by Logan Jacobs
As soon as we hit the tile floor of the lobby, a huge roar echoed throughout the bank, and I looked back to see the troll on the second floor. The hulking beast spotted us, and its face twisted in a snarl as it lifted a desk high above its head. Then it heaved the desk with all its might at our rapidly retreating figures.
“Duck,” I hollered as I fumbled for the gun at my hip. I shoved Ariette and the woman toward the door as the desk crashed into the tile a few feet from us. Then I spun on my heel, raised the gun up, and fired rapidly at the creature. My shots smacked into the creature’s center mass, and it jerked back as it stumbled.
I felt victorious for half of a second, but then the monster regained its footing, locked eyes with me, and let out a ferocious roar.
“Milton, come on!” Ariette shouted from halfway across the lobby floor.
I gritted my teeth, jumped down the last three stairs, hit the floor at a run, and pumped my arms to catch up with the two women in front of me. As all three of us ran toward the door, the woman stumbled, but I grabbed onto her arm and held her up. Another desk flew over our heads, slammed into the exit door, and blocked our way.
“It’s trying to keep us inside,” Ariette snarled beside me.
“It’s coming down the stairs,” the woman cried hysterically.
“Of course it is,” I grunted.
My heart leapt into my throat, and my palm was slick around the handle of the gun in my hand. Instead of stopping the troll, my bullets only seemed to have pissed it off, and now it looked like it was salivating for my blood.
We needed to get out of here.
With the blood pounding through my ears, I lifted my gun, aimed at the massive wall-sized window to my left, and fired. The bullets tore through the glass, and as they rained down in a crystalline shower, I grabbed the woman around the waist.
“Come on, Ariette!” I cried as I leaped through the broken doors and landed on the concrete sidewalk outside.
The elven warrior was a step behind me, and I threw a glance over my shoulder and watched as the creature stopped just inside of the bank doors. It snarled at us, saliva dripping from its fangs and hate swirling in its eyes, but it didn’t move to launch itself after us. As it growled and stomped on the glass on the tile floor, I realized it didn’t want to follow us out of the bank.
That was odd, but I didn’t want to question it while we were still feet away from the bloodthirsty beast so I wrapped a hand around the woman’s arm and tugged her quickly away. The woman stumbled beside me, but I held onto her as we entered the tent area in front of the bank. Ariette was doubled over her knees, and she took in huge swallows of air. I handed the woman to a medical officer as I tried to regain my own breath.
“My friend…” she started again.
“We’ll get her,” I responded gently. “I promise.”
Ariette and I shared a glance, and the elf let out a huge sigh before she smiled wryly at me. “Well, aren’t you quite the hero?”
“You do call me Hero Complex for a reason.” I shrugged back at her but my heart was currently a whole percussion symphony in my chest, and I was half worried my ribs might fracture under the force of it.
The elf held back a laugh and shook her head before she turned to Kalista.
“Get Danira on comms.” She took a breath and scrubbed tiredly at her face. “Tell her HC, and I are going back in there.”
She sounded like she wanted to do anything but go “back in there,” and honestly, I felt the same way. I wasn’t exactly eager to throw myself into the lion’s den again, but the woman that we rescued said there were people still trapped inside, and I knew I couldn’t sit here and twiddle my thumbs.
“Will do,” Kalista replied to Ariette.
“Thanks, Kal,” Ariette responded with a strained smile, and then she schooled her expression into her authoritative mask, crossed her arms, and turned to Alfrisco.
“Alright, Alfrisco,” the elven warrior barked, and the commanding officer lazily uncrossed his own arms as he stepped toward us. “We’re going back in then, and when we send the civilians out, your men need to meet them at the door. Understood?”
Alfrisco raised an eyebrow and gave a slight nod, and while it seemed to satisfy Ariette, it pissed me the fuck off.
“Hey,” I snapped as I took a step toward him and pointed at Ariette. “Why are you being such a dickbag? She went inside to rescue that girl. What have you done?”
