by Ryan Attard
Abi sauntered in front of the vampire gang, triggering a bout of deja vu in my mind.
Three years ago, Abi had found herself in the exact same situation, and she had failed miserably. Only back then, it had been two vampires, Amaymon had saved her hide, and I was watching her the entire time, ready to intervene.
She extracted both her guns, cocked but lowered.
“Okay,” she said. “Which one of you wants to go first? I don’t have all night. The new season of Game of Thrones premieres in half an hour and I am so not missing it.”
The Nelapsi cocked his head. A mane of ebony hair cascaded around his shoulders as he moved his head.
“Such bravado,” he said. “Especially from one so young. But I can smell your fear from all the way over here.”
“That’s not fear,” she snarled. “It’s fury.”
Before I could register her movements, she raised her guns and fired. The shots were too fast to be accurate but still, her grouping was ridiculously good.
Two of the vampire flunkies fell on the ground screaming as they clutched their legs. Both of their femurs had been riddled with bullets.
One of the flunkies, moving with the trademark vampire speed, sprung to one side and leapt. Abi didn’t even look at him.
She stepped and shot her leg into a side kick. No human could kick a vampire out of the air—not unless they had perfect timing. Abi caught the vampire just as he began descending, at a split second before gravity settled in. The vampire curled around her foot and fell down flat. Abi stomped on his face, slid her foot to his neck, pinning him to the ground and lowered her right gun.
She pumped his head full of lead with her right gun, while looking and shooting ahead with her left.
Her right gun clicked empty. By that time, it had reduced the vampire’s head to mush. His chest was also caved in from where she had kicked him—a telltale sign she had amplified her kick with telekinesis, one of Abi’s natural psionic powers as a result of her hybrid nature.
Abi glared down and stabbed the gun down on the vampire. Using her telekinesis again, she plunged the gun right into the vampire’s chest, reloaded, and fired into his heart.
All in less than a second.
The vampire burst into ashes.
I simply stared.
Yeah, I was impressed. Very impressed. You can have the best teachers in the world, but these were not skills that could be taught. Sure, someone could teach you how to kick, and fight, and shoot—but Abi’s skills had been average at best when she had been with me.
This vigilante woman before me had refined her skills on the streets, plunging herself into life-and-death battles on a nightly basis. That alone had made her lethal and brutally effective.
And she was just getting warmed up.
When her left gun clicked empty, Abi took off running towards the vampires. By the time she was atop them, Sun Wo Kung was in her hands instead. The golden baton extended to a staff.
Shape-shifting was her weapon's main ability. That much I knew from seeing her use it and training her in combat. Prior to my death, she could only manage to make it longer or shorter, going from staff to baton.
But now…
I watched from Limbo the intricate way she used her weapon. Gone was the negotiation with the trickster spirit imbued in the weapon. Now it was an extension of her will.
And that meant that it had unlocked some sweet surprises.
One of the staff’s tips spun on itself, becoming a deadly skewer, and Abi stabbed it into one of the downed vampires’ chests. She heaved and pole-vaulted in the air just as the last healthy vampire flunky slashed at her. She extended a leg as she vaulted over and sent her attacker staggering.
As she landed, I saw her alter Sun Wo Kung’s shape. Mid-swing, the staff shortened by a foot. At the same time, the top third swelled and flattened, turning into a paddle.
A really thick, edged paddle.
Abi swung it into the second injured vampire’s head as he limped away. The blow didn’t just decapitate him. One second the vampire was running away, and next thing he knew he had no head.
Poof. Squish.
Gone.
Both injured vampires ceased to be injured and became ash.
The Nelapsi snarled and lunged at her. He was faster and stronger, a fully fledged super-vampire, unlike the flunkies, and he caught Abi’s side.
“Watch out,” I cried too late.
Abi barely flinched at the blow. From Limbo, I saw magic suddenly flare from within the fibers of her clothing. It was a similar enchantment to what I had woven into my trench coat.
