by Rick Heinz
The old men and the bandaged, plump Visago looked nowhere near as feeble as before. Infused with the strength of demon blood in the circle of magic, their robes almost floated off as wind whipped around each of them. All contained within their own circle, as if they were in their own magical prison. They chanted and gestured centuries-old arcane glyphs with haste. Gabriel watched the ritual unfold. Each of the Unification ritual sites connected together in a worldwide practice that would pry open the barriers between worlds. The Unification had twenty-one days to free Lazarus and then shut the doors. For a third time. Some people should just stay down for the count. Can’t we find someone better to bring back?
Sweat dripped from the sorcerer nearest to Gabriel. Droplets fizzled into steam instantly after touching the ground. Even the eyes behind the mask on Vryce’s puppet were focused with intent. Leaning against the wall, Gabriel made incidental eye contact with Vryce. I could swear he is smiling under that mask. A cool breeze provided relief from the heat and gagging smell of sulfur. The sorcerers in the circles widened their eyes in surprise and began to reverse the pattern of their gestures. The breeze became a torrent of wind that spiraled quickly around half the chamber, obscuring vision as the cool mist spread throughout the room. The seventh sorcerer stopped gesturing.
The sorcerer in the Sephirot of victory let out a shout and slammed the ground with his fist. A pillar of black-and-green hellfire erupted from the far end of the chamber, returning the oppressive heat.
Visago shouted, “Hurry, we must undo what he’s opened! He is betraying Lazarus! I can save this ritual. Kill him while he is distracted with summoning!” Visago himself summoned up from the floor a creature made of obsidian that charged through the chamber.
Each of the four sorcerers he saw were attacking Primus Vryce at the far end of the chamber, where he stood at the da’at. So this is your offer. Join you in betrayal? He didn’t care about the Unification as much as he cared about proving himself. I could just sit back and watch this play out. Or use this blade on you . . . you’re leaving this choice to me, aren’t you? He shook his head as he stepped into the tenth Sephirot. He knew deep down he had already made his choice to side with the warlock the moment he came here.
The sorcerer occupying it was focused on finishing a spell and had no time to react before Gabriel thrust the blade into his back. He felt the ribs snap as the blade sunk deep into the man. Gabriel pulled on the tassels hanging off the ceremonial robes and gave a second push, causing the blade to erupt out of his chest. Black tendrils from the blade spread like mold in the sorcerer’s veins, and he could only choke up ichor and fall to his knees with a scowl of hatred on his face.
The blade worked its magic. The eye of Mammon pulsed with emerald light. The sorcerer, demonic blood giving him strength, attempted to stand. Gabriel gave him a quick kick in the back of his head, then sealed the deal by grabbing a clump of hair and smashing his skull on the floor until the body stopped twitching. Just die already. As the last gasp of air left the body, it crumpled and folded as if gravity collapsed on itself. The process of ripping a soul out of a half-human demonic sorcerer is not a process that Gabriel would describe as clean.
Free of distractions in the tenth Sephirot, he could see more of what was going on. The floor faded away, as if all sorcerers stood on air itself, revealing a hellscape below. A shadow world, bodies heaped up in skyscraper-sized piles and rivers of lime-green ghostly souls floating through them. Purgatory? Hell? It’s very green and gray. Not what I was expecting.
Looking above, Gabriel saw a scene with a massive tree, littered with sparrows, winged angels martialing swords of fire to protect the tree on another plane of existence. Okay . . . each of the worldwide rituals is supposed to open portals to the Kingdom of Hades so helldivers can locate Lazarus’s cave. What is this? Questions later.
Pulsing colors of light—greens, oranges, pinks, blues, even black, and reds of all spectrums—were emanating from the Sephirot circles. Gabriel could see each with clarity inside his own circle. Rivers and pathways connected them, but only if his eyes followed the correct stream. Fully empowered, the sorcerers were launching everything they had at Primus Vryce, who had some shield or magical defense active. Most of the fireballs snuffed out before crossing the barrier, but some of their spells were starting to get through as if they shattered glass.
Vryce seemed more focused on pulling something from above with his right hand. Sparrows would fly from the tree while angels would try to cut them down, but the little birds that made it flew around the chamber. While below with his left hand, Vryce poured out a bag of gold coins to a hooded reaper on a reed boat. Souls, which I guess are the color green, floated up into the chamber from below.
“Kill them, my child. Claim your birthright,” Vryce said, his voice echoing off all the walls in the room.
The sorcerers turned their attention away from Vryce and briefly looked back to Gabriel.
