“Should we ignore everything else, and just focus on Cane?”
“Unless you see our people being overrun. Cane is the priority.”
I clasped my arm with his. “Stay safe out there.”
He nodded and ran off to see Henry one last time. I turned towards Sarah. “Are you ready for this?”
“I’m ready.”
I could see a tear slipping from the corner of her eye. I wiped it away with my thumb. “What’s wrong?”
“I just don’t ever want to lose you.”
I smiled down at her and then leaned in for a kiss. As I pulled away I rubbed my thumb over her cheek. “You never will.”
She nodded and we got back into our car. There were only a few places we could go to look for Cane; the closest was his potions shop, the Prince and the Pauper. We rolled out into the city and I could already hear the sounds of battle. I wondered just how the humans would describe this night. We could do a lot to cover it up, but with this much open warfare going on it would be impossible for some of the battle not to be witnessed. I’d leave that up to Henry and his crew, I had to focus on what we had been assigned to do.
Six minutes later we pulled to a stop outside of Cane’s shop. I was surprised to find that a light was on. Before I had purchased the potion to save Sarah’s life, I had been sent to kill Cane. I thought I had succeeded but instead it had been one of his doppelgangers. This time we had to be sure that we killed the right man. This time there was no room for error. If we were lucky he was here, if we weren’t this could take us all night.
The shop was just as I remembered it from my last visit. The lavish glasses and jars lined the walls, and it still had that old timey feel with the batwing doors leading into the back and wooden floors. When no one came out of the back to greet us, I pulled one of my blades from over my shoulder and knocked one of the jars to the ground. The glass shattered making a delightful tinkling sound. When the next few vials shattered and it still didn’t bring a response I started to grow agitated and just smashed my blade through a huge swath of his glassware. That seemed to finally get someone’s attention because I heard movement in the back.
Sarah gave me a look and I proceeded into the back of the shop. I could feel her following as I pushed through the doors. The main room of the back was open and there was no one in it. It looked as if there might have been a struggle recently. A few things had been broken and papers had been scattered across the ground. I nodded to Sarah and she kicked in the office door. She stepped back letting me take the lead, and I entered the room with a dense shield in front of me.
I was shocked to say the least when nothing attacked, but the two people in the room were already occupied in a struggle. Sarah moved up behind me and I could almost hear her smile as she watched the battle play out in front of us. Mathew had a lamp cord around Cane’s neck and was strangling him. Cane had managed to get one hand in between the cord and his throat but he was starting to turn a grisly shade of purple. With his other hand he flailed at his attacker. His eyes registered hope when we walked in and then quickly turned to rage when he realized we were content to let what was happening play out.
Mathew met my eye, nodded once, and then he put a knee into Cane’s back. With a final burst of effort I heard a pop and Cane’s body fell limply to the floor. He didn’t smile or look ashamed when he looked up at us again. He spit once on the corpse and then turned to face us.
“He never told me that he planned to let the Demons attack our city. I’m a lot of things but even I can’t stand for that.”
I had to think for a second about what I needed to do here. Mathew was guilty of a lot more than just killing Cane. The worst of his crimes was turning his back on the Ascendancy and all that we stood for. This one act of retribution wasn’t enough to make up for the crimes he had committed. At the same time we had bigger things to worry about tonight.
“You picked the right night for us to find you.”
“Oh, how is that?”
“It’s going to be your lucky day; we have other things that are more important than bringing you in.”
“John.” He stepped forward and placed a hand on my shoulder. “I know we will never be on the same side of things again, but there is one thing that you have to know before you go.”
“Not being on the same side of things is a mild way to put it. If I see you again you will be detained or killed.”
“Since you are letting me go tonight I’ll forget that you said that. The man Adam fought, he gave his body to a Demon named Corson. I know where he is.”
“Damn it, just spit it out.”
“I need to know that you will let anything that happened while I worked for Cane slide. I don’t want to be hunted.”
“I’ll have to talk with Adam but if we can stop anything else from happening, I think you have a deal.”
“I guess that will have to be good enough,” he said pushing his way past us out into the hallway. “You can find him at the mission. Good luck.”
He said the last words already sprinting for the door. It seems that once you started working for someone as evil as Cane you stopped taking people at their word. I looked over at Sarah. “What do you think?”
“I think we go and check it out.”
“Should we send word to Adam first?”
“No, it’s our turn to end this.”
I placed my hand on her shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze and then kissed her on the forehead. “Then we end this.” Sarah walked out of the building as I pooled flames around my hands. I sent the fire pouring into Cane’s office and into the rest of his property as I walked out of the building backwards. This was one structure the city of San Francisco could do without.
We came to a halt outside of the mission. I had a feeling they would be in the old adobe building, it seemed to have some kind of pull for demonic energy. Instead of driving up guns blazing, I parked the car and we started to walk. We cleared the low stone wall and started to run towards the building. The sound of Sarah drawing her sword made me smile, it was something else to see her holding a sword that was nearly as big as her in one hand. She held it casually like it weighed almost nothing. I had tried to swing her sword once and found even with both arms I could barely wield the blade.
