by Randi Darren
Just in time, too.
Blazing through the sky was a comet of darkness and magic most foul.
Landing not far from the Angel, the horrible wail cut off.
Standing atop what looked like at broken and shattered Wraith was the Lich from earlier. Still just as pretty, and still just as unassuming given what she was.
The fact that she was wearing a dark blue dress that gave her a “young and gorgeous” look made that feeling all the worse.
“Oh!” she said, looking at Sam with a grin. “The incredibly hot vice- principal. Hey there.”
“Ah, the beautiful Lich,” Sam said, rolling with her flow. “Lovely dress. Fits you wonderfully.”
Fighting both her and the Archangel would get him killed right here and now.
And quite quickly, too.
Putting a hand on a hip, the Lich gave him a mischievous look and the curve of her mouth shifted into a flirty smile.
“You like it?” she asked and reached down with her free hand to play with the fabric. “It was in this lovely store I went through while rounding up zombies. I feel like I fill it out pretty well.”
“Definitely,” Sam agreed. “But I bet you fill out a lot of things really well.”
Clicking her tongue, the Lich scrunched up her nose and let go of her dress. Lifting that hand up, she wagged her finger at him.
“Ooooh, you and your honeyed tongue. I’m sure I’d love to experience it in another setting, but I’m afraid I’m here on business,” said the Lich. Then, she sighed. “So, where’s the kid?”
“I have no idea,” Sam said honestly. He actually didn’t know where Mitch was. At the same time, he caught the Lich with his eyes.
Slowly, carefully, he began building a webwork of fine threads of Essence. Guiding them to circle around the Lich’s head in never-ending loops.
“Hulking idiot here showed up and we’ve been fighting,” Sam clarified.
“What?” the Lich asked, looking at the Archangel for an answer.
“I… I don’t… I never saw any child,” the Archangel said, his face clouding up in anger. “The demon spawn was in a car and I stopped it. Then the spawn got out and we fought.”
Rolling her eyes, the Lich sighed and looked back to Sam.
“And how dare you question me, undead! You’re as poisonous as the spawn,” shouted the Archangel, glaring at the Lich. “It is for the simple fact that you’re nothing but a hired gun that you live.”
“Was he in the car?” the Lich asked.
“Not sure. What’s under the dress?” Sam asked, trying to divert the situation. At the same time he asked the question, he fed a small bit of lust and desire into the Lich through his Essence net.
Laughing softly even as her cheeks colored a faint red, Sam could see that the young woman was actually being affected by his glamour.
Then the Lich took hold of her dress and flipped it up toward him. Giving him a flash of privates not covered by underwear.
The Lich was beautiful and had a lovely sculpted set of hips.
She was also hairless.
“There, you got a look,” the Lich purred. “Now my question?”
“He was definitely in a car,” Sam offered. Speeding up the rate of Essence he was winding around the Lich’s mind, Sam knew he was desperate to be trying this. Lichs were incredibly and frighteningly powerful. “What’s under the top of the dress?”
Turning a deep dark red, the Lich seemed to be considering pulling her top down. Her hands started to drift up toward her shoulders.
“Oooh, aren’t you exciting. So very exciting,” the Lich murmured. “I like this. A lot. You tell me where the car’s going and I’ll answer your question, too.”
“This is blas—”
Lifting her hand up, the Lich pointed her palm at the Archangel and blasted him with an immeasurable amount of Death Essence.
Pure, unfiltered, Death Essence. Gathered from the dying as they perished in absolute agony and fear from her spells.
More than enough Essence to actually snuff Sam out. Then an order of magnitude beyond that.
A silver sparkle was all that remained of the Archangel after the attack faded away.
The house behind the Archangel was also gone. And the house behind that across the street. The destruction was likely still going.
Okay… playing… playing with fire here. She’s not a young Lich.
Just a Lich in a young body.
Nuclear fire.
“West,” Sam answered honestly once again. It was an easy answer.
