by Logan Jacobs
“They're all human,” I growled as I stared at the guard’s corpse. “Why the fuck would he use humans when he had access to, well, this?” I gestured at the surroundings.
“No offense, HC,” Ariette said with a chuckle, “but you humans are the most easily corruptible species. I bet all Fernell had to do was use some pretty words and a half-decent paycheck, and these guys were hooked. That was probably way easier than trying to make a bunch of smart mutants. At least at first, anyway, and after they were here, well, why get rid of them?”
“Right you are, Ariette,” a voice suddenly echoed throughout the hallway, and all three of us leapt into defensive positions. I raised my gun, Maaren held her axe in the air, and Ariette stretched her sword out, ready to cut anything that moved. But the voice had seemed to come from above and all around us.
“Guys, I don’t see him on the cameras,” Kalista breathed into our ears.
“You won’t, Kalista,” the voice spoke again, “I’m just a little too smart for that, my dear.”
That’s when I heard it. A slight crackle filled the air, like the sound a microphone makes when you breathe into it.
Actually, it was exactly the sound a microphone makes when you breathe into it. I scanned the hallway, and there, in the corners near the ceiling, were tiny white speakers that blended into the wall that I would have never noticed if I hadn’t been looking for them.
“I see you’ve found my speaker, uh, Milton, is it?” The voice echoed through the hall and reverberated off the blank walls. It was the same voice that the troll had spoken with back at the bank.
“I’d rather find you,” I growled as I clenched the gun in my hand.
“Ah, ah, ah,” Fernell singsonged before he let out a small chuckle. “You’ll have to deal with my man Garod here first. You remember him, don’t you, Kalista?”
There was a sharp inhale of breath in my ear, and Kalista let out a choked sob at the name of her father’s murderer. Then footsteps reverberated off the wood flooring behind us, and Ariette, Maaren, and I turned slowly to face them.
Garod Durn’s hulking blue form stood at the end of the hallway, and his dull grey eyes gleamed excitedly at us like he was a child ready to have his favorite dessert. The bulky muscles in his arms rippled out from under the haggard ends of his ripped black tank top, and his legs were clad in tight leather pants. In each hand, he held a long silver machete. His brown hair was pulled into a low ponytail which perfectly exposed the array of tattoos on his neck. A slow, malicious smile spread across his face as he let us observe him.
“Of course you’re not dead,” Ariette whispered bitterly, more to herself than anyone else. But Fernell took it as an opportunity to brag.
“Ohhh no,” the scientist said, and the microphones crackled once more. “Garod is very much alive, but I can see why you might be confused. After all, I was the one who changed his status from alive to dead. He was so grateful to have the Seelie guilds off his back that he even agreed to be one of my little guinea pigs. Of course, giving him all that extra power might have something to do with that too.” A horrible laugh echoed from the speakers. “Either way, having high-level access makes things so much easier, don’t you all agree?”
“Why would you even need him?” I asked as Garod simply stood there and smiled at us like a twisted Cheshire cat. There was a gleam of enjoyment and madness in his black eyes, the kind of gleam found only in someone who took the deepest pleasure from killing.
“Having a serial killer with a mind as twisted as Garod’s was quite helpful in my efforts, you see.” I could hear the nasty grin in Fernell’s voice. “But, that’s enough chit chat. I had my fun seeing just how far you three could get, but now, I’m afraid, it’s time to end this. Garod, kill them.”
And with that, Durn hollered out and sprinted toward us. As he did, he twirled his machetes in his hands like some deranged psychopath in an old slasher movie.
I raised my Hand and connected with his blood as fast as I could, but as I yanked every ounce of crimson blood from his body, it all sucked right back in with a squelch, and the Unseelie elf kept on his path toward us.
Ariette blocked one machete blade before it could chop her in half, and Maaren swung Foveros clean through Durn’s middle. At the same time, I fired a bullet straight into his right eye.
But none of it killed him. His skin snaked back together, and his eye reformed, and that twisted gleam appeared once again. A machete whistled through the air toward my head, and I somersaulted away from it and backed up a few feet.
