Accounts Payable

by Blaise Corvin

  My moment came when she pivoted to pace the other direction, she made the mistake of turning away from me. I charged Eneus with maximum Vibration power and threw the powerful weapon at my enemy’s back. When the spear hit, I couldn’t help letting out a savage chuckle. Then my heart sunk as Lisa fell apart, turning into glowing motes of purple magic.

  It had been a copy so perfect, I’d thought it was the real Lisa.

  “Shit—” I began, and was knocked back as Lisa stormed through the hole I’d made earlier, her attacks cold, controlled. Her first strike severed my grip on Eneus’ sash, and she didn’t give me another chance to call for my spear.

  I blocked and parried as best I could with my armored forearms, angling the enchanted metal so she couldn’t get a clean hit, but it was only a matter of time before she took an arm off this way. Her swords whirled, and it was all I could do to avoid losing my head. I sprang back, but the rest of the house was solid, I couldn’t escape. My hand had a charged air drill ready to release, but I only had a few left to throw, and they wouldn’t do me much good right now as weapons. Using the air drills to weaken a wall enough to crash through would take time. The windows were all too small to fit through.

  Mentally screaming, Damn damn damn damn damn, I careened back, kicking and throwing any furniture I could get my hands on. Lisa cut through most of it, but some hit her. Anything I could do to slow her down bought me another second of life.

  I’d been caught in another trap. The witch might have legitimately been angry, but I hadn’t fooled her for a second. I’d misjudged, became overconfident. How could I have forgotten that Lisa was a master manipulator? I silently cursed myself as I desperately fought for my life. Lisa’s energy swords were deadly, and she cut right through furniture and even the edges of walls as she pursued me.

  Finally, I hit a dead end. She’d chased me into a room without a side door. There was no escape. Luckily, she rushed in to end it, and I stepped forward to meet her, ducking inside her weapons. My fists lashed out, and I did my very best to kill her with my bare hands. Her armor held, but she grunted an “Oof,” so I must have damaged something.

  Grappling wasn’t going to do me much good if she managed to get one of her blades up to my head. Her swords slammed into my back, but with the long blades, she didn’t have the leverage to penetrate my armor. The heat from the weapons still hurt like hell—they burned my back, singeing my skin. Any second now, she was going to convert one of her swords to a dagger, or just use energy blasts to take my head off.

  With no time to waste, I used a technique I’d learned in Tolstey to throw the former Jackals leader, a priestess of Asag, to the ground. Then I began to frantically struggle, both our armored, inhuman bodies shattering the furniture in the room as we tried to kill each other.

  I quickly found that I was more skilled as a grappler, but her armor spit and crackled against me, eating away at my dark plate, draining its energy. It was truly only a matter of time until she killed me, even without all the other weapons she could use. The moment my armor was gone, I’d be done.

  My inevitable death started to weigh on my heart so I had to fight against my enemy and growing despair at the same time. I still had the upper hand, barely, but we struggled as she pushed her way out of a joint lock. As soon as she freed herself, I’d be done.

  In my darkest hours, a ray of hope suddenly came from a very unlikely place.

  Vistvis’ projected words echoed in my mind, and I didn’t hesitate, didn’t pause to curse myself for forgetting the dagger. My hand went behind my back, and in the time it took to draw and stab, I’d filled Vistvis with so much Vibration power the weapon hummed.

  The blade slammed into Lisa’s side, a solid hit through her magic armor and into her body. Her orb-granted toughness kept me from sliding the blade all the way home, but a shudder running up her body let me know I’d hit something important. I jerked the blade out and was able to get one more good stab into her stomach before she could pull back, gasping. One of her weapons faded out of existence and her hand went to her waist. She gave me a venomous glare, full of hate, her mouth soundlessly working like she wanted to say something, but abruptly turned and fled. I could hear her crashing through the house and back out onto the street.

  Smart, I thought. The tables had turned, and time was precious now. I cursed, pulling myself out of the rubble. If she’d stuck around a bit longer to scream at me I could have killed her properly, and I wished she had.