Gabriel tilted his head to the side, cracked his neck, and smirked. Here in the middle of this chamber, in the circle, this would be easy. He could control demon blood by strength of will alone. Each of these men relied on a crutch to fuel their magic, one he could bend to his own edge.
The eighth circle sorcerer sent an arc of lightning along the path to Gabriel. With a simple gesture, Gabriel caused the sorcerer’s bloody hands to ignite in white fire, canceling the spell. Gabriel ran down the pathway, impaling him with the blade before another spell could be cast. With both hands on the sword’s hilt, he lifted the man off the ground and let gravity do the work as the blade creaked past bone and flesh. The blade finished the job, absorbing the strength of the sorcerer. Speed and efficiency. Don’t lose momentum. Initiative is your friend.
The fifth circle sorcerer attempted to turn Gabriel into some sort of harmless creature. Gabriel countered the spell in the same fashion as the first. Sprinting along the pathway, his gym shoes splattered in the ankle-high rivers of blood. The momentum was enough to bury the blade deep into the sorcerer’s neck.
Looking at the pathways in the floor, he saw that he could not reach Visago yet. There was a path leading to him now, but that would leave him open to more attacks. The other sorcerers were buying Visago time to undo whatever had been done. I guess I’ll kill you in order, then. Efficiently.
With each circle, the killing became easier and faster. Gabriel danced between them, letting the blade do the work while he countered their magic, each death more satisfying than the last as he meted out vengeance for years of laughter as an outcast sorcerer.
The warlock Vryce floated with magic inches off the ground. The cracks in his mask grew while streams of energy flew into the mask from above and below, into the ouroboros pendant. His body was bleeding profusely from spells that made it through his defenses. Angels from above whipped him with lashes made of fire to stop him. From below, souls clawed at his bare feet, trying to drag him into the rivers. Wounds simply appeared upon him like stigmata.
In both Visago’s and Vryce’s circles, Gabriel saw reflections of other sorcerers or vampires that he knew were from elsewhere in the world. Each of the worldwide circles is connected. There is not just fighting here, but also at the other nine. Drenched in blood and flecks of bone, the last sorcerer fell to Gabriel’s blade. He took a moment to catch his breath, to analyze the elementals Visago had summoned and surrounded himself with. The simple act of running along the path and stabbing him was not an option. In the tribunal, Gabriel had bested him before Visago even created his first elemental.
“It’s over, Visago,” Gabriel said. “Give up.”
“Are you blind, you ignorant sap! He’s opened too many gates. Too many paths! Nobody will find Lazarus and close the gate. It will only spread! Do you realize the cost alone to keep this many portals open!” Visago shouted. He was crying, a broken man trying to give his last breath to a cause he believed in. “We were supposed to save everyone, to correct the heavens!” A creature made of fire charged forth and tackle
d Vryce, his leg breaking from the fall, twisting in a way it was not meant to.
Gabriel could not wait. He had already committed to this act. He threw the soul blade like a javelin at Visago, praying it would find its mark. Fate was on his side, as it was a water elemental that tried to offer protection. The blade pierced through the water without resistance and found purchase in the robust gut of Visago. Black veins spread up his neck, and soon his eyes turned black, tears no longer flowing. He mouthed out his last words. Without breath to give them weight, they went unheard. Gabriel read what he could from his lips. Something about Lazarus and his return. The elementals crumpled and simmered out as Visago’s soul entered the blade, which clattered to the ground. No longer in the hand of the apprentice, the blade’s edges were defined and static, easier to look upon, the eye of Mammon in its hilt a deep green. The blade had been satiated and the ritual completed.
CHAPTER 11
For his part, now undistracted by enemy attacks, Vryce propped himself up and gestured with his remaining hand, completing what he had intended. All the lights from the circles merged, blindingly white. Gabriel could hear the sounds of a symphony, which felt infinite and distant, yet played wonderfully for him just out of reach.
The light faded, only to reveal the grim reality of the dark, hot, pungent ritual chamber. Gabriel was not happy to have this return. He picked up the sword, feeling a rush of power and knowledge that invigorated him. I know all their spells and skills. Perfect. He smiled and crouched next to Vryce, his leg twisted and mangled, with wounds, cuts, and scrapes everywhere. He was not long for this world. Gabriel reached down to pull the mask off when a shadow grabbed his arm.
“I’m not dead yet,” a voice echoed from the shadows in the room and behind the mask. “This body is just another vessel. Surely you know that. A criminal from the prison system who will not be missed.”
“I’ve obviously taken your offer,” Gabriel said as he studied the variety of magic rings and the ouroboros pendant on his master.
