by J. S. Miller
My eyes ran down the ornate exterior and settled on the entryway directly across from us.
“Shit,” I whispered.
Before the broad doors to the chapel, a pack of monsters snarled and paced like wild dogs. At their head stood The Laughing Man himself, pounding on the thick, gilded panels with his gangly arms, each strike spraying bright red blood across the purple wood.
Chapter 34
“Say what you will about him,” Coppersworth said. “But he leads from the front, as a proper gentleman should. Good form, I say.”
Elena and I glared at him.
“I don’t know why he’s here,” I said. “But there’s too many for us to handle. We need another way in. Let’s circle around.”
We doubled back and sneaked through back alleys until we reached the rear of the church. A single door stood out like a wort on its backside, but it had no locks or handles — only a small indentation in the center. The size and shape of the slot matched the door to Arthur Rundale’s secret lab, so I gave it the traditional Royal Academy fist bump. The wood panels dissolved, just as before.
This time, however, a man was sitting behind it. He sported the same monastic tonsure as Father Howie above an expression of utter contentment. It was the face of a man who was happy to be assigned the world’s most boring post — the entrance no one had used in a hundred years.
His look of serenity fell to pieces when he saw us, and he leapt to his feet, brandishing a staff.
“Who goes there?!” he shouted.
“Well, considering I just used this alchemist’s ring to break this alchemist’s seal …”
“You’re … you’re an alchemist?”
“Safe money’s on that, yeah.”
“P-p-prove it!”
I held up my ring hand and made a face that said, “Duh.”
“You could’ve stolen that!”
He had me there. I sighed and glanced at my companions. They shrugged. Then I remembered the sword on my back. I removed it from the scabbard, hit the button, and watched as the firelight reddened the monk’s already flushed face.
Inside the monastery, I took the steps up the bell tower two at a time, occasionally glancing out the stained glass windows. The battle raging in the city below did not appear to be going well. Packs of red creatures roamed the streets, and smoke continued to rise in great pillars. I had to hurry.
We finally came to the top of the bell tower, and after a moment’s contemplation of the heavy, locked door that awaited us there, I nobly stepped aside and let Coppersworth kick it down. He likes to feel needed.
We stepped out onto the broad balcony, which looked out over the gently steepled roof of the church and the city below.
“You know what you need to do?” I asked them.
“He tosses,” Elena said. “I shoot.”
“Right,” I said. “But wait for my signal. Once I’ve had a chance to test it, I’ll fire the blunderbuss into the sky.”
I retrieved the transformative mixture from my pocket and poured a bit into the smaller vial that had previously held the black glass powder. Then I handed the orb to Coppersworth.
“It needs to reach the gravity moat. Sure you can make it?”
“O ye of little faith,” Coppersworth said, reaching down and prying a tile from the balcony. Pistons whined as he pulled back and then launched the piece of ceramic into the stratosphere. It punched through the gravity moat hundreds of feet above and began falling toward the crater floor, spinning as it went.
“Wow,” I said. “Ever considered a career in sports?” His eye lights danced, but he said nothing. “OK then. Elena, right before it gets caught in the shift—”
“I shoot,” she repeated. “A tough shot, but I’ll make it.”
“Thank you,” I said. “I couldn’t do this without both of you.”
“Where are you going?” Elena asked.
“Back down. To find Fen.”
I was making my way back down the stairs when the screams started echoing from below, followed by eerie laughter. The Laughing Man and his goons had found a way inside.
I reached into my pocket and removed a single glass bulb filled with bright alchemical liquid. The last one. As I rolled it down the barrel of the blunderbuss, the stairwell flooded with red flesh and white bone. I performed the old ritual on instinct.
The light and sound that filled the space could have shattered worlds. Radiance sprayed from the elephant gun and stripped the stone walls, ripping through Fen’s goons like a bulldozer through LEGO blocks.
