by S T Branton
Lorcan glanced away, his face clouded by irritation. “For all your human faults, you are uncommonly smart. I was sure you were desperate enough as well, for a time. But then the golden boy of Kronin landed in your river, and he infected you with the god-king’s hubris. Thus corrupted, you became no better than the rest of these idle fools.”
“And you wanted to hire me,” I said. “So, what does that make you?”
His eyes darkened instantly. “Enough of this useless chatter. Let us get down to the real business here.”
The blade erupted from its hilt, casting the whole room in its fiery glow. “I thought you’d never ask,” I said.
In the next instant, he was gone. Only a silhouette of his form remained behind the desk, and then, only briefly. I thought of Delano confronting me outside the office door and resigned myself to a world of disorientation. He was like Delano but faster, whirling around me, leaving vague prints of himself everywhere I looked. I didn’t dare even blink, for fear that he’d land a devastating blow as soon as I let my guard down, but the constant motion was overwhelming.
Then, I felt him directly behind me, and I cut a golden arc through the air with the Gladius Solis, aiming directly for his head. At the last moment, he whipped up his hand. A vortex of shadow engulfed my blade. Its grip tightened. It began to pull.
“Let me show you how the strength of that blade is a fallacy,” Lorcan said. “You will thank me once you have been enlightened.” His arm muscles tensed. The force applied to my sword increased. My heels started to lose their traction on the floor. “Kronin was a false idol, Carcerum the greatest deception the realms have ever known. And you, like so many others, have fallen prey to his foolish ideologies.” Lorcan’s eyes burned. “You are the ones who bring ruin upon yourselves!”
The sword had all but disappeared. A sliver of light was the only part of the blade still visible from within Lorcan’s void. He continued to pull; I continued to resist as best as I could. Whatever was pulling me felt more like a force of nature than anything that could’ve come from someone who looked so much like a man. My bare hands inched closer and closer to the void.
“No!” I threw all my weight backward, bracing my legs with every ounce of might in me. Carcerum’s nectar burned in my veins. In Lorcan’s grasp, the Gladius Solis brightened, forcing back his hold. “He held you prisoner for eons!” I shouted. “You’re just pissed off that it took you so long to figure out how to break free!”
A vein popped out in Lorcan’s forehead. “And still, you choose the god-king’s tainted glory over me?” A tendril of black shadow snapped out from his other hand and cracked me smartly across the face. Somewhere outside of my circle of vision, Jules gasped audibly. “Do you know who it was that killed him?” The tendril snaked around my torso, and slowly, deliberately, it began to crush. “Me!” The god’s voice rose to an earthshaking boom. “It was me! And you dare face that kind of power.” He let out a laugh, its base notes shook my body.
My hands couldn’t grab on to the shadows around my body. I struggled to breathe and free the sword from its roots of shadow until the edges of my vision grew hazy. “You don’t know shit about power,” I croaked. “If you did, I’d already be dead.”
Enraged, he squeezed down on me. As a last-ditch effort, I forced myself to grab the hilt of the sword with both hands, set my body as best I could, and pull with everything I had left. The exertion nearly blacked me out, but the Gladius Solis finally jostled free. It was brighter still, a pillar of white-gold light that wavered in my oxygen deprived hands.
Suddenly, the tendrils around my waist loosened rapidly, receding back toward their master. Lorcan summoned them again, but they only made it so far before disintegrating in the face of my sword-light. I dropped to my hands and knees on the floor, rasping, air filling my aching lungs. That didn’t stop me from looking Lorcan in the face and grinning.
“Oh? Did you hate that? Have I found your one true weakness?” I shot at the God of Darkness.
He growled, launching a barrage of shadows at me. They curled around my arms and legs, hoisting me into the air and threatening to rip me limb from limb. I could see Jules while I was suspended up there. She was crying big silent tears.
“I have no weaknesses,” Lorcan was roaring. “You, on the other hand, have too many to count!”
