Rating: Some gore and horror. Notes follow the story.  This is just part one of two.  Part two will be added when it's written.  No ETA.

eavy wingbeats carried the demon across the balmy night sky.  

Below him spread the city, winking lights and crumbling stone.  Humans filled it, sleeping in their filthy beds, huddled in bunches like rats in a drain pipe.  They knew fear; they dreaded the open sky. This was as it should be, as far as the demon was concerned.  He was called Loralin, tonight was his 500th birthnight, and he would have fresh meat for a feast this fine evening.

Hunting wasn't like the old days.  Five hundred years ago the demons were just whispered rumors to the humans, and there was always some farmer late returning from the inn, a whore having little luck sleeping her way into a warm bed, or if all else failed, a drunk snoring his way towards hypothermia in some filthy alley. Easy pickings, for a judicious demon.

In fact, Loralin mused, things had been pretty easy for the first couple of centuries after he reached maturity. Occasional prophets and madmen would stir up the humans with tales of the demons of the night, but such hysterias came and went.  No demon was ever seen in daylight, no human ever survived at attack, and the winged creatures remained myth and legend.

Loralin didn't know exactly when things had changed, but in the last decade or two they most certainly had.

The humans had warred, and with weapons more terrible than ever before.  This great city, and others to the north (outside of Loralin's tribe's normal range) had been devastated by bombs from the sky.  Many of the once great buildings had fallen, others were broken and teetered dangerously in the wind, and the humans were reduced from their heights of civilization to a more base existence.

At first Loralin had thought this would be for the best.  Before the great war the human prey had improved their weaponry, and set up lights to illuminate the night.  Not to bother the demons, for their lights shown down rather than up into the sky, but there were powerful lights on the buildings, and constantly people moving about, even late at night.  The risks of being seen on a hunting expedition had never been so great.

So when the wars had come and the towers had fallen, Loralin and his clan had rejoiced.  The prey had been all too easy for some years.  Their lights without power, their homes destroyed, their men killed in combat, the remaining humans were helpless, little more than two-legged cattle.

The difficulties had come as humans began to rebuild.  Into their new philosophies had come awareness of the demons, though neither Loralin nor any of his kind could say quite how.  As the humans rebuilt and reordered, they had come to fear the sky and the winged death that sometimes hovered above their shattered city. Myths and legends were revived, and men came to accept demons as a fact, and to take steps to combat them  With the war had come weapons, and most men now carried guns.  Children were taught from their first days to beware the night skies, and the humans grouped together for safety at night.  Sentries were posted, defenses erected, and the demons became as much an enemy as the other tribes of humans.

This had been the situation for more than ten years. Though the humans had never rebuilt the largest structures in their city, they lived all around them, and had tunneled deeply into the earth, constructing huge underground warrens that no demon would dare enter.

There had been much debate in the clan about what to do.  The demons did not require human flesh to sustain them, but it was a great delicacy and a tradition.  Most of the demons were hundreds of years old, and had enjoyed the hunt and the feast for their entire lives.  They would not give it up now so easily.

Some of the demons advocated more direct measures. Projectile weapons were frowned upon, but explosives were not unknown, since they were used in combat with other demon tribes.  Why not attack the humans?  Destroy them with attacks from the air, shatter their safe houses and guard posts, kill their animals and burn their crops.  If they were starving and scattered, they would think only of their bellies, and not of the demons.

Loralin opposed this course, though he could see the appeal of it, especially to the younger and less patient demons.  After much debate he had sided with the elders, who held that time was their sharpest weapon.  Humans had grown aware of demons in ages past, but their knowledge had always faded over time.  Hunting must be curtailed, limited to the outlands of the city, to let the humans forget.  Their lives were such short, pitiful things, a few leaders and priests would die, and take the demon-lore to their graves.  Open attack would only galvanize the humans against them, and cement the fear of the night sky in their animal brains.

The waiting and living without proper meat had been difficult, but luckily the humans had brought their own doom.  Their wars had begun again a few years ago, and while they were not so terrible as in the past, many of the men left the city to do battle in distant lands, while streams of refugees poured in from the surrounding villages.

Despite this they had retained their concern of the demons, and Loralin felt that some of the younger demons had hunted too greedily at their first opportunity, and been seen. Prey should be picked with care, tracked until just the right moment.  The humans should not even know they were in danger until the killing stroke fell from above, and there should be no witnesses.  Prey that was seen being harvested, or worse yet, that escaped, spread tales.

