by Jamie Hawke
Whatever was happening here, I didn’t like it.
“Get them out of here!” a new group of agents was saying as more explosions sounded. My first day at the Senate, and of course, we were under attack. More than likely, Fatiha had tracked me and figured this was the best way to take me out.
I should have known nothing would go easy. There I was, thinking that the hardest part of the experience at the Senate would be remembering to not sound like a jackass.
The worst part was that I didn’t have my team. Charging through halls and ducking through meeting rooms, I was very much reminded of this fact. No Shisa to protect me with his defensive magic, no Ebrill to heal me if I needed it.
An explosion went off up ahead and I prepared a chant, but Galahad moved up next to me, gesturing me into a side room as guards advanced past us.
“Best not to give away anything unless absolutely necessary,” he said.
“This doesn’t feel like that time to you?” I countered, pointing to a burst of flames from the far end of the hall.
He shook his head and we moved into a hall that descended into a tunnel. A sort of panic area, I guess. Two guards charged in from a side hall, shouting for us to stay put. Before I could argue, a third guided us into a room with yellow walls and old, brown couches. In the corner, a small television was tuned into news coverage, someone already starting to report what was happening.
“We enter a state of emergency as what seems like a terrorist attack on the Russell Senate Office Building is taking place,” the reporter.
“Fucking ‘terrorists?’” I scoffed, trying to poke my head out to see what was what.
“Sir, please stay away from the doors,” the guard said.
Finding my way back to Galahad, I asked, “What happened to only attacking at night?”
“That’s when they’re strongest, but it doesn’t mean they can’t attack during the day.”
“Still, what the fuck?” I leaned back, readying myself to charge out there on the offensive. If their power was fueled by the night and darkness, while mine wasn’t affected in that way, mostly, I had an advantage here. “I’m not about to sit back and let others die for me.”
“We have a role to play here, Senator, and it’s not that of infantry or pawn.”
I didn’t like the way he had said, “Senator.” It sounded more like “Servant” to me. Glancing back at him, I shook my head, then moved toward a sign that showed where the restrooms were.
“This is my role,” I said, annoyed that he was following.
As soon as I stepped past the doors, I looked around to ensure we were alone, then put my hand to the wall and created my way out of there.
“Senator, you can’t—” Galahad started, catching up with me.
“I must. Stay here if you want, or join me.”
He cursed, glanced back, and then followed me into the tunnel I had created. As I went, I kept a hand to the wall and sensed areas where I could defend us without giving anything away to the media. A hallway with the enemy charging, no sign of anyone from our side, or the media. BAM! Collapsed and then pulled back, leaving them flat as pancakes. Wait, better yet, I then had the floor move aside and absorb them before moving back into place. No sign that they were ever there, aside from some blood stains that I couldn’t do much about. XP, to my delight, increased.
“I hope you understand the risk, here,” Galahad said.
I opened the tunnel and we ran through it into another, turning a corner to find a guard about to be pummeled by a witch with nasty horns.
“That’s the risk,” I said, hissing “gorffwys” and continuing our advance as the witch fell over, asleep beside the shaking guard.
“Loss of others is best avoided, of course, but at this point we can’t lose you. Do you understand the role you’re going to play? Why this is so important?”
I paused at the next corner, glanced around, and then sent a section of wall to take out a demonic-looking man in a suit. More XP. Before answering, I turned the corner and caught more attackers with my flurries before sending them all to sleep.
“Yes, to all your questions. And still, I won’t stand by doing nothing. Not when I have the power to make a difference.”
He looked like he was about to argue again, but instead gritted his teeth and cast a spell that brought his sword into his hands.
“Well then, let’s make sure it counts.” He nodded, and together we charged into a new hall that I created, one that would lead us to the defend an area where three senators were cornered.
We entered, me swinging my staff and Galahad his sword, hitting the enemy from behind before they had a chance to see us coming. All of the senators who had been under threat glanced around in confusion, but we were already ducking back through a hall that closed after us.
As we moved out, I said, “There’s something you need to understand, Galahad.”
“What’s that?”
“I was raised on movies like The Princess Bride. Books like Shadow Corps and Project Destiny.”
“I don’t follow.”
“The point is, the Man in Black wouldn’t hide and let the prince marry Buttercup. Inigo Montoya wouldn’t give up on his quest for revenge. I’m not some superhero like Sam in Shadow Corps, but I’m learning. And, I’m not the type to back down. Not anymore. Not the type to let my father’s killer escape.”
“Someone killed your father?”
“No. I hope not. You’re missing the point. Simply, me. Fighting evil. Not backing down. Got it?”
“Yes.”
“Good, then you’ll understand why this is necessary.” With that, I turned abruptly, hand on the wall, sensing the force on the other side. Opening the way, I shot out a series of elemental and sleep spells, along with some defensive ones for allies, and then let the walls close again before a counterstrike could get to us. I darted along the hall, made another opening and unleashed again.
After the third time of this, Galahad held his hand open before I could close the walls.
“You want to make a difference, fine—we get you out of here. It’s you they’re after, anyway.”
