The Blade Mage

by Phillip Drayer Duncan

  It was here, in this center study area, that we spotted our foes. Not only were the Obayifo, Director Allen, and some of the guards present, but Faith was bound and on the ground by their feet. Additionally, the weird-faced man in the pinstripe suit was there as well.

  “The Cabal will know of this incident,” the man said. His voice was calm, but I got the impression he was a bit peeved. “You’ve compromised the integrity of this…alliance.”

  “You worry too much,” the old woman said, glaring at him. “Once my spell is complete, I’ll return to my full strength again. There are few in the Cabal, if any, who could oppose me even now.”

  The man chuckled, shaking his head. Ignoring the witch, he turned his focus on Director Allen. “This is why I avoid dealing with hedge witches and grumpy old warlocks whenever possible. Living alone in exile makes them temperamental and arrogant. They often fail to see the bigger picture.”

  “And what picture is that?” the Obayifo asked, scowling at him.

  He turned toward her again. The smile on his lips disturbed me, though I couldn’t say why. There was just something about him that made me uneasy.

  “Even if you could destroy everyone in the Cabal, do you think that would be the end of it? You don’t think the Chantry would climb down from their snowy mountains? Or that the Circle would come up from the swamps? Or perhaps your fellow witches in the old colonies?”

  “Don’t seek to lump them in with me,” she replied, a disgusted look on her face. “We are nothing alike.”

  “Yes, well, the point is…there’s a war raging on this estate. A war that will bring the attention of the Cabal, and that is not something you or your ‘allies’ are ready for. Speaking of which, how many of your ‘guests’ lay dead or injured? Do you think the others will be pleased?”

  “It is of little concern to me,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest. “If they don’t like the way I do business, they can find a new partner.”

  “You think you’re particularly important in all of this?” he asked, his voice dripping with humor. “Such arrogance, and yet, even at this moment your enemies live. They are approaching.” He paused to nod toward where we hid on the balcony above. “This new Blade Mage has a bit of his father in him after all, don’t you think?”

  The Obayifo scowled and glanced in our direction as well. I felt like we were hidden, but somehow the man had sensed us. So much for the element of surprise.

  “Once I begin my spell, it cannot be broken,” the witch said. “My safety is guaranteed. I can’t promise the same for yours.”

  “I assure you that you need not concern yourself with that,” he said. “It is you, and those you seek to ally with, I’d worry about. I’ll have no part in it.”

  He turned as if to leave, but the Obayifo said, “You think the others will let you walk away?”

  He glanced back over his shoulder. “Do you think they’ll let you live after the mistake you’ve made here today? Think they’re a forgiving bunch?”

  Her scowl hardened. “And yet you’ll risk their wrath?”

  “I’ll invoke it,” he said, still grinning. “Welcome it, even. Unlike you, I have little to fear from your masters, you dear little pet Obayifo. You may have a bit of power, darling, but I court the shadows.”

  “We’ll see,” she said, snarling.

  “Good luck with your enemies,” he replied, chuckling again as he disappeared among the shelves. His voice echoed back, “Survive the Blade Mage and you may get to count me among your enemies, for we will certainly never be allies.”

  Director Allen and his goons raised their weapons and tried to spot us in our hiding place above them.

  I was just about to ask the others if they had anything resembling a plan when the Abasy appeared on the other end of the balcony. As always, he was beaming like an asshole.

  A moment later, the manananggal took to the air as well, her severed torso dripping blood on the book cases as she soared around the room.

  “Here we go,” I said, glancing at the others. “Demons first?”

  “You think we have a choice?” Stone asked as the Abasy drew closer.

  “You have any 40mms left?”

  ***

  Below us, the Obayifo barked orders at her underlings as she prepared to perform her spell. Above us, the manananggal circled like a hawk, waiting for the right moment to strike. I gave the Abasy my full attention.

  With my sword out in front of me, I walked toward him. “I was wondering when you’d show up.”

  It offered me a razor smile. “You won’t slip away this time, Blade Mage.”

