Shades of Death

by Ramy Vance

  Rasputina raised her hands toward where the Old One’s corpse no doubt lay. A tidal wave of viscera and gore, the remains of what Myrddin had left in his wake, came flowing through the streets. The blood from Myrddin’s coat floated toward Rasputina as well. All of it combined and condensed into a black ball roughly the size of a walnut. “That’s an old god’s soul right there,” she chirped before popping it into her mouth.

  Myrddin’s eyes widened as he turned to the recouping DGA. “You need to get out of here now! Everyone return to HQ.”

  Anabelle shook her head as she took a fighting stance. “No way. We’re not leaving you here by yourself.”

  “You must leave. She’s too—”

  Rasputina let out a primal scream as black goo poured from the wound in her chest, and a green light flashed from her eyes. She hit the ground, wheezing and grunting, her body twitching as though she were trying to fight something.

  Myrddin shook his head. “How could I have been so stupid…”

  A barking sound came from Rasputina. “They speak to you in the dark, in your dreams,” she growled. “They tell you everything you know so you can use them because they’re just like everything else in this universe. They think they’re powerful gods. They think they’re important. They don’t realize they’re just food.”

  As Myrddin and Rasputina glared at each other, Terra went to Cire and propped him up. “Shit, shit, shit,” she murmured as she pressed her hand to his wound. “We need to get him help.”

  Abby rushed to them and knelt beside Cire. She pressed her hand to his wound, and nanobots flowed over it. The nanobots began to stitch up the orc’s wound. “We still need to get him out of here fast.”

  “Already on it,” Roy said through his comm. “We got an evac already on its way.”

  A few feet away, Rasputina raised her knife at Myrddin, the blade shape glowing. “What do you say to a duel?” she asked Myrddin.

  Myrddin raised his wand as well. A white bolt of energy shot out of it.

  A green jet of magic burst from Rasputina’s knife. The two blasts collided, sending sparks flying, resulting in enough energy blowback to shake the ground and cause a rush of wind.

  A small explosion broke the energy chain between the two wizards.

  Myrddin waved his wand, and clouds formed in the sky. A column of lightning crackled and rushed at Rasputina.

  The lich pressed her finger to her mouth, and, as the lighting hit her, it turned into thousands of falling snakes. She whipped her knife around, and the snakes rolled together, oozing into each other’s bodies until they became one red snake the size of a dragon. Rasputina jumped on the snake’s back as it lunged for Myrddin.

  Myrddin didn’t move. He raised his wand to his mouth and released a ball of fire, easily swallowing the snake in its flames.

  Rasputina came flying through the fire, green flames shooting from her mouth. Myrddin whispered, “Incinerate,” and exhaled a ball of flame, much larger than the last.

  The lich appeared behind Myrddin, slashing at him with her knife. The wizard raised his own, blocking the attack, sparks of energy flying off the wand and dagger as the duel intensified.

  Myrddin lunged forward, kicked Rasputina in the chest and shouted, “Eviscerate.”

  Blades of energy slashed Rasputina across the body, and she screamed as she fell to her knees. She slammed her knife into the ground, sending a shockwave at Myrddin, who rose into the air. The lich grinned as she tossed her knife at the wizard, who easily deflected it, only for it to explode a moment later.

  Rasputina surged in front of Myrddin, her hands glowing green. She grabbed the old man by the head and began to drain him of his life.

  Myrddin screamed, and a bolt of lightning struck them both.

  When the smoke cleared, Myrddin was back on the ground, breathing heavily, and Rasputina was stumbling away. She turned and slashed at Myrddin, sending an energy attack his way.

  It hit the wizard in the shoulder, flinging him through the air. He raised his wand, stopping mid-air and whirled, thrusting fireball after fireball at Rasputina. The lich simply pointed her knife, caught the fireballs, and turned them back on Myrddin, who took to the ground as the fireballs exploded around him.

  Myrddin touched his wand to the rubble on the ground, the debris coming together to form a rock golem behind Rasputina. The golem grabbed Rasputina and started squeezing.

  The lich laughed maniacally as she wriggled, trying to escape. She spat on the ground and chanted in the foul, ancient language of the Old Ones.