  Then the chase was on.

  I only paused to hold out my hand and gather Eneus after leaving the house, then took off after Lisa, air skating down the street. Flying was not an option. She might be able to shake me more easily if I took to the skies. Plus, if I cleared the buildings, I’d be easier to spot by demons. I could probably deal with demons in ones and twos, but I’d be slowed and Lisa would get away. She could command the things too, so I was sure she’d be attempting to do so, bringing them to this area to stall me.

  Luckily, air skating would probably be enough to catch up. Lisa was fast, inhumanly fast, but she was badly hurt. Of course, so was I, but I’d had a lot of practice air skating over the years.

  The desperate chase lasted longer than I would have expected. Lisa stumbled from time to time, but she was sly as ever. Even now, while chasing her to kill her, hating her, I had to admire how quickly she adapted. She obviously knew this city, and was wringing every bit of value she could from what she knew.

  We flashed down streets, through squares, across rooftops, and between alleys. Groups of Guard gaped at us, and the occasional cultist we saw tried calling out to Lisa, but when she didn’t answer, they continued to flee. Regular people were all hiding, but a few of them screamed or cheered if we came close.

  The glowing shield around the palace was gone, which I decided had something to do with the strange message I’d seen earlier. The overall battle for Mensk seemed to be over, but there were still plenty of demons causing havoc—I could see some in the distance, eating people on the tops of tall buildings, or flying around, hunting. I began to grow suspicious that none of them had come close.

  Then as I rounded a corner and saw Lisa turn back to grin at me, her eyes wild, I understood why. Ahead of us, on the other side of the square, stood an orphanage. The large sign was unmistakable, as were the shrieks of children inside.

  The building was swarming with true-demons. They hadn’t been able to make it inside yet, but it was only a matter of time. Lisa’s eyes met mine, and she gave me the coldest look I’d ever seen before shooting another mocking smile. She abruptly darted to one side down, heading for another street. Demons from that direction swooped down toward her, like they were going to protect her.

  She jumped on top of a building’s awning, then to the roof. It seemed she was going to make her escape on the rooftops, protected by demons. I could still pursue her, but it was going to be tough. Ahead, there was a crash as a frog-faced flying demon broke a window, trying to grab something inside with one arm. It wasn’t hard to imagine what the disgusting creature was reaching for.

  My choice was clear, and it felt like the moment crystallized, extending endlessly as a number of things ran through my mind.

  My first thought was indignant. Didn’t Lisa know me well enough to know I was no hero? Besides, if I killed her quickly, I could head back and kill these demons anyway.

  But then I hesitated. These children were in immediate danger, and their lives had already probably been brutal. In fact, I’d been an orphan before. Putting myself in their position, reminding myself what it would be like to be a child attacked by demons, was not even difficult.

  They must be terrified. What’s worse, they had reason to be. Realistically, if I were to chase after Lisa, some of them were sure to die.

  I’m no rotting hero, I thought, seething at the idea of letting my enemy escape. Those kids needed to be tough like I’d been.

  Tough like you were when Lisa took you in? a small v
oice whispered.

  This wasn’t right. Something else tickled the back of my mind, and I remembered my time in the Tolstey Army. I thought about responsibility as an officer, and how I’d failed. By choosing to chase Jialji and her team, one of my friends had died, one had been injured. My friends had been right, it was true that I couldn’t know what might have happened differently if I’d been there, but that was the point, right? I would never know. Maybe some of the villagers that had been killed would still be alive now too.

  I desperately wanted to chase after Lisa, and she knew it. She’d set up this entire scenario so it would probably still kill me, and even if I did succeed in killing her, she would still hurt me even after death. I hated her, but damn if she was not good at this sort of thing. She was evil, but this situation was the kind of thing I couldn’t imagine anyone but her setting up.

  Where are all the rotting heroes at! I demanded savagely, casting my mental voice up at the sky. I am not a rotting hero! Why do I keep running into situations like this! The rotting heroes are not doing their rotting jobs!