Prey that knew it was prey was all the harder to harvest.  These humans weren't the same cowardly beasts Loralin had picked off five hundred years ago, in his own youth.  They had technology, guns and electric lights, and worse yet, devices that let them see in the night.  Not so well as the demons could see, but Loralin had learned not to approach on moonlit nights.  The bullet scars in his flanks and left shoulder still ached at times, and as he soared overhead this dark night, he remembered again.  He had not even heard the shots, but had seen several flashes of light from the upper stories of a building he'd thought long abandoned. An instant later he'd been falling helplessly, all strength gone from his wings with the shock and pain of being hit.  His surprise was as paralyzing as the pain, and he could clearly remember his amazement as he fell, his astonishment that the filthy prey had seen him, and dared to fire at him.  He'd thought of other demons that had vanished recently, and wondered if this had been their fate.

He had dropped like a stone, and as he fell, he sensed dozens more shots zipping past him, behind him.  Only his sudden drop had thrown off their aim, and the fact that prey had ambushed and nearly killed him stilled his wings another few seconds as he dropped towards the city.

In all he had fallen over one thousand feet, dropping from his gliding height just above the tallest buildings in the city.  He was close enough to the ground to make out individual stones before his wings were again his to command, and he was able to extend them and change his freefall to a diving glide.

It hurt too much to flap then, but he was able to level off and soar through the city, sailing silently between the ancient stone and metal structures.  He had seen humans in them, peering out through bolt holes, guns in their hands.  None had seen him, none had worn night vision goggles, or he might well have been finished off in his already-weakened state.  The moon was new, and it shed silvery light up high, but down amidst the towers there were shadows and the ever-present low city miasma.  Even as the darkness kept him from being fired upon, Loralin hated it, hated his weakness.

He had landed in the broken steeple of an ancient cathedral on the western edge of the city, unhallowed ground that he knew no humans would dare enter. There he had rested and tended to his wounds, before flying back across the city and returning to his nest in the mountains just before dawn.

That was three years ago, and since then several other demons had returned with bullet wounds, and many more had vanished entirely. The official word was that they had died in battle or ambush to the Alibasha, rival demons from three mountain ranges to the East.  That was a noble death, and fed the demon clan's hatred for their blood enemies.  Loralin thought it more likely that the missing had fallen to ambush in the city, out hunting carelessly.  The young were forever eager to prove their mettle, and often paid for it.

And as he had found out first hand, it was all too easy to be careless these days.

Loralin cleared his mind as he flapped along, pushing the memories away.  He had learned from his mistakes, and the failures of others.  He would hunt and he would hunt well.  Humans were more careful these days, most of them hid at night, and there were always men with their rifles in look out spots, but they couldn't see everything.  This night was black, heavy clouds blocked out the moon and star light, and the city fog was thick.  He would not be seen.

To the north of the city sprawled vast refugee camps.  The humans were warring to the far north, and hordes of women and children with some wounded men had come straggling through the dangerous mountain passes, fleeing the bloodshed that had engulfed their homelands.  Men were happiest when they had an excuse to kill one another, Loralin had often noticed.

The refugee camps were easy hunting zones, with people lying in tents or under wagons, or just on the open ground.  The problem there was the sheer number of humans, many of them still awake even this late. Misery made for restless nights.  Loralin could see hundreds of camp fires flickering, and people walking around, or peering up into the night.  The fog was much lighter there also, while to the other side of the city, near the old river, the docks were entirely buried in the reeking miasma and building were hidden to the tenth story.

Loralin could certainly swoop down and pick off someone from the refugees, hopefully a plump child or woman, but the chances of him being able to fly away without being seen were very poor.  Also most of the refugees had weapons, even if they were just hand guns, and humans firing, even if they were shooting randomly in a panic, was dangerous. Moreover, dive bombing the huddled squatters was just the sort of reckless raid he had criticized the younger demons for, the type that spread belief and panic among the prey, and made future harvests less productive.

Besides, he had his pride.  What sport was there in snatching up some road-weary exile?  Malnourished, worn down, the meat would be low quality at best. Leave such pickings to the young demons, like that fool Samalo.

Loralin circled and slowly descended as he glided back over the city, peering down into the murky fog.  He could see through it in a way the humans could not, and in the ruins of a small building he saw a likely target.  One human, probably a female.  She was moving slowly, picking her way through the sagging lower floors of a bombed out structure, and appeared to be alone.

