by HP Mallory
And that was when I rested my gaze on my bladesmith. And any joy I’d just felt at seeing Bill, immediately fled.
Tallis was in terrible shape. He looked battle-worn and was covered in lashes and open wounds. Like Bill and the girl, Tallis was being held by two whips attached to either of his hands. Meanwhile, one of the grotesque worm demons were ruthlessly lashing him with a third whip. I immediately recalled my own fight with them in front of the Flamels’ lab.
I was just about to charge in when someone stepped out from behind the nearest tree. He had a snow-white complexion, curly horns on his head, and a big lizard tail that looked like it could hit just as hard as the whip that was lashing Tallis’s back. He waved at the worm doing the whipping, and made the torture come to an abrupt stop. Then he leaned down and sneered at Tallis.
“I already told you what I wanted, Black. Why are you so insistent on denying me my prize?”
Tallis spat at the ground before glaring up at his captor. “Ah dunno, mayhap Donnchadh dinnae like bein’ told whit tae do anymore than Ah do. An’ mayhap he’s jist seein’ how mooch he can piss ye off!”
I felt the air being sucked out of my lungs. This bastard obviously thought Tallis still harbored Donnchadh! And Tallis, being Tallis, was perfectly content to allow the torture to continue just to ruin the other guy’s day.
Just then, the girl beside Bill suddenly turned her head and looked right at me! I was shocked because we were still far enough away that no one else had noticed us and we were hidden beneath the foliage of the trees.
Regardless though, the girl had definitely spotted me and she continued to stare at me now. There was something about her gaze: it was forceful yet soothing but demanding all the same.
A name floated into my head as we stared at each other: “Beatrice.”
I was shocked momentarily as, of course, I wondered if this was the same Beatrice from Dante’s Inferno? The Beatrice who had aided Dante in his journey and was an allegorical representation of spiritual love. But could this girl actually be the Beatrice?
She held my eyes for a second longer before returning her gaze to the tailed demon boss who was still waiting for Tallis to give him something that wasn’t there.
The girl’s, Beatrice’s, eyes returned to me and her eyebrows inclined slightly. I nodded.
She looked at Nicolas and at the worm man who stood to the left of Tallis. She did the same to Perenelle and the whip on Tallis’s right. Despite being bound, she was calling the plays for our attack.
I tightened the grip on my sword while Beatrice slowly drew in a deep breath. When she finished, she glanced at all three of us one last time. Then she blew out her breath in one long burst. And I recognized my cue.
I ran into the grove just as I heard the tinkling of glass shattering on the nearest worm man. His screams filled the otherwise silent air. Meanwhile, a vial flew past my shoulder and struck the other demon who was whipping Tallis. He lit up in flames of blue, his screams adding to those of the other worm demon.
The pasty white demon with the horns and tail looked dumbfounded as another of his worm demons caught the magical blue fire that engulfed his brother and both burned amid a chorus of screams. I faced the pasty white demon and charged him, my blade leading the way.
Two inches before my blade would have penetrated his skull, he blocked my attack with a sword he pulled out of thin air. The sword was as black as the shadows that surrounded it, appearing as a mist.
The horned demon turned all the way around, trying to use his tail to sweep me off my feet. I jumped over it and brought my blade down on the shoulder of his sword arm when I landed, causing a huge gash in his arm but not severing it all the way off. He yelled out in pain as he tossed the sword over to his other hand.
“Bitch!” he screamed at me, his eyes going wide as they turned from black to glowy white, matching the rest of him. He opened his mouth to reveal rows of pointed and large teeth and a long, red tongue that ended in a fork continued to pass in and out of his mouth as though it were tasting the air.
We crossed blades a few more times before an odd rumbling began to shake the ground. The tree behind Bill, Beatrice, and the worm captors suddenly fanned its branched arms out wide before leaning over them. It slammed its branches into the worm demons who were restraining Beatrice, then onto the ones holding Bill. Judging by his astonished expression, pasty white demon dude was just as surprised as I was.
