A newspaper rustled past, tumbling in the warm wind and I stopped it with a foot and picked it up. Struggling with the Arabic again, the huge headline was talking about evacuation. And I had to smile, wondering where they had obtained the photograph that adorned the article, of the Avatars and their keepers, standing victorious after the news of Styche's demise.
In the matter of a few minutes, we had a kill box set up, with huge fifty-foot walls of vines down to the river to funnel the enemy our way into a zone of crossfire that would give us our best chance to slow a being who walked with gods. But we had someone talked about by even the gods, Lady Thsalias. Death's Lady herself.
Her reputation was even acknowledged by the gods. Because of the curse laid upon her by demon magics, she was unkillable, and even Masika had said that if the mortal realm was reset, that even she didn't know if Rose would cease to be.
And that was good because we were possibly the weakest of the teams without her. My and Raz's magics were nothing compared to an Elder, so we and Nicole would be the ground support for Rose as we take on the forces the Elders are sure to have with them if they follow their past pattern.
The minutes ticked by, and nothing. Then sundown in Seattle passed and I could feel the mass of energy on the other side of reality moving away from us. We all stood in silence like the world was holding its breath, then it was gone.
I muttered, “Shit. It is leaving, I don't know where it is going.”
Rapunzel was instantly on her cell that I was pretty sure she loved as much as she loved me at times. “Red! The Elder is moving off, we don't know where it is heading. Sydney? Ok, ok... yes, do it!”
She whipped her longhair at us, the silver leaves adorning it flashing as she wrapped the three of us and yanked us to her, she hugged us all and yelled, “Hang on, Masika is sending us to reinforce Sydney!”
Then we were falling through reality without having time to tell the soldiers where we were going. And we reappeared in the burning wreckage of a massive city, Illya roaring out in her screeching of a thousand souls, primal rage and anguish washed over us from her as we just stared in horror at the scene.
Chapter 9 – Down Under
I had never been to the mysterious land of Australia before. I had traveled many of the lands of Europe and Asia while fighting black magic users, but never to the new world or this land down under. Now here I was at the end of days which was prophesied by so many religions.
My Kat asked in her deep alto Slavic accent, backed by the rumbling of the bear spirits of her brothers which she held within her, “Gretel? Are you alright?” The transport here was rough, it felt as if we were torn apart just as reality had been, then reassembled at a different location. The immense well of magic I could feel from the Voodoo Queen Elder could accomplish feats such as this?
I smiled up at my muscular mate and nodded and pointed at my cheek. My big teddy bear leaned down to give me a kiss on the aforementioned cheek. Then I looked over to Belle and Illya and they nodded to us then my Goldilocks snorted at the sounds of heaving behind us.
We had the largest contingent of military personnel and vehicles in our group. We even had one of those big destructive tank vehicles that could sling projectiles great distances. It had taken a long time to travel, I had only flashes of visions and insight as we were whisked through a void with what had the impression of a pathway in it.
Something immense had batted us away, scattering the particles we had been reduced to by the Voodoo Queen, but she proved to be a match for whatever it was, as I had the impression of her collecting us where we had been scattered long and wide, before she was able to reconstitute us on this side of the barrier.
I glanced at the wrist clock gifted to me on my birthday by the always caring and considerate Parker. She looked after all of us as if we were her children though she was the youngest of us all.
I blinked when I realized too much time had passed and it was already past sundown in Seattle back in the New World. I opened my mouth to warn the others when the world before us on the other side of the city tore open, causing my ears and eyes to start bleeding from the sheer magnitude of magic it took to tear a jagged hole in the universe like that.
It was only a glance I was afforded, as it gave no warnings, at the massive creature which just clapped its hands without even stepping through the tear in reality.
Seeing the world between us and the Elder being consumed in flame and energy, obliterating the city between us, seemed to be happening in slow motion. I could see it and feel a destructive power that could tear apart continents coming at us, and we were nothing compared to it.
Kat was yelling something as she became a huge bear the likes of which the world has never seen, and she dove on me as the world was torn apart around us. I was screaming from the pressure of the magic as it tried to crush the part of me which was attuned to it as heat and energy and the power of creation itself lashed at us.
My last thought was how foolish we had been to think that we even stood a chance against these angry gods. But then it was over. My ears ringing, my skin burned and bubbled in the areas Kat couldn't cover. The weight of her bear arms around me were crushing me, and all I could smell was burned and charred flesh and hair. And my girl was still.
I struggled out from under her, in gaps in the rubble which had once been a city, and I stood on shaky legs and then shrieked in horror and agony. My love, my heart, my reason for being lay dead, half her body vaporized by the attack. She had sacrificed herself to save me. My wail was joined by another which awoke a primal fear in what was left of my awareness. And I looked over to see the huge demonic unicorn that was our friend, our family, Illya, as she roared out a cry of anguish and rage to the heavens above the charred remains of something... I threw up when I saw human bones protruding from the mess. My voice was small and disbelieving as I whispered, “Belle?”
In less than five seconds, we had lost not only the battle, but the loves of our lives and the enemy hadn't even stepped through the portal yet. It was nothing for it to do this. How could they not know they are the evil and chaos they said they sought to prevent, by destroying the mortal realm?