  I was so angry, frustrated with the unfairness of the world, with my life. I heard a fresh chorus of screams from the children inside the building ahead and white-hot rage bubbled up from somewhere deep within. It was time to stop feeling sorry for myself. Reality was reality, and I had to react to what I saw in front of me, not what I wanted it to be. I was not a perfect person, far from it, but there were some things I was not willing to turn away from, and some mistakes I had to learn from or I would not be worth the trust and forgiveness I’d been gifted.

  The rotting heroes must be taking a day off, as usual. Creator knew they’d never been around when I’d needed them. This didn’t change that the children in that building needed a hero right now. I could not dodge the fact that even though I was no hero, I was here right now. There was no denying that I was a witness to the scene before me, and I had a good weapon in my hand. No, I was no rotting hero, but maybe I could pretend to be one, at least for one day.

  What these orphans really needed was a hero, a person with a pure heart, a strong arm, and noble intentions, like I’d read about in stories as a girl. Instead, their only option was me, which I supposed was more than I ever got as a child. Still, if someone saved them, maybe their lives would turn out to be better than mine—I could only hope.

  I really, really hated bullies. I hated demons, and I hated anyone or anything that would hurt the helpless and be...smug about it.

  My decision made, there was only one thing left to do. I focused, thinking back to the attack I’d unleashed with Eneus back on the hell world, the special beam cannon. I decided to call it a hellbeam cannon.

  Yes, this seemed appropriate.

  Lisa glanced back, and when she saw me slowing, I could see the infuriating look in her eyes even in the dark, even at this distance. A flash of fading red lightning made it even clearer, her expression of satisfaction, of triumph.

  “Rot that,” I said.

  I leveled my spear, and activated Pewpew, channeling the energy from the deadly ring inside. The arcane energy from the ring mixed with all the Vibration energy Eneus had stored, and I unleashed it at Lisa’s back.

  “Hazard!” I screamed, closing my eyes as I fired, but the light was still enough to dazzle me. My spear’s hellbeam made the air crackle, and I could smell ozone.

  The beam was far weaker than it had been before, but that made sense—it hadn’t had time to store too much energy yet. Even weakened, the hellbeam had been devastating. Almost all of Lisa’s demons around her went down, and she fell like a stone. The afterimage of the attack was still etched across my vision.

  I growled as I spent a few more seconds watching where Lisa had gone down, thinking furiously. Then I decided there was no point in investigating the area after I saved the children. Lisa was too tough. I was sure I’d damaged her, but she had probably survived, and she probably had help. She wouldn’t stick around long enough for me to find her again.

  And if she hadn’t survived, then I had one less problem, but the odds of finding the corpse weren’t great, especially with hungry demons everywhere.

  The demons that had been attacking the orphanage all turned to look at me, and I slowly floated upward off the ground. At least a dozen sets of eyes tracked my every move, and unnaturally long tongues ran over sharp teeth.

  “Come at me!” I snarled. The night wasn’t over, and I was really not looking forward to dealing with the backlash of my last usage of Pewpew when it hit.

  I decided I was going to kill these demons, then fly around the city, exterminating any that I found until I passed out from fatigue.

  With a thought, I channeled fresh Vibration energy into Eneus. Some of the demons had left the building, cautiously approaching me. A new wave of fatigue washed over me as I ran my eyes over the nightmarish things, noting new details the closer they got.

  “Oh goodie,” I sighed. Then I prepared to use up some of the very last of my stamina. I decided it was official: I really, really hated true-demons. The creatures trying to get into the orphanage, trying to have themselves a little snack, were about to have a very, very bad night. Misery loves company, after all.

  I may be about to take the stage as a phony, pretend hero, but I’d never stop being Nora Hazard.

  Eneus’ tip came up, and I flashed forward, springing on top of a horse-faced demon at one of the windows, slamming my spear through its body. “You ruined my chase!” I screamed. “Why couldn’t you all fuck off back to your rotting hellworld instead of trying to eat babies? What is wrong with you?”