  “No, I won’t,” I agreed. “Let’s finish this. You and me. No more bullshit. Only one of us walks away.”

  “I wonder which of us it will be,” the demon said, chortling like an asshole. “You’ve been a worthy foe. I’ll enjoy sucking the marrow from your bones.”

  I raised an eyebrow at the creature. “In the future, you may want to try different phrasing. That didn’t sound quite right.”

  “What?” the demon asked, confused. “My meaning…”

  “I know what you meant. It just didn’t sound right,” I said. “If you really want to scare people, you can’t say things they’ll misconstrue. It makes you seem more like a B-list Muppet than a scary demon.”

  “It is of little consequence, human,” the demon said, taking a few more steps toward me. “As you’ve said, let’s finish this, you and I.”

  “Actually,” I said, pausing. “About that…”

  I dropped to the floor a moment before I heard the metallic thump of the grenade launcher. The round shot right over my head, hit the Abasy in the chest, and exploded in a fiery ball. The demon was buried in flame and thick black smoke.

  I didn’t know if Stone’s grenade would actually kill the bastard, but I wasn’t taking any chances. I rose to my feet and charged.

  My plan was to catch it off guard while it was busy burning alive, but as I closed in, its gray hand shot out and knocked me from my feet.

  I landed on my ass yet again. Pain tore through my sore tail bone.

  The Abasy, still smoking, stepped toward me. In our previous encounters, the beast had always maintained a rather happy, psychotic, bestial type of smile. Now it wasn’t smiling. He actually looked pissed. Something of a moral victory, I supposed.

  He pounced.

  I rolled and tried to fire a force spell where its feet would land. My aim was poor but my fortune was great. Instead of its feet, I hit an expensive rug and sent it sliding just as the giant monster came down on it.

  Eyes wide, the demon bore the very human expression of someone who’s sliding on ice. Its feet came out from underneath it and the Abasy tumbled backward. He might’ve caught himself if he had hit the balcony railing, but instead he fell back into the open air of the staircase and tumbled downward end over end.

  “Wyatt!” Stone yelled.

  I turned back and saw Stone trading gunfire with the goons below while Axel hurled his little blue bolts of lightning at the manananggal. I hurried toward them.

  Axel must’ve had enough of the flying half-a-vampire-monster and had decided on a drastic course of action. By ‘drastic’ I of course meant ‘stupid.’

  He ran at the balcony railing, jumped over, and hit the manananggal in mid-flight. The demon screeched in surprise and flapped its leathery wings, but Axel latched on, forcing them into a dive.

  “Axel!” I screamed, but it was too late. The two of them disappeared further into the library.

  “Wyatt, look!” Stone said, forcing my attention to the area beneath us.

  The Obayifo stood with her arms outstretched. Green magic poured from her fingertips and swirled toward Faith’s body. The old woman chanted in some strange guttural language that was unfamiliar to me. The whole ritual was unlike any I’d seen before.

  Faith lay unmoving, seemingly limp, but as I looked closer I could see the fear in her eyes. She was awake, paralyzed, and utterly terrifie
d.

  Then, as more of the green mist surrounded her, she began to levitate.

  Faith screamed and the old woman’s chants grew louder.

  On instinct, I fired a force spell at the Obayifo, but the energy blast hit an unseen barrier, where it crackled and dissipated. A shield wall. But not just any shield, I realized, as it began to materialize around the two of them. Like the green mist coming from her fingers, an orb developed.

  One of Director Allen’s security goons, focused on shooting his gun at Stone, didn’t notice the orb and took a step back, bumping into it. The briefest of screams emanated from his throat, and then his body was consumed by neon flames. A moment later he was gone and a pile of ash flittered across the floor.

  The Obayifo laughed and cast a glance in my direction. “It has begun, Blade Mage. Nothing can stop the transfer now. Soon, her body will be mine and I’ll shed this old husk. And her life energy will be mine to consume.”

