Victima

by K R Leikvoll

  “We will be together soon, in the beautiful realm of Treachery,” Lazarus’ voice whispered to the skull in her hands. “I have done all that I was instructed to in this mortal form. Praetis will burn… and we will live in paradise.”

  Her loud, banshee-like wails shook the room, cracking the glass behind her. It hurt my ears so badly I wanted to cover them, but I stifled my pain and kept walking forward.

  Lazarus lifted her fist into the air and brought it down, crushing the skull entirely to dust. The ground itself began to rumble again, this time from something else. Shadows poured from the crushed skull, tearing the space around us in half. The darkness was almost enough to snuff out the red light. Rather than continue whatever she was doing, Lazarus stood and turned to me.

  It was instantly clear why she hadn’t absorbed Death. Her face had a strange crack through her eyebrow all the way to her lips. It looked like broken glass on her exterior, not scarred skin. By some means, her body was starting to change. Her overgrown right arm was ebony and fractured like her face. Spikes were protruding from her spine, matching the two long horns coming from her skull. She even had a serpentine tail and demonic talon feet no longer covered by boots. Black shadows hit her in the back, causing her to stumble forward before revealing two dragon-like wings. They expanded farther than Raven and Kirin’s and somehow appeared more dangerous than both of theirs combined.

  I clutched James’ sword nervously in my grasp and held it out toward her. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t afraid of fighting her. I think I was so scared I no longer felt anything at all. It was hard to tell through Vince’s desire to cut her in half.

  The shadows of War made their way into Lazarus’ awaiting hands. Her black tears stained her gray skin, but she looked calm as if she had accepted whatever her fate was. Something in Vince’s mind was nagging me about her demeanor. She didn’t seem remotely worried about fighting us. Was it because she didn’t think we were a threat, or was it because we were doing everything according to her plans? Either was fear-inducing.

  “Are you going to run again?” she asked with more clarity than I thought she was capable of. She wasn’t just speaking to me. She was speaking to both of us.

  “No,” Vince and I responded to her.

  With slight hesitation in her movements, Lazarus danced across the room to me. My sword was up faster than I mentally reacted myself. It blocked her first swing, which she used to assess my abilities. The exterior of James’ sword shone dimly, parrying one of her scythes without cracking. I was surprised to see that a normal weapon could hold up against a shard of the Essentia. She wasn’t, though.

  Lazarus swung both of her scythes in diagonal slashes trying to get me to respond with some sort of offensive attack. Instead, Vince and I focused on parrying her, over and over. I trusted that he knew how to defend us from her more than I did. I had to block a swipe from her wing with my right hand, causing her to rebound a few feet away. If we could stall her until Kirin showed up…

  She let out a strange, howling shriek and charged at me, using her wings to propel her forward. Her arms slashed in opposite directions trying to break through my block, but thankfully Vince’s determined grip met her blades every time. Realizing she wasn’t going to get past my defense, she jumped over me and began to swing viciously in a flurry of shadowy steel, attempting to slice me in the back. The blades of War were the only thing visible as her lines of fury moved closer toward me.

  I knew I had no chance of blocking her strikes, and Vince was already thinking ahead. He flung us out of the way; Lazarus was somehow able to anticipate my actions as she ended her blade flurry and hit my wrist with her scaled tail. James’ sword flew from my grasp behind her, effectively disarming me.

  I could see the satisfaction glimmering in her eyes as she leapt into the air raising War above her head to end it. If I had been relying on myself completely, the fight would have been over, but Vince was ready. I ran a few feet and slid underneath her as she landed. The blades of War nearly cut my head off, striking into the obsidian flooring and showering the area with fiery cinders. Vince ripped us back to our feet and pulled James’ blade from the ground.

  Lazarus turned sharply and swung at me again. Each time she nearly hit me, I almost gave up from fear. One split-second mistake, and my head would be rolling on the ground. I couldn’t even muster the strength to deflect her blows—which were getting faster and more forceful. I barely stepped out of the way of her next strikes. Vince forced us to spin to the left and I managed to catch her in the leg with my blade.

