I didn’t mind all that much though, it let me read some more of my little book of magic and, if I’m being honest, think about just how much fun it was going to be taking back the city.
“I’m really looking forward to when we stumble across a patrol,” the Angel said after trying and failing to bust out of his restraints, “it’s going to be good seeing that little crystal of yours getting pried from your cold, dead hands.”
“If you don’t shut up, I swear I’ll kneecap you, son.” Jane warned with a chuckle, “Then I’ll have my girl here go all werecat on your ass.”
“I will too,” Sam added, “been waiting for an opportunity to let my claws out again.”
“Settle down, kitty,” I murmured, trying to mentally sound out a particularly interesting sounding spell, “last thing we need right now is for you to turn into a big black beacon.”
“At this point, I feel like we could all start screaming at the top of our lungs and still not draw any attention,” Sam joked, “where is everyone?”
“They’re out there,” Tim replied unconvincingly, “waiting…”
“Sure, Tim,” Sergei prodded before jutting his chin to a corner about a hundred feet ahead of us, “just around there.”
I went to make a joke about him saying that at the last corner, but that was when I saw something strange leading out of the street ahead of us.
It looked like someone had taken a flamethrower to the road, only instead of black scorch marks there were these lightning-looking white and gray imprints.
“Damn…” I muttered, closing my book and pocketing it, “What the Hell happened?”
“This is what that smiting thing did,” Sergei replied quietly as a tense air settled over our little group, “I’m surprised the city hasn’t sunk into the sewers.”
“You and me both,” I agreed after unslinging my carbine again and gesturing for us to bunch up on the wall nearest the corner, “think that’s why the Angels are staying away?”
“Doubt it, boss,” one of the other Orcs chimed in, surprising Sam, Jane, and I with his obviously Canadian accent, “wings could just flap away before they got swallowed or crushed.”
“I…” I trailed off, still baffled by his non-Russianness, “I guess that makes sense. Gotta say though, happy to see just how much they fucked up their turf.”
“Yeah, aha,” Jane agreed as Sergei peeked around the corner and waved for his boys to go around, “I mean, I was kind of hoping that there’d be something to take back, but I s’pose there’s no reason we couldn’t put together some kind of Corps of Engineers-type thing.”
“You reckon there’d be people that’d go for that?” Sam asked curiously.
“Why not?” Jane replied with a shrug, “There’s got to be plenty of spells that’d help put this stuff back toge…ther…”
Not wanting to be repetitive, I went ahead and kept my mouth shut as we rounded that final corner, seeing the utter devastation the Angels had wrought.
We’d all seen the smoke clouds, but ground zero was something else entirely.
Large sections of the road had been disintegrated or blown into nearby buildings, the ones left standing that is, and even at a few hundred feet out, it was obvious the blindingly white crater in the middle of the street was twice as deep as the building that used to sit there.
“There’s… nothing.” Sam murmured as we looked out at the cloud of energy that hovered over the blast zone, “Just… nothing.”
“I wouldn’t say that,” I replied, snapping out of my trance and jogging after the still moving Orcs, “there’s a hole now.”
Sam tried to force a sardonic laugh at that, but she couldn’t, she could barely keep up with Jane and me as we hurried along the barely present footpath, avoiding the grave-deep cracks in the road.
“I really don’t like this, guys…” Dave muttered nervously, “I can feel it tainting me.”
“With all its lightness and goodness?” I joked after getting past the initial surprise of him deciding to speak up.
“More like with the Angelic radiation its seeping,” Dave replied coldly, “seriously, this stuff’s calling out to me, it wants my souls, and I don’t have many left to give.”
“Would that have anything to do with the fact that they’re Angel souls?” I asked amusedly.
“Maybe,” Dave agreed, “all I know is that I want the fuck out ASAFP.”
“As soon as we have the magic, we’ll leave.” I said as reassuringly as I could, “Besides, we’ve got enough of an arsenal on us to fight off any kind o’ ethereal Angel hoodoo.”
“You’re sure about that?” Dave asked, “I mean, you seem to be having trouble handling one Angel.”
“What are you-”
“Uh, Buck…” Sam interjected as we finally caught up and came to a stop with the Orcs, “we may have lost him.”
My gut dropped as I spun around and desperately looked for Tim anywhere on the narrow pavement, “Oh, son of a bitch…” I trailed off, “Alright, we’re going to have to pick up the pace here.”
Sergei seemed kind of thrown by the sudden change, but quickly regained his composure and nodded, “Unfortunately, all we can really do now is wait and hope that the magic comes by soon.”
“Any idea how long that’s going to take?” I asked, feeling kind of guilty that I was putting all the pressure on the big Russian.
He seemed to be handling it pretty well though, and even managed a shrug at my somewhat pointed questioning, “Could be a few minutes, could be an hour, I really do not know much about thes-”
“Is that one?” Jane asked, pointing towards the end of the street at something that moved like an angry flying snake and looked like a cloud made of ice and pure hatred.
“That would be one of them, yes,” Sergei chuckled, “looks like Lady Luck favors us.”