  The demon was too busy dying to answer, so I went to kill another. When the backlash from using Pewpew hit, I almost blacked out, but sheer stubbornness and resentment at the unfairness of my life shielded me. Floating time was long gone, and there was no way I was going to get it back. I started chuckling as I saved the orphans, then flew around Mensk, destroying any true-demons I could find. My broken ribs made it hurt to laugh, even softly, but I couldn’t stop. It was unreal how unlucky I was, and how absurd it was to be acting like a hero.

  My wounds were filling my armor with blood, so it was actually a relief when the enchanted plate finally ran out of energy, becoming a bronze tunic again.

  Eventually, while the sky was still dark but the red lightning had stopped, I couldn’t find any demons to kill anymore. I hadn’t been expecting this to happen, and the realization floored me. The people of Mensk had needed a hero. When I’d decided to play pretend hero, I’d fully expected to die. There had still been a lot of demons flying around the city, and I’d already been in bad shape.

  My thoughts began wandering. Hopefully Lisa was dead. I would have prayed for her death if it didn’t seem like such bad taste, probably blasphemous.

  I wheezed as I settled down to a rooftop, and it was tough to breathe. Fatigue deeper than I’d ever felt before in my life was like a monster sitting on my shoulders, so I crawled into a ruined building, found the most comfortable-looking pile of rubble I could find, and lay down.

  Then I suddenly remembered Vistvis’ message during my fight with Lisa, and realized it must have taken most of her energy to yell at me. I could be so rotting stupid, and selfish. I whispered, “Thank you, Vistvis,” before I passed out.

  Victuals

  I woke up feeling like a monster had crawled down my throat and clawed up the inside before dying. My entire body felt awful, but I was alive. If I weren’t orb-Bonded, I probably would have died in my sleep—a sobering thought. As I painfully sat up, covered in cuts and burns, aching from internal injuries, I felt incredibly grateful for my modest healing abilities. Perspective helped too—I’d been beat up worse before, after the battle of Soron.

  It was going to take me a long time to recover, though, even with my healing abilities. I didn’t think I’d ever been this tired before in my life.

  On the ground next to me were a number of familiar-looking wooden boxes, bounties from killing orb-Bonde
d. I didn’t even bother counting or opening them, just tossed them into my belt pouches.

  Faint daylight seeped into my half-burned, destroyed building, filtered through swirling dust. I judged the time to be a couple hours past dawn. Eventually I needed to get off my ass to find food, water, and information, but it took me a while to find the energy to stand.

  Finally, I managed to stumble out of my ruined building and shook my head. I could see people in the streets, which was a good sign. With one last look at the building I’d collapsed in, I said, “Hero business really is for fools. This was just from pretending for a single day.” A dirty, tired-looking man on the other side of the street gave me a strange look, and did a double take at my appearance. I gave him a glare. He turned his head, quickly walking away.

  All my aches and pains were a constant reminder that I had to look like hell. The burns on my back stung with every movement I made.

  “Why do I always get so beat up when I do things like this?” My heart fell. “That’s right, I’m not getting paid either.” I checked my pouches and pockets, realizing that what money I’d carried before was gone. If I really needed money, I could sell an orb or spirit stone I’d just gotten, but that sort of thing took time.

  As I slowly limped down the street, I remembered the faces of the children I’d saved the night before and cracked a smile in spite of myself. Maybe they would end up having a better life than I had. From the bottom of my heart, I wished them well.

  Thinking through my actions the night before, I decided that I didn’t have any regrets. Part of me even felt proud for having done something that mattered. Maybe if a city needed to be saved from demons again, someone could just pay me for my service and I wouldn’t need to pretend to be a hero again.

  More people were starting to stare at me, so I tried to move faster before any of them called the Guard. I didn’t want to explain myself until I got to talk to someone who mattered. Maybe I could find a mud puddle somewhere to wash off some of the blood and grime I was covered with. A water pump or hose would be better, but I’d take what I could get at this point.