"We've met," Matt said without enthusiasm.

An Ning turned to Du Lu, a question in her eyes.

"He's my cousin," Du Lu said reluctantly. "His mom and my father are siblings. We haven't seen each other since..."

"Since he was outed?" An Ning said, drinking her iced strawberry-flavored tea with a straw.

"You know about that?" Du Lu asked, surprised.

An Ning didn't answer.

"You told her?" Du Lu turned to Matt furiously. "Don't you feel any shame at all? Don't you realize what you've done to your mother? How humiliated we all were?"

"Shut up," An Ning said coldly.

"What?" Du Lu gaped at her.

"You're starting to bore me. If you want to lecture Matt about his behavior, don't do it in front of me. Not after having just witnessed your own disgusting behavior," An Ning said scornfully.

Du Lu flushed. His eyes rolled like they were rattling in his head and finally fell on Moira, who gave him a timid yet encouraging smile. He returned her smile and decided to focus all his attentions on her and completely ignored the two people behind him.

The decorated gla.s.s wall suddenly rattled with a ding when a strong gust of wind slammed against it. Surprised, they all turned to look outside and saw that it had turned really dark without them noticing it. The street looked desolate and empty as if everyone had gone home and left behind a chilling voidness in their wake.

Even Moira was surprised at how completely empty the street looked. She glanced at the clock. It's not even seven o'clock yet the darkness completely obliterated the fading light outside. The only lights left were the lights inside the shop.

An Ning and Matt glanced at each other. An Ning felt a flutter of apprehension in her stomach. She didn't like the silence, the darkness that somehow felt thick and cold. The only warmth she could feel came from the faint smoke emanating from the coffee maker that sat on the counter.

"Is it a blackout?" Moira whispered, startling them all.

Matt walked to the gla.s.s door and tried to peer outside. It was complete and utter darkness. He s.h.i.+vered, feeling gooseb.u.mps rise on the back of his neck and down his arms.

"Matt! Get down!" An Ning's voice was sharp and urgent. She ran to his side and dragged him back by the scruff of his neck in the middle of the room.

They stood in the middle of the room in a semi-circle, their eyes round with growing fear, totally transfixed, as the ghastly face of a demon suddenly appeared, peering at them with red, vicious eyes from outside the gla.s.s.

The creature had black matted hair, claws for hands and a huge ash-grey tongue that dripped thick saliva down its ma.s.sive chest. Writhing hideously behind its back was a pair of wings that spanned two meters on each side. The hideous wings beat repeatedly against the gla.s.s, tap-tapping an ominous rhythm that made their hair rise.

"My G.o.d!" Du Lu gasped. "What the f.u.c.k is that?"

"An Ning?" Matt asked.

"Hmnn?"

"Any escape plans?"

"I'm thinking about it."

"Does it involve crosses and holy water?"

"I'm thinking about it," An Ning repeated.

"Well, you better think fast before that thing eats us," Du Lu said rudely.

"Du Lu?"

"What?"

"Shut. The. f.u.c.k Up."

"An Ning?" Matt said.

"What?"

"Your stepmother was not a witch but a demon."

"Seems like it."

"What do we do?"

"Fight, of course."

The words had barely left her mouth when the demon wings stabbed at the gla.s.s until it shattered in small tiny pieces and scattered on the floor. Chuckling evilly, the creature surged inside with a frightening shriek. Its eyes rolled then refocused and unerringly found An Ning, who was standing unmoving next to the counter.

The giant wings furled and unfurled and whipped up such a wind, the force almost knocked them off their feet. An Ning stood her ground waiting as the demon lunged at her with bare fangs and long tongue slas.h.i.+ng like a whip.

Amidst the sound of screaming and shrieking, An Ning heard Sam's shocked gasp and Richard's roar.

An Ning held the fork she had been using tightly in her hand. When the creature was about several feet away, she made her move and attacked first, her empty hand catching the tongue in a strong grip at the same time savagely impaling it with the fork.

The creature uttered a horrible shriek, thras.h.i.+ng and twisting its body to get away. But An Ning continued to slash and stab, cut and wound mercilessly. In a surprise move, she pulled at the tongue and coiled it around her arm like a snake, continuously stabbing and cutting it again and again until it lay mangled and bleeding on the floor.

The creature continued to shriek and struggle, viciously slas.h.i.+ng at An Ning with its wings. An Ning evaded the attack and with a last stab reached out and grabbed the carafe cooling on the coffee maker. When the creature lunged at her again, An Ning threw its contents on the creature's head with an expert twist of her hand.