I was nothing to them, and wouldn't be able to even get close to such an overwhelmingly powerful enemy, but I was sure as hell going to try with the last moments of my life. I started drawing as much druidic and even black magic into my battered body as I could, beyond my limit, ignoring the pain that would normally have crippled me. Then faltered when a voice behind me asked in horror, “Gretel?”
I spun and dropped to my knees sobbing, Raz and the group defending Cairo were here? How? Then I spun back to the enemy as it bellowed and stepped through to the smoking ruins that used to be a city of millions, an army at its feet. Rose was hissing like some sort of creature from hell as Illya's screech of a thousand tortured souls joined in. The two charged the enemy without a backward glance. I looked at the others and begged them with my eyes and a broken sob to tell me that it wasn't true. Kat and Belle were gone.
Instead shock, sorrow, then rage cycled through their eyes in an instant, then they turned their gazes to the oncoming enemy and I turned with them. We all started screaming out challenges as we followed our two sisters to meet the enemy. That creature would remember this day if we lost or not, I promised with my immortal soul that he... would bleed.
Chapter 10 – The Gates of Seattle
Daria said simply, “They're here, Mari.”
I nodded as I felt the arrival in so many ways, through my sensitivity to dark magics, through my senses as the Red Hood as my cloak billowed out behind me in the wind, and mostly through the mantle of the Scales that the love of my life and I shared. A large piece of the Elders themselves, which held a drive to maintain balance at any cost which we resisted every day.
Something wasn't right. We had assumed they would spread out across the globe, and systematically wipe out any resistance before meeting up to combine the power of
creation and destruction they held in their hands to unravel our realm.
But this... this could be bad. I felt two presences approaching the confluence of laylines, as well as the weakened and battered veil between realms that had been so abused in recent times. The likely crossover was just a half-mile inside the gates of Seattle.
It could also be fortuitous, depending on which point of entry had been abandoned. If it were one of our teams without a goddess or a reality-bending magic-user, then maybe we could combine the teams. I opened my mouth to call back to Masika.
The reclusive Elder hermit just sighed and inclined her head. I knew I pushed her and took too many liberties with her own code and moralities. She said she would not help us in any upcoming battle, yet she did acquiesce to helping us get to locations where we could face her incoming brethren.
I gave her a sad smile and a nod of appreciation. Perhaps our chances had increased from slim all the way up to unlikely. Though I had two cards up my sleeve, one that the Voodoo Queen of Neverland had surmised, and one that Daria and I were saving as a last-ditch effort.
My fist shot out when a man's voice said behind me as he leaned over my shoulder to squint his eyes to try to see what I was looking at, “It may make the difference as it is unexpec.... ow!” My strike broke Frank Baum's nose and sent him tumbling back, dozens of soldiers snapped their guns toward the man.
I held a halting hand up to the soldiers. “Stand down. He's annoying, and useless, but harmless.”
He looked hurt that I'd hit him as he reached up to wiggle the shattered cartilage and bloody mess that had been his nose a moment before. And when he let go, there was no evidence he had ever been hit as he stood and dusted his suit which looked to be something from a century prior. And all the dust and tears on it from his tumble were gone.
I hit him again.
“Ow again. What was that for?”
I sighed and said, “That was for Dorothy and the hell you have put her through. She'd have done the same if she were here... Wizard.” L. Frank Baum was just as bad as the Grimm Brothers had been for most of the rest of us. He chronicled and exaggerated the stories of Oz that he wrote about Dorothy who would one day save Oz. Always cryptic, and with enough power to do things himself but resigned to just watch as prophecy unfolds.
He nodded. “And she has on many an occasion.”
I asked, “Aren't you supposed to be protecting Oz right now, while Dot helps us fight for our very existence?”
He waved that off. “Oh pish posh, Oz is in great hands while I have come to observe with this delightful woman here.” He indicated our Elder friend. Then said with surety, “Vermillion Chrysanthemum, the delightful Munchkin protector, is ruling well during Dorothy and my absence. Until I return in either a day or seventy-two years... or maybe last week, it's hard to tell when the path to Oz does funny things to time.”
He moved over to where Masika was stringing shells onto grass twine. I didn't know where either of those things came from. She looked up at the grinning man and... well, she punched him in the nose.
“Ow! Would people stop doing that?”
She shook her head. “When you watchers stop interfering with young people's lives. Does interference sound like watching?”
He straightened his newly broken nose again and then sat beside her on the curb as another man sat on her other side whom she elbowed in the neck. The man grasped at his neck wheezing then with a popping, crunching sound, he was fine. “And a fine hello to you too Miss Titania.”
She muttered about watchers and messing around with her girl. I hadn't even seen the man arrive, and my wolf senses along with Scales abilities, should have predicted his arrival, and I still had no clue who he was.
Baum solved that for me as I tried to piece it together myself, knowing that Masika saw Wendy, our Hook, as her child. The Wizard of Oz asked, “Uneventful trip, Barrie?” I had to blink, this was James Barrie? The man... or watcher, who wrote of Peter Pan and Neverland? No wonder Masika had crushed his trachea. It was because of this man that the love of her life, the original Hook had died.