  Bones burst from the ground and grabbed Myrddin. They pulled him down, wrapping around the wrists and ankles, trying to choke him.

  Rasputina opened her mouth, and a slug-like creature poured out. The lich’s skin deflated as the slug slithered its way across the ground, growing limbs and a head until Rasputina was standing again. She spun and blasted the golem to bits.

  Myrddin’s body melted into water and flowed toward Rasputina, reforming a moment before he slashed at her with his wand.

  Rasputina deflected, kicked Myrddin in the kneecap, and pressed her dagger to his temple. The wizard disappeared, reappearing behind her as the tip of the dagger exploded.

  Myrddin touched the end of his wand to the back of Rasputina’s head. Bone grew over Rasputina’s back as he fired a magical energy blast. When the smoke cleared, Rasputina’s head spun backward, her arms cracking and reforming until she was facing Myrddin. Her jaw hung open, and a bright green light burst from it.

  Myrddin stumbled backward as Rasputina jumped on him, knocked him to the ground, and drove her knife into the wizard’s chest. As the blood flowed, Rasputina continued her attack, slowing at last to look over her shoulder.

  Myrddin was behind her.

  The Myrddin beneath Rasputina exploded as she leapt off it, laughing madly. “So many tricks, Myrddin! You could have been a court wizard! Where’s the power I’ve been hearing about ever since I was released?”

  Myrddin took a step closer, pausing momentarily. Sweat dripped down his forehead. He straightened, his eyes bright. “Power? Is that what you want?”

  He vanished, and appeared in front of Rasputina, his wand pressed against her right shoulder. A blast tore through her arm, hitting the building behind them, and tearing through glass and steel.

  Anabelle, who had joined everyone else around Terra, stared in awe at the battle played out before them. Abby was speechless as well. None of them had suspected that Myrddin was this strong.

  Rasputina looked shocked as she stared blankly at him. She fell forward as Myrddin backed away. He pointed at Rasputina, muttering an incantation under his breath.

  Rasputina stared at the ground in front of her as Myrddin charged up his attack. She looked at what was left of her shoulder. “No…no…no…” she muttered over and over in time with Myrddin’s incantation. Then she started laughing as she grabbed her knife. She plunged it into her stomach, cackling louder and louder as she shouted, “No! No! No!”

  The lich grabbed at her intestines and pulled them out as she laughed. Before Myrddin could fire, she teleported behind him. She threw her intestines over the wizard’s neck and pulled tightly as her innards transformed into snakes.

  The pair stumbled while Rasputina sprouted another arm. She withdrew another knife and drove it into Myrddin’s stomach as the wizard struggled to break free.

  “I’m going to rip ‘em out,” Rasputina shouted. “I’m gonna rip them all out!”

  Myrddin reached behind him and pressed his wand to Rasputina’s head. The wind flashed, and energy pooled. An explosion rocked the street, and Myrddin stumbled out of the smoke, holding his side, trying to heal himself with his wand.

  The evac helicopter had just arrived, dispersing the smoke while Anabelle and Terra helped them move Cire into the chopper.

  As the smoke cleared, Rasputina stumbled to her feet, headless. She aimed her knife at Myrddin as a new skull built itself out of his exposed spine. “Shall we end
this as we were taught? One final chance to see who really is stronger, winner takes all.”

  Myrddin slumped forward, breathing heavily as blood seeped from his nose. “The Dark One will never win.”

  Rasputina cackled loudly. “The Dark One? I don’t care who wins or loses. I’m just having fun again.” She raised her knife to her chest.

  Myrddin did the same. “May the best wizard survive.”

  Rasputina sent a curving green blast at Myrddin, hitting him in the chest. The lich grinned as she lowered her knife.

  But Myrddin didn’t fall. He held out his wand. It was still glowing, the wand having absorbed the lich’s attack.

  Rasputina screamed in rage, slashing her knife again.

  Bloody gashes opened on Myrddin’s face, but he muttered quietly under his breath and did not stop charging his spell.

  Rasputina continued to attack, unrelenting, laughing mindlessly, her skull tilting backward as she tore Myrddin’s skin apart with her magic.