Because he was momentarily sidetracked, I took my opportunity and wielded my blade high, thinking maybe I could get him in the neck and sever his head. I brought the blade down but he deflected the blow and struck a few of his own, driving me back. I caught the whistle of an incoming whip to my right and sidestepped to the left. The whip caught Pasty in the eye, and he screeched more in anger than pain as he threw the smoking black sword at the worm demon on the other end of the whip. The sword impaled the worm demon onto a tree and the black mist that surrounded the sword suddenly misted around the demon. The creature screamed as the black mist ate his flesh from his bones, leaving nothing but his skeleton when it was finished.
Meanwhile, I aimed my blade at a closer, more accessible target: Pasty’s tail. I held the blade aloft then brought it down as hard as I could. The demon shrieked when my blade sunk into the lizard-skin of his tail, even though my sword got stuck halfway through. Before I knew it, he slammed his fist into my jaw, knocking me to the ground. I released my sword which was still buried in the demon’s tail.
Donnchadh went apeshit the second I hit the ground, manifesting in the red heat that claimed my skin and the sudden ire that boiled up from my stomach. As tempting as it was to release him, I was beginning to realize the drawbacks outweighed the benefits. I channeled Donnchadh’s anger into picking myself up while Pasty gripped my sword and yanked it from his tail. A whole lot of gross green stuff started oozing out of the wound and sizzled when it hit the ground. Then Pasty turned his murderous gaze on me as I started to crab crawl backwards. But he was much faster and leapt through the air, only to land on top of me.
He opened his palm and his black sword flew from where it had just killed one of his demons, landing in his hand. Pasty pulled the sword up above his head and was about to bring it down on top of me when something slammed into him from behind, throwing him away from me.
I rolled away, to my right and caught my breath as I got onto all fours and then looked up. Standing there in his burly, beautiful glory was Tallis, his blade held firmly in both his hands.
“Ye dinnae touch her!” he screamed at the demon.
Tallis wasted no time hammering on my opponent but it did no good. The demon was still blocking his blows just as easily as he’d blocked mine.
“Capture!”
No sooner did I hear a female voice yell the word before I watched my blade suddenly come flying towards me. I caught it by the pommel and glanced forward, in complete shock as I tried to understand what had just happened.
Beatrice stood there, maybe twenty feet from me, smiling before she turned around and went running off to the tent. The Flamels had apparently concocted more of their homebrewed chemical weapons because the worms in suits were reeling—some caught by the blue flames, others apparently choking on something invisible to the naked eye while still others rolled on the ground, screaming and crying in pain.
The rest of the humans who appeared to be part of Bill and Tallis’ crew used the distraction to push past their captors, but the odds weren’t necessarily in our favor. Bill launched himself in the middle of the chaos, grabbing a dropped whip and handing it off to a human man with bright orange hair who stood just beside him.
My eyes returned to the fight between the main demon and Tallis. The bladesmith was definitely giving him plenty of grief but he couldn’t punch through the guy’s defenses any better than I could. That was when I thought to myself that two swords were better than one.
Before I could finish the thought, I was already back in the fight, adding my own s
word to the equation. Tallis seemed a little stunned by my sudden entry but didn’t pause from his offense. Pretty soon, we were both driving Pasty into retreat. Meanwhile, I glanced down at his tail and noticed it was no longer leaking nasty green stuff. In fact, it looked completely intact and healed. When I glanced up at his shoulder, where I’d cut him earlier, that wound too was healed.
Great.
More of our strikes hit their target, cutting into his flesh and impeding his efforts to defend himself. I could see the desperation spreading across his pale face. He knew he was about to lose this fight and I was looking forward to exactly that. Too much so because I dropped my defenses just enough for his next move to be successful.
I sank my blade into the demon’s right forearm and pulled it out again at the exact same time that he pulled his left arm, that was holding his blade, all the way back before driving it forward. It felt like slow motion as I glanced down at the blade and watched it run me straight through my middle, the black mist moving around the blade and then traveling up, towards me.
