Shades of Death

by Ramy Vance

  “I am of the opinion that a joke here and there helps ease the tension of constantly being in danger of dying. But, hey, that might just be me.”

  Roy poked his head out from his mech. “I’m with you, Terra. Heavy Ghostbuster vibes. So, Myrddin? What’s the game plan?”

  Myrddin pointed at Rasputina’s pentagram. “There’s no way she’s going to leave without watching the destruction. She’s baiting us right now. Waiting for a fight, knowing full well you’ll only be able to choose one: her or Huzmurrth. She probably thinks you’ll choose her, hoping it’ll destroy the Old One.”

  Anabelle, along with everyone else, was avoiding looking at the creature. “And you’re saying that’s not going to work?”

  “No. The ritual is done. Huzmurrth is awake. Fighting Rasputina will only waste time and allow Huzmurrth to grow stronger. But Rasputina must be exhausted. Summoning something this powerful, no doubt, took a lot out of her. I assume her body reverted to its former liveliness.”

  Abby nodded, blushing slightly as Terra jabbed her in the side. “Yeah, she did. She got much younger.”

  “When a lich uses most of their power, they revert to the appearance they’d held moments before losing contact with their soul. She must have been only a few years older than you, Abby. No more than twenty, or twenty-one. And she believed she was already at her peak.”

  Anabelle was tapping her foot impatiently. “Okay, cool history lesson, but what are we going to do about this? Feels like we’re kinda wasting time.”

  Myrddin pointed his wand at Huzmurrth. “I will handle the Old One if you can make sure Rasputina doesn’t interfere. Then I will deal with the lich.”

  The DGA members stared at Myrddin, shocked.

  “You were serious? You think you can take that thing by yourself?” Anabelle asked.

  Myrddin unbuttoned his suit jacket and loosened his tie. “If I cannot, you can say I told you so at my funeral.” He waved his wand and floated into the air. Then he vanished.

  Anabelle crossed her arms as she pouted. “He knows how badly I want to gloat over his casket. And there he goes, sucking the fun out of even that.”

  The elf peered over the edge of the rooftop. “Who’s ready to go beat the shit out of a sleeping old lady?”

  Terra pumped her fist as she prepared to jump off the side of the building. “I have been waiting to smash this lich’s face in since we got here.”

  Anabelle went to Abby and gently placed a hand on the girl’s shoulder. “How about you? Ready for this?”

  Abby nodded. She was still a little frightened of what the lich could do to her. But she wasn’t going to let her fear get in the way of doing the right thing, which was supporting her team. “Yeah, let’s fuck her up.”

  Privately, Abby reached out to Martin. “Hey, is everything healed up yet?”

  Martin answered quickly enough. “Yep. You’re running a hundred percent again. Try not to get stabbed this time. Or at least, if you do, not in the same place.”

  “Yeah. Because I’m really making it easy to get stabbed in the gut.”

  “Just saying. It’s been twice in two weeks.”

  “How are my power reserves?”

  Martin hummed for a second while he checked. “You’re looking like you’re overclocking a little bit. You could stand to burn off some nanobots. So, if you want to get creative, or a little crazy, now would be the time. I’ll set a bare minimum to hold onto so your suit doesn’t go out or anything.”

  “Good. Maybe we can finally finish this lich off.”

  Anabelle clapped and turned to the DGA, Cire, and Roy. “Myrddin wants us to distract the lich. I say we try to end her. If she’s as weakened as he suggested, let’s throw everything we have at her. Let’s go.”

  Anabelle jumped on top of the mech, and Roy leaped toward the lich. Cire climbed onto Terra’s back as her muscles bulged, and she leapt to the building across the street, before sliding down the exterior, her hands tearing through steel and glass. Abby’s thrusters fired, and she took off after her fellow warriors.

  Myrddin appeared in front of Huzmurrth. His suit was glowing white, as was his skin, shining a light on the swirling green bleakness of the Old One. “Huzmurrth, Toppling Mass of Insanity. I hail you, the All-Seeing Madness.”

  The Old One stopped walking, its many thousands of eyes shifting to look upon Myrddin. The air around the Old One turned rank, the scent of death and decay.

