Markl yelled, tumbling backwards. Tora threw a forcefield around him as soon as she came within ten metres. The unharmed demons that had swarmed around their burned comrades bounced off, snarling. They rammed against her shield, to no avail. Behind her, Markl panted, clutching his bloodied shoulder, his blood pumping out incessantly.

"That was careless of you, Markl," Tora said, sizing the creatures up.

Four demons. All long-clawed and -tailed, shaped like domesticated cats, but larger and more gross. The muscles bulged under their hairless, grey skin. The one with the burned face that had taken Markl's arm off already lay dead on the ground in a steaming mess.

Markl chuckled without mirth. Blood continued to splash onto the floor. His face was white, contrasting sharply with his dark hair.

"You should have seen how many there were when Damien closed the rip."

"Now's not the time for idle chit chat," snapped Ross, glaring at Tora.

Tora made a face at Ross, who by then had darted around Tora's forcefield with three Ross copies. The demons screeched at her, sounding like anything but the cats they physically resembled. Damien felled one of them. It screamed, writhing on the floor like a worm, thrashing its forked tail.

Tora tapped her feet, sighing, as Ross and Carlos – the latter still invisible – moved in. During the punching and shouting, she glanced down at Markl, who still breathed heavily. He must have sensed her impatience, because on the tenth glance, he looked up with a weak smile.

"Go and join them if you want to so badly."

His arm was a stump, ending just below the elbow. Even as she watched, Tora could see the tendrils swirling where the blood vessels and muscles were regenerating. The skin that had burned off during Markl's fight would soon be as good as new.

With a grin, Tora sprinted forward. Most of the demons were dead. The other three were tidying up the last ones. Corpses smoked on the floor. The early ones had already disappeared without a trace.

With a shout, Carlos punched a demon that was the size and shape of a hippo, but with bat-like ears and razor-sharp teeth. His knuckles left a two-inch deep indentation in its flank and he grunted as his bones cracked. Ross broke the neck of the creature she mounted and threw it, without warning, at the hippo. Tora managed to give the hippo a kick in the face – the impact sent a shuddering impulse up to her hip – before Ross's demon slammed into it. Carlos stumbled back, shock flitting across his freckled face and narrowly avoiding being flattened by a two-hundred-kilogram monster.

"Hey!" he protested. "I'm still here!"

Ross ignored him. Three copies of her pummelled the remaining demon, distracting it from the real one advancing closer.

Tora jumped in, too fast for the stunned hippo to see. Sweat stung Tora's eyes. The hippo stood on precarious legs and stumbled when she rammed into it. Her shoulder dislocated, sending a spasm of pain shooting from the joint into her neck and down the side of her chest.

"Hey!"

Popping it into place without effort, Tora rammed a knee into its chest. The demon's eyes bulged. It opened its mouth, a pathetic last-minute attempt to bite her, but it was too slow. Slipping by the gaping orifice, she lifted her leg and slammed her heel on its head. Her ankle cracked. The hippo's head split like a dropped tomato. Blood ran like fountains across the floor, staining Tora's converses.

"Hello?"

Tora gave Carlos a look, sweeping her sticky fringe off her face. There was a forlorn expression on his freckled face. Coupled with the pouting lips, it was all Tora could do not to punch him in the shoulder.

"I could have been seriously injured!" he said. Tora snickered and turned. Markl was back to normal, with intact limbs and the only evidence of his injuries were the blood staining the front of his shirt. The last batch of demons smouldered around him, making Tora's nose wrinkle. "I'm serious! I'm not Markl!"

"No one cares, Carlos," said Ross, marching by. She tightened her hair band around the bits of escaped loose red hair and gave the now-empty warehouse a sweep with sharp green eyes. Her usual severe expression clashed with her pixie-like features. "The area is clear. Damien?"

"I've located and sealed the rip. There isn't any remaining within the detectable perimeter," he said. Contrast to the rest of the Seekers, little blonde Damien remained clean and unscathed.

"Good." Ross's piercing gaze locked on the dead, smoking hippo. The exhaustion was indiscernible in her steely tone. "Tora?"

Tora let the soundproof barrier down, feeling a load off her mind. "Done."

"Good. Let's go home."

****

Tora's joints ached. All she could think about was filling her poor stomach, having a hot shower, and then going to train. Her mind was in blissful exhilaration after the intense workout, particularly after all her cuts, dislocations, and fractures had healed.

When they returned to the shared house, however, it was obvious she wasn't going to get what she wanted.

"Main room. Everyone. Now."

Carlos froze, one foot on the stairs leading up to the bedrooms in his tentative escape. His mouth was downturned, a whine at the ready. Tora sighed.

Ross gave them both a withering look. Despite her tiny stature, her eyes could have frozen volcanoes.

"I don't want any whining. Don't roll your eyes at me, Tora," she added. Tora stopped herself in time. "We need a debrief. Change out of your dirty clothes if you must. We start in three minutes."

Neither of them bothered to change; the blood was dried, anyway. Bits of it made Tora's t-shirt stick to her skin and her armpits were still damp, but Tora flopped onto the sofa on the near side of the large main room, dangling her shoes over the edge. Carlos landed with equal resignation on the adjacent sofa, face-first with a groan.

