by Deck Davis
Ellie was a tall woman with a face so stern it looked like it was made of stone. There was an ever-present look of seriousness about her, as if during her time in the force she’d seen so many horrors that it had driven out all sense of fun. The pockets of her jeans bulged with a square-shape that looked like a pack of smokes.
Her shoulder-length brown hair was tucked behind her ears, and Ash saw that part of her right ear was missing, like something had taken a chunk out of it. Whatever had happened it had been long ago, since the wound was completely closed. Maybe it was something that happened when she was a kid.
Ellie gave Tony a hug. “Good to see you, big guy,” she said. Then she glared to Ash.
Fair enough, he thought.
“Powers out everywhere,” she said, and got out of her seat. “Been trying the phone for thirty minutes but it won’t even dial. It’s that damn nuclear plant, I bet. Pissing around with the grid. Sucking it dry.”
Ash took a deep breath. Ellie’s matter-of-fact manner was of particular concern to him. He knew he’d screwed her over with money, yet here he was coming back to her for help. Still, there was nothing else he could do unless he learned a spell that made a long-wave radio fall out of his ass.
He needed her help, but he wasn’t gonna pander to her. Ash had learned long ago that confidence was the key; say what you had to say with a strong voice and a cocky smile, and you’d go far.
“Ellie Ashurst,” he said. “I can’t tell you how happy I am to see your beautiful face. Got any radios here?”
The sheriff walked over to a coat stand and picked up her police department jacket. It looked bulky in the sleeves and had a brown fur collar that was worn away through years of use. On the back of the jacket was an eagle, the emblem of the Pasture Downs PD.
“Tony Shore,” said Ellie, ignoring Ash. “I don’t remember making you a deputy, but thanks for bringing this joker to me. I was in two minds whether to arrest him yesterday. Technically, the crap he pulled wasn’t exactly illegal. I had a guy from the bank explain it to me. Don’t mean I can’t arrest him for something else though.”
“Like what?” asked Ash.
“Your ugly mug is a crime, for a start.”
Ash felt his cheeks start to heat up. He didn’t get angry too often, but when he did it spilled over until he was blind with it, and that was when his lips ran too fast for his rational mind to catch up. He needed to rein in his smart-ass mouth.
“I need to check that my folks are okay,” he said. “Dad’s always loved messing around with radios, and I’m hoping he’s sat on his ass with a beer and a receiver next to him. Don’t suppose you have anything I can use?”
Ellie walked over to her desk and picked up a pre-rolled cigarette. She bit a few stray stands of tobacco off the end and spat them down on the floor.
“You pa will be fine. Think you’ve got problems? I’ll tell you who’s got problems,” she said. “My son, Jake. He keeps high-tailing it out of our house. Goes missing for hours on end.
“Then, when I send a cruiser to pick him up, he gets a temper like you wouldn’t believe. He’s like a Pitbull sometimes. I was saving up money to take him to a behavioral therapist, but some son of a bitch convinced me that I could treble the cash with one of his investments.”
“I’m very sorry to hear that,” said Ash. “Let me get my violin.”
“Not sorry enough,” said Ellie.
She picked up her pistol from the desk and pointed it at Ash’s head. For a second his stomach turned to water and he thought she might shoot him. Instead, she jerked it in the direction of the cell at the end of the room.
The iron-barred door was open and the tiny cell was swamped in darkness. It looked like the kind of place the town drunk would sleep off a dozen whiskeys.
“That’s where you’re gonna spend the night,” she said.
“Sheriff Ashurst, the world has gone to shit. You honestly have no idea what kind of freakish hell spawn is running around out there. Just sit down a second and I’ll explain everything.”
“Last time I sat down with you, I ended up investing all my savings. Might has well have burned my money. You think I’d give you a second to weasel your way out of this? I’ll admit, something’s going on tonight. That don’t mean you get a free pass.”
Screw this, he thought.
He had Blood Mage powers, and he wasn’t letting some hick cop throw him in the slammer. He didn’t want to hurt her, but maybe a show of flames would be enough to get her to reconsider her actions.
As he gathered arcane power in his palms, the window of the police station exploded.
Glass rained out all over the room, coating the floors and desks with jagged pieces. Ellie ducked for cover, while Tony Shore held up his rifle without flinching. Guy was as cool as ice.
An orc had joined them in the room. It was so tall that it towered over them all. It held a cleaver in his hand. Its skin was green-brown, and almost every inch of it bore scars. The damn thing looked like a goblin on steroids, and had a face uglier than a pig’s arse. It looks like it could crush my skull with one hand.
“Fresh meat,” he growled.
“Can this thing speak English?”
I’m converting as much of Rapto language as I can for you, said FF. Unfortunately, Dr. Aitken picked up only the basics of orc-tongue and none of goblin, so I won’t be able to translate much.
