by brett hicks
“Two more lefts then another left, we will be there!”
“That’s like taking one right!”
Skylar yelled and Reyline waved him off and rolled her eyes.
“We are not dealing with normal logic or mundane rules of physics here my boy.”
Skylar growled in annoyance and he looked to Ariel like he might want to bite the sassy dark goddess. She managed to suppress any further snark that was no doubt rising unbidden to his mind.
Fire shot out at them as they rounded the first left and Ariel threw up a shield around them in time to repel the blast.
“This is just normal flame, nothing tricky.”
She told the others and they trusted her magic to keep them safe.
“Any clue what might be around the next turn?”
Skylar asked their sort of guide and she shrugged in a clueless gesture.
“Hell if I know, but I’m beginning to regret not prodding Nox for a proper map of this damn place. She was always an over-achiever.”
Skylar grumbled something insulting by way of agreement and Reyline seemed to be too annoyed with her sister to take offense on her behalf.
“How I wish that niece of mine could raise her, just so I could smack her smug little face right now!”
Reyline said and Skylar chuckled in a loud laugh. Their feet pounded on the stone and they rounded the second left corner. They were at what looked like a dilapidated market-place. Ariel almost breathed out a sigh of relief when nothing came out. Only then did she spot the mass of black and green-winged snakes raining down on their location.
“Overachiever!”
Reyline screamed and she threw out a hand and the shadow road opened for them. She pushed the others through and then she slammed it closed behind her.
She spits them back out three seconds later and everyone came to a sudden staggering stop at a massive gate leading into what looked like a courtyard to a massive keep that had huge crystal spires.
They had somehow cleared the maze.
“Um, you might want to get that open…”
Skylar said and he was looking behind us. The stone road was crumbling and they would soon be swallowed up in the huge sinkhole forming.
“Just a second kid, I’m looking for the access terminal.”
“We might not have a second!”
He fired back at Reyline and she made a satisfied noise and she cut her palm open with a long razor-sharp nail and slammed it against the terminal and shouted, “Let us in you fat-assed whore!”
The gates swung open and the group rushed through as the stones beneath their feet began to give out. They came to a rolling and clumsy stop on the solid ground inside the courtyard filled with redcaps.
Twenty-Two:
Twenty Redcaps rushed them with battle-axes and large claymores longer than their whole bodies. Snarls and jeers rang out in the late afternoon. Skylar had no time to relax and enjoy even a moment’s relief of being out of the death maze.
Gunfire and arrows burst forth and six of the small men with the gory red hats fell in the first barrage. Vivian and the other rangers slipped into the shadows of the courtyard and Skylar was suddenly the focal point of the midget assault. He had never thought the redcaps very intimidating until he was being overrun with them.
He fired several more shots and emptied his clip into the chests of two approaching dwarves. He sidestepped the first and he reached behind his head and pulled free the black katana blade Seri had given him. Skylar had no real training with swords, but he did have plenty of self-defense training and some mix martial arts training as a cop.
The steel blade vibrated as he parried the blade of a thick claymore with his sword. His leg lashed out and caught the dwarf in the chest staggering him back. Skylar turned and juked left in time to miss impalement from the thrust of the third man. He slashed and caught the man in the shoulder in a clumsy but swift slash. The little man’s stocky arm fell to the grassy lawn and dark blood oozed from the wound.
The rangers reappeared and began to further thin the herd with rapid-fire volleys of arrows. Vivian appeared between Skylar and two new attackers while he fought the two still armed—literally in this case.
Reyline rushed at four of the little men and she slashed out with black talons where her fingers had been. She spun and thrust, twisted and impaled with her nails. Three men were dead or dying in the next moment. The fourth slashed into her but she dispersed into blackness and his blade bit into nothing by the black traces of magic left in her wake. She reappeared behind him with her talons lodged in his lower back and then she slashed his throat to the bone.
Vivian used two curved elven short-swords like two silver blurs of enchanted death. She sliced clean ribbons of crimson across necks, wrists, and torsos. She ducked as a ranger fired right where she had been, striking another approaching attacker.