  And then it all made sense. I guess the witch just needed to spell it out for me. She may have trained Faith, but her real intent was to take the younger woman’s body. And to consume her life energy. How many years had Faith been with her? Living under false pretenses of an apprenticeship? Had the Obayifo pretended to care for her, even? Had she been like a mother to her while she fattened up her magical ability?

  And had Faith come to realize the betrayal?

  She had. That was it.

  And that was why she’d been looking for Emily. She wanted to protect her from becoming witch food. From becoming a host to this parasite. She’d made up the story about her missing little sister because she was afraid of what would happen if she was found out. Afraid that the Cabal would hunt her. Worse, she was afraid of how I’d react.

  With a new body and Faith’s energy juice, how much more powerful would the Obayifo become? It I had to make a gambler’s guess, pretty goddamned powerful. Her magic was already a complete mystery to the Cabal. Something we hadn’t seen before.

  And there was nothing I could do to stop her. She was going to kill Faith, and there wasn’t a damned thing I could do.

  “You’ve got to do something,” Stone said from beside me.

  For a moment, I thought he’d read my mind. Then I realized he was watching me with his cool dark eyes, assessing my features. Reading the doubt splayed across my face.

  “If you can’t stop her, we’re dead,” he said, his voice flat and calm.

  “But what do I?”

  Stone fired his gun at the men below, then glanced back toward where the Abasy was slinking his way back up the stairs. Finally, he turned back to me. “I don’t know, but you’d better figure it out. It’s time to find out why that sword chose you.”

  “I don’t even know what it’s capable of,” I said, glancing down at the ancient blade in my hand. “I don’t know what to do.”

  “Well, you can sit here and feel sorry for yourself, or you can try something,” he said in a snarl. He took a few more pop shots then turned toward me again. “Are you your father’s son, or not?”

  I nodded. He was right. Goddammit.

  “I’ll hold off the Abasy,” he said.

  “It’ll shred you to pieces.”

  “Yeah, well, we’re all about to die anyway,” he said, shrugging. “I’ve faced scary shit and lived. Sometimes you’ve got to look death in the face and tell it to go to hell. I learned that from your old man. What did you learn from him?”

  With that, Stone slapped a fresh magazine in his rifle, stood up, and ran toward the Abasy, roaring a battle cry as he went.

  Stone was as dangerous a man as I’d ever known, but with nothing but a gun, the Abasy would tear him apart.

  Axel was lost somewhere among the scattered bookshelves below, probably already dead.

  Faith was moments from having her body hijacked by the witch who raised her. From having her life force consumed by that bitch.

  And I stood there like a jackass.

  No clue how to help any of them, much less myself.

  Yet, Stone’s words rang true. My father wouldn’t have sat there feeling sorry for himself. He would’ve acted. He would’ve done…something.

  Both Axel and the Archmage had said there was much the sword could teach me. It had already tried to warn me about the Obayifo, but I hadn’t understood.

  I held Drynwyn up and studied the blade.

  It had also been called White Hilt, the legendary blade of Rhydderch Hael. One of the Thirteen Treasures of the Island of Britain, according to the Welsh. It was said that the flames would only burn for a worthy man.

  And it had been called Skofnung, the sword of the Danish King Hrólf Kraki. It was said to contain the spirits of his twelve greatest guards and that its blade never needed sharpening.

  And Claíomh Solais, the Sword of Light. A weapon of Irish folklore, said to be capable of killing a god. One of the Four Treasures of the Tuatha Dé Danann.

  Oh, yes, my sword had a history. It appeared in story upon story, with varying names and characteristics, throughout different cultures. But who could separate the fact from the legends?

  What other mysterious did that ancient blade hold?

  What else could it do?

  There was only one way to find out.

  I didn’t allow myself time to think. I didn’t consider my fear and I didn’t allow myself a moment of weakness. I just charged.

  Sprinting, I jumped over the rails of the balcony, hurling myself right over the top of the green orb below. Holding Drynwyn in both hands, I brought the blade down before me, slamming it into the witch’s shield.

  The whole goddamned world exploded.

