Sheesh he's agreeable, I thought. Am I really that scary right now?
I didn't think I was. But then again, I had died dozens of times and these days I was hearing voices and having all kinds of internal conversations with myself.
I was going to have to find a way to fix me. Later, though. Not right now.
“Thank you so much. Alright Steve, what can you tell me about the letter John Malcolm allegedly wrote concerning the three girls named Valerie Nguyen, Samantha Banks, and Kayla Green?”
“He didn't write it,” 'Steve' whispered.
“I'm sorry Steve, I'm not sure I caught that. Could you repeat your last response in a louder tone?”
“He didn't write it!” The man gasped. “He didn't write it! They staged the whole thing!”
“Staged?” I asked, breaking character for a moment. “Who staged it?”
“I can't say. They'll kill me,” Seeing the look in my eyes, he added quickly “And no one would believe me even if I said their name. I promise!”
“Don't worry Steve. Your identity is safe right now,” I replied slowly. “But maybe you could find a few names to share? Was there more than one person involved?”
“Yes! Yes! Um... Pastor Barnes! We got the girls from Pastor Ronald Barnes!”
“A pastor gave you children? That you abused?” I tried to keep the growl out of my voice. It didn't look like I was successful.
“He's not a real preacher. And I didn't abuse them!” the man said desperately.
“Are you sure?” I asked. “We talked about this earlier Steve. How important the truth was?”
“I just swung the hammer! I didn't touch them! I didn't touch them!”
“Explain, Steve. What does 'swinging the hammer' mean?”
“We had to scare them into confessing,” the man was whispering again, but he was still loud enough to be heard. “It was my job. I had to do it. I just swung the hammer near them so that they'd say what we wanted them too. That's all I did. I wasn't really going to hit them.”
“Of course you weren't,” I said, staring at him with dead eyes. “Were they really abused though, Steve? Did someone sexually abuse those little girls?”
“It wasn't going to be me,” the man begged. “I swear!”
He was desperately meeting my eyes, which convinced me he was telling the truth.
“That's not what I'm asking Steve,” I replied carefully. “And you don't need to act so afraid. This is a voluntary interview, right Steve?”
“Yes! Yes, absolutely!”
“Alright, Steve. Let's go back to trying to help those little girls. Did John Malcolm ever have inappropriate contact with them?”
“No,” the man sucked in a breath. “But we figured people would think that because he and his wife were with them all the time. We heard they were going to try and adopt them.”
That part was true. Mom and Dad had talked about getting those girls out of foster care and being a family for them. But Dad's death and the surrounding scandal had ruined that, and so the girls stayed in foster care.
That fact was one more brick atop my mountain of rage.
“Another guy is supposed to be training them,” 'Steve' continued. “He said they... they could find a buyer for them. Especially now that we brought here. The buyer doesn't need to careful with them if they're just projections.”
“Who?” I asked in a flat, dead voice.
“I never got his name. But they said he was one of Val's foster parents. He's about five-ten, brown hair and glasses. He doesn't wear them here. He has blue eyes. That's all I know.”
“Is there anything else you're willing to share, Steve?” I asked.
“That's all,” he begged.
I decided that was all the time I had for now.
“End recording,” I said, feeling in my mind that my hand-grip turned off.
“Now tell me why you were so agreeable. Because I'm not stupid enough to believe that a hardened criminal like you is afraid of every high-school student he runs into.”
“My legs,” the man gasped. “You broke my legs just like that. I can't even feel them.”
“And?” I asked, prompting him to continue. “If you can't feel them they don't hurt. I know how that works. Next reason. The real one this time. Why did you go along with those questions even though we both know I'm going to kill you anyway?”
“I heard you die,” the man said, after a moment. “I've heard and seen others die. Yours was the worst. The top ten worst. Every single one of them was one of yours.”
“And?”
“And the victims know our jobs even better than we do.” the man said bitterly. There was defeat in his eyes. “You're the only ones that can really pay us back. And you know exactly how to do it the best.”
“That's right,” I said, reaching for his hammer.
“Wait!” he said. “Not that!”
“Why?” I asked, not even looking back at him as I picked it up.
“I can tell you more!”
“Probably not,” I said indifferently. “I'm running out of time anyway.”
“They moved the girls!” He said hurriedly. “They moved the girls!”
I held the hammer in front of his face.
“Where?”
“To where we keep the locals! They weren't cooperating!”
“What do you mean?” I asked carefully. “I thought Rick was supposed to give you my head to show them?”
“I was just kidding-no!”
I had raised the hammer as if to strike him.
“Okay! Okay! They still weren't listening! They had brought in a fourth one today and the other girls won't let us near her!”
“What?” I asked. The deadness was crawling back into my eyes.