“Well, I--”
“That’s right, you’ve done between jack and shit.” I glared at him. “So the least you can do is pretend you’re relevant by letting the people who fight the monsters inside. Got it?”
Honestly, I wasn’t sure how he responded because I’d already spun on my heel and started to walk back toward the bank, but from the look on Ariette’s face, I could tell the elf was quite pleased.
Chapter 10
Ariette and I slowly crept toward the front of the bank once more. We stayed low to the ground and dropped nearly flat as soon as we got to the big glass doors. Then we crawled through the huge hole that I had made when I shot out the glass panels during our first escape. I went first and checked to see if the coast was clear before I waved Ariette in.
In the few minutes we had been outside after the woman’s rescue, the troll had retreated somewhere inside the bank. It was nowhere to be seen.
“I don’t see it anywhere,” Ariette whispered from behind me. “Where do you think it went?”
I shrugged as I looked around the lobby. Sweat slid down my temples, and my shirt was already damp and stuck to my spine and under my arms. Somehow, this silence was more fear-inducing than the troll roaring or throwing desks at us.
My eyes scanned the room for any movement, and then I noticed that behind the teller stands was a huge silver vault door.
And it was wide open.
“That thing’s smarter than we gave it credit for,” I muttered to Ariette as I motioned toward the vault with my chin.
She followed my gaze, and I watched her eyes widen as she took in the open vault.
“It cracked the lock on the safe,” she whispered back to me, and I nodded in agreement.
“What?” Kalista asked in our ears, and I could practically see her puzzled frown. “How the hell did it do that?”
“Don’t know,” I replied quietly. “We’re going to go check it out.”
“Be careful,” Kalista muttered.
“Careful is my middle name,” I joked to try to distract myself from my racing pulse.
I reloaded my gun with a new magazine as Ariette unsheathed her sword, and as the blade caught the light, I stared at it in awe for a moment.
It was a pure white, the kind of white I imagined heaven would look like, and it glinted brilliantly. Elven swords were the most beautiful weapons I had ever seen.
Beautiful… but deadly, and I was counting on the latter quality to help us out right now.
We stayed low to the ground as we came up to the teller stands. And I held up three fingers as I mouthed, “One, two, th--.”
Suddenly I heard a strange sound come from the other side of the teller stands. Something pattered across the tile floor, and by the level of noise, I guessed it was a lot of somethings. Then I heard a high pitched chattering in a strange language that wasn’t Elvish or English. I glanced over at Ariette, and I saw that her eyes were as wide as saucers. Immense confusion swam through those eyes before the warrior slowly rose and peeked over the wooden wall that we rested against.
“Oh man,” she breathed before she shot backward and readied her sword, “we’ve got a lot of company here, HC!”
I jumped to my feet and readied my gun as I swung around to face the peculiar sound.
And I immediately saw why Ariette’s eyes had gone so wide.
A group of probably twenty or so tiny creatures swarmed out of the vault opening as I watched. They all looked identical, with beady green eyes and sharp teeth that stuck out haphazardly from under their lips. T
he creatures stood not more than two feet tall and had sagging sickly yellow skin. Much like the troll from yesterday, they were all clothed in worn-out brown cloth.
The chattering picked up speed when they saw us, and suddenly the mass of creatures swarmed. Pointed nails and razor-like teeth were all I could see as their tiny feet pounded on the tile.
“Ew, gross, tiny goblins!” I exclaimed before I shot a three-round burst into the crowd of little monsters. To my satisfaction, I saw two fall and watched as green blood dripped out of them.
“I can’t use my Hand,” Ariette grunted out from a foot to my left, “too… much… iron.”
The elf shook her head in frustration as the swarm of goblins got close enough to attack us. One lunged at her with its teeth bared, but the warrior whipped around in a circle, brought her sword down swiftly, and chopped the ugly thing in half in an explosion of green blood and blue entrails.