The Nelapsi’s blow had torn through the clothing’s enchantment, resulting in the smallest of scratches on Abi’s ribs. A blow she didn’t even feel.
“Ouch,” she said, half-heartedly.
She grabbed the Nelapsi’s arm one-handed and spun into a shihonage Aikido lock. When she threw him, she scythed his legs from beneath him with a baton-sized Sun Wo Kung. The Nelapsi’s head crashed into the concrete and blood splattered.
A snarl.
Abi held onto the Nelapsi’s arm, locking him in position below her, with Sun Wo Kung in her other hand. The last vampire flunky walked with his ribs shattered from when she kicked him away, but he lunged nonetheless.
Abi raised a staff-sized Sun Wo Kung over her shoulder like a javelin. Indeed, the weapon had now been transformed into a javelin, deadly tips glinting in the streetlight.
A wave of magic burst from her. In Limbo, it looked like a small tsunami. I realized this was the first time Abi had gotten serious throughout the entire fight—her fury and killing intent shaped the spell, the same kinesthetic spell I had taught Jeremy earlier with a knife. Except this was a fully-fledged witch-succubus hybrid with a large magical channel enhancing her powers, and an even larger chip on her shoulder.
The vampire stopped in his tracks.
Then he spun and ran.
Abi threw the javelin. It tore through his chest and angled down, piercing the concrete. The vampire screamed as he was skewered in place. He flailed his hands. Sun Wo Kung’s magic burned his flesh.
At the same time, Abi kicked the Nelapsi—who was still locked with his arm supinated beneath her—in the face and fell into an arm bar. The arm snapped and before he could scream, she kicked his jaw, shattering that for good measure.
Abi calmly got up and walked towards the pinned vampire. She slapped his hands away and grabbed his head. One telekinetically-enhanced twist later and she had ripped off his entire head.
She grinned at me, and winked.
I got the message. She too must have remembered the last time she had faced vampires alone. She wanted me to see just how powerful she had become.
Even if she thought I was just a mirage, Abi still had something to prove to me.
And people like that always make stupid mistakes.
I saw it through Limbo, a single black tendril rising out of her side, where the Nelapsi had cut her. There was no apparent sign in the real world, but I recognized the signs of poisoning.
“Abi, you’re compromised,” I said. “The Nelapsi did something to you when he slashed you.”
She glanced down. “I don’t feel anything. Now, if you’ll excuse me, it’s time to finish this.”
The Nelapsi got up, his broken arm dangling. With a series of squelches, it twisted the mangled limb back in place and flexed the newly-healed arm.
“Catch,” Abi said, throwing the severed head at him.
Instinctively, the Nelapsi caught the head. One second later, he staggered away as Abi hook-kicked his head.
She chuckled. “Hah. They always fall for that one.”
The Nelapsi lunged at her side a second later. She punched, he ducked under and leapt out of her reach.
“What is wrong?” he taunted. “You are slow.”
Abi gritted her teeth. I saw the tendril getting larger. It now became a spider web that stretched slowly over her entire side.
Abi
outstretched her arm and Sun Wo Kung came flying at her. She caught it and turned it into a baton.
The Nelapsi grinned and flicked open a knife.
The two of them circled each other.
The Nelapsi lunged first. Abi fell into an Escrima stance and snapped her weapon towards his wrist. She missed him by inches. He was testing her. The Nelapsi struck again, another feint, and reappeared behind her. Abi had already extended her weapon but he was on her other side, and plunging down.
A second Sun Wo Kung baton appeared in her hand, blocking the blow. Abi struck him with both weapons, forcing him back.
“What?” she said, smirking. “Don’t tell me you don’t have anything else up your sleeve?” She took her dual-wielding Escrima stance. “Guess now it’s really time to end it.”
“It is,” the Nelapsi said. “You should be feeling it right about now.”