Loralin couldn't imagine what she was doing there, at this time of the night, but from her aura he could see that she was young and reasonably-healthy.  He enjoyed his meat firm and in its prime, when possible.  A thought of Samalo entered his head again as he banked and turned over the crumbled building, circling and waiting to see if the woman would exit it or stop moving.  Some of the younger demons had most unnatural desires, and it was rumored that they even engaged in carnal acts with the humans.  Loralin couldn't imagine that.  He would eat the prey, raw sometimes, but to have sex with one?  There were legends of half breed demon/humans, but any sort of contact with the humans was forbidden.  To be seen was bad enough, to speak with one was cause for exile, but it was no thought of punishment that kept Loralin from them.  They were barely better than animals, savage creatures, filthy vermin.  Humans were meat. Mating with one would be no better than rutting with a wild boar.

His revulsion aside, Loralin thought some demons had done such things.  Kvarall, an old friend of his, had told of a babbling woman he had snatched some years ago.  She'd awakened on the flight back from the city, and begun howling and trying to tear loose from the carrying sling, obviously preferring to fall thousands of feet rather than be taken back to her demon abductor's lair.  From her ravings, Kvarall had gathered that her greatest fear was being impregnated and returned to the city, doomed to die during the resulting halfbreed birth.  From her words it had sounded like this was not an uncommon fate, and Kvarall had been so sickened that he'd crushed her skull right then, and yanked her from his carry sling, sending her body plummeting down into the forest.

Loralin had mulled this tale, and from it had come to the conclusion that some young demon or demons were indeed stealing human females to rape, then leaving them alive to bear the halfbreed young. Loralin suspected Samalo most of all, but he dared not voice his suspicions without some sort of proof.  The High Elders were deeply conservative, obsessed with military planning for wars with the Alibasha, and saw humans as nothing but distractions, albeit tasty ones.  One mentioned humans to them, in any way other than as part of the menu for a great feast, very cautiously.  Loralin could imagine the sort of reception his tale of human breeding would meet with.  Why he might well be seen with suspicion for bringing it up, for who would speak of such blasphemy but the blasphemer himself?

Again pulling his thoughts back to the present, Loralin peered all around, as he kept the woman below him in the corner of his eye. She had stopped moving, and was now sitting or squatting in the corner of a room near the outside of the building.  Loralin could see her aura glowing through the fractured cement roof, and it told him she was cold, shivering with just a ragged dress to wear.  A poor woman obviously, but why hiding alone? Perhaps her husband had died in the war and she was bereft, or had run away from a brothel. Speculation aside, her history and the temperature were of no real concern to Loralin. No demon was ever cold, but he supposed it was cold out for a human.  There had been heavy frost on the grass the last few weeks in the dawn light.

Making one more circle, Loralin scanned the surrounding buildings.  Men and women were inside of them, but none seemed to be on alert, at this late hour.  He drew his metal gauntlets on tight, wondering at his luck in finding a prime target all alone, in such a conveniently-isolated building.  This was almost too perfect.

Loralin swooped down, studying the walls.  The one to the left of the woman was the outer wall of the building, and cracked though it was, there were still metal bars and concrete there.  To her rear the wall was much the same, but much more badly damaged, and there looked to be several feet of space between the top of the wall and the sagging roof.

For this narrow opening Loralin aimed, and through it he slipped, slowing, but still moving far faster than a human could run.  Inside he banked hard, grabbing a support column with one massive hand, and dropped to the ground before the woman with a crunch.  The ground was rough with mounds of fractured cement, and he slid a foot as his massive clawed feet sunk into the rubble.

The woman couldn't see him in the darkness, but she gasped and lurched to her feet.  This made it even easier, and Loralin slapped her across the jaw, just hard enough to knock her unconscious.  He could have punched her through the wall, or used the blades on the back of his knuckles to decapitate her, but meat was best when kept fresh.  His plan was to fly her back to his nest, still alive, and only kill her as part of the butchering.  Some demons delighted in the slow dissection of a squirming human, but Loralin had never found such pleasure in the agony of the wretched creatures.