“Fresh meat,” repeated the orc.
“I like my meat barbequed to a crisp,” said Ash.
Ellie looked at Tony. “Am I really seeing that?”
Ash gathered an Ignis flame in his hand. This time he decided to use the level two version. He let more of his blood to seep into it, gathering it into a spitting ball of fury. He could feel its power, much stronger than his basic Ignis spell.
As the orc charged at him, Ash let loose.
Flames scorched over the desks in front of him, setting fire to the paper. The orc moved to the side. The flame burned his black beard but didn’t hurt him. It flew out of the broken window and exploded against a stone wall across the road.
50HP lost!
That left him with just ninety-five left; not enough to risk another flame.
The orc grabbed a desk. With one movement, he flung it upwards and sent it flying toward Ash. He ducked, but the edge caught him on the jaw. The desk clattered against the cell bars.
God damn that hurt! It felt like his jaw was broken.
20HP lost!
Seventy -five left now. Not enough.
“Shoot it,” he told Ellie.
The sheriff looked like she’d been frozen in time. He guessed that seeing a real-life orc had rooted her to the spot.
The orc pounded forward. Dried blood was smeared on his cleaver.
He was going to have to use Ignis again. He could barely afford it, but he had no choice.
The orc took another giant step. Ash could smell him now.
He grew a flame. Just aim right. This is your last chance.
Then Tony stepped forward.
He levelled his rifle and fired. A shot rang out, loud enough that Ash though his eardrums would burst. A bullet tore through the orc’s chest.
The orc groaned, stumbled to his knees. He batted at his pec muscle as if that would take away the pain.
Tony shot again. The explosion made Ash’s ears ring.
This wasn’t just a regular bullet though. A blue light flashed from the barrel. Along with the bullet, long tendrils of spider web-like light latched onto the orc and burned lines on his skin.
“What kind of goddamn blue mage are you!?” said Ash.
The creature stumbled forward. For a second it looked like it still had strength to attack again.
Then, it collapsed to the floor and let out its last breath.
Ignis 10%!
15% EXP gained!
After they were sure that the orc was actually dead, Ash and Tony both looked at each other.
“Nice gun,” said Ash. “Take it the s
pider-bullet-0thing is one of your powers?”
“Sure is. Nice fireball. Shame about your aim.”
“I’m still getting used to it. Speaking of which, I better top up my HP. The well’s pretty empty.”
He was about to use life drain on the orc, when he felt something cold against his temple.
Ellie stood next to him with a revolver pressed to his skull.
“I don’t know what the hell you are, or what that was, but you better keep your hands at your side and shut your mouth.”
“You didn’t learn anything from that display?” said Ash. “I’m a blood mage.”
“I don’t know what the hell that means, but I’m pretty sure a bullet to the face is going to hurt just a little bit.”
He thought about using Ignis, but he knew that as soon as he even flinched, Ellie would put a bullet through his skull. Not only that, but with 95 HP left, he didn’t have much breathing room for blood magic.
“Get in the cell,” said Ellie.
Ash looked at Tony, but he just shrugged.
“When a woman’s got a gun pointed at your head, you better do what she says,” he said. “I need to get back to my ranch. Tough luck.”
“Spoken like a true gent,” said Ellie. “Come on, get your scrawny ass in the cell.”
“Seriously? After everything you just saw, you’re gonna lock me away?”
“I already didn’t trust you when your words were the only problem. Now I’ve seen that you can shoot fire from your palms, and you think I’m gonna let you wander around town? I’m needed out there, and I can’t be worrying about you at the same time.”
Ash looked at the gun and then looked at Ellie’s face, but he didn’t see any sympathy in it. Instead he saw a woman who would be happy to shoot him and then say he was resisting arrest or something like that.
After what he’d done to the town, he couldn’t exactly blame her. The key to a successful con was getting miles away from your victim when they realized that they were, in fact, a victim.
He could just kill her. He had HP for one Ignis blast, but that was all it’d take. One quick ball of arcane fire.
No. He was a conman, he was an asshole, but he was no killer. Not unless it was in self-defense, anyway.
“God damn hick towns,” he muttered, as he went into the cell and sat down.
Ellie clicked the lock shut. She turned her back on Ash and walked to the door of the station.
“Sweet dreams, my prince,” she said.
She opened the station door and stood in the shadows like a silhouette.
“What if a goblin gets in here when you’re gone?” said Ash.
She shrugged her shoulders. “It’s prison rules for you now.”
With that she locked the door and walked out of view, leaving him alone in the cell. Ash sank onto a bed against the wall and leaned back. He’d definitely broken the number one rule of a successful fraud this time.
Chapter Seven
Tony Fucking Shore!
