by Steve McHugh
"Whom have you ever fought to truly test yourself? All I know of is a bunch of human women, some children and those who were unable to defend themselves against a gargoyle. You're just standing on the shoulders of greatness."
"I beat you," he said with a sadistic smile.
My laughter seemed to make him even angrier. "When? The first time you got one of your thugs to shoot me, and the second you blew yourself up with a car bomb. Yeah, really good record you have against me."
A rumble started inside him "I. Am. Achilles," he roared.
I cracked my knuckles. "In that case, Achilles is about to get his ass kicked."
*****
My intention had been to piss Achilles off so much that he screwed up. Considering his first action was to charge at me, head on, without even changing into his gargoyle form, it was fair to say I’d succeeded.
What I hadn't counted on was how fast he was without needing to change. He made the distance between us quicker than I'd ever imagined, and I only just managed to dodge aside at the last second. He continued to run, unable to slow in time to turn back on me.
Gargoyles can maintain a human shell, although it's really just for show. Their weight and strength don't change no matter what their outward appearance suggests. The real benefits of changing are the armour and killing weapons in his wings and claws. The fact that he thought he could take me without changing meant he was either really confident or really stupid.
I rolled back to my feet and for a brief moment was concerned that Achilles' cheer squad would try to attack me, but none of them had moved an inch. It was probably unwise for them to get involved when Achilles was fighting, he didn't strike me as caring about friendly fire.
Achilles roared once more and charged. I darted aside just before he reached me, dropped to one knee, and slammed a dense-air covered palm into his stomach. I wrapped more air around my other hand, covering up to my elbow, and smashed a fist into his jaw. It must have been like being hit by a falling concrete slab. Achilles' head snapped aside and he fell to the floor with a huge crash, taking one of the potted plants with him.
"You still want to do this without changing?" I placed a little distance between myself and Achilles as he brushed the dirt off his arms.
He smiled and threw a huge punch, which was easily avoided, but his follow up jab to my ribs struck home, knocking the wind out of me. Instead of continuing, he backed off, grinning like an idiot. I rubbed my side, and prepared for whatever game Achilles was trying to play.
He swung again, exactly the same as before, and once more hid his real punch behind the strength of the first. This time his left hand came up toward me, as I avoided the first haymaker, and tried to catch me on the jaw. But I anticipated it, and stepped into the blow, grabbing his arm just above his elbow and head-butting him on the nose, using a dense pack of air on my forehead to cause maximum damage.
He swung his free hand at my head, but a second head-butt saw him drop the punch in mid-air and try to stagger away. I wasn't about to let him go that easily. I slammed my elbow into the bridge of his nose, and my knee into his stomach, giving him two more pieces of pain to consider.
Achilles bent forward slightly and I let go of his arm, dropped to a crouch, and smashed both of my hands into his solar plexus. I'd localised a tornado-like gale directly in front of my hands, and when it struck Achilles, the effect was more than a little dramatic. He lifted from the floor and soared a dozen feet back, hitting the nearest wall and going through it with ease, accompanied by the roar of the powerful gale.
It took him only moments to reappear, silhouetted in a cloud of dust and brick. "You're better than I'd imagined," Achilles said, his voice filled with rage and hatred. "I won't make that mistake again." There was a ripping sound, and a pair of wings unfurled from his back. He flicked them slightly, before touching his face and ripping the skin from it, tearing off the pink, human shell and replacing it with hard stone. Red eyes burned from the darkness. "I'm going to kill you!" He launched himself toward me, destroying more of the wall as his wings crashed through and he landed only a few feet from me.
I looked up at the stone monster and smiled. "I've killed gargoyles before. One more won't make much difference."