  Myrddin collapsed, barely able to stay on his feet as his body began to glow bright white, Rasputina’s attacks still slicing him up. Finally, he opened his eyes. “I banish you.”

  A white energy blast the size of the entire street shot out from Myrddin. It obliterated everything in its path. When the blast died, nothing remained but rubble.

  Myrddin fell to his knees, coughing up blood.

  The evac helicopter was already in the air, the DGA leaning out of the open door, watching the fight. Abby leapt out of the helicopter, thrusters blasting as she soared toward Myrddin. She scooped him up in her arms before he fell over. Then she returned to the helicopter and placed him beside Cire.

  Terra was still staring out the side of the helicopter. “Do you think he did it? He killed the Elder One. You think he could kill her?”

  Anabelle shook her head and pointed at the rubble.

  A skeletal hand forced its way out of the dirt, pulling itself up as skin began to wrap around partially decomposed muscle.

  Once fully formed, Rasputina sat there, watching the helicopter flying away. When the chopper faded into the distance, she slumped, her eyes lifelessly staring at nothing. Then she chuckled softly.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  The ride back to HQ was silent and somber.

  Terra, Anabelle, Abby, and Roy, watched over Myrddin and Cire. The orc’s wounds were mostly sealed, but he had not woken up yet. Myrddin was another question altogether. Abby had tried to heal his wounds with her nanobots, but they hadn’t helped whatsoever.

  The helicopter flew to the carrier, which was only a few miles away. They boarded with no problems. The orcs Abby had fought in the skies above the city were gone, no doubt due to the summoning of the Elder One.

  Once aboard, Myrddin and Cire were rushed to the medbay, leaving the DGA and Roy alone with their thoughts on the day’s horror. Usually there would have been a debriefing, everyone offering up what they had witnessed to Myrddin. Now, there was nothing.

  The carrier activated its miniature hadron collider under Creon’s supervision, jumping to HQ as quickly as possible.

  They arrived within minutes, and Cire and Myrddin were transported to the main medbay. Information on the prognosis of their recoveries still wasn’t available.

  As Anabelle wandered off the carrier, she tried to think about what the next course of action would be. There were things to be taken care of; a chain of command. But first, a decision had to be made on how involved Myrddin was going to be.

  Anabelle felt callous for looking at the situation in this way. Wasn’t she supposed to be upset by Myrddin’s defeat, and Cire’s injuries, and her frustrating stalemate with Grok? Yet, all she felt was a coolness, a sort of detached awareness. There was simply too much to process.

  Terra and Abby drifted away without saying much. Anabelle knew that as the team’s leader, it was her responsibility to say something to rally her troops. However, she had no idea where to start. She let them handle the impact of today’s mission however they thought best.

  Anabelle went to her room and lit a few candles. She sat and closed her eyes, trying to center herself.

  What she’d seen had been beyond her understanding—the raising of an Elder God of such tremendous power. Rasputina using Myrddin as a pawn for her own schemes of absorbing the Elder One into her own body. And how much strength had that given Rasputina?

  That wasn’t beginning to touch on Grok, and how Anabelle felt about their fight. There had been something almost magical about it. And that wasn’t a feeling Anabelle was used to.

  She tried to silence her thoughts, to concentrate and meditate. She failed miserably as her mind jumped between the things she believed needed to be done.

  At last, quitting the attempt to silence her mind, she commed Roy. “Hey, we need to talk.”

  Roy picked up quickly enough. “Yeah, I know. Can I come over.”

  “Yeah. Hurry up.”

  Anabelle waited for Roy to show up, pacing back and forth, uncertain of what the future held. Myrddin not being in charge had never crossed her mind before. It seemed like an impossibility. There had never been a threat she had expected him to engage with, let alone one he couldn’t defeat. Myrddin’s power was an unspoken thing. Now, having seen it on full display and having been in awe of it, the knowledge that it was not enough to defeat the lich was terrifying. Which only begged the question of how powerful the Dark One was.

  A knock sounded at Anabelle’s door. She opened it, and Roy was standing there, looking tired and worn out. He was holding a bottle of whiskey, and he tossed it to Anabelle before sitting on her bed. “Fucking hell,” he muttered.

