 20-Charlie's Tattoo

"You are both."

As if these words were some kind of signal, Bleathe attacked from behind the girl, kicking her in the middle of the back to send Hika flying to the ground. She rolled and was up on her feet within an instant only to receive another kick to the stomach that came from her right. Grunting the girl continued to roll until she hit a rail, jarring it loose. She pushed herself up and blindly ran away from the age. She didn't trust Bleathe not to throw her off the roof. Nor did she trust her eyes. Growling, the girl put her back a side of the stairwell, the only place that was even somewhat defensible.

"This isn't any fun Bleathe," the man on the stairwell said, "Come out of hiding. I want to see you beat this weakling up."

"As you say milord," the girl said with a laugh. Slowly Bleathe appeared before her as if water was running over her and cleaning off paint that reflected what was behind her to the person in front of her. In her hand she was playing with a deadly looking knife. Hika could feel her heart stop dead at the sight of it. It was as long as her forearm and very sharp looking. And Bleathe was just juggling it like it was nothing to worry about.

Hika frowned and pushed herself forward, recovering from the shock of the horrible thing. Maybe it wasn't real? After all, hadn't Edmund said that she could make her opponent see whatever she wanted them to see? She pulled out a dagger that she had hidden on her person and went for the woman that was watching her with a sadistic smile on her face.

Hika had been wrong.

\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\

By the time that Charlie came to find Hika, having figured she had come up here to get some fresh air as she had many times when things had gotten hard as a demon pretending to be a human, he found her bloody and bruised being kicked around by Bleathe. The demon was having fun prolonging the agony of her victim. She kicked where her knife had bitten into Hika's stomach or side. Hika's knife lay far away from her, in no way helpful to the girl-demon.

Charlie didn't even hesitate after opening the door. He lunged at Bleathe and pulled her away from Hika. Due to her having been on one foot about to kick Hika again, Charlie was able to drag the woman back without much difficult, wrestling until he had Bleathe pinned under him. "Hika? Hika are you all right?" he called as he looked over his shoulder at Hika's prone body.

Hika pulled herself slowly up to look at Charlie with a grateful smile, a cut on her cheek bleeding freely.

"Yes, I'm fine, thank you Charlie. Keep her down," Hika said as she shook herself in order to get ready to capture the woman and then go after Edmund. She crawled over and pushed down on the woman's struggling shoulders as Charlie grabbed her hands. "We'll make you talk and then we'll make sure that you die the lowest death for what you've done."

Edmund's glare was ice as he rose from his sitting position. He should have put some sort of force field up so that the woman's friends couldn't come and save her. As he watched the two start to tie Bleathe up with Charlie's necktie. He knew it was dangerous to let them take the woman alive, but it was equally as dangerous for what he planned to do for this elemental.

Before the two could notice him he drew a symbol in the air. Words in an ancient tongue left his mouth and flew through the air straight for Charlie's ears. Charlie stopped tying long enough for Bleathe to push him off despite Hika holding her down. Charlie fell back, his eyes widening as the tattoo around his body started to light up. As Hika knew from personal experience where she had fought with Charlie in training the tattoos covered his entire body in intricate layers that were almost in the shape of chains. These blazed white hot from underneath his clothes as they started to burn away.

"Hika-" he choked out. "Get-Get away!"

Hika stared at what was happening and scrambled back just in time for the first blast of heat ff of Charlie's body to fly over her head, singing only the bottoms of it. She turned to see Bleathe and Edmund facing off with Charlie. The elemental had risen from where he'd sat on the ground as his bindings became undone.

"What have you done Edmund? We can't defeat that," Bleathe whispered, taking an involuntary step back as Charlie's body temperature rose as did his power.

"No, we can't, but it'll take one of their most powerful weapons away from them," Edmund said as he also took a step back before gritting his teeth. "We have to make this seem like we didn't do it." He launched himself, bracing his body for the impact that would destroy him for the next few months. Crying out he hit Charlie. The impact with Charlie's burning up skin created such a wave of heat to radiate through the man's body that he was slammed back despite Charlie not even moving to stop him.

Charlie's eyes were slowly becoming red as the element destroyed his body from the inside. He had enough presence of mind to slam a wave of fire at the two before he collapsed onto the ground. This not only singed but burnt many parts of the two demon's bodies. Despite all this power being fed at them, none of it touched Hika who was starting to pale considerably. If he kept this up he'd die. They had to get the man bound again before it was too late. While she was thinking this, she knew already that it was too late.

Edmund smirked despite the pain. While it hadn't been his initial plan he could work with this. He helped Bleathe up and dragged her away, weakly flying through a portal that he had summoned in order to escape through.

As Edmund disappeared, Charlie's power increased. With nowhere to go it started to eat quicker through his body. It did not take long for him to collapse. Hika dashed to his side, braving the heat that was coming off him in waves to check his body with a trembling hand.

As she pulled back his shirt, she saw that there was less chain that there had been not two minutes before. Already the circle of tattoo around his neck was almost gone and the rest of them were slowly fading—no burning away from his skin, leaving burn marks on the human flesh.