“Wouldn’t be so sure…” Sam trailed off ominously, pulling our attention to the end of the street we’d just come from.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Tim…” I murmured disappointedly as a squad of pissed off and heavily armored Angels came around the corner, their guns in one hand and some meaty-looking swords in the other.
“Heh,” Sergei huffed amusedly, “this can only go well.”
20
“Sergei, Jane, you’re with me,” I ordered as assertively as I could while simultaneously retreating from the Angels, “Sam and… others, y’all are going to stay here and keep those halos off of us while we go snag ourselves some sentient magic.”
The Orc wasn’t thrilled with the idea of abandoning his men, although he also obviously understood why I’d want someone who’d seen the process for catching the magic creature with us.
My plan was a simple one, though that simplicity came with a whole lot of room for failure.
Sure, the Angels were using that shield thing which meant they couldn’t shoot our boys, but that meant they could move up the pavement without having to take cover.
And yes, they were clearly way more concerned about the cracks than we were, making them slower and more cautious than they were capable of, but that didn’t change the fact that we were petrified of slipping in ourselves.
“It’s found us.” Sergei warned as we came to a stop a few short feet from the creature, “We have to be very careful now.”
Knowing that the monster had literally only just become aware of our existence did little to calm my nerves, although I was doing well to keep that information to myself as the beasty coiled in the air and bore into us with its eyeless stare.
“Okay, what now?” Jane asked out the corner of her mouth, struggling with whether or not she was supposed to be aiming at the newly chittering magic snake.
“Pull out the crystal,” Sergei practically whispered, “and then Buck and I will force the monster into it.”
“What now?” I involuntarily blurted out, angering the magic.
“We grab it when it gets pulled into the crystal and force it in,” Sergei said slowly, his e
yes widening as frill-like shards popped up around the creature’s neck, “and do not lose focus. Bad things happen if you get distracted.”
Annoyingly, that last part only made my brain focus on the gunfire and shouts more, muffling the sounds in my immediate vicinity.
“Alright, alright, we can do this,” Jane muttered reassuringly before slinging her gun under her arm and getting ready to pull the crystal out of whatever dimension she left it in, “you ready?”
I was not, not even a little.
I wasn’t sure if it was the gunfire, the angry magic thing, or simply being around that much Angelic energy, but my vision was getting blurry, my skin tingled, and I felt about ready to collapse and crap myself.
Dead honest, I think it was mostly the whole ‘standing ten feet from a Heavenly Chernobyl-type deal’ thing.
“Buck, are you ready?” Jane asked again with more panic in her voice.
“Yeah,” I replied somewhat unconvincingly as I followed Jane and Sergei’s example of putting my gun down and getting my hands out, “let’s do this.”
Looking back on it, it probably wouldn’t have hurt to give myself another second or two to get my shit together.
There wasn’t any time to back out though, especially not after Jane conjured the crystal, making the creature throw some kind of fit as it was pulled face-first into the magical disco ball.
Leaping into action with Sergei, I actually managed to grab the thing and start forcing it into the crystal, surprising all four of us considering my previous hesitation.
Let me tell you though, grabbing it and holding onto it were two distinctly different things.
It… burned, but didn’t?
It’s difficult to describe.
Sergei didn’t seem to have a problem, neither did Jane, but I could feel Dave’s blade vibrating in his sheathe and while I knew I wasn’t getting physically hurt, it was like the part of my soul that lived in my hands was getting seared off.
We were doing it though, and kind of kicking ass at it too.
Tendrils were whipping around every which way and the creature was absolutely howling, but its attacks were just slow enough that I could duck or dodge its desperate flailing with relative ease.
And then a bad thing happened.
“Look out!” an Orc barked, pulling my attention over to our steadily retreating guards as an Angel got too close to the edge of the pavement and got dragged into the cracks.
It seemed like a victory, but that was before the magical monster took advantage of my brief moment of distraction.
At first my brain didn’t even register the pain, instead letting me believe that I’d simply been punched in the chest until I looked down at the three big fishhook-like tendrils that had lodged themselves dangerously close to my heart.
Figuring the fact that I was alive was a small miracle, I let my fight instinct kick in and helped Sergei force the creature the rest of the way into the crystal, which, as it turns out, isn’t the best idea when said creature still has its hooks in you.
No, apparently the result of that is an almost literal gut-wrenching sensation as the claws rip their way down and across your chest, disintegrating ribs and eviscerating organs.
“Well,” I scoffed weakly with what little air I had left in my lungs, “this sucks…”
“Buck!” Jane cried out, having only noticed what had happened after I’d stumbled backwards and nearly knocked myself out on the pavement.
I was cold, unbelievably cold, while my smoldering soul did its best to warm me up.
Truth be told, I didn’t know what to expect as far as pain and death went in Echo, all I knew was that I would respawn as soon as the last of the light fired off in my vision and the dark tunnels closed for good.
At least I hoped that that was what would happen, but that hope was fading fast.
No green mushrooms, no disembodied bandicoot heads, and there sure as Hell wasn’t a creepy-looking chest with eyes.
Dark, cold, and painful, that’s all I had going for me, and it was petrifying.
“Are you dying, you lazy little creature?” a familiar voice rumbled in my head.