There really wasn’t any other direction they could go except North, but given the direction they’d been traveling this whole time, that wasn’t likely.
Laughing at that for several seconds, the Lich then sighed heavily.
“Yes, I gathered that,” the Lich said. Then she shrugged her shoulders and pulled the top of her dress down, revealing pale skin over large and impressive assets. “A deal’s a deal though. I got what I asked for.”
“Well, aren’t you lovely,” Sam said, dismissing the blade of Essence in his hand. After watching the Archangel be disintegrated, he didn’t think fighting her with such a weapon would be useful.
“Thank you! That’s very kind of you to say so. I’ve taken very good care of myself over the years. By the way, what’s your name?” asked the Lich, pulling the dress back up over her shoulders. Then she gave a shake of her head, flipping her hair slightly to one side. “I’m ev—”
A translucent version of Irene slammed straight through the Lich and popped out the other side. Clutching a very translucent version of the Lich.
Collapsing to her knees, the Lich groaned deeply and then began to throw up. At the same time, blood began leaking from her eyes, nose, and ears.
“What… what have you—” the Lich gurgled and then threw up again. This time, the vomit was a very bright red.
Irene came over to the Lich and put both her hands to the crown of the fallen Lich’s head. As soon as Irene’s hands touched the Lich, the spell Sam had been building activated and slammed down into the Lich’s mind.
Not far beyond that, Irene’s soul struggled with the Lich’s soul. Locked in a strange wrestling match.
What the fuck?
Looking around, Sam couldn’t see the SUV that everyone had left in. In fact, when he reached out to the thread that connected him to Decima, he found she was a considerable distance away.
Miles away, in fact.
They were doing exactly what he’d ordered them to do.
Leave.
And Irene… jumped out of the car to join me?
Moving forward, Sam was too slow.
A purple and black sphere of warring Dead Essence and Witch Magic exploded out around Irene and the Lich.
Shrieking, both Souls fell into one another as their bodies were subjected to magic from the opposing party.
“Irene!?” Sam shouted, moving closer to the ball of angry magic.
A Lich would have more than enough power to crush Irene without a care. She was undead after all.
“Irene! Stop! We… we need to go or… or—”
Sam didn’t know what to say or do. He couldn’t see into the whirling clash of magic as the two women lashed out at one another.
Their souls were a single writhing thing on the ground now. Like something out of a horror movie, Sam couldn’t even begin to see where Irene began and the Lich ended.
Raising his hand up, Sam made a spike of Essence and aimed it at the point he’d last seen the Lich.
“Ah ah ah, let’s not interfere as she tames that little Witch,” said a voice in a flat tone.
Turning toward the speaker, Sam found Seville standing there.
Looking bored in his military uniform, the man appeared exactly the same way as Sam had seen him last.
“Rather than getting into that little squabble, how about you tell me where the child is, and we leave it at that. Maybe I’ll even have the Lich release your Witch,” Sev
ille said. “What do you say, Torment of Lust Sameerixis? This isn’t your fight.
“It never was and never will be. In fact, I’m betting you’re just here because you were paid to be. Isn’t that right?”
Shit.
Shit, shit.
“I mean, yeah,” Sam said. “I was paid for this, I admit it. Why, you going to pay me more?”
Seville snorted at that and raised his eyebrows.
“No. I just might not smash you into the ground, though,” Seville said with a lazy gesture of his hand. “I mean, I really don’t want to deal with this, but we all have the roles we have to play. Even the most powerful of—”
Seville grimaced suddenly and looked away to one side. Then he let out a slow and soft breath.
A portal ripped open from thin air and a beautiful woman stepped out from it. An Elven woman.
She had dark brown hair that was pulled back. It had an odd part and style that Sam wasn’t familiar with, but it didn’t look incorrect on her either. Looking as eternal as most Elves did, she was also extremely pretty with a very well-maintained look about her.
In that same instant, Sam tried to claw at his personal plane but to no avail. Nothing happened.
He was still trapped.