I considered this, gave him a curt nod, and then followed him as he charged out. Sword slicing through our enemies, he carved a path for us until we could see the car we’d arrived in.
“Go!” he shouted, motioning me on and squaring up against two witches.
“Sure, just…” Using the carport beside us, I made it move enough to send a car down on top of the witches. “Hopefully insurance covers that.”
“Reckless, but… thanks.” He turned, gesturing toward the car. “In.”
We made it and he held the door open, eyes scouring our surroundings for threats. I hopped in, glad to leave that place behind me for now.
Watch out for her, a voice said in my head. Not Riland or anyone from my group. Unclear, really.
I glanced out the window, looking for any sign of someone who might be trying to get my attention, but all I saw was Senator Olin waving from the steps, smiling. Her eyes moved over to our car for a moment, flashed red, and then went back to normal. Fatiha, no doubt. But why the attack without following it up by pursuing, I had to wonder.
For sure, I replied, not even sure the message would get out.
As the car drove away, a woozy feeling came over me and I was out, fading from this time and back to another.
135
“You little shit,” Moronoe said, charging me from where I had apparently appeared at the base of a tree. Its roots coiled up onto me, holding me in place. As she came to a halt, standing over me with the heavy wind flailing her thick, purple dress about along with her wavy hair, I stared up into her black eyes and felt her spell taking hold.
“Where is she?” Moronoe said. She knelt in front of me, hand held out to my chest. “So help me, I’ll pull out your heart and eat it while you watch. Turn you into an undead, make you follow me around as your flesh rots from your bones. To hell with the Liahona and Aval
on, where is Mizoa?”
“She’s her own woman,” I replied. “Why not ask her?”
“Because I don’t know where the fuck she is!” Moronoe seethed, chest rising and falling, then turned, walking away from me. She stopped about twenty paces out, turned to face me, and said, “Go to hell.”
She thrust her hand out at me. Red and black tendrils of light shot out, bending and weaving through the air. When they hit me, it wasn’t only pain that took hold, although there was plenty of that, it was a sense of hopelessness and longing for death.
All of that was before the bad part. I blinked, and when my eyes opened my worst fears were being thrown at me. This bitch must have gotten inside my head, because none of it could have really been happening, and yet it all felt so real. When you’re in that moment, even if you know it can’t be real, your heart won’t accept the fact. Instead, it pulls apart, is shredded as images hit. For me, it was first my mom and dad, suddenly swerving as I was tossed into the street in front of them. Their car spinning out of control, going over a ledge, crushing, glass piercing. Blood, flesh, eyes… chaos. Screaming! My mom clawing her way out, half-alive, shouting at me, screaming that I was a mistake, that they never should have had me.
Then a truck as it ran over her. Not just any truck, either, but one from a movie I’d seen at my uncle Mike’s as a child, one that had terrified me with nightmares for years to come—horned and covered in rusty sheet metal. Shit, standing there and watching your mom’s brains explode all over the street? Not good.
Worse, the door of that truck opens and out jumps the girl you dated for a little, but found out had been under a curse before that. Yeah, there was Steph, horns and wings starting to burst out of her as she laughed, coming over to me with a needle full of something pink and glowing, sticking it right in my eyes.
Then it all faded, taking me back to Moronoe, who was standing in front of me and eyeing me with an amused sneer amid a pillar of flames.
“Your choice, boy,” Moronoe said as she emerged partway from the flames, although the fire stayed on her. It burned without affecting her flesh, so that in a matter of seconds her clothes were gone, the flames still whipping about her. With a snap, the flames were gone. “You can have that world, the pain and suffering… or this one.”
She leaned back, legs spread, her fingers moving along her thighs, guiding my eyes to her exposed pussy.
“I can be whatever you want me to be,” she said, and for a minute she was an eighteen-year-old version of some movie star, this girl whose name I could never remember but was either in Mean Girls or Mean Chick, or something like that. Damn, she was hot, and watching her touch herself like that would have been damn tempting before all of this gargoyle stuff began. Her smooth pussy lips were moist, and I could see a mole on her inner thigh that called out like a lighthouse, guiding me home. But no, I wasn’t going for it.
Her eyes narrowed and she rolled over, showing me the rear view, hand slapping her ass.
“A bit larger, maybe?” she asked, and then she was this character from one of my favorite books, a larger black superhero. And damn, it was hard not to imagine my hips slamming against that ass. But no, there wasn’t anything that would get me to cave. She transformed several more times, to other ideals of hot young women and celebrities, even into an older woman and then a gargoyle.
“Or maybe this is more to your liking?” she asked, seeing that none of the other ideas were working.
Suddenly, her fingers weren’t massaging the lips of her pussy, but a hard cock. My cock, only, it wasn’t mine. Lying there on the ground was me. It was an odd thought and sight—the idea of watching myself as someone else.
“What the fuck?” was all I could muster.
Other me sat up, voice still Moronoe’s. “You’re so full of yourself, I figured maybe a nice blowjob from yourself might be the final carrot.”
“Um, no.” I shook my head, then laughed. “Are you so fucking dense?”
“What?” Other me looked kind of stupid when confused. I’d have to remember that, to ensure I didn’t ever wear that expression.