Achilles feinted with a punch, but instead kicked out at me. It was so fast and precise, that it was all I could do to raise a shield of air to absorb the force of the blow. And even then it was enough to lift me from my feet and dump me onto a weak wooden table, which collapsed beneath my weight. I rolled off and used air magic to whip the pieces of wood at Achilles who reacted exactly as I'd expected him to. He did nothing. In fact he laughed. Which meant he opened his mouth wide, allowing me to throw a ball of fire at his otherwise plated face.
He screamed as it torched the softest part of his body. Achilles dropped to his knees, and I rushed toward him, my fist wrapped so tightly in dense air that it was beginning to go numb. I hit the stricken gargoyle in his eye with everything I had, rocking him back. A second blow sent him to the ground, but the flat of one of his wings caught me in the chest and I flew back into the wall knocking the wind out of me.
The momentary lapse gave Achilles enough time to get back to his feet. "You're like a fucking cockroach," he shouted, his voice raw and pained. "I'll just have to crush you like one."
He jumped into the air and I rolled away as he came down on the exact spot I'd been lying on. His foot destroyed the wooden floor, ripping it to shreds. If it had been me, I'd have been killed instantly. I kicked out at his knee, catching him behind the joint and forcing him to drop to one knee.
It gave me time to get back to my feet, but Achilles wasn't about to let me get away that easily. One of his wings flicked toward me, the razor sharp edge all I could concentrate on. I got a shield up just in time, but it wasn't enough to stop the wing from slicing into me, cutting across my chest and shoulder.
Within seconds my chest and arm were covered in my warm blood, the cut wasn't life threatening, but it was deep enough that I needed time to heal.
Time was something Achilles was in no mood to give. He dove for me again, his claws out, ready to gore and poison me. But I moved fast enough to avoid him. Unfortunately he realised what I would do and had one of his wings moving to meet me. On instinct, I formed a blade of air and cut upward at the same time as forming a second shield, trying to deflect the oncoming blow.
The wing hit the blade, and I felt more liquid on my face and neck. Fear bubbled inside me, had he gotten through the second shield? The sound of a wounded monster filled the air, and I knew that my blade had sliced through Achilles' wing, cutting off the last few feet. Blood sprayed from the missing end, and Achilles roared. Relief flooded into me, but it didn't last long. Achilles' gaze fell back on me, murder in his eyes.
"You've crippled me!"
Gargoyles needed all of their wings to become airborne. Achilles would never fly again.
I touched the severed stone wing with the tip of my shoe. It was thinner than the rest of the plates that covered a gargoyle's body, and thus the most likely part to be damaged in combat.
He gave me no time to think and ran at me. I raised a shield again, but it didn't stop him grabbing me around the stomach and driving me into the wall, slamming his massive fists into my ribs and kidneys over and over again. The pain was enough to make me drop my shield, just for a moment, but that was all he needed. A swift knee to my solar plexus and I was barely able to think, let alone stand and fight back. Achilles took hold of my jaw and lifted my face to his. "Mordred wants you alive. But fuck it. After all you've done, I'm going to tear you apart, and then I'm going to visit Holly. We have unfinished business." He head-butted me, and allowed me to drop to the floor, kicking me twice in the ribs with enough force to lift me off the ground both times.
I tasted my own blood, and felt more of it running down my torso. I needed space, I'd killed gargoyles before, so I knew how to kill Achilles, but I couldn't keep getting my ass kicked and have enough ti
me to complete what I had to do.
Achilles stalked up and down beside me, as the wound from his wing began to close. Once he reached my legs, and as he was about to turn, I forced as much air magic out of my hands as possible. The hurricane of magic drove the stone monster back enough for me to get on my feet. And then I did the only think I could think of. I ran.
Chapter 39
Running may not have been the bravest course of action, but it kept me alive long enough to formulate a plan, and allow my magic to start healing the injuries I'd received at Achilles' hands. I bolted back into the stairwell and up one flight, coming out in a maze of offices and corridors. I made my way through them until I reached a dead end.
A whip of air destroyed the dim lighting above me, casting the corridor into darkness. I didn't want to make things too easy for Achilles. I needed the time to prepare.