“He’s got the same regeneration the troll did!” Ariette hollered out as her sword clanged off a machete again, “Milton, use your Hand on him again!”
I didn’t need to be told twice.
My Hand vibrated, and a drop of sweat beaded on my brow as I felt for his blood. It was a strange feeling, almost like his blood was muddled and slow. The vibration of my cells wasn’t as clean or consistent as I was used to, but I ignored the strangeness and willed his blood to exit his body. It did, and I held the connection tightly as the blood pulled against me and tried to re-enter Durn’s flesh. Instead, I forced it to form into hundreds of tiny knives, and the moment they hardened and darkened, I sent them straight back into the elf’s body.
I took a deep breath and my heart raced. My vision swam for a moment, and I took a step back to steady myself. But my moment of reprieve ended quickly when the clang of metal on metal sounded once more.
“What the--” I muttered as I looked up to see Maaren’s axe locked onto one of Durn’s blades.
He had reformed. I had pierced him with hundreds of knives made of his own blood, and still, he had reformed.
A second machete came toward Maaren’s head, but this one was blocked by Ariette’s sword.
Durn looked at me with his beady murderous eyes, and a slow smile crept across his lips. He tilted his head as he pushed both hands down against the two warriors he had locked blades with, but he said nothing.
Before I could move, Ariette bared her teeth and shoved at Durn with all her strength. He stumbled back a few feet, and Maaren used the opportunity to swing her huge axe at him. Since he was unsteady, he was forced to jump away, and then he careened into the opposite side of the hallway. His shoulder left a dent in the wall, but he didn’t even look fazed.
“Gods, what is with this asshole?” Ariette snarled as she raised her Hand. “Here, take this!”
Blue sparks leapt to life between her fingertips, and then the elf hurled a lightning bolt at Durn. He tried to dodge, but it was useless in such cramped quarters, and Ariette’s attack slammed into his left side.
Durn was blown backward several yards, and he tumbled head over heels to the ground. As he skidded to a stop, he left a trail of blood and charred flesh behind him, and the smell of burnt meat filled the hallway.
I stifled a gag as I locked my eyes on his still form.
“Stay down,” I muttered, “stay fucking down.”
Of course, a moment later, Durn twitched, and then he pulled himself up using the wall. As he lifted his head and fixed his dead eyes on me, bile rose in my throat as I saw that his left arm was hanging on by mere tendons.
“Oh that’s disgusting,” I grumbled.
“It was also nearly the best I had,” Ariette spat as she twirled her sword in hand. “What’s it going to take to kill this guy?”
“Your attack seemed to hurt him the most,” Maaren remarked as Durn slowly slid upright and began to shuffle toward us.
“Fat lot of good it did though,” Ariette growled, and then she kicked off the wall behind us and sprinted toward the injured Durn as he bent to pick up one of his discarded machetes.
The bastard was hurt, but definitely not out, and as he lurched to his feet, I saw his face was a twisted mass of healing flesh. I knew that with the troll, dealing enough damage at once had worked. Perhaps we only needed more?
As Garod stood with his weapon, Ariette drove her sword through his chest and into the wall behind t
hem, pinning him there like a bloody butterfly, only instead of being upset about it, the Unseelie smiled wider. Then he lurched forward, impaling himself further down her sword. As his chest smacked into the hilt of Ariette’s weapon, he grabbed the elf by the shoulders and pulled her toward himself while driving his head down toward her. There was a sickening crack as Garod’s forehead smashed into the bridge of Ariette’s nose, and my stomach dropped.
“Ariette!” I cried as Garod looked right at me and headbutted her again.
I lunged forward, and as I did, the Unseelie heaved her backward and into my arms. As Ariette crashed into me, Garod smiled wider, and took a huge step sideways, ripping himself off the sword impaling him in the wall. Only, it didn’t matter because the bastard was already healing.
“Ariette, are you okay?” I asked as Garod started marching toward us. “Because if you’re not, I need you to get behind me.”