The narrow stairwell dripped with alchemical color and sticky black ichor, but the laughter kept coming, growing closer and closer. I removed the sword from its scabbard and flipped on the switch. Fire danced up the blade, and in its light I saw The Laughing Man racing toward me, black knives drawn.
He flinched away from the alchemical flame, swerving, crashing into me, and driving us both through a nearby window. Glass glittered as we fell, me trying to get an angle with my flaming sword, him slashing at my indestructible smoking jacket.
We hit the roof, and the force of the impact rolled us apart. I got my hands under me and looked around, trying to catch my bearings. I had hoped to stand and face my enemy as noble adversaries on a field of battle. Fen had already managed it. My process involved more grunting and swearing — the latter especially after seeing what he’d tied around his shoulders like a yuppie’s sweater.
“This is your last chance, Fen,” I said, pointing the flaming sword theatrically while slipping my other hand into my pocket. “Take off the jacket. It’s too small for you anyway.”
The Laughing Man did what he did best.
“Yeah, figured you might say that.”
I whipped the flaming sword down into a tail guard stance. The Laughing Man charged, glass daggers held low at his sides — the exact reaction I’d hoped for. Pulling my other hand from my pocket, I flipped open the vial and hurled its contents. As the beads of liquid sailed toward my enemy, I focused, sending a pulse of power through the ring. The drops ignited in mid-air, emitting a burst of bright, white light. He tried to stop, but it was too late. The droplets touched bone, and Fen fell, screaming. His knives clattered to the rooftop as the substance on his mask began to bubble and smoke.
I heard whooping and glanced up at the bell tower balcony. Elena and Coppersworth were waving at me.
“Good show, old boy!” Coppersworth shouted.
“Don’t celebrate just yet,” I yelled.
Approaching Fen’s prostrate form, I watched the effects of the transformative reaction. The chemicals boiled on his face, eating away at the mask, and the scales covering his body fell to the tiles like petals from a wilting flower. Long limbs retracted into a shuddering body, and soon all that remained was a trembling, bookish little man, naked except for my jacket. I hoped a few dry cleaners would be open after the war.
“W-w-what did you do?” he screeched.
“Less than you deserve,” I snarled, then turned to back to the balcony, waving my arms at Elena and Coppersworth. “It works! Do it!”
Coppersworth nodded and looked to Elena. She did the same, readying her alien rifle. My robotic friend raised his metal arm and hurled the glittering orb. It rocketed skyward.
I began harnessing the energy all around me. I pulled from myself, from Fen, even from the sword, which snuffed out the flames. I drew a little bit of life from that entire city block, as much as I could manage, and centered it, focused on it, let it course through my body as lightning crackled around me on the rooftop.
When I heard the report of Elena’s rifle, I let it all flood out through the ring. A wave of raw force, more than I’d ever imagined using, flowed out through the philosopher’s stone and into the sky like a massive, invisible extension of my arm.
The orb exploded, spraying chemicals in a dense cloud, and I reached for it, infused it with energy, willed it to disperse. The glowing mist merged with the gathering smoke and, with my will pus
hing it onward, spread itself across the sky, rolling over Astoria until the heavens glowed white.
Then two things happened almost simultaneously. First, fatigue enveloped me like a great blanket of snow, dulling my senses and numbing my mind. Second, something physical hit me from behind. The sword fell from my hand, and I dropped hard onto my stomach. A hand rolled me onto my back, and a bare foot slapped down onto my chest.
Fen stood above me. He held Arthur Rundale’s sword, smiling a deranged smile as he lowered the blade to my unprotected neck.
Chapter 35
“You know your junk’s just kinda hanging there, right?” I asked.
“You,” Fen rasped. “You just couldn’t leave well enough alone, could you, friend?”
“Guess not.”
“This had nothing to do with you! His plans are bigger than you, bigger than anything on this backwater world.”