“I don’t really think I have a choice in the matter…” I muttered as best as I could, trying my hardest to recognize the deep purring voice.
“You always have a choice, Buck,” the comforting yet deeply disturbing creature replied, “and right now you’re making the wrong one.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, I’ll stop bleeding to death,” I chuckled almost entirely internally, “I don’t know what I was thinking.”
What I thought was my very probably shock-induced imaginary friend got a little laugh out of that, a laugh that sounded like an old Harley starting up, but a laugh all the same.
“So… I’m going to go ahead and die now,” I wheezed, “good chat…”
“I wouldn’t be so sure of that.” the voice murmured slyly, “You have a lot of work to do, Buck, you’re too close to give up now.”
And with that, a blinding flash blasted my tired eyes, a cacophonous rumble rattled my chest as my lungs filled with air, and my spine involuntarily shot me up faster than a bullet with a gasp so hard I swear I nearly swallowed my tongue.
Light, colors, no ethereal voice, I was back home.
Well, sort of.
“You okay?” Jane asked before helping me to my feet.
“I…” I trailed off, patting down my scarred flesh, “I guess so, yeah. What happened?”
“I healed you,” Jane replied happily as she wiggled her fingers at me, “magic, remember?”
If it weren’t for the uncomfortably close gunfire, I’d have probably told her the truth and admitted to thinking I was going to actually die.
“You three need to go,” Sergei said after giving me a relieved smile, “me and my boys’ll hold them off.”
“We’ll stay and help you fight.” I replied assuredly as a bulky Orc backed into me, spurring me to unsling my gun and turn to face the Angels and their fast-approaching reinforcements. I quickly joined Jane in laying down cover fire around the rest of the still retreating orcs.
“There’s no time to argue,” Sergei argued, pushing past me and pulling Sam back, “if they flank us and we lose that crystal I don’t even want to think about what would happen. Now go, we will meet up with you later, either in this life or the next. You know, after I respawn.”
I went to crack a joke but was interrupted as the Angels made another hard push, closing the distance between us and forcing the Orcs to charge them in an ill-conceived Hail Mary move that lost Sergei two of his boys near-instantly.
My gut said that that was all the more reason to stay and help, but the tugging on the back of my mostly ruined jacket told me that we needed to go.
And that was it, we were on the run.
I’d hoped to be able to find an easy exit, preferably a green one with a little stick figure on it, but without our Angel and the distinct feeling that a Tiefling flying across the bay was sure to get smote, we were stuck.
Not going to lie, I was starting to wish we’d had a better exit strategy than ‘wing it’.
21
Having trekked through the city past a few more former guild houses that had been given a Heavenly spanking, me and the girls finally managed to get to our apartment and lock ourselves down.
None of us were particularly psyched about the idea of going to what seemed to be the most obvious place for us to hide, however, after I’d gotten some Demon warding around the place and Jane had worked her magic in the lobby, we felt confident it would at least be a good stopping point.
“So,” I sighed after flopping down on the couch, and dropped the empty carbine onto the floor “what the fuck?”
“Right?” Jane laughed as she and Sam joined me, “That shit was crazy.”
“Did you see what happened when the Angels got close to the cracks?” Sam asked, “It was like some kind of garbage disposal-vacuum hybrid.”
“Explains w
hy there aren’t that many patrols out and about.” I scoffed, “Salting the fields only really makes sense if you don’t plan on using the fields later.”
It wasn’t until I said those words that I started to think about how there was probably more of Carl sitting in that Angel head than I thought.
I realize it was arrogant to assume me and the girls were the only ones who stayed mostly themselves, but up until actually going to the city it had seemed like Carl’s little hissy fit hadn’t had any drawbacks for him.
“What are we doing now?” Jane asked almost overly eagerly, pulling both Sam and I out of our semi-trance-like states.
“I don’t know,” I replied with a shrug, “I’m happy to call it quits for the night.”
“Uh-uh, no way,” Sam huffed, “I was promised sex, I’m getting sex.”
“Oh, is that a fact?” I mocked, half-assuming she was joking.
“You know it,” Sam replied assuredly, her hand finding my thigh as she did, “plus, I worked really hard today, I deserve a reward.”
“So did I,” Jane jokingly harrumphed as she followed Sam’s example and grabbed my other thigh, “getting that thing in the crystal wasn’t easy, you know?”
I think that’s right about the time I realized they weren’t messing around.
“And, what, I sat around doing nothing, did I?” I scoffed, putting my arms around the girls’ shoulders, leaning into the surprisingly quick skid.
“No one’s saying that,” Jane replied, rolling her eyes, “are we Sam?”
Sam pretended to think on it for a moment, then shrugged and sighed, “I guess you helped a bit, but we all know who did all the real work.”
“Do we now?” I asked as the girls’ hands drifted northward, “Care to enlighten me?”
“I don’t think I have to, do I?” Sam replied pretentiously before reaching my crotch and squeezing firmly, “Besides, judging from this, I’m getting my reward regardless of what you think.”
There was a part of me that wanted to say something witty, but there were other forces brewing inside me and they were slightly more… direct.
Echo Online 2 Page 9