“Let’s get to the hallway. The bridge is just inside the keep at the far end of the hall. None of the parameter defenses are active now.”
Reyline said as she opened a belly and ripped into another chest plucking out a still beating heart. Vivian and the Rangers begin to pick off the flanking attackers and Skylar slashed out and caught one of the dwarves in the pecs with his sword and he went down screaming. He juked the blow of the might ax that narrowly swung past his left flank.
He spun and high-kicked the small man in the nose cracking the cartilage. He followed up with a thrust and impaled the man’s throat with a gurgling death rattle soon following.
He ran and followed after Reyline who was rushing the remaining dwarves. The Rangers picked off the ranks without even being approached by a single attacker. No one came within twenty-yards of the women. The doors glowed purple as Reyline’s bloody palm slapped down on the DNA reader.
“System command, lock out all who are hostile to me or my companions.”
Energy weapons suddenly came to life and began to fire bursts of brilliant beams of green and purple laser fire. It was like being transported to any of the Star Wars movies! Scorched bodies fell as the remaining dwarves were cut down in the hail of energy blasts.
“Shit is that really a freaking laser?!”
Reyline shot Skylar a look that all but said, “Is that a real question?”
Skylar followed after her while he gave her a sheepish expression. The dark goddess smiled at him with a wild sort of amusement playing on her ageless features.
“Come along children, this keep is not going to pillage itself.”
Reyline said in amusement and slight chastisement blended together in her tone. Vivi followed behind Skylar and Ariel brought up the rear of their formation. Most were low on ammo now, but they had plenty of melee weapons. The Rangers still had arrows to spare, though Skylar was too afraid to even ask where they stored them all.
They trotted down the long grey and silver corridors. Reyline felt a pang of nostalgia shoot through her, but it was gone quickly. She had to stay focused or their gambit would be thwarted.
She rushed to a wide open antechamber and came to the massive alloy door of the bridge. The alloy DNA scanner came down and Reyline slapped her hand down on it. The doors hissed open and she burst into the room followed closely by the others. Green and purple beams shot at them and one of the rangers fell and grunted in pain.
Vivi and the others dispersed into the shadows and began focusing on thinning the ranks of inhumans with rifles and other firearms. Skylar hit the ground and tumbled to a stop behind a massive section of crystal.
“Finish them now!”
He heard a smug and annoyed masculine voice shout above the gunfire. He could take a stab in the dark and guess this must be Henry Jefferson. The necro-witch was not firing on them. He was sitting on a throne and two equally smug African-American’s with matching black robes stood to flank him. These were likely his parents, one a necromancer and the other a witch, both were extremely powerful.
The pair of black-clad figures rushed to help greet the assault team.
Skylar ducked back as more fire erupted from in front of the two robed figures. Reyline was moving like a blur of black-grey and the shadows steeped around her and purple energy slammed into the male witch knocking him back. The female figure held her ground and she drew a blade, the same blade Skylar had seen in coverage of The Dawning. It was the Necrotic Blade, the same blade Dean Sylvester had used to kill the previous Sky Lord.
Reyline snarled like a feral cat and she hissed in abject rage.
“You dare to wield my sister’s sword against me?!”
The woman rushed her and Reyline drew a midnight blade that seemed to devour the light in the room. Everything was dark, shadowy, and deep purple.
“System command, check DNA by authority of Reyline of the Shadow-way.”
An orb floated down from the high ceiling and it opened up and a needle stuck into her flesh. The orb-like droid beeped in a confirmation sound.
“Access granted, welcome back Lady Reyline of the Shadow-way, how may I help you today?”
The mechanical female voice asked.
“Check DNA of the one currently considered in charge. Use the intruder prevention protocol.”
Skylar didn’t have time to wonder what that was. Several redcaps rounded on him having run out of ammo and the lasers had stopped firing. Skylar swore and he parried the sword and dodged the large ax coming to his left.
Reyline was battling back the large African-American necromancer woman. Henry was rushed by several probes and they prodded him and beeped and the lights dimmed and flashed red.