“If this world’s such small potatoes, why don’t you and your pals piss off and find another one?” Adrenaline was helping to drive away the fatigue, and my wits were coming back. “I suggest a barren, uninhabited rock. Or maybe a nice collapsing star.”
“You still believe I control this rabble?” He cackled. “I knew you were dense, brother, but this is ridiculous.”
“Oh, right. Big guy, glass throne? Gonna have a talk with him after I’m done with you.”
Fen laughed again, and the sound seemed to shake loose a few extra screws.
“You can’t even comprehend His power.” His voice dipped into the reverent tones of the true believer. “My Master can bestow life or take it in a single breath.”
“What a marvelous happenstance,” said a British voice behind Fen. “We seem to be in a position to do the same.”
Coppersworth and Elena stood at the edge of the rooftop, weapons trained on the unmasked Outrider. Glowing white clouds roiled overhead. Good. My window was still open.
“Put it down, Max,” Elena said, taking a step forward. “Slowly.”
“Elena!” he shrieked. “You’re helping this idiot?!”
“Calm down.”
“It’s too late for that. Take another step and I’ll gut him.”
“Let’s just talk. Why are you doing this, Max?”
“You won’t understand. I tried … tried to show you … this world needs us, and so do all the rest, even if no one else sees it yet. Even if I’ll never walk properly again, thanks to you.”
“I’m sorry I had to do that, Max,” she said, and inched closer.
“You stabbed me in the balls!”
“You assaulted and kidnapped me,” she countered, but kept speaking in that soothing voice. “Maybe we’re even. Come on, let’s go get drinks and talk this out.”
“I said it’s too late for that,” he repeated, and his eyes went hard.
“Elena, he’s—”
He spun, swinging the sword at her head, but his speed and strength had vanished along with his grotesque appearance. Elena darted behind him, grabbing his arm and twisting at the shoulder, throwing him off balance. She slammed him down onto the roof. Fen grunted, and the blade fell from his hand. He tried to struggle, but she shoved a knee into his back.
“Where is the Alpha?” she growled. Her tone had shifted instantly.
“You might as well kill me,” he said. “Death is just another kind of door. If I betray Him now, in this life, He’ll simply find me in the next.”
“It sounds as though you’ve made your choice.”
“I … I have. And it really is too late, no matter what I say. Look at the city. Astoria will fall.”
We looked. The city was burning. Who knew how long we had until Arclight started detonating their strategically placed contingency plans. Hell, they might be on their way to this very temple. Destroy the gravity moat, destroy Astoria.
“Hold him,” she said, lifting the small man to his feet and shoving him at Coppersworth. “West, are you all right?”
“Never better,” I said, accepting her hand and getting to my feet. She glanced up at the sky and then back to me in a way that said, “OK, now what?”
White clouds still hung like parade balloons over a city in turmoil. I had hoped the added density would help them drift down to street level, but variables like magical gravity constructs tended to make finger calculations unreliable.
“First things first,” I said, walking over to Fen and yanking my jacket from his shoulders. “Gimme that, you little twerp.”
“It’s freezing out here,” he said. “At least give me something, brother. A trade?”
I removed my invincible smoking jacket and handed it to Elena before putting the leather one back on. He moaned, but there was no way I was giving him another suit of armor, not when Elena could use it. After everything he’d done, he could deal with a little cold.
I rummaged through the jacket’s many pockets. The book was right where I’d left it, but I came up otherwise empty-handed.
“Where’s my ring?”
A smile touched the corners of his mouth, but he didn’t answer. In response, I pulled out the book and smiled back. It had the desired effect.
“It … it was there the whole time?” he asked, despair creeping into his voice.
Without answering, I picked up and pocketed one of his long, black knives.
“This should also come in handy,” I said.
His eyes flashed with fear and rage, but he said nothing else. I made a mental note not to underestimate him. Even now, he had enough wits not to give away more clues.
“The gravity moat,” I said, turning my attention back to the clouds above. “There’s gotta be a device that controls it around here somewhere.”