Gathering the crumpled woman in his arms, Loralin ran his hands over her experimentally.  She felt like prime stock, for this day and age.  Long lean legs, firm arms and buttocks, smooth skin.  She had some sort of heavy belt with metal objects in it tied tightly around her waist, under her thick dress, likely to carry something she hoped to keep secret.  Not bothering to rip it from her, Loralin picked her up and threw he over one shoulder, carrying her as he tromped through the low, crooked doorways.  He could have leaped back through the opening he had entered, but it would have been awkward with the woman's body, and he didn't want to bruise her.  It would be easier to walk outside to a clear area with a drop, lash her into his chest strap, and leap off.  He no longer a yearling, eager to fly fifty miles with squirming meat held in his arms. He could have if need required, but it would be tiring, especially since he'd taken those bullets three years ago.  The scars still pained him, especially in his left shoulder if he carried something heavy for long.

Ahead of him was a doorway to the outside, and Loralin thought it was at least twenty feet in the air, which should give him enough height to easily take wing.

As he walked towards it, he looked out a window to his right, and stopped in shock.  There were dozens of humans running towards the building he was in, most of them men, almost all with guns.  Their auras were bright red with rage, and Loralin knew at once this was a trap.  He would not leave them their bait though.

Gripping the woman to his chest, he sprinted towards the opening, and hurled himself through it, wings spreading as soon as he was clear.  To his right he heard shouts, and as he flapped, gunfire erupted.  Bright streaks of light whizzed past him, missing by a dozen yards at first.  But the light showed him to the humans, and their aim improved quickly.  A bullet singed his left wing on the next down sweep, and he gave up on trying to climb to the safety of height, and instead dove again, as he had three years ago, when last he'd been shot.

His gambit worked and he streaked low, no more than a dozen feet above the ground, turning sharply as he passed a pile of wreckage, putting it between himself and his pursuers. He was not safe yet though, for another group were on his left, two searchlights seeking him in the night. Bullets and tracer rounds whizzed past, and Loralin pushed himself harder, pumping his wings and dropping even closer to the ground. He flashed past three men on the ground without being seen, but they felt the air as he passed and turned, firing wildly.  Ahead of him a crumbling building leaned dangerously to one side, the lower floors open to the wind from some long ago explosion. Loralin and he zoomed right through it, hearing bullets hitting the structure as he shot into the structure, passing inches from the exposed steel beams as he flapped to maintain altitude.

Five seconds later he was clear of that building and the trap area, and gaining altitude as he winged towards the city center and a safe building.  One skyscraper had long ago toppled and fallen across a boulevard into another one, cutting right through the base of the other building.  That one had not fallen, but the interior of the structure had been utterly destroyed for the first thirty floors by the impact and subsequent fire.  As a result the building now stood, seventy stories tall, with nothing but twisted support beams for the first five hundred feet.  No human had ever dared climb into the creaking, tilting skyscraper, and Loralin hardly dared to move away from the open walls when he was inside it, so worried was he that the inevitable collapse might occur with him inside.

It was a safe place for him now though, and he soared up several hundred feet until he reached the penthouse level.  Inside had been a luxurious apartment before time and the open walls and roof had let in the elements to ruin it.  The bed was musty, but still comfortable enough, and Loralin dropped the unconscious woman on the floor as he sat down heavily on the sagging mattress.

His wing was stinging badly, and as he wrapped it around to see the damage, it was clear why.  He had been singed by one of the tracer rounds, and the sparking metal had scorched him badly.  There was a ragged hole in his webbing, and ichor was welling out of a missing chunk of wing bone.

He always flew with a fully-stocked pack, and pulling it from his lower back Loralin removed some strips of soft leather, a jar of ointment, and a small torch.  He snapped a match to light with a thick fingernail and lit the torch, then stuck it into a hole in the wall that he'd used for the same purpose in the past. The light helped him to see for the repair work, and he winced at the damage.  He had too big a hole to stitch it here; he'd need some sort of a graft, and would probably not be flying for a few weeks.

The leather strips and salve stopped the bleeding for now, at least.  Loralin tied his pack and turned his attention to the woman.  She hadn't stirred yet, but he hadn't hit her that hard.  Loralin was going to have some answers from her about that ambush.  She had clearly been there to draw in a demon, and the men around the area had somehow known he was there, judging by how quickly they had come running.  Loralin hated to think of it, but if the men had been quicker and had established a better perimeter with more lights, they would almost certainly have shot him down.

He had to know who was organizing this, how the humans had gotten so smart, and how this woman had been picked for the bait.  Was she some sort of outcast or pariah?  Diseased?  Hers had clearly been a suicide mission.