“Access denied, intruder alert!”
The feminine voice said and it somehow managed to sound hostile.
“System command, open all the roads and open up the bridge. The true heir is on her way!”
Reyline yelled out above the crashing sound of the melee. She blocked and slashed, but the necromancer was fast and seasoned. Skylar knew that the Jefferson’s had held this domain for a long time in Boston, so they couldn’t be weak.
Skylar could only focus on the attackers coming at him now. He swore and he blocked a blow, but the next one clipped his side and about half-an-inch of steel bit into his side. He made a stranded sound of pain and he twisted away, suddenly moving aster on instinct alone. He stopped thinking about being human and he just moved.
He slashed and parried again, and then he split the side of one of the small men’s heads open like a melon.
He kicked out and then he spun into a full round-house kick, catching the dwarf on the chin with his heel.
Tissue was mending and he felt the itching of it as he was regenerating the shallow wound on his side. He didn’t have time to marvel at this, nor did his attacker have another moment to confront him.
As a massive ceiling unfolded and opened up the bridge to the rushing air of the higher elevation, Skylar saw a blue-green dragon descending from the heavens and on his back was a small raven-haired girl with feral amber eyes. She looked like the personification of vengeance made flesh and bone.
“Henry!”
She bellowed in a deep and powerful tone that seemed to call the lightning. One of the drones shot up and stabbed her and began to glow green before it rushed back to its little cubby.
“Access granted, welcome home Atlantis.”
She jumped from the roaring dragon’s back and he finished his descent and began to slash into attackers. Screams and death rattles were sounding in discord all around Skylar. He was so caught up in the spectacle that it nearly cost him his head, but he managed to parry a thick claymore on his katana.
Then he saw her descend on Henry Jefferson. She was all power and grace and her glowing green blade rushed out of her body and Henry thrust up a barrier, but the fires seared through the magic like they had so many other elements before.
Henry fired of forks of lightning and she flung a wave of green fire off her sword. The chilly flames met the lightning and devoured it. Henry scrambled back, but he was not inhumanly fast. He was still closer to mortal than most inhuman beings. The fires caught him and they became living chains of cold flames. He screamed in horror and agony as the flames burned into his flesh and held him tight.
Twenty-Three:
“You know it was harder to get here, then it was to actually deal with the supposed threat.”
Liam said as he strode into the room and gave the large dragon a wide berth. Bix sniffed and said, “This is Boston we are talking about. They were fine hiding behind their wards and layers of death spells, but here in the home of our Old-Blood friend’s forbearers, they were weak.”
Seri strode in and she looked regal, not at all like the half-dead girl I had patched up just a few hours ago. My stomach did a small flip at the sight of her. I had opted to fly ahead with Shemron once Bix had managed to help mend his wing. Her nature magic apparently works wonders on the dragon physiology.
“You will not die quickly; you do not get that pleasure.”
I told the chained man that had once masqueraded as my friend. Henry screamed as I yanked the chains and pulled him to a stop.
“You’re too late…”
He managed to struggle out through grit teeth and I smashed him in the stomach with a blow so hard it had him hacking up blood.
“What was that?!”
He sagged on his knees and looked up at me defiantly.
“Everything is already over now, New York has fallen.”
My eyes widened and he smiled up at me like a maniac. Seri stayed my hand with hers and she shook her head.
“We might need him, but now we need to get back to New York as fast as possible!”
We were still trapped with a small army, deep beneath the surface. Our city was vulnerable and there was nothing we could do to protect it right now!
This was a feint! Dean, he must have been waiting for this!
Thank you for reading! Book 4 Coming Soon!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Brett studied English Lit in college. He has been writing full length manuscripts for about ten years consistently now. He lives in Richmond, VA on the East Coast. Writing is not a hobby. It is something he does as soon as he wakes up in the morning. Brett grew up an "outsider" socially. It has gifted him a unique perspective that he endeavors to capture to its fullest in his work every day.
Links:
https://bretthicksbooks.wordpress.com
Twitter: @BrettHicksx86
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