“I’m fine, Milton--”
“Let’s see if you can heal this!” Maaren cried right before she smashed her runic axe down onto the top of his head with enough force to split the top half of his body completely in two.
Only, even as the blade passed through him, I could see tendrils of blood reaching across the gap to pull him back together again.
Worse, as Maaren tried to pull her axe back for another attack, Garod hugged himself together to trap the weapon inside his body and twisted sharply. The movement tore the weapon from Maaren’s hands and sent her stumbling. Which was right when Garod went about ripping the axe out of his still healing body in a spray of blood and gore and swung it at the assassin who managed to backflip away from his clumsy swing.
Only, this time, as I watched the blood retreat back toward his body, a light bulb went off in my head. If he could truly heal, why would he need the blood back? I wasn’t sure, but I damned sure wanted to find out.
“Ariette,” I said as I reached out and grabbed ahold of Garod’s blood. Only this time it was much easier to do since he was still wounded. “I have an idea. Once I pull his blood out, I want you to use your Hand to vaporize it.”
“Okay…” Ariette said, and as she gave me a confused look, I used my magic to jerk all the blood from Garod’s body.
“Now!” I shouted.
This time, Ariette didn’t say anything. She simply threw out her Hand. Blue sparks already over her knuckles as she sent bolt after bolt of electricity through the air. Blue light engulfed the blood I held suspended in the air, and as it dissolved into steam, Garod shook violently.
Which was when Maaren grabbed hold of her axe, took two quick steps forward, and took his head off with one swing. Then reversed her momentum and slammed the flat end of her axe into his skull with a resounding crack that sent his head bouncing across the ground.
Only this time there were no tendrils of blood to pull his body back together.
“I think maybe we got him,” Maaren said as Garod’s body collapsed to the ground in front of her.
“I want to be sure,” Ariette gritted her teeth, and pointed her hand at the fallen body and unleashed even more lightning.
Suddenly, Durn’s entire body exploded into ash. His remains fluttered down to the floor until nothing was left but a tall pile of black soot.
“What do we do about his head?” I asked as I began walking toward it. “Can he regrow from there?”
“I’m not sure,” Maaren said as she came up beside me. “Maybe we should ash it too?”
“My pleasure,” Ariette said as she summoned more lightning and turned Garod Durn’s severed head into a smoking pile of ash. “Stay dead this time.”
“Uh, guys,” Kalista said in our ears. “I’m happy you’ve killed that bastard, but it looks like we’ve still got at least one guard inside because they’re trying to get in the trap door.”
The three of us sprinted back down the stairs and made it to the back room in less than five seconds. Thank God for Fae speed.
Sure enough, a man pulled at the ottoman as he inched it to the right to get it off the trap door. He was hunched over, and I could see his pale blonde braid as it swung with his movement. As he changed positions, Ariette gasped beside me.
“Guess Fernell was taunting us from in here,” the elf muttered in my ear. “Since that's him.”
Fernell wore dark denim jeans, with a white polo shirt tucked into them. I couldn’t see his face, but his figure was chunky for an elf. He looked like such a regular guy.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” I warned the elf.
Instantly, Fernell shot up and turned around to face us. His face made me do a double take.
There was a long scar that went from the middle of his hairline to his left cheekbone. It looked like a someone had clawed him or taken a knife to his face. The dark, dull skin told me it was long healed. His left eye was a milky white color from the injury, and his other eye was a dark brown. As I looked into those eyes, a shiver raced down my spine. There was not a single shred of humanity left in them, there was nothing left at all but madness.
My stomach roiled as I stood there, and Fernell’s two thin lips curled into a sadistic smile as he looked us up and down.
“You think you’ve caught me, but you haven’t,” he snarled as a dark portal appeared next to him. “Better luck next time.”
Then Fernell gave us a sly smile before he dove into it headfirst.
“Hell no, you’re not getting away!” I snarled. We were too damn close to let him go this easy. I threw the two warriors a look before I made up my mind and hurled myself into the portal after Fernell.