The steaming liquid caught the creature by surprise. It was slow to avoid the onrus.h.i.+ng flow, which caught it dead center between the eyes. There was a loud sizzle as the creature staggered backward, clawing at its face with an angry roar. An Ning expertly dealt the death blow by kicking the flailing creature hard on its middle. The creature teetered on its feet then fell backward with a loud rattle on the floor.

"Matt! Water, quickly!" An Ning shouted as she rushed towards the fallen creature.

An Ning clambered on top of it until she reached the head, which was thras.h.i.+ng and flailing helplessly. The bystanders gaping at her with a mixture of horror and fascination watched as she plunged both hands in the creature's eyes, pulling and plucking the eyeb.a.l.l.s ruthlessly from their sockets. Blood spurted out and drenched An Ning's front as she threw the eyeb.a.l.l.s inside the gla.s.s of water on the floor.

The eyeb.a.l.l.s dropped with a loud plop in the water, followed by a hissing sound like a machine short-circuiting.

"Matt, hurry! Check for bugs and other devices. Don't look at me like that. Do it now!" An Ning's sharp voice resounded with unmistakable command.

Matt hastily dropped to his knees and did as he was told, his hands hastily checking the creature's convulsing body as fast as he can. He was looking at the chest area, jabbing it with his fingers when he felt a small b.u.mp on the surface of the skin.

"I think I found one," he told An Ning, his fingers sc.r.a.ping the tiny rough spot.

"Take it out with a knife or something pointed then throw it in the water," An Ning said.

Richard silently took out a small knife which he handed to Matt.

Frowning in puzzlement, Matt studied the b.u.mp. It was small and red and looked like a boil except it had wires attached to it.

"How did you know it's a robot?" he asked An Ning, who was crouched on her knees on the other side of the creature. Matt threw the thing in the water and watched it sink with a hiss.

"It's not a robot. It's a drone."

"A what?" Richard's voice was incredulous.

"A drone," An Ning repeated. "Shut up and let me think. There should be a....aha!" An Ning shouted.

They watched as she flipped the body on its side and felt around the back of its head. With an angry hiss, An Ning took the knife from Matt's hand and hacked at the creature's hair. She peered down at the exposed skin and suddenly gave a whoop. She then jabbed the skin with the knife until a tiny sc.r.a.p was made. She pulled at the piece of skin repeatedly until something black and s.h.i.+ny was revealed. An Ning pulled it out and held the object to the light.

"f.u.c.king incredible. This is f.u.c.king high grade tech stuff," she said admiringly, her eyes s.h.i.+ning with delight.

"What is it?" Richard asked, crouching down beside her.

"A tracking device."

"For what?"

"Controlling the drone."

"I thought drones are controlled using remote controls or cellphones," Matt said, sounding bewildered.

"Not necessarily. They've developed a new technology where you wear a special vest that directly connects you to the drone and you control it almost virtually."

"But whoever controls it should have a range of only a few meters, right?" asked Richard.

"The average is seven kilometers. But this drone is 10 times bigger than average. I'm only a.s.suming but I think it runs mostly on electricity instead of batteries. I mean, it literally consumes electricity. Look how it knocked off an entire block and caused a blackout."

"But we didn't lose the lights here," Du Lu interjected.

"The power from this block comes from a different grid," Moira said. "I know because I remember my electrician telling me about it when we were fixing the shop."

"Whoever's controlling it planted bugs all over this creature," An Ning said. "He was probably hoping he'll scare us enough not to notice that his monster is a machine."

"But how did you know?" Sam asked. "I mean, I didn't. None of us did. But you did."

"A demon in this day and age?" An Ning scoffed. "Whoever it is trying to scare us knows a lot about illusionary tactics. Everything can be explained if you look for the ordinary in the unusual. It's basically Reality vs Myth 101."

"There's something unusual and unexplainable about this drone, however," Richard interjected, his voice very strange. He was on his knee, studying the gigantic wing with a grim look on his face.

"What is it?" An Ning said, alerted by something in his tone.

"See this piece of skin? It's not decal or platinum. It's human skin."

They all looked at him like he was spouting nonsense.

"A what again?" Sam finally found his voice and asked, bug-eyed.

"Human skin."

They were all shocked speechless. Du Lu had a strange expression on his face. Moira looked pale and frightened. Sam and Matt looked speculatively at the dead creature on their feet, a glint of something burning in their eyes. An Ning was expressionless. She merely glanced at Richard who met her gaze with a terrible anxiety in his eyes.