“Feel what?”
He raised his hand and flicked his claws. “My plague, of course. Little child, your pain tolerance worked against you. Had you been more sensitive, you would have felt the symptoms earlier and applied healing magic. But time has passed now, not to mention your elevated heart rate and blood pressure. Just think of how quickly the poison is spreading.”
Abi heaved suddenly. The black spider web had covered most of her body.
“Impressive willpower, child,” the Nelapsi said, “but eventually, everyone succumbs.” He grinned directly at me. “Your dead friend tried to warn you, but you did not listen. Now you shall join him while I ravage all that your body has to offer. Your flesh and blood will make a delectable meal.”
“You…” Abi stood on her feet, shaking, “talk way too fucking much.”
The Nelapsi rushed her. Abi swung but he punched her in the gut. Both batons fell on the ground and merged, becoming one. The weapon rolled away as Abi fell to her knees.
The Nelapsi ripped her mask from her face. His claws traced her face.
“I shall mount your visage on a wall,” he said bringing the knife over.
“Abi!”
I instinctively ran over to her side, but there was jack I could do. And the vampire knew it.
He smiled as he pressed the blade to her jaw.
Golden light suddenly flared from my chest, making him pause.
“What is that?” he gasped.
I was pretty sure he couldn’t see the light but creatures that foul can sense even the slightest bit of holy magic. And trust me, judging from the burst of light coming from within me as I saw it through Limbo, I had a lot of it.
And now I knew how to use it.
“This is the thing that’s gonna turn you to ash,” I replied, as I reached out and grabbed Abi’s aura through Limbo.
As I had done once before with my Life magic, I willed the golden light into Abi.
“Remember,” I told her. “Remember what made you special.”
Abi reached out with her mind, her psionic magic seen in Limbo as lavender tendrils, marred with splatters of red and violet. They reached out towards the mass of darkness that was the Nelapsi and flared towards it.
In the real world, the Nelapsi had leapt away, thinking distance would save it. But Abi’s mental powers were the most powerful I had encountered. The vampire was driven to his knees, clutching his chest.
The lavender tendrils swirled around the black mass’s centre and ripped outwards. Blood spattered from the Nelapsi’s mouth as his heart burst from within.
“Finish it,” I told Abi.
She nodded.
A single thread of lavender whipped, right to left, razor-thin and deadly.
The Nelapsi’s head rolled on the ground before it burst into ashes.
I whooped. I’m not one to whoop, but this one deserved the exception.
“We did it, we… Abi? Abi!”
She keeled over. The black spider web was still all over her. Her magic use had only made things worse. I saw the plague burrow deep into her essence.
“No, no, no!”
I knelt over her and reached out. But there was no more golden light, no more magic.
Just a ghost, and a woman who was about to become one.
Chapter 12
“ABI!”
I reached towards the spider web darkness but it was in vain. Might as well try to pluck out the veins etched in a strip of bark.
Panic rose like bile in my throat. Isn’t that ironic? I hadn’t eaten in over a year, and I certainly did not have a stomach anymore, so why was I feeling nauseous?
Focus, Erik, goddammit! She’s dying!
I looked around me, desperate to find something—anything at all—to help the situation. Magic wasn’t the answer. Spell-casting had only made the situation worse, and at any rate I didn’t have access to magic anymore.
At least not in the traditional sense.
Through Limbo I could see the black pattern dig into her flesh and reach her core. Once it wrapped around her, that was it. Game over.
No, no, not again.
“You’re not dying,” I said. Something grew within me, something powerful and dangerous. “I don’t care what I have to do. You are NOT dying.”
I was vaguely aware of several presences around me. Dark and standing still like sentinels, wraiths began amassing. Not just one, but a whole bunch of them.
Around me, darkness gathered. Unlike the solid darkness that was killing Abi, my darkness was spiritual, more ethereal.
This was my despair made incarnate.