When a moment of light slapping didn't awaken the woman, Loralin spit into her face, and rubbed his saliva around.  Demon saliva was acidic, not enough to burn, but it stung the tender human flesh badly.  The pain and moisture brought the woman around quickly, and she shrieked and slapped at her face.

A second later she saw the demon leaning over her, and screamed again, much louder.  She would have run, probably right out the side of the building, if Loralin had not clamped one hand around her arm.  He'd put his gauntlets back in his pack, knowing he wouldn't need them to deal with her, but just his hand, with the thick talons, was harder and more armored than most human weaponry.  The woman batted at his hand for an instant, then started trying to hitch up her dress while frantically sobbing.  Loralin didn't know what she was doing, but he shook her a little and snatched her hands away from the hem of her skirt.

Quick as a striking serpent, she changed tactics and tried to claw at his eyes.  Loralin had expected this and easily held her arms down.

"Stop fighting human, or I will gut you here and now."

For a wonder, she did, and changing tactics again, she spoke in a furious hiss.

"What now monster, will you defile me?  Fuck me to a ragged pulp?  Come on then you filth, get it over with!" Her voice was hatred.

Loralin started to reply, then stopped.  He was loathe to tell a human anything of Demonkind.  Not only was keeping themselves a mystery common sense, but it was the law. Humans weren't even supposed to know the demons existed, much less any factual information about their mores. However since this woman would be dead very shortly, and since getting her to talk was easier and the information more reliable than what he could extract with torture, it seemed like it was worth the risk.

"I assure you, sexual congress with your sickening little human form is not anything I would ever contemplate, woman."

The woman looked shocked for an instant, before the mask of hate concealed her features again. As she opened her mouth, Loralin cut her off.

"You will tell me about the trap you set for me back there.  Who arranged it, who thought of it, and why you were the bait.  You will tell me or I will skin you alive with my bare hands.  Speak to me of anything else and I will make you beg for death."

"The Prophet and his Fist set the trap.  As they have set others in the past, and as they will set more in the future.   We have claimed a dozen of your demon spawn kin, and we will kill you all.  Your Halfwings will bring about your ruination."

Loralin was put off his mental feet by this outburst.  "Halfwings?" he said, under his breath. The woman, thinking he was addressing her, answered.

"Your demon spawn, the leavings from your rape.  You demons thought to plant them in our midst, but the Prophet saw through."

Loralin understood, and was horrified. His voice breaking, he replied, knowing he was breaking custom to speak, but unable to help himself.

"Half breeds are an abomination.  They must be killed immediately.  It violates all Demonkind laws and customs to even hold discourse with a human.  And to rape a human woman, and leave her pregnant? I would sooner fuck a dog.  We will discover which demons have done this, and they will pay with their wings, and their lives."

The woman was surprised yet again, her eyes wide. "You speak truth, I think.  One of your kind we captured said much the same, as we broke him.  He died speaking much the same.  As will you."

With this she torn free from Loralin's grasp, and backed across the room.  He laughed at her.  "What, will you fly away, little bird?  You can not escape from this place."

She scowled at him, patted her waist, then turned and ran for the open wall.  Loralin watched her take three steps, thinking she was bluffing.  He was still expecting her to stop when she reached the opening and threw herself through, screaming as she fell from sight.

Loralin was on his feet and after her in a blink.  He hurled himself through the wall and tucked his wings in, diving straight down. The woman was 50 feet ahead of him, flailing her arms and legs as she fell.  The wind had pushed her dress up to her waist and was far from aerodynamic, and as he beat his wings Loralin gained quickly.

They were less than halfway to the ground when he seized her from behind, taking hold of the back of her neck with one claw and her left thigh with the other.  Holding her firmly, he pulled slowly out of his dive, still flying very near the skyscraper he'd so recently been sitting near the top of.

"Ha, thought you could escape me so easily, little bird?  For this I will boil you alive." Loralin was still fully intending to pick his teeth with her bones, but only after she told the Elders what she'd told him.  Her news must be made known to the clan.

"No!" she screamed.  Loralin chuckled at her terror, but only for an instant.