  Myrddin didn’t back down. He raised his wand, light shining from its tip. “This is not your realm. You do not belong here, and I humbly beseech you to return from whence you came.”

  A bubbling sound rose from the Old One as its flesh jiggled and contorted. A voice, ancient and loud, sounding as if it were the beginning of life itself, answered in a pagan tongue unspoken in the realm of mortals for nearly a millennium.

  Myrddin understood what had been said. He had hoped this would have gone better. “I will ask you one more time! Please, return to your home. This world is not yours yet. You have no servants here. It was only a lich that summoned you. No one here sings your songs, nor do they wish to.”

  The voice came forth again from the Old One, this time like thousands of blasting horns, almost throwing Myrddin out of the sky. But the wizard held on.

  Slowly, the eyes of the Old One turned from the wizard as Huzmurrth the All-Seeing Madness began to lumber onward, its skin reaching out in violent thrusts, attempting to snatch up anything around it.

  Myrddin hadn’t wanted it to come to this, but he had assumed it would have to. An Old One hadn’t been reasoned with since the Mad Prophet had retired. Myrddin hadn’t assumed his negotiating powers concerning these eldritch abominations was anything on par with the Prophet. The least I can do is give him a warning, Myrddin thought.

  The wizard raised his wand high, and a bright flash of light went off, yet it grew brighter until it seemed as though a miniature sun had just been born into existence on the skyline of New York.

  Huzmurrth recoiled, its skin reaching out and covering its multitude of eyes as a grating screech sent Myrddin’s skin crawling.

  “Go home, Huzmurrth.”

  The Old One wheezed its ancient language once more as hands burst from its skin and darted at Myrddin.

  Fingers and bones wrapped around the wizard as the Old One started chanting a spell in his foul, dead language. Myrddin struggled against the force of the being but could do nothing as he was held in place.

  The chanting grew louder and louder, and Myrddin stared at his hands, which were disintegrating in front of his eyes. He continued to struggle as his body burst into flames, his skin turning to ash and floating away in the wind.

  Huzmurrth dropped Myrddin’s bones, and they were caught up in the mass of tentacles slithering over New York’s streets.

  The wizard’s skull rolled onto the street, stopping beside the remains of a car. His wand fell next to the skull. The wand glowed brightly, and white light shot out of the skull’s eye sockets.

  The eyes on Huzmurrth’s back opened, watching the light.

  Myrddin’s body reformed from ash and dust. The only indication that he had been attacked was the faint layer of dust on his shoulder, which he promptly brushed off.

  “If you insist on fighting, fine,” Myrddin growled. The wizard raised his wand. “Incinerate.”

  An explosion the size of a small nuclear bomb went off, engulfing Huzmurrth in flames.

  The DGA and their teams were closing in on Terra when they saw the explosion from afar. Buildings were simply gone afterward, and a cloud of smoke rose into the sky, followed by a shockwave that nearly toppled everyone over.

  “Was that Myrddin?” Anabelle asked.

  Roy watched the smoke. “Guess the old man thinks this is serious. Come on, we need to hurry before Rasputina notices their fight.”

  They booked it down the street until they reached Rasputina, who was sitting in the middle of her pentagram, her robe hanging loosely from her body. She
looked up at Myrddin’s agents, her hair hanging over her rapidly decaying face.

  “Didn’t think any of you were going to make it here. Glad to see you brought the whole family.”

  Rasputina’s eyes flashed bright green when she spotted Abby. “Ah, and you came as well. Not one to let the terror get to you, are you?”

  Abby ignored the lich, trying to remain focused.

  Rasputina moved to her feet slowly, swaying as if she were going to topple over. “Do you like what I’ve done with the place?” she asked as she gestured to the ruins of the city. “It’s amazing what a couple of chants and a bit of paint can do to liven up an area.”

  Anabelle moved ahead of the other DGA members. “We didn’t come here to listen to more of your B-level bad-guy bullshit.” Mana flowed to Anabelle’s legs, and she darted at the lich.

  Abby and Terra glanced at each other, surprised. “Guess we don’t need a plan for this one,” Abby said.