  Anabelle cracked the bottle open and took a gulp. “How’s he holding up?”

  “Stabilized at the moment. But there’s shit they don’t understand. Everyone has a lot of questions, and I don’t have the answers. There’s something keeping Myrddin from being able to heal, even with all the magic and tech. Whatever Rasputina did to him, it’s nullifying any of our attempts to get him back in shape.”

  “Is he going to die?”

  Roy hung his head, rubbing his brow. “They don’t know. It’s hard to tell. Honestly, the med staff is confused as well. People like Myrddin don’t just die. Wizards of that caliber? The lich is stronger than any of us could have imagined.”

  “So, what now?”

  Roy looked up at Anabelle, his face uncertain and worried. “There’s a chain of command that follows. I’m after Myrddin. If he’s incapable of leading, then I have to step up to the plate.”

  Anabelle sat beside Roy and passed him the bottle. “That’s good, right? You’re as close to Myrddin as anyone is.”

  Roy shook his head as he pulled up his HUD. “That’s what I thought, too. But I’m not ready for this. I don’t know the first thing about leading an army, let alone one that’s spread through the realms. Myrddin has contacts with governments that I don’t even know about. And the moment he couldn’t be resuscitated, all of his credentials passed to me. There’s shit in here that I’ve never even heard about.”

  Anabelle glanced at the projection of Roy’s HUD files. “Was he keeping this stuff from you?”

  Roy shrugged as he peered at the files. “Honestly, I don’t know. Most of the shit in here doesn’t even make sense to me. I wouldn’t even know where to start.”

  “We could take a look through it together.”

  Roy cast a dubious look at Anabelle that quickly softened. “I’m not supposed to be doing that. Myrddin expected me to step up to the plate and handle this.”

  Anabelle wrapped her fingers around Roy’s. “Drop the macho-tough guy bullshit. This is a lot. None of us were ready for this. If you need help, don’t be a fucking idiot. Just admit it, and we’ll go from there. If you can handle this on your own, then do it.”

  Roy took a swig from the bottle of whiskey. “Fuck. You know I need the help. This isn’t my thing. I’m not a fucking general. I’m a grunt with a lot of authority. Even mor
e now. So, yeah, give me a hand. Myrddin left a bunch of contingency plans in case all this shit in New York went bad. We can start with that.”

  Terra sat in the medbay by Cire’s side. She held his hand, watching the nurses and doctors bustle about, occasionally being asked to leave the room, and coming back when she was allowed.

  Emotions weren’t something Terra dealt with often, not that she didn’t have any. She was awash with them most of the time, but there was a time and place for each one, which was usually when she wanted to deal with them.

  This was different. A wellspring of feeling had overcome her as she watched people she didn’t know, standing over Cire’s body, doing God knows what to him.

  On an intellectual level, Terra knew they were helping Cire. But she wanted to be in there with him. She knew—though she also knew it was false—that she could help Cire better than they could.

  After two hours of surgery and mage-healing sessions, Terra was finally allowed into Cire’s room. She pulled up the only seat there, and sat beside the orc, wrapping her hand around his, hoping he would open his eyes.

  After another hour, Cire’s lids fluttered open. He smiled at Terra as he tried to sit up. “The only tolerable thing I could imagine waking up to.”

  Terra scoffed loudly as she disentangled her hands from Cire’s. “Tolerable thing? O-fucking-kay.”

  Cire’s face went stony. “No, that’s not… I didn’t mean it like that. We…” Cire sighed loudly as he fumbled for words. “We don’t talk like—”

  Terra raised her hand, smiling. “I’m just teasing you, that’s all.”

  Cire relaxed, sinking back onto the bed. “I’m glad you’re here. There’s no greater honor than waking up from a battle with your chieftain at your side.”

  “That’s the only reason you care?”

  Cire looked up at Terra, his eyes softer than she had ever seen before. “There is no greater honor than waking up to my chieftain at my side. The only greater honor would be dying in battle.”

  Terra laughed as she kissed Cire’s forehead. “You gotta work on your pillow talk, dude. Because you’re fucking horrible at it.”