“The source of the energy vortex does appear to be located within the temple,” Coppersworth said. “But how will that help us?”
“I need a way to reach out and touch those clouds.”
Coppersworth, Elena, and even Fen gazed at me as though I’d sprouted a third arm and tried to shake all their hands at once.
“Trust me,” I said. “I’m reasonably sure it won’t kill us all.”
Back on the ground floor, Elena and I began searching for clues in the ruined chapel. It was not pleasant work. The monks’ bodies lay scattered, as though they had tried to flee, and they had been cut down from behind with enthusiasm. Blood stained the high glass windows, tainting the memories of my father’s achievements.
We kept looking as Coppersworth bent a pair of long candleholders into makeshift bonds around Fen’s arms and legs. He then sat the small man down in a pew, facing forward, so that Fen could, as Coppersworth put it, “Look up at his betters and think about what he’s done.”
We found no buttons, switches, or control panels. I started searching one of the recently deceased monk’s pockets, but then I saw his face: It was the young man who had been guarding the rear entrance. He had cuts along his arms and legs, puncture wounds in his hands, and teeth missing from his open mouth. I backed away, hands shaking, and looked at Fen. The small man was smiling at me. It wasn’t an evil smile, but a satisfied one. The smile of a man who’d been sanctioned by the king to perform acts of torture for the greater good. I made a second mental note: Break his jaw later. Take that smile away for good.
Checking the rest was unnecessary; Fen’s expression told me he’d searched them already. But there had to be another way. I approached the pulpit and found a book lying there. Alchemical symbols adorned the front cover. I opened it to the first page and saw a single line scribbled in black ink, so I read it aloud, translating into rough English.
“Drinking is the reason God gave men mouths.”
Stone grated on stone as the wall behind me split and rolled apart, revealing a set of elevator doors that bore a striking resemblance to those in the Astorian war room. My predecessors sure did love secret entrances.
A loud knock came from the chapel’s front doors. I noted dully that those doors being intact probably meant I’d let Fen in and unleashed hell upon
these poor men, but I didn’t have time to dwell on it right now.
“Arclight Security,” a voice boomed from beyond the door. “Agent Volkova, open up!”
Elena cursed quietly.
“My tracking beacon,” she said. “I led them right to us.”
“And the most efficient way to destroy Astoria,” I said. “I need to get down there, and I need time. I … I can’t ask you to do this, but—”
“We shall hold them at bay, old chum,” Coppersworth said, his Bull-Dog already whirring into place.
“I’ll close the door behind you to slow them down,” Elena said before turning to Coppersworth. “These are my colleagues. Let’s try talking first.”
“I am at your service, Madame.”
I stepped into the elevator and turned back to them. My friends. The man with the steel skin and the woman with the iron resolve.
“I don’t know what I’ll find down there, but I’m glad … it’s good to know you two have my back.”
They nodded and turned toward the chapel’s front doors. I pulled the lever and the elevator’s gate creaked closed. As it did, I caught the briefest glimpse of church doors exploding inward, flooding the space with Astorian streetlight. Then I was plunging toward the center of the moon, and despite everything happening above, my attention shifted below. I could sense something there, in the depths. An immense alchemical presence I couldn’t begin to pinpoint or understand.
The doors opened on a narrow room stuffed with pipes, switches, gauges, and knobs, all of it covered by thick sheets of dust. On the opposite wall, someone had mounted a large control panel, above which dozens of screens displayed images from around the city. Each showed a scene from a cautionary tale about the horrors of war.
In one, a man with no legs tried to drag himself to safety, despite the white foam already oozing from his face. In the next, a child fled down an alley with a pack of red monsters in pursuit. A battalion of shi dogs clashed with horrors from another world, fighting bravely but falling, one by one, under the red tide.
“Anyone know how to work this thing?” I asked before remembering I was alone. “Fantastic,” I said to no one and stepped up to the control panel. “Here goes nothing.”