If my plan didn't work, I'd be a dead man. There was no way I wanted to go toe-to-toe with a pissed off gargoyle. Especially not after what I'd been through in the previous few hours. I was nowhere near full strength, and memories kept flickering to the front of my thoughts, reminding me of things I'd not thought of in a decade. And in some cases even longer, things I'd never wanted to think about again. It was hard going, and not what I would have called a good place to fight for my life.
I cleared the thoughts out of my head as best as possible, knelt on the ground, closed my eyes and concentrated on my breathing.
"Where the fuck are you?" Achilles roared, accompanied by the sound of walls being destroyed as he searched for me. "Don't hide from me, you fucking coward."
I bit my tongue and continued concentrating.
"It's a shame your little friend Holly passed out when I started cutting her," he shouted after another wall was broken apart. "I wanted to have a ride."
I suppressed the rage that exploded inside me. It would do me no good. Besides Achilles would soon learn the error of his ways.
"And that whore Jenny," he continued. "She refused me one time too many. It was so much fun to finally make sure she was going to die." He paused. "Shame she had to go ruin it by sacrificing herself."
Once more I remained silent.
"Have you seen that werewolf whose heart I ripped out?" Achilles laughed. "His expression was priceless. And that asshole with the gun. I wanted to take his arm with me, but didn't have a chance."
"You're going to die," I whispered and allowed the words to carry on the air, filling every room and corridor as they searched out Achilles.
"Ah, you are here," he said. "I'm going to find you. Make it easy on yourself and just surrender."
"You have no idea who you've pissed off." The whispers once again carried to his ears. "And no idea what I will do to you."
"Come show me," Achilles screamed. "Stop these stupid fucking games." More explosions of brick sounded from nearby, continuing for a few minutes as Achilles let loose his rage on anything close to hand. It wasn't long before silence descended once more.
"I was a sorcerer," Achilles said, breaking the quiet. "I even went to see Merlin. And you know what he said? You know what that fucking old cunt told me?" Achilles' voice rose with every word. "That I wasn't good enough to be an Acolyte. Well, fuck him. Not good enough? How dare he? I turned myself into this, and went after some of the Acolytes who had made it through his selection process. Killed three of them before Orestes offered me this job. So if I can kill Merlin's Acolytes what hope in hell do you have?"
Merlin's Acolytes were the sorcerers he picked to work for him. They were always unwavering in their loyalty—and no pushover in the abilities stake either. Merlin always picked those that he deemed would become the best, people of exception. The fact that Achilles had murdered three of them showed he wasn't someone to underestimate, but it also showed that he really had no idea who I was.
It was a few minutes later when Achilles' shadow appeared at the end of the hallway I was in. "Are you in there? Hiding in the darkness?" he taunted as he stepped closer. "I see you, little man."
"I was never hiding," I said. "I was waiting."
Achilles took a step closer. "So why remove the lights?" When I didn't immediately reply, he took a second, more tentative step toward me. The darkness consumed him, but the light from the corridor beyond gave me the tactical advantage of still being able to spot him. "What game is this?" he demanded.
"No game," I said and stood, pushing open a nearby door with one hand, allowing daylight to flood through, into the corridor.
Achilles smiled and took another, more eager step. And then stopped. "What have you done?" he asked. His voice was nervous, aware that there could be a trap, but clearly having no inkling of what it might be. "Why are you wearing a coat?"
I smiled. I'd grabbed the coat from one of the offices on my way through the floor. I hadn't wanted the glyphs to give me away. "Magic," I said. "The subtle stuff is always harder." I breathed out, and my breath crystallised instantly.
Achilles' eyes opened in panic, as the realisation of what the trap was hit him. He turned to run, but it was too late.
"Don't fight it," I said. "Do you know why gargoyles never go to cold places? It's because cold makes them sluggish, a dozen degrees below zero will freeze a gargoyle's limbs solid, like... well, like stone."