“I didn't know about it until now. She's a little Mexican girl! Barnes wanted her to say you touched her!”
“Me?” I spat. “Why? I wasn't even going to leave a body when I died.”
“Barnes was still mad at you from church. And he was mad at the little girl for giving him lip in front of everyone.”
“Gabby,” I realized, and something deep in me shook. “No. She's supposed to be with her grandmother. Or her aunt.”
“They make her say that. She doesn't have any family there. But we can't just pretend she's an orphan anymore because Barnes got rid of all those programs at his church.”
I felt like I was sliding down a dark hole where everything I loved stayed on the top of the pit. I used my rage to distract me from that feeling, and I raised the hammer above the torturer's head.
“We haven't hurt her yet! I swear! But if you don't hurry someone will! They were gonna kill a native in front of them to break her! And to punish the other girls for rebelling!”
“Which room?” I asked, though I figured I probably knew.
“Just one hallway over! On the left.”
That was pretty much what I expected.
“Okay,” I said. “What were you hoping for in return?”
“Just a clean death,” the man begged.
“No.” I replied.
He screamed as I swung the hammer down. He flinched when it landed next to his head. Then he screamed again when I slammed the weapon just above his skull. I rapidly swung the hammer down as many times as I had seen him do so with Val, and then I stopped.
“If I ever even think about you again, next time I won't miss,” I promised quietly.” “I'll just crack little pieces of your skull here and there, until one finally pierces into your brain and slowly kills you. Just like they did with me. You'll die knowing you're forgetting things here and there- somebody's name, your favorite television show, maybe how to walk to or to go to the bathroom by yourself. And when, or if, you resurrect, you'll do so with the fear that maybe you didn't get everything back, because no one really knows what they don't remember anymore, until they find they need to, and can't.”
Then, before he could reply, I jammed a finger against his chest. Since his vital guard was
still expending itself to try and repair his broken spine, the finger bolt I fired went directly into his heart. He shuddered for a moment, then went still. My mind-screen beeped with another message about my kill count and how some council somewhere was watching while eating popcorn or some crap. I'd ask Stell or Breena later, when I could. But the number of people I needed to save was piling up and I needed to move fast.
I headed to my new destination. My magic was still holding up, and I still felt an earthy covering all over my skin and wind pushing my legs as I walked. It was as if all three Ideals of my magic were all working in tandem to help every part of me, unlike before, where one spell only did one or two things.
I began to hear muffled voices around the corner. The laughs of harsh men. The begging of desperate women. The crying of children. Then I heard another guard call out.
“Hey Ice! What's taking so long?”
Ice? I thought. What kind of dumb name was...whatever. He should have just stuck with Steve.
“Help!” I called out, trying to disguise my voice. “Shit! Ow! It hurts! Help!”
Everything went silent for a moment. Then I heard an older voice, one that sounded familiar speak.
“Go see what the dumbass has done now.”
I ran back behind a corner as quietly as I could. I heard two voices complain loudly as they called out Ice's, or Steve's, name. With one hand I held my spear in reverse grip, with the other I cocked Steve's hammer back for a swing I held my breath as they came around, and I had stood far away enough from the corner that they didn't see me at first. They turned their heads the wrong way, looking to where Steve was supposed to have come from. I acted.
I slammed my spear into the left one's center mass, aiming roughly where Breena had taught me to aim in fighting other humanoids. I felt my spear pierce before most of the enemy's vital guard could engage and the enemy went down wheezing- not dead, but not sounding the alarm either. I think I got his lung.
The other one was wearing some kind of leathery chest armor, so I swung my hammer into the back of his head before he could finish turning around. There was a meaty thwack, but his vital guard must have engaged in time because I didn't hear the crunching sound that would have signified his death. I slammed my hammer into his head again, and this time I punched through as he began to turn to me. He went down screaming. I knelt to follow him, swinging again and again until I heard the sound I was searching for and he went completely limp.
The other one's vital guard was still futilely trying to repair his lung, so I flicked my hammer over to the spiked end and slammed it into his temple. It killed him almost instantly, and I reflected that I probably should have done that on first swing to the other man.
Because he had finally managed to sound the alarm.
“What's going on?” a new voice shouted. When he didn't get an answer, he continued. “You and you with me. The rest guard the door and watch the prisoners.”
Were they not in chains and behind bars? I wondered. Why leave anyone to watch them at all?
I saw the door at the middle of the hallway open, and three more men came out. Two of them were wearing the standard armor-less uniforms I had seen with knives and clubs, but the middle one was wearing a chainmail shirt, the heaviest armor I had seen so far, and was holding a one-handed longsword.