She planted the tip into the ground and I heard her bones start to pop as she shifted into her beast form. When she picked up the sword again it didn’t look nearly as big as before. She was hunched over now but I knew that when she stood she would be over eight feet tall and had the strength to cut a car in half with that blade.
I felt confident going into battle with such an apex predator by my side. I pulled a set of leather gloves from my coat. After wiping my palms off on my pants I slid on the gloves and pulled the swords from over my shoulders. I gave Sarah a nod and we started to creep forward. As we moved closer to the old church I could make out some things moving around. I was sure Sarah had gotten a better look at them with her enhanced vision, but from here they almost looked like the Naga we had faced. We moved closer until only the outer four-foot stone wall separated us from the creatures inside.
Now that I could see them clearly I realized that I had been wrong. While these creatures had long tails they certainly weren’t serpents. Each one of them had two pairs of legs, and two pairs of arms. They could probably run on all eight limbs at incredible speed or stand on their four legs and use their arms to complete whatever task they had been assigned. They came in so many different colors it was hard to stay focused on just one of them for too long. The creatures also had long lizard-like faces but their eyes burned with a fierce intelligence.
Standing just inside of the actual church was the Demon wearing Edward’s body like a suit. He spoke with the creatures in a language I couldn’t understand and they ran off to do his bidding. I continued to watch him, until Sarah growled next to me. She was right, I had been taking too long. We had to move now to have a chance to stop whatever it was that he was doing. Sarah
nudged me; I guess that meant I was going in first.
I sheathed my swords and pulled out two silver daggers that had been blessed by the brotherhood. I planted a hand on the low wall and vaulted over. As soon as my feet hit the ground, I sent the daggers flying. They soared through the air with lethal efficiency and slammed up to the hilt into two different Demons. As they fell to the ground writhing in pain I pulled my swords and continued to charge forward. I felt Sarah move up behind me, and in a flash she had passed me. Her giant blade swung through the air cutting one of the Demons in half. She peeled off to the side as Corson cast a burst of dark magic through the doorway.
Sarah engaged the rest of the Demons in battle leaving just me and Corson to settle this once and for all. He cast another burst of dark magic my way and I deflected it with my blades. Thank God for the Brotherhood. Their blessed blades were the perfect thing to hunt Demons with. Corson pulled his own blade seemingly from out of nothing. It was weird seeing another man’s smile on Edward’s face. The Demon might have looked just like him but he couldn’t have been any less human if he tried.
Corson charged out of the door with his blade held high. I moved into a defensive position as he ran at me. Before he could reach me I raised a pillar of earth in front of him. Instead of him dodging to the side as I expected he ran straight through it. Our swords clashed as the broken rocks fell around us. I gathered them all and set them spinning around me as we broke apart. Each time Corson tried to strike I moved the rocks to block him. I could see the rage growing on his face, and it made me smile. If you fight angry you always make a mistake, and normally sooner rather than later.
His blade continued to clash against my rocks, knocking chips from the steel as it did. Finally, he threw the blade away in disgust and I sent the rocks out towards him with the force of a tornado. They clattered harmlessly to the ground as he erected some kind of shield. His hands started to glow with the purple light I had seen Edward use during his fight with Adam. I knew my magic wouldn’t be able to deflect it, but I wondered if the blades of the Brotherhood could.
His first swing was wide, purposefully so, trying to draw me into the blade formed on his other hand. I dodged both strikes, but at the last second managed to bring my sword up against his passing hand. Sparks shot from the blade; the heat from them set the grass under us on fire as they landed. A quick check of the sword revealed that it was still intact. Finally something had gone right.
Knowing that I could defend against the magic blades on his hands filled me with confidence. I pressed the attack, enjoying the look of shock on his face as I deflected a few more of his attacks. My swords rose and fell but each time he had a hand in place to stop me. I pressed him again and again coming no closer to victory. Worse than that, I was starting to get tired. He seemed to drink in my weakness with a glance, and he turned my attacks back on me. Corson launched himself at me with unrestrained fury. It took everything I had to keep my blades moving fast enough to stay just a hair’s breadth out of reach.
The attacks kept coming faster and faster. His arms and the magic blades attached to them moved in ways a sword couldn’t. The power he put behind each new strike almost forced me to my knees. Before that could happen I started to retreat. We broke apart and a glance over my shoulder showed the short stone wall a mere two feet away.
“Seems as if you have run out of room. I’m truly disappointed. I had heard you were one of the Ascendancy’s best. I find it shocking we haven’t taken over yet if you are all the humans have to defend them,” Corson said as he leered at me.
I could feel the sweat pouring down my face; my gloves were soaked with it. I let him smell the defeat as it came out of my pores in waves. I lowered my head and moved my blades down to my sides. Corson smiled then, his extra teeth seemed to gleam from his gaping mouth. He roared as he charged the last few feet between us. His blades came down straight for my head and I spun to the side bringing one of my blades up into his ribs as he passed.