It was shaped like a tick, a really large tick. The main body was sinewy and bulbous, with six large arms poking out, like the legs of an insect. And the wraiths were afraid of it. Not one of them moved, even though I could practically hear their stomachs growling.
My despair whipped at them, keeping them at bay, while I cradled the spiritual form of my apprentice.
“You do not have my permission to die,” I said. “You will not die. Do you hear me, Abi? YOU WILL NOT DIE!”
It wasn’t until that last sentence that I finally knew what I had to do. All this time I had assumed that I had nothing to offer, but that was my thinking like a human.
Which I was not, in the strictest of sense.
I was a ghost, a mass of ectoplasm held together by a single thought—that of wanting to live. I was still alive in a weird way, and life is nothing but energy.
My life was my energy, unable to be taken or used.
But what if I stopped living? What if that thought went from “I want to live” to “make her live”?
Several of the wraiths screeched. Even the despair incarnate surrounding me shook its ugly insect body.
But my mind had been made up.
Maybe this was why I was still clinging to life. Maybe that was how Sun Tzu wanted me to rectify his mistake. Or maybe this was my choice.
I didn’t care.
Nothing mattered, except her life.
I pressed my hands on her forehead and stomach, heart and mind.
“Come back,” I whispered, leaning in to kiss the top of her head. “Come back to me.”
I expected light and angels singing. Maybe Samael would show up, or one of the other angels I knew. Heck, maybe some devil-looking motherfucker with horns and a pitchfork would show up this time.
What I did not expect, however, was the black hole.
***
The portal spat us out in a familiar place.
I knew it was a portal because I could feel the aftereffects. In life, portals always made me nauseous. I was feeling that now. Plus, there was the sensation of falling followed by a rush, as if you were on a rollercoaster going a thousand miles an hour. You’re not really moving that fast. It’s just the way your mind registers the fact that you’re tunneling through the fabric of space and time to breech from point A to point B.
My surroundings looked familiar.
Red skies. Red desert. This was Ashura, my own personal dominion. Or rather, that of my inner power.
But something was off.
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For one thing, the lush valleys of red sand had been reduced to a flat land, arid and completely dry. But the thing that scared me was the lack of the tree. Where once stood a giant mangrove tree, so tall it pierced the sky, was now just empty earth. Specks of obsidian, the same black stuff that the tree was made out of, littered the ground.
Abi was lying down, still dying. In fact, death was all around me.
I realized what I was truly seeing. This place represented my power, my core. And if it was empty, then it meant I was truly dead. No tree, no magic.
You’d think that I would be sad, but in fact I was relieved. I had made the decision to give my life to Abi—it was only fitting that it would happen in this place.
A single, lonely black leaf lay before me. The last leaf, the last shard of power remaining in me. Once I gave this to Abi, then it was over. As I picked up the leaf, its color deepened, becoming somehow more solid.
I didn’t think twice. I put it to Abi’s lips. The leaf turned into a liquid which slipped through her lips and disappeared into her.
We were back in the real world, back in front of my office.
“What-” I began. This was supposed to be my afterlife.
Why was I back in the real world?
“Erik?”
Abi was looking at me.
Abi. Solid. Real. Alive!
She was alive!
Her eyes blinked at me several times. They twinkled, and tears welled up.
“You…” Words failed her as they failed me. “You gave… me…”
“I did.” I had no idea if ghosts could cry, but I certainly did. “I did, Abi.”
Now the tears flowed from her eyes. In a second, I saw the weight of all these months spill through her. She reached out, presumably to hug me, but I was a ghost.
Her arms went through me, and all the way around her knees. Her body was still partially inside me but I didn’t mind. This was as close as an embrace I was going to get.
“Erik.”
Abi said my name again and cried, while I watched and stroked her hair, even if my hand phased through it. She cried and cried and cried, and I watched her, knowing this was the first step to getting her back to her old self.