  Chapter 32

  My head spun like I’d just chugged a fifth of whiskey. Additionally, it felt like an army of dwarves was marching through my skull and slamming their axes into my sensitive brain tissue. For a few moments, I couldn’t even remember who I was. Slowly, as consciousness crept back to me, I began to remember.

  The scent of burnt sulfur filtered my nostrils and for a few moments I thought perhaps I was burning alive and hadn’t noticed.

  Forcing my eyes open, I saw shreds of paper floating among a thin veil of smoke.

  It was then I realized I was covered in books.

  Of course, I thought, remembering where I was. The library.

  I rolled to my side and looked around. The room seemed a bit dimmer now. Perhaps some of the lights had been destroyed in the explosion. Judging by the state of the wreckage around me, it was amazing I was alive at all. The shelves were flung in every direction, and the whole floor was littered with books.

  A few feet away I saw something stir under a pile, and as the books tumbled away Faith’s face appeared.

  My limbs protested, by I forced myself forward, crawling toward her inch by inch.

  Her eyes opened but squinted in confusion as I approached.

  “Wyatt?” she asked.

  “Faith?” I replied, remembering the witch’s intention. Was it still her?

  “What happened?” she asked. “Why am I still alive?”

  I wasn’t immediately sure how to answer. “I think…I think I broke the spell.”

  “Truly?” she asked, glancing around. “That’s not possible. Are you sure?”

  “I think so,” I replied, also studying the area around us. I didn’t see anyone else, but Drynwyn lay on the ground between us, smoke sizzling from its metallic blade.

  I strode over to retrieve it and discovered that even the hilt was hot to the touch. I tossed it closer to Faith and continued toward her.

  “I’m sorry, Wyatt,” she said, looking at me with sadness in her eyes. “I should’ve told you the truth.”

  “Yeah,” I replied, not sure what else to say. Then I shook my head and said, “But we’ll deal with that later. For now, we just need to get you out of here. And we need to find the others.”

  “Will you kill me?” she asked, lowering her head. “Will you execute me for what I am?”

&nb
sp; “What?” I asked.

  “That’s your job, isn’t it?” she asked. Tears began to stream down her cheeks. “I’m sorry, Wyatt. This is my fault. I should’ve never come to you.”

  “No,” I said, reaching out to stroke her cheek. “I won’t kill you, Faith. And I won’t let the Cabal, either. I meant what I told you before. You don’t have anything to fear from me.”

  She leaned her head against my shoulder. “I’m so sorry.”

  “It’s all right,” I said, glancing around again. “But we need to get out of here.”

  “Aww, that’s so sweet,” said the voice of the old woman.

  I turned and saw her standing behind us, only a short distance away. Her dress was disheveled, torn in a few places and smoking in a few others, but she was undamaged.

  I moved back over to my sword and picked it up. The hilt was still hot to the touch, but not unbearable.

  “That was clever, Blade Mage,” she said, smiling at me. “You shattered my spell. I wouldn’t have thought your sword was capable of it, but I guess that old druidic trinket has a few surprises, doesn’t it?”

  “It does,” I said, trying to appear menacing. “Want to see a few more?”

  That made her laugh, and I saw her guards were stirring as well. There was a disturbance from the other side of the room and I saw a shelf go flying through the air, followed by the roar of the Abasy. More bookshelves tumbled over as it drew nearer, like a great beast knocking over trees in the forest, I couldn’t see the demon itself, but it was clearly headed straight toward us.

  At least the rest of the goons had seemed to lose interest. Seeing that this was something of a heavy-weight supernatural fight, the security guards gathered around Director Allen and edged themselves from the fray. They hadn’t had much interest in the fight from the start. Clearly, there only job was to protect the Director, and his inclination was to keep a safe distance.

  “You really think you can stop me?” the Obayifo asked. “Do you know how long I’ve lived, young man? Do you know how many new bodies I’ve taken? Do you know how many petulant little wizards I’ve killed over the years? And you think to frighten me?”