"I did not think to escape you, demon.  I was afraid that you might escape me."  As she spoke she dropped her hands to her waist, and ripped at her belt.  Loralin smelled the burning gunpowder and in an instant knew her plan.  He tried to hurl her away, but she clung to his arm, screaming with laughter.  He drove his fist into her face, smashing her nose and teeth, but still she clung.  He snapped her wrists and was at last free of her, but as she fell back towards the building, and he turned away, the bomb she'd been wearing detonated.

Loralin felt the shockwave first, like a strong wind. A very strong wind, hot and black.  It hurled him upside down, the shockwave smashing into him and sending him tumbling out of control.  His left wing was snapped and the blood howled in his head as he fell, spinning.  Agony, shock, his thoughts were a blur and his head throbbed.  Loralin knew that being too near an explosion was deadly, that invisible waves of force could kill with internal damage.  Explosives lessons from his youth ran through his dazed mind as he fell and fell.

His right wing was not broken though, and with it he was able to steady and then slow his descent.  He could not fly with just one wing though, and it was all he could do to aim for a lower building across the boulevard.  The roof was gravel and mostly intact, and he crashed into it, his taloned feet digging deep grooves in the gravel before his speed proved too great and he flipped head over heels.  His left wing would not tuck, and he landed hard on it, screaming in agony as he slid on the broken limb.

It was ten seconds before Loralin could get to his knees, and then he could do no more than groan.  Blood bubbled past his lips from some internal injury, and he forced back tears at the sight of his mangled left wing.  He might never fly again.  Forcing his thoughts away from his injury, Loralin looked around, wondering if he could escape this place yet. He was atop a tall building, perhaps 100 feet above the street, though next to the leaning skyscraper it was but a toad stool.

Humans were to be seen in the street below, and Loralin knew they were coming for him.  They had followed the woman, and the explosion had attracted them.  Could they get into the building he was on top of?  Could they find a way up to the roof?  He thought they probably could.

How had it come to this?  Why hadn't he ripped the woman's belt away?  He knew the humans had explosives, he'd seen them blowing up old buildings, and of course they used them in war, though they no longer had anything like the massive bombs that had destroyed this city a decade ago.

There were voices below him, and Loralin knew they were approaching.  Were there men in other buildings above him?  Spotting him now, with their night vision?  He could not run.  Even injured as he was, no single man could defeat him hand to hand, but he knew there would be more than one, and they would have guns.  He would not fall into their grasp, to be their plaything.

His pack had survived his fall and crash landing, and from it he pulled a fine-bladed skinning knife.  The tool was over a foot long, the grip older than any building in the city that surrounded him, and notched with dozens of small slashes.  Loralin remembered marking it for ever tenth successful hunt, a practice he'd abandoned as immature centuries ago. He could not say how many times he'd used the knife since then, but it had certainly drunk deeply of human blood, and had even skinned a few of the enemy Alibasha clan.  Cannibalism was not permitted among Demonkind, but taking a skin, or at least an ear for a trophy was expected.

As Loralin contemplated the blade, willing his hand to be steady and strong enough to deliver a fatal slash to his throat, a massive grinding noise claimed his attention.  He painfully turned to look over his shoulder, and smiled at the site, even as he heard humans running up the stairs, nearing the roof of the building upon which he knelt.

The skyscraper across the street, so long teetering on its shattered legs, was at last falling, the force of the woman's explosive belt having delivered the finishing blow.  Loralin knew the main blast had been towards the building, or he would have been blown to a pulp in mid air, but he hadn't thought of what effect it might have had on the already-damaged skyscraper.  Grunting in pain, he turned to watch it fall, looking up at the looming mass as it blocked out the faint light from the new moon.  To a human the sky would have looked black, but Loralin could see the silvered clouds high above, and the black bulk of the skyscraper as it leaned over him, and began to drop.

As a million tons of steel crushed the much-taller building to his left and toppled towards him, Loralin smiled and gripped his skinning blade tighter.  He was still smiling as fifty stories of falling skyscraper obliterated everything within half a block of his final resting place.

End of part one.

Part two should be about half the length of part one.  They were going to be about even in size, but I added in (just now) about 10 paragraphs of background info/exposition between the opening of Loralin flying/hunting, and the ambush. His flashback to being shot was always planned, but I thought more explanation of the world was needed.  I'll see how I feel about that when I reread/write it at some point in the future.

Part Two stars Samalo, the young(er) demon, as we see that perhaps Loralin wasn't entirely wrong in suspecting him of careless human interaction.  Though exactly what he's doing isn't anything Loralin would have ever imagined....

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