  James’ sword must have been particularly sharp, because it cut all the way through her bone. Her blood was black and acidic, spraying and burning parts of my exposed skin as she screamed in pain. I could’ve ended the fight with a properly placed stab, but her leg instantaneously began to regrow into something else. A clawed charcoal leg that could have easily belonged to a dragon or reptile crashed down, breaking the foundation around her. Not wanting to be kicked more than anything else, we hopped backward away from her reach.

  Bright red light connected her paired weapons together in the form of a molten chain made of flames. I couldn’t dodge fast enough when she lashed them toward me in an attempt to pull me back to her. It felt solid instead of being made of fire as it melted through the wrist guard I used to cover my face. I would have lost my entire right arm had the ring not let out a blinding flash of light that doused the flames. Regardless of it dispersing, the red glow of her weapons seemed to be drawing from my energy making it hard to remain on my feet. I only had to keep it up a little longer. I made the stupid choice to glance around for Kirin while she ran at me. He had been so worried about me fighting alone, yet he was nowhere to be seen.

  Before either Vince or I could react, her left reptilian wing came forward and stabbed me straight through my shoulder. That is probably what Kirin felt like constantly when he fought. I swung fiercely at her, but I was just out of reach. Her other wing knocked the sword once more from my hands while I struggled to break free. With all the strength she could muster, she threw me into the staircase of the throne. Bones crunched and crumbled all around me while I tried to fight my daze.

  Lazarus lifted her blades and swung at the air between us. Lines of actual fire came searing toward me, giving me no chance to stand as I reflexively held the ring out to stop them. It barely pulsed as a weak shield blocked the flames. Fury guiding her steps, she began to rush at me again. I needed to do something or it was over. Damn it! Where was Kirin?

  I don’t know whether it was me or Vince, but I pushed on the demonic energy as much as I could. I tried to focus it to my fingertips directly and—to my astonishment—it worked. As if a giant gust of air was pushing her back, she struggled against the force, fighting it with all her limbs. Pieces of the flooring and architecture cracked and flew toward her, showering her entire body with shards. The shards ripped holes in her wings, impaling her on all sides. It looked like we might finally have the upper hand.

  She brought her wings in close around her to shield herself from the biggest pieces of debris before levitating into the air, embraced by shadows. An atmosphere of energy surrounded her so thick she was blocked from view.

  I used the split second to look once more up at the balcony, where Kirin was nowhere to be seen.

  The darkness crashed down around her, revealing that her face was beginning to morph into something horrible. Her teeth were all miniature knives that reminded me of some sort of demonic shark. I saw her inhale and covered my ears as tightly as I could, but it was useless. The next scream that escaped her lips was by far the loudest sound I had ever been subjected to. Airplane turbines couldn’t be compared to the sheer volume of her voice. Everything faded into high-pitched ringing as I tasted the blood dripping from my nose. I couldn’t even move my arms, my head… anything! I tried to fight the force, but the wail moved like a wave of energy and kept me pinned.

  There was nothing I could do. Her shadowy form mo
ved closer at a speed I was unable to react to. All I could do was stare up at her broken, anguished face as she started to bring War down over my head. It was a slow-motion eternity, as if I was waiting for the executioner’s axe to send my head rolling. I wanted to close my eyes, but Vince forced me to stare at her… to stare at my death coming for me.

  Only her arms froze midair.

  A split black blade forced its way through her chest from her back. I let out a sigh of relief too soon. I expected her to react like Raven and simply die, but she looked pleased like she had been waiting for it the entire time. It only took a second to realize that the blade of Death was not going to stop her. Fear crept into my being so thick I froze. I thought a scratch was supposed to be enough! With a malicious smile on her face, her blades disappeared, and she reached for Death. Lazarus forcefully ripped the sword through herself, causing Kirin to slam into her spined back.