  Terra cracked her knuckles and then took off after Anabelle. “Hit her with everything we got. Looks like the plan to me.”

  Anabelle fist connected with Rasputina, her knuckles hitting the lich’s face, and cracking her jaw.

  Rasputina’s eyes blazed emerald, and two bolts of green light shot out. Anabelle barely managed to move out of the way.

  As the elf stumbled backward, Terra came up behind her, leapt through the air, and sliced her plasma ax downward at the lich. Rasputina raised her hand, shot a shard of bone out, tore it free, and used it to deflect Terra’s attack. Terra landed and sliced at the lich, pushing her back.

  Abby rocketed behind Rasputina, stopped abruptly, and launched a charged-up plasma blast.

  The lich ducked, her green eyes flashing before she loped toward Abby on all fours, her jaw stretching open, her tongue dragging across the concrete. As the lich leapt at Abby, Cire tackled her in mid-air.

  Rasputina hit the concrete and rolled smoothly back onto her feet. She straightened before firing four bone shards, which Cire narrowly avoided.

  Anabelle and Terra were both on Rasputina, flashes of fire shooting from the elf’s hands as Terra swung her ax. The lich backed away, dodging each attack until she jumped into the air, a green orb of energy forming in her mouth. She fired it at Anabelle and Terra.

  Before the blast could hit, Roy bounded over to Anabelle and Terra, knocking them out of the blast’s path.

  Abby fired a concentrated beam of plasma that hit the lich in the side. Then she swung the beam, cutting Rasputina in half.

  The top portion of the lich’s body floated into the air while her intestines plopped onto the ground. Then her innards suddenly waved about as though they had a mind of their own. They stretched out and wrapped around Anabelle’s throat as the lich’s torso clawed its way toward Abby, cackling as green slime oozed out of her.

  Roy’s mech landed in front of Rasputina. He slammed the mech’s dragon claw onto the lich’s head, over and over, pounding her into the ground.

  Rasputina lay there, still for a moment. Then her body dissolved into green sludge, sliding underneath Roy’s mech and reforming the lich’s entire body on top of the mech. She reached into the hole in her side and broke off a rib that stretched and sharpened into a long dagger. Then she drove the dagger into the mech’s cockpit, attempting to cut Roy out.

  Terra soared through the air and dropkicked Rasputina. Cire, who was on the other side of the mech, reached up and grabbed the lich by the hair and threw her through the air.

  Anabelle leapt up and punched Rasputina in the face with her electric-charged fist. As the lich hit the ground, Anabelle focused her mana and covered her in ice, freezing her in place. “End it, Abby!”

  Abby had already combined her hands into a plasma cannon. She’d also constructed four additional cannons on her shoulder. All the tech she could spare was going into this battle.

  Roy was also powering up his mech’s missiles and cannons. He nodded at Abby, and they fired simultaneously.

  Anabelle leapt out the way as Rasputina was hit with Abby’s and Roy’s attacks.

  Off in the distance, there was another explosion and shockwave.

  When the smoke cleared over Rasputina, there were only bones. Terra walked over to them and stomped them to dust. Then she helped Anabelle to her feet. “That wasn’t so hard,” she said, laughing.

  Anabelle bent over, breathing heavily. “Pish. Speak for yourself.”

  There was a flash of green light that blinded everyone. When they could see again, the lich was standing in the crater that had held her bones. She shook her shoulders as she bobbed her head. “Now, that was impressive. Truly.”

  Terra threw her arms up in the air. “You have to be fucking kidding me!” She pulled out her other ax and ran toward the lich, and Anabelle followed suit.

  The elf swung at the lich, who ducked and blocked Terra’s attack. Rasputina knocked Anabelle away, grabbed Terra’s arm, and bent it backward, snapping her bone in two.

  Terra screamed and stumbled away, cradling her broken arm.

  Cire roared and charged Rasputina as Anabelle approached from the other side. They both met the lich at the same time. Anabelle shifted into mist, forming again behind Rasputina. She put the lich in a full nelson as Cire prepared to hack off her head.

  Rasputina headbutted Anabelle, then leapt to her feet and kicked Cire in the chest.

  Roy’s mech was heading for Rasputina and was only a couple of feet away. It bounded through the air, opening its mouth to fire another round of missiles.