“Ah! There you are!” shouted the Elven woman.
Who promptly glomped onto Seville’s arm and began kissing him all over.
“Stop it! Don’t… don’t touch me,” Seville hissed, trying to shake the woman off him.
“What? Hush! Hush, hush, hush, my love. Hush,” whispered the Elf in a deranged tone, which was promptly followed by a giggle. “This is how we were made, how we were instructed. This is how we must be.”
Looking back to the magical war going on between Irene and the Witch, Sam saw no change. The ball of murderous energy hadn’t abated and the souls of both women laid still.
One atop the other, practically inside one another, unmoving on the ground.
Turning his eyes back to his own problem, Sam watched as Seville broke free of the Elven woman.
“Disgusting and foul monster,” Seville growled.
“No! I’m your love. Remember? I’m your love,” pleaded the Elf, pressing in closer to him. “I’m your anything. I’m your everything. All for you. Just as we were made and promised to be.”
Seville said something in a language Sam didn’t understand and pressed his hand to the Elf’s forehead and physically pushed her away from himself.
“Kill me, yes. Do it. Squeeze. I’m your everything, your anything,” the Elf pleaded. “Kill me. I’ve died for you so many times. I like dying now. It’s warm and comfortable. Kill me?
“Please? You never kill me. You just leave me and let me die on my own. Like when that filthy mutant caught me. I’d just talked Dean into letting me take a few of his girls back to you. They were so fresh and pure, too. Then that bastard shows up and I have to kill myself. I do wonder if I blabbed a bit while the poison kicked in though.”
The Elven woman suddenly looked at Sam and stared hard at him. He didn’t like what he saw in her eyes. A broken soul in a broken mind, and a broken personality.
“Hmph,” she said and looked back to Seville with a smile. “I just got back. Let’s go! Let’s go, let’s go. And then we can go and see N… oh.”
Apparently, she hadn’t noticed the ongoing magical tumult between Irene and the Lich before.
“Ugh. I really… don’t like her. Does she have to be here?” the Elf murmured with a dismissive hand waved at the fight.
Sam was feeling like more than just the odd man out right now.
He knew those who served the Silent One tended to be on the more unbalanced side of the mental equation, but this Elven woman was beyond even that.
“Enough, get-off-me,” Seville said, shaking free of the Elf once again. Then he went towards Sam with a determined look in his eye. “I’ll make this quick, Sameerixis. I tire of this location.”
Getting in range of Sam, Seville threw a wild-looking haymaker. One that could have been seen coming a mile away.
The problem was it was traveling almost faster than Sam could see.
Squirming to one side and trying to dodge out of the way, Seville’s fist barely grazed Sam’s arm.
As if he’d been struck by a planet, Sam went zooming to the ground, then bounced ten feet into the air on a rebound. Only to land in a pile of broken bones not far away from where Irene and the Lich battled.
Oh fuck.
Groaning, Sam knew that his left arm, from his hand to his shoulder, was a noodle filled with shattered bone and torn muscle. Even part of his chest felt like it’d been smashed under that bare tap from Seville.
Panting, Sam managed to lever himself up to his knees.
“Tell me where the kid is and I’ll make it so quick, you won’t even know you’re dead,” Seville said, looming over Sam.
Grinning, Sam shrugged his shoulders. Or at least the one that wasn’t shattered.
“Of all the things I could have died for, I never once thought it’d be for a cause that wasn’t my own,” Sam said, staring up at the right hand of the Silent One.
Snorting at that, Seville threw his hands up in a gesture of surprise.
“I know, right? I definitely feel you there. We all have our masters, though,” Seville said, then threw a wild round-house punch.
Before it could connect, a blur of muscle and fur flew past Sam, knocked Seville off his feet and sent him tumbling to the road.
“Seville! Good to see you,” called a female voice from behind Sam. “You’ve been hiding off-plane for so long that I really wasn’t sure we’d get a chance to meet up.”