The demon pulled his blade out of me in one motion as I felt myself suddenly totter backwards. I glanced up at Tallis to find his eyes wide with shock and something more—pain. It was an expression I’d never seen on him before.
I heard my sword fall just beside me and with what remaining life force I had, I reached out to it and wrapped my fingers around the pommel. My vision blurred as the world took on a red haze, Donnchadh’s trademark. And that was when I remembered I couldn’t die.
I growled at the white demon, who stared at me dumbfounded. He didn’t see Tallis striking his hand until the blade had already severed his wrist. He screamed but then immediately thrust the green-hemorrhaging stump right into Tallis’s face. The green goo got onto Tallis’ skin and began oozing in double time, burning him as Tallis staggered backwards and dropped his sword.
My would-be killer then placed his dangling hand back onto his severed wrist and I watched it seal itself together. Then, he turned the blade around and faced me, making Donnchadh rage even harder.
“The bladesmith doesn’t possess the spirit anymore. You do,” the demon hissed. He twisted his weapon again. “Free the spirit to me and I end this.”
I spat in his face, causing him to plunge his sword into me again. I cried out and my raging spirit cried with me, eager to rend and tear. I kept willing my hand to hold onto my blade while hoping I could put the weapon to good use. But my strength was draining away with each passing second.
No, I couldn’t die but I could become weakened with every thrust of the demon’s blade inside me. As I glanced at him, he pulled his arm back and thrust the black blade into me once again. Though the black mist tried to spread from the blade to my body, it couldn’t. It was as though I was buffered against it with some magical shield.
I glanced down at my own blade when I thought I saw it beginning to glow. At first I thought I was hallucinating. But no, after another second, I realized the glow was legitimate. And it spread from the blade, onto the hilt, up my arm, until the glow covered my entire body. A humming started from presumably beneath me and began to encompass my entire body. Little by little, I felt my strength building.
Pasty tried to push his sword through me again, only to get thrown backwards when my body expelled the metal with the force of a gunshot. Tallis was standing right behind the demon as if prepared, his eyes clear and blade raised. The burn marks from the demon’s ooze had left a raw wound on his cheek but he didn’t seem to notice it now. Instead, he swung his blade right through the bastard’s torso in mid-air, cutting the demon in half. Both halves tumbled beyond the grove and landed next to the nearest pile of rubble.
As for me, I was still glowing and humming. My vision went from a bloody crimson to a cool blue. I was possessed by something but even though I didn’t have that much experience with Donnchadh, I didn’t think this was him. It felt different—there was no anger, no ire, no nothing. Just a coolness that washed over me and bathed me in a feeling of calm.
I felt like I was watching a movie as my gaze settled on the two halves that were once the white demon. As I watched, both halves of the body began to move toward one another like magnets. Then they began undergoing the messy process of joining together the way his hand and wrist had.
I gripped my sword even harder. I approached the mending demon and once he was back in one piece, I extended my foot and pinned him to the rubble. I put my Day-Glo blade under his chin. “Tell your brethren, leader of the Malebranche, that Donnchadh is beyond their reach.”
I was both me and not me at the same time. Though the voice was my own, it felt like the words were coming from somewhere else. And wherever that place was, it wasn’t Donnchadh.
The demon lifted his sword as if to strike me but once it encountered the glow of my body, his sword completely evaporated into nothing, taking the black mist with it and leaving the demon defenseless. He looked up at me with utter horror.
“What are you?”
I wasn’t interested in answering his question. “Tell them.”
The same inky blackness that comprised his sword suddenly formed behind him, creating what appeared to be a portal. Before I could stop him, he was sucked into it as if it were a vacuum. The portal closed too fast for me to follow.
Its job apparently done, the glow faded from my body, but the cool feeling remained on my skin. The first thing I did was glance down to check the stomach wound Pasty had inflicted. It was completely gone without leaving so much as a scratch.
A nasty laugh made me turn back towards the grove… or what had been the grove. Everything—tent, trees, grass—completely vanished by the time I faced it. Everyone else appeared just as confused as I was. I thought I heard Tallis muttering under his breath “Damned Welshman” while he started towards me.