  A black aura that reeked of decay swarmed around all three of us, stealing the air from my lungs. Her body began to fracture into ebon, inhuman parts, but nothing stopped her from pulling the sword out all the way. The cosmic blade of Death seemed to wrap around her hand, jagged geodes spinning wildly like tiny obsidian shanks.

  With no hesitation, even though her body was beginning to form into Nakarius, she took the sword and plunged it into my gut.

  Nothing could compare to the feeling of having this blade pierce your inner organs. Death inflicted something that was unlike any other pain, causing the coldest chill I had ever experienced in my life to overtake me. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think. Vince weakly grasped at the sword with my left hand, but I was too weak to remove it.

  Thankfully Lazarus removed it for me. The blade evaporated into smog and drifted hazily to her form. Kirin was blown back toward the throne room entrance by the power she was absorbing from it, but she didn’t seem to care that he was there at all.

  “At last, I have won my freedom from you, Vincent. It seems your champion and your scheming has brought you only failure, as I told you it would.”

  In her eyes, she had won. The fact that she was transforming into a monster didn’t remotely bother her. Every part of Vince that existed within me wanted to prevent her from doing what she was about to do, but neither the shadows nor the light would be invoked as I struggled to breathe.

  Lazarus strode toward the remnants of Vince’s skull, which was continuing to fill the room with darkness. Her body and limbs were spasming as she kneeled beside it and raised her fists in the air. “I summon you to my form, Master. Take me away from this suffering, and let me return home,” she pled to the nothingness.

  With one blade of War in her hands, she cut her throat, ending her life.

  And Nakarius responded.

  Her body began to swell and bubble, growing larger every second, until his black, three-eyed demonic head crashed through the ceiling above us. I couldn’t lift my hand to block the debris. He was so impossibly big. Larger than Levia, larger than the palace itself as he grew. His legs were clawed and reptilian; his black wings could cast out the cosmos itself. The red eyes that glared down at me were so similar to Lazarus,’ I hadn’t realized I was looking at his eyes the entire time rather than hers.

  I was being lifted upward by Kirin, whom I didn’t recognize at first. Not because he looked different, but because I was pretty sure this is what dying felt like. We flew into the air, dodging the falling palace around us as much as possible.

  “Stay awake,” Kirin demanded of me as we freed ourselves from the crumbling building and soared into the open red sky. He pressed his wounded wrist to my mouth, but his blood wasn’t enough to stop the chill. It wasn’t enough to heal me, and I don’t think he believed it would, either.

  Nakarius with only three shards of the Essentia was still the size of a titan. His form crushed the walls like they were made of sand as he pursued us. Levia tore across the sky from the ramparts, roaring with rage and spraying flames at him. She smashed into Nakarius’ colossal neck, ripping at his cracked, fiery flesh. With both hands as big as houses, he gripped one of her wings and tore it off.

  I didn’t watch beyond that, but I could hear the sounds of her being ripped apart piece by piece. I buried my face into Kirin’s chest while my body struggled to heal from being broken down from the inside out. Everything was growing far away, and a layer of white fog was covering my vision like a blanket of snow. I could taste blood, but I wasn’t sure if it was mine. To be honest, I don’t think I minded dying. After watching so much death, so much violence, I was ready to be released from pain. I was ready to be free from that confusing nightmare.

  “Valentine!” Kirin’s voice said sharply over the fog.

  I struggled to open my eyes. We were somewhere I recognized faintly. Endless white sand. A crystal dome down below, beneath the violet sky. Was I dead?

  “Don’t you dare leave me!” he yelled furiously holding my head tightly in his hands and forcing me to look at him.

  I put my limp fingers on his arm and it took all the energy I had. “It’s okay,” I whispered with a weak smile.

  “No! No, it’s not! Stay awake. Don’t fall asleep!” he responded with more anguish on his face than I was feeling internally.

  “Kirin… stop.”

  He was working frantically with my wound and armor like it would make some sort of difference. My frail hands tried to push him away.