“Morning,” I said casually, yanking my spear out the left corpse. “Anyone know where the coffee room is?”
“Oh my God,” the one on the right said. Whether that was directed to me or to the sight of his two dead friends I couldn't tell.
“I thought he couldn't move,” the one on the left said. “What's he doing outside of his cell?”
“Coffee room,” I repeated. “I'm out because I got hungry and wanted a bagel and some caffeine. Or maybe there's a cafeteria you guys could let me use?”
I stuffed the warhammer into a back pocket on my belt. I kept the hand back there and started working gestures for my next spell.
“Don't just gawk like idiots!” The man in the middle said. “Alert!” He then shouted “Alert! Portal room! We're under attack!”
“By who?” I asked, still crafting a spell one-handed as quietly as I could. “Are we having an alien invasion? Or is this more like one of those zombie apocalypse movies?”
The one on the right still had his mouth open. In fairness, he was probably trying to shake off his surprise, but the more I talked the further his jaw fell. The middle guy, who seemed like he was in charge of security, slapped him on the back of the head.
“I said quit gawking! Charge him and take him out! Make for the portal room if you can!”
They rushed at me from down the hall, not giving me any more time to talk.
That was fine. I had just finished my spell anyway.
Muddy Earth
Next to my signature spells this was probably the one I had the most practice with. The muddy patch of ground formed just as the three men charged into it. The leader almost recognized it in time and began to back-peddle out of it, but the other two stumbled to their knees as they slipped. More swearing commenced as they tried to get back to their feet. The pair did a better job of it than all of the monsters I had fought previously, but the result was that they got their heads up just in time to take my Friction Slash. By now the spell created a four-foot disc of sharp spinning air, and they both screamed as the attack took big chunks out of them. But their vital guards had engaged and prevented my spell from killing them outright. Sighing at the waste of another spell, I opened both hands just enough to release all ten charges of my finger-bolt spell. Five blazing bolts burned into each skull. They jerked and spasmed for a second before falling limply into the mud.
Their leader swore again.
“Alert to portal room!” He shouted down the hall. “He's got his magic back! And I need more help out here!”
I heard a grunt of acknowledgment, and then shouts, screams and crashes. I couldn't tell whether that was a good sign or bad. Probably both. But my opponent swore again and backed further away from the mud pit. Then he took a running leap over it, landing on the other side easily and charging me with the point of the sword. I had time to fire off another Friction Slash but to my surprise he dove under it, rolled back to his feet, and stabbed out at me.
He twisted his blade to catch my spear thrust. I twirled my weapon free but wasn't able to get more than a glancing blow on his mail-covered arm. Then he knocked my spear almost completely out my hands and grabbed for me.
I grabbed his arm and found that he was the strongest opponent I had faced so far. For whatever reason he had integrated his projected body into Avalon far more efficiently than any of the other guards. He was probably a few points stronger than me, I reflected, or he would have been without my active Earth Magic.
But then the magic in my new Battle-form surged, adding air gusts to my movements, and I was able to throw off his grasping hand. His eyes widened in shock, but he quickly leaped back just far enough to swing his longsword at my head. I twisted enough for it to graze my shoulder instead, and then my short sword cleared my belt and I charged forward to stab him with it. He kicked me back a few feet, wincing at how painfully sturdy my enhanced body was.
“How did you get your strength back?” he asked calmly, bringing his sword up to guard. “How did you regain your magic? Why are you still sane?”
“Practice, never really lost it, and I'm probably not anymore,” I growled, answering his questions one by one. I feinted a stab, but he didn't take it. Now he was cocking his blade in a way better suited for hallway fighting, making short thrusts that kept me back without making large movements on his part.
“Alert!” he shouted again. “Portal room! Answer me, dammit! The Challenger's escaped!”
“Portal room, answer us!” I shouted with him. “The coffee room's out of bagels!”
“What?” He lost focus for a half-second as he processed what I said.
I charged him again, and when he tried to force m
e away with his weapon I parried with one of the looted combat knives I had just drawn. He swore and kicked at me again. My short sword tore into his unarmored leg, and this time a jolt left my weapon and traveled into his leg. The shock stunned him for another half second, and I used it to close further into him, ripping my blade out of his leg and crossing both weapons across his neck. I shrugged off another grapple from his still-twitching free hand and slashed his jugular with both of my weapons.
He gurgled at me, but still pulled his outstretched weapon close and went for a slash on my back. The angle was wrong, so he didn't manage more than a shallow cut into my armored, spell-worked back. My own attack angles were still fine, so I stabbed at his throat with my short sword and at his healthy leg with my combat dagger. This time electrical current traveled down both weapons, and he finally went down.
Downfall And Rise (Challenger's Call Book 1) Page 58