His roar of triumph turned into a howl of rage and pain. Before he could turn I cast a spell that he wouldn’t be expecting, at least I hoped. I smiled as his eyes wavered in confusion as they moved between each of the images that I had cast. It was something new that I had been working on, I called it Duplicity. It wouldn’t work on a Lycan since they could smell where you were but I thought it might just work on a Demon. The look of confusion on his face indicated that I was right. Originally I had only been able to create one likeness of myself but now I had three.
All four of me stared at the Demon. He screamed in rage as he tried to keep all of us in view at once. He slowly turned in a circle, and I feigned lashing out. He brought up his bladed hands but all I did was move back and smile, further infuriating him. I could see tendrils of dark magic working their way out of him and one of my illusions shattered. “One out of three chance. Time to make your move,” I taunted.
He lunged at one of the clones and I brought my blade down into his back. He spun around so quickly I only managed to deflect part of the blow, his blade still bounced off of my side. Sarah was going to kill me for destroying the armor she got for me in less than a week. But I was alive and I guess that would have to do, for now.
Corson charged at me, but now his movements were weak and uncoordinated. Black blood poured from the wound I had dealt him. When he lunged forward again I took off his left hand at the wrist.
I moved around him with ease now that he could only defend half of my strikes. I worked several small wounds into his legs, until he could barely hobble in the slow circle I kept making. Finally one of his legs gave out and the magic blade on his right hand fizzled and popped out of existence.
“You might have won today, but I will see you again.” Corson spat.
The ground below him began to pulsate with a red light. I stepped back, raising my swords in front of me. On the sixth pulse the light vanished and all that was left was Edward’s body. I flipped him onto his back to make sure the Demon was gone and almost lost control of my bowels as he let out a gasp. He smiled weakly, looking up at the night sky for the last time.
I moved forward and Edward wheezed. “Thank you.”
His eyes closed and the blood leaking from his wounds turned back to the crimson that it had always been. I sheathed my swords and took off my gloves. When the fire came it almost felt freeing. Adam had always respected this man for the things he had accomplished long ago. He had told me some of the stories; although exactly what happened to have him end up this way was something he conveniently left out. I was going to find out just what had happened. His body burned away into ash. “Farewell brother, may the light guide you home.”
I was surprised to find that when I moved my hand up to my cheek it came away wet. I hadn’t known this man as a hero. Only as someone that had committed crimes against us. Still, something about him thanking me for his release at the end humbled me. When Sarah came to my side I wrapped an arm around her waist. She pulled me into a fierce hug and I mumbled into her neck, “It’s over.”
17
Mathew
When I pulled the car along the outside of the house I noticed Tessa’s father leaving. That was never a good sign. I decided to wait in the car for him to go before heading inside. Normally when he popped in for a visit it meant I was about to get an earful from the woman I loved. Something about how I needed to do more, that running the market wasn’t enough. That I needed to be more like her father, and not Cane’s pawn.
The last thing I wanted to hear about tonight was how I never stood up to Cane, how I let him control my life. I already put an end to that and if Tessa didn’t watch it her father would be the next one on my list. Who was he anyway, to come into my home and badmouth me? I should have probably just followed him and taken care of the problem right now, but with the good news to deliver, he could wait.
His car finally turned the corner at the end of the street and I headed to the door. As soon as I was inside I knew there would be trouble. Tessa
was standing at the bottom of the stairs waiting for me with a look of fury on her face.
“You’re late,” she screamed.
“Tessa, I had to wrap up a few things at work before coming home.”
“I’m sure you did, after what Cane helped Corson do to this city.”
“I didn’t have anything to do with that. I love it here.”
“Well you’re his dog. You had to have known about it.”
I stepped forward then with my hand raised to strike her. Then I realized that was exactly what she wanted. Tessa had a weird way about her and sometimes she pushed so hard because she enjoyed the inevitable outcome. It was the demon she had trapped inside of her. The pain brought them closer together. She looked up at me not with fear but with disgust because I didn’t let the blow fall. Probably something else she had decided made me weak.
“Enough of your games! I have good news to share, and I won’t let you ruin it with your flights of fancy. Just because your father was here stirring the pot again doesn’t mean that we have to fight.”
“So you saw him.”
“Yes, he was leaving when I pulled in.”
“And did you say hello?”
“Of course not, Tessa, I positively loathe the man. If I had to spend five seconds with him it would take a year off my life.”
“That’s my father you are talking about.”
“Trust me, I know.”
She made a face and then walked into the lounge. She grabbed two glasses and started to pour a measure of whiskey into each. “Care for a drink?” she said slipping two ice cubes into each glass and then walking away from the bar, headed towards her favorite seat.
I eyed the whiskey glass for a moment. It wasn’t like Tessa to drink unless we were at an event, and she never poured my drinks. In fact, our housekeeper normally did that for me when I came home. “Where is Deloris?”
Ascendancy Origins Trilogy Page 42