The shadows yanked at me, trying to force me to drop the sword still in my hand. I held on even when circulation cut and my fingers started to go numb. “Come on, Kronin,” I mumbled under my labored breath. “You came through once before. I need you to come through again.”
Closing my eyes against the ragged pain in my body, I channeled every ounce of energy into the blade. I thought about everyone who stood to lose if Lorcan won. I pictured an earth covered in his shadows. The rage that flowed from me filled the blade. Its heat rocketed up, nearly searing the skin of my palm.
“Giving up?” Lorcan mocked. “Good.”
I opened my eyes. “You would be…so…lucky!”
The shadow clutching my right hand disappeared, vaporized in an instant by the Gladius Solis. Blood rushed into my wrist again, which I used to turn its blazing fury directly on Lorcan. His shadow, formerly looming, began to shrink, and with it, his power. Every dark appendage that had a hold on me melted away, and then I was struggling to make sure I landed on my feet.
“Impossible!” spat the god. His gaze was fixated on the Gladius Solis. “Impossible!”
Advancing on him, I held the weapon as high as it could go. “Afraid not, Captain.”
Lorcan tried to teleport behind his desk, but he couldn’t get far enough back, stumbling over the top of it instead. I vaulted the surface, shoving the eye of the blade into the leg space so that he couldn’t hide there, either. He threw his hands up, writhing in the glare.
“How does that feel?” I asked him, pointing the sword straight at his heart. “Like desperation? Like terror? Like you’re finally the one becoming the victim?”
He screwed up his face and ducked lower. His feet kept moving back. Mine kept moving forward.
His body made an audible sound as it struck the back wall of his impromptu office. I watched the shudder of impact roll through his torso, followed by the hard, cold realization that he’d come to the end of the line. He could barely open his eyes through the aggressive shine of the sword, but he did it, and I was glad. I wanted him to see me as so many had seen him before—a faceless shadow gliding in to take its due.
His long hand stretched out toward me, a gesture that could’ve been defiance or supplication. I walked up until we were inches apart, the sword-light washing every darkness out of him. His eyes were little more than blind white voids.
“No,” he whispered. “How can you…”
I smiled. “The crazy thing about idle fools is, we’ve got a lot of time to figure your shit out.” I gestured at him with the sword. “Also, I’m pretty sure Kronin says you can fuck right off with your false god bullshit.”
“This will be the face of regret,” Lorcan said. I put the blade right up to his face, and he cringed back. The skin across his nose blistered from the fire.
“I don’t think so.” I grinned. “This is the face of victory.”
The most important thing that Lorcan taught me was that no amount of power could save you from death. He went rigid for a second as the blade plunged into his heart, and then his body exploded into plumes of shadow darker than any blackness I’d ever seen before. The essence of the god filled the room and faded, and as it fell away, I waded through the dimness toward Jules’s chair.
“Vic!” She burst out with my name amid a waterfall of sobs. “Oh shit, I thought he was going to kill you!”
“Not gonna lie,” I said. “I wasn’t sure for a while there, myself.”
I went around behind her and carefully broke her ties. She automatically sighed with relief. Her hands were purple, and her wrists were chafed. Jules rubbed them gingerly.
“Are you okay?” I ask
ed. “Generally speaking. Nothing’s broken or bleeding? You can walk?”
“I can walk.” She nodded. “I think they were afraid to hurt me, as weird as that sounds.” She stood up and threw her arms around me. “How did you find me?”
I hugged her back, more tightly than I had in a long time. “It’s complicated. I’m just thankful I made it in time.”
Jules pulled away, held me at arm’s length, and just looked at me, her face aglow with pride and gratitude. “Vic, this is totally insane. All of this. I have no way to process what’s happened to me over the last couple weeks. But somehow, I knew you would come after me, and I’m so, so proud of you.”
“Of course I would.” I squeezed her. “And of course I did. Not to mention, I guess you now know I’ve found my mission in life.”
Jules gazed past me at the door. “Do you think it’s safe for us to leave?” she asked. “I don’t know about you, but I’d really like to go home.” Even though she was still smiling, her eyes were haunted.