“You don’t get it. I’m not going to sleep with you or give in to your seductive ways, and it’s not because there’s not enough seduction or because I have secret fantasies of giving myself a blowjob or getting one from myself—which I don’t. Either of those. It’s called loyalty, and it’s called fuck you. A big, fat, fuck you.”
“Ah, I see.” And instantly she was herself again, rising above me, robes forming around her and trailing out into the distance, flapping and flailing around until they took over everything. “Then, we are done here. Hell, it is.”
Guess what came next? Megha with a bit of an Event Horizon look to her face, of course. And then Ebrill had Freddy Krueger fingers, or maybe it was Edward Scissorhands, I couldn’t tell.
Dammit, why did I have to watch so many horror movies growing up? I had a feeling more of those stories were about to play a part in this so-called spell—and yes, I’m aware that Mr. Scissorhands was not really a horror guy. Sure enough, when Steph’s face started filling with spikes aka Hell Raiser, I actually laughed.
“This is your best play?” I hooted between the laughs. “You think I can’t see my own subconscious when it’s trying to torture me? Fucking noob, I’m all about the mental fighting, so… let’s see what you got.”
She wanted to go toe-to-toe, or brain-to-brain with a transmutation expert? Maybe I hadn’t quite reached that level, but now it was time to find out exactly how advanced I was.
Pushing back against her so-called ‘Hell,’ I couldn’t help but have a bit of fun. Way I figured it, the more whacky I allowed myself to be, the less it would take out of me. So, first things first, I took her to a planet from a game called Pandora. We arrived to find ourselves next to a psycho grilling skag meat. Ah, good ol’ Borderlands. A hell of a game, and guaranteed to throw this lady off hers. Moronoe eyed me with an arched eyebrow, then looked into the distance where explosions and flames were shooting out from something I couldn’t quite see.
“How is this any different than Hell?” she asked.
I grinned. “You clearly have no idea what people like me consider fun or not. Check this out.”
And, right on cue, there came a prancing unicorn farting rainbows. My laughter echoed that of the psycho with his skag meat, and was amplified by the look of confusion on Moronoe’s face. As loot started falling out along with rainbow farts, a bunch of psychos charged in, knives and guns at the ready, and many looking like they were going to attack Moronoe. That’s when I ran. My plan was to ditch the bitch, trap her in some mental land where she would get lost in her own insanity.
So far, my mental fight was succeeding. I was down and sliding along pipes Mario-style, then shooting through the sky as if I’d been sling-shotted out and was an angry bird.
“What is this?” Moronoe’s voice echoed out from far off, and I had to laugh.
“Me, showing you the way.”
“You think this is a game, boy?” She flashed up in front of me, suddenly grabbing me by the neck and pulling so that I thought my larynx would come free. Instead, my instincts took over, magic pushing out and throwing her aside so that all of our surroundings flashed bright, and then it was over.
136
I was out of the mind games, gone. Back to the car, with Galahad watching me, hands folded in his lap. “She really is something, isn’t she?”
“What’s that?” I sat up, blinking, pulling myself from the grogginess.
“Moronoe. You said her name more than once, so I figured. Gave her a run for her money?”
“You could say that.”
“Sounds about right.” He shifted in his seat, leaning toward me. “If this is going to happen, you need to find a way to keep her out. Permanently.”
“Easy. Kill her.”
Anguish filled his expression and he started rocking back and forth, hand on his face. A groan emitted from deep inside him, and for a mome
nt I wondered if he would transform into a demon or some monster I’d have to take down.
“You don’t understand…” He was sunk down in his seat, now, with his face in his hands. “She was the best of them, the best of us.”
“Us?”
Looking up at me again, his eyes were furious, glowing red. Only, they flashed, overtaken by gold as a golden diamond lit up on his neck, and then the red eyes were gone.
“Yes, Jericho. I was one of them—in love with them, once. That was before everything went south, before Percival and the others left, and long before they served Steph. It was a different time, one when we spoke of changing the world.”
“For the better?”
He considered this. “I thought so, for a spell. Then, I saw the light and left. You don’t understand. Moronoe is built for greatness. She oozes it!”
“I don’t want to think of her oozing anything, to be honest.”
Galahad’s hand balled up into a fist and his eyes showed a hint of flashing red again, but then he slid back into his seat, eyes closed and breathing deep.
“Are you—we—going to be okay?” I asked after letting the silence hold for a moment.
“Yes.”
That was all the answer I received until we pulled up at the senator’s house. As I went for the door, Galahad grabbed my wrist, eyes wide, beseeching me.
“Look, it’s not going to be easy. But… whatever happens, know that I’m on your side. The others, the marks… I’ll do my best to see it your way.”
“Whatever happens,” I replied with a nod, eyes moving to his hand on my wrist. He let go, and we made our way inside.
“I’m going to have to go back to Gertrude’s place,” I said.
He nodded. “Then back here as soon as you can. We have more learning for you here.”
My sigh didn’t hide my exasperation one bit. “You can’t be serious. We were just attacked. Learning the names of senators hardly seems important at a time like this.