All these watchers writing half-truths, chronicling the Avatars in so many of the realms. These were but the ones we were aware of because they dealt with the Avatars who hailed from the mortal realm. How many other watchers were meddling in so many more lives in the countless realms out there?
I looked at Daria who was looking at the men, her eyes narrowed like the Alpha wolf she was, as she growled out, “I don't suppose you are going to raise a finger to help?”
They just started stringing shells too as they gave an apologetic look. Where were all those shells coming from?
Rachel growled low and menacing and asked us, “Want I should ventilate them?” She patted her twin Sigs, and Conrad chittered a reprimand to them from her shoulder. That squirrel had no fear, and had a few demon kills of its own under its belt.
Snow placed a kiss on her wolf's cheek. “Wouldn't do any good love. They're like the Grimm brothers were, and would either step aside or heal.”
Then she leaned in and booped Conrad's nose and her eyes clouded white as she said to him in a voice that carried the power of nature herself, “This fight is beyond you little one, but you can do me an invaluable service. If things do not go well I will need the Wild Hunt. Can you please go tell the wilds around the city to prepare in case I call?”
Conrad swarmed onto her arm and chittered and chastised and then swirled down her arm and into her pocket, coming up with some dried berries packed into his mouth, and he scurried down her leg and bounded off toward the North Gate.
Daria smirked and opened her mouth, but Gretta held up a warning finger... a middle finger, to stop her. But Rachel asked for my girl, “Are you going to start singing next, and birds will flock to you?”
Her eyes, normal again, Snow smirked and said, “Flock you, love.”
I liked how Rach could still bring the playful out in Gretta. Perchta and her were becoming more and more a blended being and Gretta gave them both humanity. We all knew that one day, Perchta would be able to manifest on her own again, after she had sacrificed her physical form to save Gretta so very long ago.
We did not know if we would lose our friend when that day happened or if they would be the amalgam of personalities that have been slowly moving toward. That would be a better outcome than Rach losing Snow forever because, in their shared consciousness, Perchta has come to love Rachel just as completely as Gretta.
It reminded me so much of Ella-Marie. Though now that those two had blended so thoroughly, sharing the same form for so many centuries, they are a bit... lost? Being independent now that they can exist apart from each other at random intervals, thanks to the almost inconceivable powers that Dorothy wields. Now Parker has been brought into their odd existence and I'm embarrassed to admit, she's cutely awkward as she adjusts.
The one thing I can say for certain is that those three have given their hearts completely to each other... and it is that capacity for love that proves the elders are wrong, that the mortal realm is worthy, and can be so much more because of that love mankind is capable of.
I swayed when it felt as if a great power was pushing down on reality and just glance over to Rachel and nodded. She was the only one of us who could use the radio on her hip without shorting it, since Perchta hadn't spelled it like our cells, to be semi-magic resistant. It is so odd after all this time, for me to be able to use modern electronics. But even with her spells, most of our group could only keep our cells on for a short time before they start to, well, short.
Rachel pulled the radio from her hip as Masika and the two annoying watchers stood, their eyes on the area a half-mile away where the fabric of space started rippling and bending. She said just one word into it before clipping it on her belt again and drawing her twin Sigs, “Incoming.”
The old Wall Breach sirens from the days of werewolf contagion started wailing throughout the city as soldi
ers started running to their ready stations. I looked at them with a mix of pride and sorrow. It was that bravery that showed another reason that mankind should be seen as redeemable by the Elders.
They had to see that these men, who had to know that there was next to nothing they could do against such overwhelming power, even though they would likely die here today trying to save the people of the mortal realm, still stood arming weapons that would be of no consequence to the destroyers of entire realms.
Then the universe itself tore, and I swear I could hear its cry of protest as a ragged hole parted reality and the power backlash I could feel from it was like a tsunami in my soul, threatening to send it tumbling away into the void again.
The sirens stopped in the city and I could hear nothing but the heartbeats of all the brave men and women around us as we held a collective breath. The silence was more unnerving than the anticipation of the Elder's arrival.
Then they came.
Two beings, who had taken a humanoid form, only fifteen feet tall, looking for all intents and purposes as the gods they fancied themselves. They looked to have stepped out of the Greek Pantheon. Looking like Apollo and Hermes complete with white togas and leaf laurel crowns on their heads. They radiated the power that Masika went through great pains to hide.
I could feel the mantle of the Scales being tugged at, confirming my suspicion that it was a part of their power that they had stripped from themselves to imbue in their vassals. And I could also feel the imbalance. Where before the imbalance skewed toward good and righteousness because all of the Avatars were in the mortal realm, it swung overwhelmingly toward corruption and an insidious poison that threatened to consume all.
If only the Elders could feel what has become of them, to see the way absolute power has tainted them, corrupted them, then they would see that this was not the way. But that is the problem when one cannot see their own flaws and believes that their way is the only way. They were just blindly moving forward with the misguided belief that was slowly rotting them from the inside.
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