“It’s safe for you,” I told her. “For me, I don’t know.” The thin, reedy voice of a siren cut through the outside air, drawing rapidly closer. “On second thought, make that a no, for me.”
“What?” Her attention snapped back to me. “What’s happening?”
“The inevitable. I’m guessing you haven’t been watching the news.” I took her gently by the hand and led her toward the door. “Let’s go meet it together.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
I paused just before we reached the exit door of the slaughterhouse and looked Jules in the eye. “Don’t panic,” I told her.
She could hear the growing noise of the mob, now just outside. “Vic, what is going on? Are these guys here for you?”
I tried not to think about how confused and heartbroken she’d be when she found out what all the media outlets were reporting about me. Or about how in-jail I would be, unable to explain my side of the story except from the opposite side of a sheet of glass.
Assuming they didn’t just shoot me on sight.
“Just…don’t panic,” I said again. “Everything’s going to be fine.” I made my lips form a smile that my heart didn’t feel. “Ready?”
She eyed me searchingly, her face full of worry. “I don’t know, but I guess we have no choice.” I went to push the door open, but she stepped in front of me. “Let me go first.”
Normally, I might have argued with her, but right then, I lacked the fortitude. Obediently, I backed up and let her pass. Jules shook herself off, raised her hands, and slipped out of the building. Immediately, a tidal wave of sound rose and broke over the old slaughterhouse. As I emerged, I saw a female officer tuck a blanket around Jules’s shoulders before leading her to a waiting ambulance.
The reception I got was very different.
“Down on the ground!” Not Deacon, but one of his black-clad cohorts, leveling a gun and shouting from behind improvised cover. The command was echoed by at least three or four more or less identical officers. All with guns, all fully decked out in tactical gear. A barrier of impeccable SUVs circled around the sea of uniforms. They’d really gone all out for me.
I eased my hand out to the side and dropped the sword hilt on the ground. Then I brought both hands up and laced them behind my head as I dropped to my knees. My gaze stayed fixed on the few feet directly in front of me, so I only saw the legs of the two officers who broke out of the crowd to restrain me.
And yet I still recognized Deacon’s cool, easy walk. He was the one who cuffed me, pulled me to my feet, and took me out to a waiting car. I wanted to say something to him, but in the moment, words failed. Head hanging, I stood with my hands shackled in front of me, waiting for him to open the car door.
He placed his hand on my head to load me into the back seat. “Don’t worry, Vic,” he whispered. “I’ll see you through this.”
Caught off guard, I raised my head to finally look at him, but the door was already closing behind me, and the bars on the window limited my field of view. Deacon tapped twice on the roof, stepped back, and a second after that, he and his blonde partner stood side by side in the rear window, watching the envoy drive away with me in the back. I caught his eye just before he was too far away for it to matter, and I could have sworn he nodded at me.
Seemed too good to be true. But even as I rode in the back of the paddy wagon down toward the holding center, I let myself be cautiously hopeful. I knew better than anyone how the world worked in mysterious ways.
I was placed in a cell by myself after booking, one with a solid door that didn’t allow other inmates to look in on me. “This isn’t because you’re a deranged murderer, even if you are,” my guard told me wryly, half a smile quirking her lips. “It’s for your own protection.”
“Oh?” I asked blandly. In the aftermath of the fight with Lorcan, looking through the open grate of my first, possibly long term, prison cell, I was somewhat surprised to find that I just didn’t give a shit. It was like the stuff with Lorcan had truly drained me of all leftover emotion. I knew what I was supposed to feel—it just wasn’t there.
I sat down on the bunk and sighed deeply, feeling my whole body deflate. I was locked up, but all the tension was gone, along with my responsibilities. After a whirlwind month or so, it was all finally over as far as I was concerned. I’d worry about it again if the war actually happened, and I had to formulate a real plan to break out. For now, all I could do was wait. I hadn’t felt this good in months.