Sheathing his blade, he planted both his big hands on my shoulders. “Besom, are ye—”
I lifted up my leather tunic. “See for yourself.”
He didn’t seem to believe what he was seeing anymore than I did. “How’s it possible?”
“I… I don’t know.”
Tallis and I just looked at each other for another few seconds before he gripped me tighter and then pulled me into the warmth of his chest. I wrapped my arms around him and closed my eyes as I breathed in the scent that was the bladesmith.
“Tallis…” I whispered, just because I wanted to hear the sound of his name.
He held me even tighter and leaned down to kiss the top of my head. And we would have stayed that way for a long time if Bill hadn’t interrupted.
“Lils!” he screamed out. “It’s good to see you’re back, nips! But we gotta save us the welcome backs ‘cause we gotta get us the hells outta here!”
I glanced up but didn’t budge from Tallis’s side. Instead, I focused on Beatrice who appeared distraught.
“But this was supposed to be our safe haven!” Then she cast a wistful glance at the place where we’d entered. “And the departed were supposed to be my friends.” Since I couldn’t see her clubbing around with demons, I figured she was talking about the drove of trans-pigs we’d encountered on the way here.
I didn’t know when Perenelle and Nicolas had joined us but I heard Perenelle’s voice coming from beyond Tallis.
“Then perhaps it is fortunate that my husband and I have a location that suits our needs perfectly.”
Beatrice seemed stunned by Perenelle’s accent. “Etes-vous Francais?”
Nicolas held up his hands. “Mais oui, mademoiselle. Je suis Nicolas Flamel et voici ma femme, Perenelle.”
She nodded and replied, “Jeanne.”
I looked at Tallis in confusion. “I thought her name was Beatrice?”
“Beatrice? Nae,” Tallis said as he shook his head and smiled down at me as he tightened his hold around my shoulders.
“Then her name is Jeanne?” I continued as I started to really notice her clothing. “As in…”
“Aye,” Tallis
interrupted. “Aye.”
A pale man with red hair who was also sporting a prominent bruise on his chin and numerous cuts up and down his body, stepped out from the crowd. “Look, this is all fascinating but we gotta go. It’s not safe here.”
Nicolas nodded in understanding. “Bien sur, jeune homme. If you will be so kind as to follow us…?”
Everyone looked to Tallis and me for the go-ahead. When I nodded, Perenelle began to lead the group in the opposite direction from where we’d come.
“Into the deep abyss…”
-Dante’s Inferno
TWENTY-TWO
TALLIS
Seeing as we’d just come out of battle, ‘twas nae easy for our group to keep up the pace between their injuries and exhaustion. I wasnae exactly in the greatest shape meself after the whipping.
Mayhap such was the reason why the angel stuck so close to the kids, although he didnae engage any of them in his usual yattering. Truth be told, none of us talked on our way to the Flamels’ stronghold. On the other hand, ‘tis rarely a good idea to talk more than necessary on any battlefield. By keeping quiet, we could preserve enough energy to make the long trek ahead of us… or so I hoped.
Speaking of hope, Besom stuck close to me at the back of our ragged troop. Her arm wrapped ‘round me while carefully avoiding me open wounds. I couldnae stop looking at her and nae entirely because I was delighted to be near her again. Aye, there was a part of me that wanted to be sure she was really here in the flesh and still another part that merely wanted to look upon her.
But there was another reason I couldnae tear my gaze away from her. I couldnae help remembering her fantastic lightshow at the grove and the way her entire body had lit up with a glow I had never seen before. But ‘twas nae just the glow that caused my stupefaction.
When she had taken upon the glow and defeated Malecoda, her entire person had changed. The Lily I had come to recognize was nae the same person. Her body had been nae so long and thin but more curvaceous and her face had taken upon it a softer roundness of the cheeks and chin. While I found her beautiful nae matter what her form, the fair woman she became while amid the glow was truly magnificent. It was the kind of beauty I’d nae seen in centuries and obviously created by a force to be reckoned with.