  Rasputina sprang upward and shot a spear-length shard of bone out of her palm. She tore it free, and drove the spear through the mech, narrowly missing Roy’s body.

  The mech slumped to the ground, and as Rasputina walked lazily past Cire, she tossed a knife into the orc’s chest.

  Rasputina was towering over Anabelle, who was pushing herself to her feet. The lich grabbed Anabelle by the throat and peered into her eyes. “I am going to tear your soul from your body,” she growled as she pressed her lips to Anabelle’s ears. “I’m going to feed on you for a thousand years.”

  Rasputina’s eyes glowed, and green mist poured out of her body and wrapped around Anabelle.

  Anabelle’s skin shriveled, and she started aging rapidly.

  A plasma blast hit Rasputina in the back. She glanced over her shoulder at Abby, whose hand was still smoking. Anabelle also looked at her hand, which was covered in liver spots and wrinkles. But the condition reversed as soon as the lich let her go. Whatever magic Rasputina used did not last. One’s life energy would return…provided they survived the lich’s attack.

  Rasputina dropped Anabelle and turned to face Abby. She pulled another knife from the open hole in her chest. “Oh, Abby. My sweet, sweet, Abby. Did you think you were going to kill me?”

  Abby shook her head as she fired again. “No. But I ain’t gonna to sit here and let you hurt my friends.”

  The lich laughed sharply. “Let me? Goddamn, you are adorable. None of you have any say in anything! Your lives are pointless. None of this matters! Not any of this!”

  The lich suddenly vanished and appeared again in front of Abby. “I’m going to show you,” she said as she grabbed Abby by the neck and forced the girl to stare into her undead eyes. “You’ll see. I’ll make sure of it.”

  A blast of white light hit the lich broadside, sending her flying away from Abby.

  Myrddin, covered in black goo, wand smoking, had arrived.

  The lich picked herself up off the ground, her body steaming. “Myrddin! Finally decided to come out of your little hidey-hole and face me? We have so much catching up to do. I wanna see how many organs you have left to play with.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Rasputina’s hands began to glow with a green aura as she circled Myrddin. “I haven’t had an excuse to use magic in such a long time. Your playthings are cute, and tough too, don’t get me wrong. I can see why the Dark One’s been so worried about you. Who would have thought
little ol’ Myrddin would have grown up to be the hope of all the realms?”

  Myrddin removed his suit jacket and tossed it aside. “You are not going to get in my head. I am not the same young wizard you met all those years ago.”

  “You know, I should thank you for sealing me away. There was so much time to think and to dream down there. You wouldn’t believe all the things I’ve seen, the worlds I’ve been to, the lives I’ve lived. The knowledge I’ve found.”

  At the word “knowledge,” Myrddin began to look uneasy.

  Rasputina noticed and smiled widely, her jagged teeth gleaming. “Did you think I stopped learning in that pit like the rest of the liches did just because I didn’t have books? That’s not where you found knowledge, Myrddin. I tried to teach you that all those years ago. You find it through pain, through suffering. Knowledge comes to you when you’re half-mad, soul-starved, forgetting whether or not you even exist. That’s where you really begin to learn things.”

  She looked in the direction of the explosions. “I’m assuming you killed…uh…what’s his name, right?”

  Myrddin watched Rasputina as she glanced at Abby, who had rushed to Terra and was helping her up. “Yes. I sent him back to the hell he came from.”

  “You know Old Ones don’t come from hell, right? Oh, of course, you do. Myrddin knows everything. You do know where the concept of hell comes from, though. You must. A human religion. Christianity. Or are the religious concerns of these monkeys something that’s beyond you?”

  “I don’t look down on humans like you do.”

  Rasputina laughed, the sound hoarse. “Like I do? We’ll pick that up later. I got a little knowledge to give you. You see, the early Christians, they would do this ritual where they ate the blood and body of their God. It saved them. Strengthened their soul. Kinda what I do, you know? Eating for strength. You ever wonder where the soul is, Myrddin?”

  “What are you getting at?”

  “It’s in the blood, you sweet, sweet fool. The blood and the flesh.”