Time passed slowly. They’d taken everything from me at booking, including my clothes, my phone, and of course, my sword. But I knew I was still owed a single phone call, and I’d memorized the number I needed for just such an occasion. I held it in my head as I lay back on the tiny, hard bunk, listening to the wall chains creak every time I thought about moving.
I thought I could get used to it. Quarters were small, and the toilet was out in the open, but hey, so was my toilet in the loft. And if this one flushed reliably, then it was really kind of a step up. Three square meals a day, no bills or other money worries…that would be okay, right? For the rest of my life?
I groaned. Who the hell was I kidding? I wasn’t made to be a prisoner. I couldn’t exactly proclaim myself completely innocent, but if I was being honest and not self-sacrificing, prison was going to drive me up the wall. The only reason I felt okay with it at present was because my body ached from fighting and I just wanted to go to sleep. Once I’d gotten my rest, the full force of this new reality would smack me in the face.
I might go insane.
“Damn it to hell, Vic,” I muttered to myself. “How did we get here so fast?”
Most of it still felt like a blur, or like I would wake up any minute now in my own bed, back on the hunt for murderous douchebag extraordinaire, Rocco Durant. I’d walk out the door of my apartment and into some seedy bar, squeezing some guy for information.
If those were the good old days, I didn’t want to see the future. If I closed my eyes and imagined long enough, I could even start to smell the stale smoke and beer permeating most of those terrible dives. Would I rather be there than where I was, idling in jail, waiting for someone to come and dictate the next phase of my life?
It was hard to say.
Eventually, someone did come, a short, stocky lady who looked like she could routinely break me into pieces over her leg. She looked me up and down as I stood in front of her. “Ain’t you a tall drink of water,” she said. “If I had a son, I’d fix you up with him.”
I smiled politely. “May I make my phone call?”
The lady shrugged her massive bulldog shoulders. “That’s what I’m here for.” She brandished a pair of handcuffs. “Sorry, toots. Chains gotta be on.”
“That’s fine.” She hooked me up, and I shuffled along beside her until we got to the phone area, at which point she handed me the receiver and walked a few paces away to give me the illusion of privacy. I entered Deacon’s number into the pad, put the phone to my ear, and w
aited.
The sound on the other end was loud and tinny, but I could hear ringing. Halfway through the second ring, an electronic voice cut in. “All calls incoming and outgoing from the Detention Center will be recorded.”
My heart sank. I’d forgotten about that. There was no way I could talk to Deacon now, even if he answered his phone. I’d turned from a human being into one big liability. Quickly, I pressed the lever to hang up and dialed Jules’s number, hoping I was quick enough to escape notice. The guard who’d brought me sat in a nearby folding chair, fiddling with her phone. She didn’t even look up as I peeked out of the little booth.
“Vic?” Jules sounded breathless, like she’d run to pick up her phone. “Are you Ok?”
“Yep. I’m safe and sound at the Bureau’s detention center, I guess. You’re my phone call.”
“Oh my God.” I could see her shaking her head, running her hand into her hair like she always did when she was stressed. “I’m still with the police myself, but I told them I had to take this. They let me go when they found out it was you calling. I think they’re expecting me to give them something to go on.”
“What did they tell you?” I asked. “Just curious.”
“They said you killed Mayor Inglewood!” Her voice rose with the sheer panic and insanity of the sentence. “There’s security footage of you stabbing him inside City Hall. They think I know something.”
“It’s…” I drummed my fingers on the little table in the booth. “It’s complicated. I hope someday I’ll have the opportunity to explain it.”
“Stop talking like my great-grandma on her deathbed,” Jules said. “If you need a lawyer, I’ve got you covered. Pro bono, obviously. But you’re going to have to tell me everything.”
“Well—”
“Not now. After we’ve established the attorney-client privilege. I’ll figure out what I need to do, and then I’ll come visit you. We’ll get through this together.”
Second time in a day that I’d heard that kind of sentiment. I chewed my lip. “Thanks, Jules. I’m glad I have you in my corner.”