  “He will be here any moment. You have to fight!” he said, applying pressure to my wound.

  “I don’t want to.”

  “What do you mean?” Kirin asked in distress.

  “I don’t want to go back to a world where you don’t exist,” I said holding his hands still. “I think… I was always meant to die here.”

  His face was so twisted with emotions he could barely respond. “You can’t be serious! Stop being selfish! There are people relying on you to save them! What of Earth? What of all the other places that this sickness has infected? You cannot give up now.”

  A swarm of black was on the horizon over the sea, forming a seamless wall of shadows heading for our temporary safety of Ashena. Kirin didn’t notice, though. He was still trying to do what he could to help my stab wound. Pointless, really.

  Vince was there as well, standing away from us and facing the shadows. Through the fog I could see his concentrated stare. Where I had been stabbed, a circular cyclonic wound was twisting the shadows of his body. He didn’t seem to mind the wound pain-wise, but his hand clutched near the spot as if he were being engulfed by the invisible Void somehow. “He’s here,” Vince said clearly to me.

  The massive wall of shadows was still a couple miles or so off from the shore. It was close enough to discern a form larger than life creeping toward us. The shadowy form had four long horns, wings impossibly wide. How had the scroll predicted me winning against that thing? I could barely fight a normal demon, let alone a Void Lord. I must have screwed up somewhere.

  Kirin caught me looking over his shoulder and finally turned to face the direction of the shadows, though his hand was still tightly grasping mine. I could see the little color he had drain out of his face. My blood was drenching his armor and even parts of his cheek and neck. I’m sure if I was capable of feeling, I would be in agony. All I felt was a dense numbness.

  “Listen, Val,” Kirin said in a strained voice, turning back to me. “I’m going to do all that I can to weaken him… I don’t know how much use it will be, but it’s important you don’t try to save me. Save all your strength for the real fight.”

  “But—“ I replied weakly to contest his decision.

  He didn’t wait. “Vince… I know you can hear my words,” Kirin continued over my protest. “If you fail, you will join me in the Void. Her fate matters as much as yours.”

  Vince turned to us emotionlessly, though I could tell it was a mask to cover his concern tugging in my mind. He nodded once toward me before the shadows dispersed and rejoined my body. The ring was buzzing endlessly as th
e cloud of death came closer trying to heal my injuries. Unfortunately, even the light couldn’t mend the wound. Did it matter if I won?

  The massive, swarming cloud of black began to whip up sand as it started inland. Nakarius’ form was coming into clarity, or at least as clear as my dying sight would allow. His horned head loomed over us with three paralyzing red eyes. Black spikes covered his spine, legs and arms. Almost every spot that wasn’t his giant wings were protected by razor sharp barbs. His first step on land caused the ground to shake violently as the shore was swallowed by the ocean.

  Kirin started to move away, making me grab at him desperately to get him to stay. He held my shoulders softly and stared into my eyes. His goodbye was written on his face. It was so hard to breathe; maybe from dying, but… I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t watch him die. Just let me go before I have to watch. His dry, cracked lips brushed my forehead, my cheek, then my lips. He pulled away a million years too soon.

  “Please.” I raised my shaking hand to his face.

  His determination was unchanged. “Stupid girl,” Kirin whispered before kissing my hand. “I love you, you know.”

  Words failed me. There was so much to say and no time at all.

  The Void Lord’s presence overwhelmed the island in a matter of moments. I couldn’t stop Kirin from leaving even though I wanted to. I called for every part of me, darkness or light, to bring him back to my side, but no response. Famine drifted to Kirin’s hands as his wings and horns settled. When he glanced down at me, his eyes were entirely black. He had grown long spectral claws. His skin had changed quickly to dark gray, the color of slate. Whatever demonic form he was channeling made him taller and less mortal looking than I had ever seen him. With a graceful jump, he leapt into the air to meet Nakarius before he destroyed more of Ashena.

  I wanted to call out to him, but I didn’t know what to say. I was going to die there, and so was he… for possibly nothing.