Achilles continued to struggle. "What have you done to me?"
I rolled up my sleeves, showing the white glyphs, which were so bright I could barely look at them. "The higher in the air one goes, the colder it becomes. The air I've created is the same as you'd find at about sixty thousand feet. It's frozen you pretty solid. But that's not everything. You see, as things cool they retract. That includes the plates of stone on your body."
Achilles' expression was one of horror as he stared at his chest. The plates, which normally interlocked over him, had moved apart. Not by a huge amount, but it was enough that the dark flesh beneath was exposed.
He glanced up in time to see me slam a blade of air into his exposed stomach. "Die screaming, you son-of-a-bitch," I said and dragged the blade up, slicing open his stomach; his screams filled my ears, only stopping when I reached his chest. Black, tar-like, blood pumped out over the floor, covering my arm in the process. I removed the blade and Achilles fell to the floor with a crash. He whimpered slightly, the terror easy to see in his eyes. "You have about ten minutes before you bleed out," I said. "I believe I mentioned that this wasn't my first time."
I placed one knee on his chest and pushed down causing Achilles to gasp in pain. His considerable strength had all but vanished. He could barely even raise his arms to defend himself.
"Now if you're ready," I said and remade the blade of air. "I think it's time to educate you as to exactly who I am." And then I set to work.
Chapter 40
It hadn't taken long for Achilles to die, but in the ten minutes between him collapsing to the floor and taking his last breath, I got what I needed out of him.
I'd tried asking about where Mordred might go if he did escape, but the sound of a dozen people running toward me distracted me and by the time I'd realised I wasn't in immediate trouble, Achilles had died.
So I decided to use him for something more helpful.
I walked back along the corridor until I found the dozen armed guards, who had been so keen on watching me and Achilles fight. They were standing in front of the stairwell, assault rifles at the ready. Apparently keeping me alive was no longer a priority.
I stopped walking and threw the coat I'd stolen from a nearby room, at them. It opened and Achilles' decapitated head fell out, rolling toward the group. As one they separated, all watching the stone covered head bounce along the floor; before coming to a stop by the wall just beyond their position. It took them a few moments to turn their attention back to me, following the trail of blood the head had created along the floor. Their complexions were considerably paler than a few seconds earlier.
I started forward and not a single man amongst the group stopped me from makin
g my way through the passage they created. I reached the stairwell door and was about to open it when something came to mind. "I'm going to kill your boss," I said without looking back. "When I'm done, I'll be leaving this pisshole of a building. If I find any of you on the way out, I will kill you. My advice is to run and don't stop. You do not want to cross my path, as you will find me utterly devoid of mercy."
I opened the door and stepped into the stairwell beyond, letting the door swing shut behind me before I began up the stairs toward the roof, taking them three at a time. Using air magic to make me faster and more agile meant I made the few flights of stairs in under a minute.
At the very top of the stairwell was a short corridor with a fire exit door at one end. I tried the door, shoving my shoulder into it when it refused to budge. I ran one finger down the side and found that the metal had been melted. Mordred had sealed the door so that no one could get through. But he'd done a poor job. "You always were a shit sorcerer," I said and walked to the end of the corridor.
Air glyphs burst to life over me, and I ran forward, a vortex of air rushing all around me, ripping the walls apart as I moved. I hit the door at full speed, and the vortex did its job, ripping the door from its secured moorings and flinging it through the air. It impacted with a massive air conditioning unit on the roof, creating a bone shuddering noise that got the attention of Mordred as he walked up a set of steps to a waiting helicopter.
He saw me and hurried up the metal stairs, but I'd closed the distance between us and threw fire magic at him before he reached their summit. He dove over the ball of fire, clearing the handrail of the stairs and landing on the concrete roof with a dull thud. Part of the fireball had caught his coat and he tapped the singed fabric, stopping more damage from occurring.