Another grotesque little creature stepped in a pool of his partner’s blood, but that didn’t even phase the thing. Those sharp teeth gnashed together as it fixed its murderous green eyes on me, and I was shocked at what I saw there.
Those eyes were empty. I was sure that if I could understand the string of high-pitched noises that emanated from its mouth, the monster would be saying something like “kill, kill, kill, kill,” over and over again, like a broken record. Whatever evil force had created these creatures had instilled only one purpose in them.
And that was so horrible, my stomach twisted into a knot of anger.
Before I could become too lost in my own thoughts, I aimed at two creatures that lunged at me in tandem. As soon as I pulled the trigger, their bodies fell out of the air and crashed to the ground, but the two dead monsters were simply replaced by more malevolent creatures.
To my left, Ariette spun around as she cleaved the head off one of the goblins. The creatures had backed her up nearly against the wall, but it didn’t phase her at all. As one creature fell, she used the momentum from her turn to launch herself against the wall behind her. She took two steps parallel to the ground as she climbed up the wall gracefully, and then she backflipped over the heads of the goblins.
Clearly, they weren’t imbued with the same intelligence as the troll because the group of monsters took too long to react to Ariette’s sudden movement. She swung her sword through the creatures easily, and they fell like wheat before a sickle.
I fired off another shot and watched with satisfaction as a disgusting little goblin’s head exploded, but then heavy, loud footsteps echoed through the lobby over the sound of the fighting. Instantly, every single goblin froze, and then the swarm retreated back toward the vault in unison.
“Uh, I don’t think that’s a good sign,” I muttered out of the corner of my mouth.
And I was right.
The grotesque troll emerged from the vault as soon as the last goblin made it inside. For a moment, it said and did nothing, but then a slow smile spread across its face.
That disgusting smile told me it wanted to play with us before it killed us. It wanted to take its time.
“Did you like my newest invention?” the troll asked as it stared us down.
Ariette gasped, and I took a step back when the thing spoke.
Its voice was creaky and robotic, and none of the other muscles in its face moved when it spoke. It was almost like… it wasn’t speaking, but was being spoken through.
“Personally, I think they still need a little work,” it continued as it took one slow step forward, “but they do work as a fantastic distraction. I have to say, though, I think this body is my finest piece of work, don’t you?”
“Who are you?” Ariette asked, and despite her pale face, her voice was completely level.
The troll just tilted its head and laughed.
“Ah, Ariette, you are very demanding,” it snorted, “but that’s not how this game is played. Now, if I were you, I would get my weapon ready.”
I had half a second to wonder how the troll knew her name before it bounded toward the elf at lightning speed. As it did so, one trunk-like arm swung in my direction and knocked me backward onto the floor before I could react. The air whooshed out of my lungs, and I struggled to stand as the troll turned on Ariette.
The elven warrior stood ready with her sword held high in the air as she glared at the monster.
“Your sword won’t have any effect on this body,” the troll snarled, and saliva dripped from its jowls as it stalked toward the lethal looking woman.
Ariette bared her teeth, took a flying leap toward the troll, and flipped over its right shoulder. As she did so, she brought her blade down and cleanly took its arm off in a single movement. She landed nimbly behind it, and silver liquid dripped from its severed shoulder socket. But the creature didn’t fall. In fact, it didn’t look hurt at all as it calmly bent down to pick up its severed arm.
The troll growled as it shoved the limb against its shoulder socket, and I watched in horror as the skin crawled together in a snake-like motion. When the troll let go, the arm had completely reattached itself.
“What did I tell you?” the thing barked as it whipped back around, focused solely on Ariette. As I slowly stood up, air solidly back in my lungs now, I was thankful she had its full attention. Clearly, the troll had misjudged me.
The creature stood there and snarled at her as I raised my Hand to connect with its blood. I felt a push back against my magic as if the tingling sensation was stunted. I followed the dampening feeling toward the ceiling and saw that it was lined with iron bars.