Standing over Sam was a massive towering bulk of Werewolf.
“Hey, Romulus,” Sam muttered. He’d never had a great relationship with the founder of Rome, but neither had he had problems with him either.
“Sameerixis,” growled the Werewolf.
Turning his head, Sam found the female speaker was Eugenia, the once Judge of the afterlife.
Arrayed out all around her were her forces.
Angels, Weres, Gods, Goddesses, the Fates, and so very much more.
Laughing, Seville got up to his feet and brushed himself off.
“Eugenia! What a pleasant surprise,” called Seville. The bored look on his face had been replaced with something more akin to pleasure. “And so many old friends and faces. My, my, my. All we need now is… well… Retribution and the Swordsinger! A nice family reunion.”
The Elf—who was clearly demented—moved over to stand next to Seville and held her arms out. Magical fire began to build itself out of the very air around her.
“I’m going to pull her head off for you, my truest love,” the Elf promised. “And when I do, make love me to me on her corpse. Love me?”
Snorting at that, Seville flexed his hands and then shook them out.
“You kill the Judge, and I’ll have you on her corpse daily till she rots to a skeleton,” Seville promised. “Though, I guess I’m wrong, Eugenia. This is no family reunion at all. Because you… you weren’t actually there the first time. You forsook your father. When he called upon you… you hid. Like the coward you are. You should have seen the look on his face. He was devastated you know. When R—”
Eugenia made a wordless scream and threw her hands out in front of herself. A twisting and writhing pale-colored bolt of Essence shot forward across the distance.
Seville batted it to one side as if it were little more than a rock that’d been slung at him.
Then Romulus was atop Seville again, grabbing the Human around the shoulders and throwing him toward a house.
The Elf brought her hands around and a wall of fire began to roll forward, scorching everything.
One of the Angels standing with Eugenia held a hand up and an oddly tinted gold-colored dome appeared in front of them all. Including even the magical duel between the Lich and the Witch.
“Time for you to go, Sam,” Eugenia said, liftin
g him up to his feet. “We can’t fight Seville head on. No one can. Not without my father.”
“Yuh-huh. Would love to leave, can’t make a portal,” Sam said.
“You should be able to now, as long as Faisa holds the dome,” Eugenia murmured.
Reaching out, Sam could indeed feel his personal plane open to him once again.
“Thanks, I owe you one,” Sam murmured, moving toward the magical death sphere.
“No. Just helping you do your job. Say hello to Miles for me,” Eugenia said, as Sam walked away from her.
Not bothering to try and separate Irene from the Lich, Sam just plunked down a portal over the three of them, including their souls.
Everything went dark as soon as he closed up the portal that they passed through. Locking the whole plane down from any outside influence, Sam looked to see how he could help Irene while also healing himself.
He had no doubt that the Lich was tearing Irene apart.
There was a shriek that sounded like both Irene and the Lich at the same time and then the sphere blew apart. Both women were cut off from their source.
Except, where Sam expected to see two people as the magic cleared, he saw only one.
It was neither Irene, nor the Lich.
Wearing Irene’s clothes—that didn’t seem to fit anymore—was a woman with dark copper hair that slowly became black halfway down. She was also far more physically endowed than Irene had been.
Though this new woman looked familiar to Sam. Yet also unfamiliar at the same time.
Many of her features resembled Irene, but there was an alien beauty to her now that had clearly been part of the Lich. It was especially present in the cheekbones and eyes.
“Irene?” Sam asked.
As if her name had summoned her awareness, Irene’s soul sat up straight from inside the body.
And yet it wasn’t her soul anymore. The Lich had clearly been blended through Irene more completely than Sam had thought.
Irene’s soul was also now the Lich’s soul, it seemed. They existed in the same location, in the same Soul, and clearly not, at the same time.
The soul had one pair of shoulders, two arms, and two legs, but two heads.
Both were looking at him with a shocked expression. Though Irene’s soul seemed to control the body, and the Lich only controlled her own head.