Damien perched on the single seat, waiting for Markl to finish his quiet conversation with Ross before joining the others.

"Right." Ross's voice betrayed none of her tiredness, although there were dark circles under her eyes. "It was a good fight today. The demons were tougher than usual, but that was flagged up on Damien's radar."

She waved a hand at the complicated-looking machine that nobody but Damien and Markl dared touch. The six large monitors bleeped and displayed confusing diagrams. One of them was frozen on the map that pinpointed the last attack: the abandoned warehouse. The red circle still flashed.

"I think our new formation works as planned. Markl and Damien detect and seal the rips, stopping any more demons from coming into our domain. Tora and I keep the lot entertained. Carlos rounds up any stragglers. Do we agree?"

Her question was met with silence; Markl and Damien gave dutiful nods.

"I really think Carlos should start learning how to spread his invisibility to the rest of the team. Having a more discreet way of entering and exiting breakthrough spots will be excellent."

"You mean more training." Carlos sounded dismayed.

"It will benefit the team. It's not like you've actually worked on your invisibility these past few months."

Ross's cutting remark made him flush. Tora bit her lip, fighting back a snigger. Carlos had spent so much time working on his strength and durability with her recently that his ability had taken a backseat. She caught Ross's eye. Big mistake.

"You too, Tora. I noticed you didn't even bother using telekinesis during the fight. I couldn't care less if you want to break your bones and bleed all over your clothes, as long as you wash them off yourself—" Her disapproving look flicked over Tora's unkempt appearance. "—but if the demons get out of control because you were too lazy to fight properly, you can compromise the team. Or worse, expose us."

Tora scowled, lifting her head. "Telekinetic fighting is boring."

"I'm not asking for your opinion. You need to fight properly or it'll come back and bite you one day."

"I manage fine without it. I took down all those demons today, didn't I?"

Ross's face could have caused another ice age, staring at her with frosty eyes across the coffee table.

"If you're going to remain a Seeker, I suggest using your brain and taking the welfare of your team and the team's goals into account, rather than rampaging like a buffoon on a whim."

Tora's hands curled into fists. She untangled her legs on the edge of the sofa. A sarcastic remark was on the tip of her tongue.

You know she's got a point, came Damien's voice. She glanced at him from across the open room. He had an anxious look on his face and he sat with his fingers scrunching the knees of his jeans.

She needn't be such a cow about it.

There's no point in arguing with Ross, you know that. She's not the lieutenant for nothing.

Only 'cos Markl elected her. She just likes to boss us around. Although Tora knew it wasn't true, it made her feel better. Damien didn't say any more. Ross took Tora's silence as acceptance and turned to Damien, giving him further feedback.

Boredom washed over Tora in waves. Ross's voice droned on and on, finally moving onto Markl, who remained silent as usual after every attack. He was probably running over every scene again through his head. It was hard to read his thoughts behind those serious, dark eyes.

Tora just wanted to go train. It made the fighting mind-numbingly dull to know Ross would break it down frame by frame every single time – and that was not including the training sessions she organised and supervised.

All Tora wanted was to sink her fist into some guts.

"I wonder if Ross ever actually heard the crap she spews," Tora said to Carlos two hours later. Dismissed, showered, and fed, the two migrated to the gym in the cellar. Bathed in the white light and surrounded by punch bags and monkey bars, Tora was calmer. Ross had disappeared after her long analysis, no doubt to create more battle plans and training schedules.

Tora swung from one bar to the next, using just two fingers to hold her weight each time.

"Probably not. I barely hear it," Carlos said, grinning. He slung the weights in his hand into the air and caught them with the other hand. "Sometimes I think the Ross-language is only understandable by her and her alone."

"I'm sure it makes sense to Damien. Nobody has IQ like him. Don't you ever wonder why he actually hangs around with you?" Tora swung her legs up in front of her and hooked her knees onto the bars, dangling upside-down. To her far right, Carlos had grabbed one of the bigger weights Markl usually use and heaved them up and down. "I mean, he's a brainbox. And yours is non-existent."

"Hey!"

"He's probably lost a fair few brain cells just from being around you these years. And he's still dead brainy."

"Hey!"

Tora stuck her tongue out, laughing at him. Carlos looked indignant.

"I swear Ross has it in for me, though. Do you remember last time what she said? 'We're here to protect humans, Tora, not to bathe in blood like pigs in mud,'" Tora mocked, in a high-pitched voice. "And there was the time when she said, 'It's abnormal for you to enjoy death and gore so much. You need to take your role more seriously.' I mean, she hates on me because I like what we do? We have to do it anyway – what's wrong with having a good time as well?"

"She nearly killed me today. With that big hippo thing."

"You were in the way." Tora rolled her eyes at the memory. "And you're fine. She has unreasonably high expectations of me, though."

"She does of me as well, you know! The way she kicked that thing at me – Markl would have been fine, but I'm pretty sure I'd have broken a few ribs and fractured my spleen!"

She stifled a snigger.

"I'm pretty sure you can't fracture spleens, Carlos."

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