I couldn’t tell if they were decorative or an anti-fae security measure, but either way, they sucked.
I stayed calm as the creature approached. It walked slower than when it had originally bounded toward her. The way it moved reminded me of a mountain lion as it stalked its prey. The troll’s head was lowered, and I saw the deadly gleam in its eye and the creepy smile on its face as Ariette readied her sword.
I redoubled my efforts to summon my Hand, and the magic vibrated in my being like a mini earthquake. I remembered the feeling from the street the day before and noted how much stronger this vibration was. That was a damn good sign. Every cell in my body shook with effort as I tried as hard as I could to push the magic out through my Hand and rip the blood from the creature.
I could feel the blood in its body. The rush of the liquid roared in my ears as the troll’s heart pumped it through thick, wide veins. I gritted my teeth and willed my Hand to rip the blood out of the hideous creature before me.
And then, it happened.
I felt the rush as my magic burst past the iron’s dampening aura, and I hollered triumphantly as green liquid tore out of the creature. But, as suddenly as it flew out, the blood was sucked right back in and the troll reformed completely.
“What the hell?” I muttered as the creature shook itself and continued straight for Ariette. Behind the troll, I could see Ariette stare at me with wide, shocked eyes.
I took a few steps back and shook my Hand before I connected with its blood again. I felt the rush of the liquid, and my Hand tingled. Once again, I threw my Hand to the side and forced the blood to leave its body.
Green liquid exploded from its front, but the blood didn’t make it very far out of the troll’s body before the creature regenerated completely. There wasn’t even a scratch as it prowled toward me with a sick smile on its face.
“We need a new plan,” I called to Ariette as I lifted my gun and took another step back.
As she nodded in response to me, the troll realized I was perfectly fine and alive. Quicker than I could think, it turned away from Ariette and lunged directly toward me with arms spread to grab me. With lightning-fast speed, I somersaulted between the monster’s legs and was instantly by her side.
My quick maneuver confused the creature, and it paused before it turned around and began to lumber in our direction once again, that malevolent smile still there. I took a moment to take aim and fire off a shot at the
center of its chest, but the bullet bounced off its skin like it was made of rubber.
“My power isn’t working. That thing is regenerating too fast,” I muttered as the troll shook off being shot like the bullets had been annoying gnats.
“We need to find a way to trap or incapacitate it, or we’ll never be able to extract the rest of the people in this bank,” Ariette grumbled as she twirled her sword in her hand.
“Easier said than done,” I replied as the troll broke into a sprint and launched itself at us. Ariette and I dove to opposite sides, and I felt the air stir right behind me as the troll just missed the back of my shirt.
Ariette and I kept moving toward opposite ends of the room, and the troll paused for a moment as if to consider which of us it wanted to kill more.
“Follow me!” Ariette shouted as she made her way toward the stairs.
I quickly bounded after her as the beast’s loud footsteps crashed behind me. We dashed up the stairs, weaved through the maze of hallways, and finally ducked into a destroyed conference room. An upturned desk caught my eyes, so I pulled Ariette toward it, out of sight of the door. We ducked behind the desk and took a second to catch our breaths.
“I want to know what the hell just happened,” Ariette panted quietly.
“It’s like it completely healed itself,” I responded darkly. “My Hand was working fine. That thing is just crazy strong.”
Suddenly, we heard the heavy footfalls of the monster, and I could tell it was at the doorway.
I locked eyes with Ariette, and our hands brushed. She gripped my fingers tightly as my ears strained to hear where the creature was at. After a moment, the breathing of the troll grew softer, and its footsteps headed away from the door.
“Let’s get back downstairs before it comes back,” I whispered to her. “Hopefully, it will stay up here and keep looking for us.”
We stood in unison and went to the door. Ariette peeked her head out and nodded that the coast was clear, then she stepped through the threshold. Though our footsteps were soft, my heart was thumping hard in my chest as we padded through the hallways back the way we’d come only moments before.