By the two yelps behind me, I guessed Ariette and Maaren had followed hot on my heels.
As I descended into darkness, I decided there was no way in hell I would ever travel through one of these again. My entire body felt as if it was being torn apart at the cellular level, only to have the portal rebuild it and then rip it apart again. There was pressure all around me, and I thought I might spontaneously combust. I couldn’t see or hear a thing.
And then, just as suddenly as it had started, it was all over. I found myself face down on soft grass. I lifted myself up on shaky hands as I shook my head and tried to orient myself to my new surroundings. Wherever we were, it was still nighttime. The sunrise had just begun to tinge the edges of the sky a soft pink.
“HC, get up,” Ariette whispered as she hauled me up next to her. The elf had her sword drawn, and her Hand raised out in front of her.
I stood up as the dizziness in my head began to fade. I saw Maaren next to me with her axe ready in one hand and the other hand curled as she prepared to use her own magic. The hunter looked around frantically with wide green eyes and her lips curled in a silent snarl.
It was then that I noticed that Fernell was nowhere to be seen. We stood in the middle of a clearing in a forest, but we were alone. The clearing was a perfect circle, and there was nothing else out of the ordinary about where we were.
I squinted into the dark around us. The trees were so thick I couldn’t see through them, but then I heard a gleeful snicker, and I turned toward the sound.
“Such a mistake!” Fernell’s voice sang out from within the trees.
“And why is that?” I shouted back in response, but Fernell went silent.
Maaren, Ariette, and I formed a circle with our backs to each other. I connected with my magic and readied myself to pull the blood out of anything that moved.
“Kalista,” I grunted as I clung to the hope that maybe she could hear.
“We’re out of range,” Maaren sighed when there was no response.
For a long moment, there was utter silence. We scanned the trees for any sign of Fernell, but he was nowhere to be seen.
“Where do you think we are?” Maaren muttered next to me.
A twig snapped, and all three of us jumped and watched the trees where the sound had originated, but nothing happened.
“Don’t know,” I whispered back, “but it can’t be too far off. The sun’s at the same
place it was back at the lab.”
“Oh, not too far off indeed!” Fernell called through the trees.
There was no other sound for a moment, and I still couldn’t locate where his voice was coming from. My heartbeat was too loud in my ears, and my breathing was erratic. It was like he was speaking from everywhere and nowhere at the same time.
And then, suddenly, something barreled toward us from the tree line, and all three of us spun to face it.
It was a strange-looking creature. This thing wasn’t the troll we were all used to at this point. Instead, the top half of it looked human. It was a woman with red hair, and it looked scarily like Jessa, but her bottom half had the back paws of a lion, and I could see that wings stuck out of her back. One large paw scraped the ground as she stared us down.
Instantly, my Hand tingled as I connected with her blood, and then I threw my hand to the left as I drew it out of her in an explosion of red. But just as quickly as the blood left her body, it flew right back inside like a magnet. Her form regenerated before my eyes, and her blue eyes sneered at me.
“Uh-uh, not so fast,” came Fernell’s voice from behind us. None of us turned in his direction as the beastly creature began to circle around us.
“Ariette, let’s try what we did back there with the guards,” Maaren muttered on my right. I saw Ariette nod out of the corner of my eye, and then Maaren’s Hand flew up in the air.
The monster’s body flew upward in conjunction with Maaren’s power, but before she was impaled on the Ariette’s blade, her wings pushed her back with a powerful force. I had to brace myself as I was buffeted by the intense back draft from her wings, and when I managed to lift my head, I saw the monster had landed back at the tree line with a snide grin.
“Well, this could be a problem,” Ariette muttered.
Just as she did, I heard a twig snap behind us and then the crunch of leaves under something heavy. I turned around to see a second monster appear out of the trees. This one looked much more uniform than the lion woman. It was similar to the trolls but much smaller. Sharp claws adorned its gray hands, and it snarled to reveal teeth that were just as deadly.