Two days passed while Ash was stuck in the cell, and he was growing weaker by the minute. He licked his tongue over his cracked lips. He hadn’t eaten since the sandwich he’d demolished in the seat of his car before leaving Pasture, and after two days he felt skinny enough to just squeeze through the bars and walk out of the station. It wasn’t possible, of course, but he didn’t see how the hell he was going to get out of there otherwise.
His incarceration gave him a little thinking time, and that worried him. When he was alone he usually started thinking about what an asshole he was, and how it might be better sometimes to play nice. The problem was that he knew where being nice got you – nowhere.
His dad had played nice all his life. He’d been loyal to his old employer, a timber merchant, and all it had gotten him was laid off aged sixty-two. After that, Ash had decided he’d do all he could to support his parents.
The place was starting to stink, and not just because he was unwashed. Left alone for two days, he’d had to use the corner of the cell as a toilet. He felt his resentment growing by the minute.
He had never been inside a police cell before, which was something of a rarity for a guy with his profession. Whether it was through being good at his job or just plain luck, he’d avoided the slammer. The fact that he’d finally seen a jail cell at the worst possible time was just one big thrust from karma’s cock.
He’d tried blasting the cell lock with Ignis, getting nothing for his efforts but a message from FF that informed him he’d lost 25HP, leaving him with 70. He could have tried again, but what happened if he got out and then ran into trouble with such a low health level?
His next plan had been to Life Drain the dead orc, but Ellie had dragged the stinking thing away with her when she left, straining as she walked out of the door.
“Need something to show the mayor,” she had said. “Or he’s not going to believe me.”
Ash didn’t blame her; he’d had a similar plan with the goblins he’d killed on the plains. If it weren’t for the fact that his car was shot and he didn’t want to lug a stinking dead goblin across all the way to town, he’d have slapped the little beast’s corpse down on the mayor’s desk.
In his two days caged up, he saw and heard continuous chaos from the streets outside. Early that morning a few Pasture folks had braved the town, only to get murdered by a gang of marauding goblins. The concrete paving was wet with their blood, though judging by the sweltering sun, it’d dry before long. Luckily, the green little bastards hadn’t come to investigate the station.
He sat against the cell door and eyed the lock again. He just couldn’t see any way of smashing it short of using his last HP.
“What happens if I die?”
We’ll have a funeral for you, and the town will show up to mourn the loss of its most beloved son.
“For real, FF. I’m not in the mood for your subtle blend of sarcasm.”
I told you, it all comes from your mind, buddy. Don’t like my sense of humor? Blame yourself. I don’t wanna be trapped in here, you know. Anyway, you will respawn with a cost; your HP will be low, and spells cost more of it for a limited time.
That made sense. Although it pleased him to learn that he was, in a sense, immortal, it didn’t mean he looked forward to the prospect of meeting his maker.
The problem was that sooner or later some goddamn goblin or orc was sure to come looking, and he’d be stuck in a cell. He looked at the lock again. What was better? To be stuck in a cell while green-assed creatures came marauding, or to escape and give himself a chance?
Fuck it.
He used a level 2 Ignis spell on the lock. He was surprised when his flames didn’t just shatter the lock, but knocked the goddamn cell door off its hinges. It flew into a nearby desk and knocked a computer monitor onto the floor.
50HP lost
Ignis 20%
He was free from his prison, but he had only 20HP. To his mind, that put him roughly on par with a kitten. The streets outside seemed a little calmer now, but there was no telling what was out there. He was screwed as soon as he came across something; even a basic Ignis blast would cost 25HP, leaving him with a terminal case of -5HP.
As he pondered this, Tony Fucking Shore turned a corner and walked into the police station. His brown shirt was covered in blood. He had bullets – charged with magic blue energy – strapped around his chest, and he wore a jacket padded with Kevlar.
Ash hated to admit it, but he was impressed. Tony was equipped for this kind of situation in a way Ash could only dream about. In fact, Tony looked like the kind of guy who’d waited his whole life for something like this to happen.
“About fucking time,” Ash said, trying to put a brave face over how wretched he felt.
Tony cradled his rifle in his hands like a baby, and Ash half expected him to kiss it. He had two bottles of mineral water in his pocket. A compass hung off his lapel, and a solar powered torch was in his chest pocket. His cargo pants were splattered with mud. Dark bags sa
gged under his eyes and made him look like he hadn’t slept in days. His grey beard made him look the very definition of grizzled.
“Where is everyone?” said Ash.
Tony pulled a bottle of water out of his pocket and threw it toward Ash. It went behind him, bounced off a black bar and fell to the floor.
Ash picked it up, twisted the lid and drank it in five seconds. The last time he’d drained a bottle so quickly was when he was in his college dorm surround by five guys goading him on. Back then, it sure as hell hadn’t been water.