The voice rang out again. “The Unification believes that God is dead. They are power hungry, greedy, and very wrong. Oh, so, so wrong.” The body sat up, pulled as if it were a marionette dangling from strings of shadows. “They have engineered a pathway to ascension over the heavens.” Strings of shadow lifted the body further as the voice continued. “They make mankind forget its true nature. Humans are willfully ignorant of the wondrous world, so creatures of myth and legend have been banished and snuffed out by collective disbelief.
“In the past century, faith has even become a matter of prestige, a trite and token membership club to keep up appearances. Magic is all but dead. Reduced to cutting deals with the last active demons. I seek to change all of that. To awaken God from its slumber and save it from their own ignorance. I will defile its grave if I have to.”
Gabriel fell to his knees in front of the floating marionette. “How? What the hell did you do here? Ancient creatures that have walked this earth for millennia lead the Unification. What hope do the two of us have against them? I did not sign on to be your ritual sacrifice so you could battle full-blooded demons and other warlocks on their payroll,” Gabriel said as he studied the room. Two massive black statues near the far end stood blocking an exit. Gargoyles, protectors of a sanctum.
“On the seventh day, he rested,” the voice said. “To the angels and demons, God died on the seventh day, she stopped talking to them. They have been waiting for countless millennia to hear her voice again. God made humanity in his image, both him and her, equally. Humanity is God and God is humanity. All the creatures, myths, and pantheons are created by humanity and given form, power, and truth. From a child’s dream to a scientist’s greatest invention, the act of creation is a distinctly divine act. One which only a human soul can perform.” A bone snapped back into place as the vessel worked to repair itself while it contorted in agony. A reflex quickly brought to heel by Vryce’s magic.
“I led six others around the world to betray the Council of Death Lords. We created tears in the Innocence. Only warlocks could shatter the barrier between earth, heavens, and hells. I was not there to witness the barrier erected after the eradication of the Roman pantheon. So born into this ignorant world, I long for what comes next,” Vryce said as the vessel reached out with a mangled hand to help Gabriel off the floor.
Gabriel refused and rose on his own, his eyes tracking the shadows as they danced around the room.
Vryce’s fragmented voice continued from another shadow in the corner. “Over the next twenty-one days, the battle begins. Finally connected once again, demons, angels, ancient gods, those who wait beyond, and others will find their way back to humanity. Then punish her for willful ignorance. We have set in motion the plans to usher in a thousand years of darkness. On the dawn of the twenty-first, the sun will die and rise as a blackened shadow of itself. Finally allowing those banished to walk in the light once again. Returning all magic to the world freely. Or the death lords will succeed.”
“How can that still happen?”
“Their path to success has not changed. All they required from us was to open the gates. The bold within the Unification will seek fame and fortune by diving into purgatory to hunt for Lazarus’s prison. Should this pass, and they close the gates before the twenty-first, they will succeed. They have already prepared mankind to forget what transpired. As you said, they have planned for millennia. We must fight and distract them for each night that passes. While not ideal, we must hide, deflect, and distract until we have complete success.”
“Are we alone?” Gabriel asked, following the floating marionette to the exit by the gargoyles.
“Correct, my child, we are alone, and yet not. As the Unification dives past the Innocence, demons and others will bleed out, slowly at first. Divinity sleeps within mankind, but it can only awaken after the masses are culled and the weak removed. I seek to awaken the god in all who have the will to grasp at divinity. What aids us, who aids us, and when can just as easily destroy us.”
Gabriel flipped the soul blade up in the air and caught it by the hilt. “Bold plan. If it works. Just don’t get too cocky thinking you can take on everyone. That’s my role.” He grinned and flicked the blade, making a sharp ping echo in the chamber.
Vryce’s raspy voice laughed as he gestured for the gargoyles to move. “It is indeed, Apprentice.” The marionette glided through the door, and the creatures followed inside. Before Gabriel could step within, a stone door slammed shut inches away from his nose.
“Wait . . . that’s really it?” Gabriel asked to no avail.
“Hello?” He looked around the room, noting the way out was back to the library. Gabriel caught a wind of the odor left over from the night’s battle. As if on cue, a mop near a bucket in a far corner fell over.
“Apprentice,” he said as the true meaning sank in.
CHAPTER 12
Mike vaulted over the gap between two buildings, landing with a solid thud. Without hesitation he rolled with his momentum, putting his shoulder into it and coming out into a sprint. His duct-taped boot found purchase on the parapet, and he launched himself another fourteen feet between rooftops, laughing the entire time. Days after drinking the ichor, Mike felt stronger than ever. Dashing, ducking, rolling, weaving, and vaulting, Mike was having the time of his life as he tore through the city. The winter air didn’t bother him or his lungs for once. He felt a furnace raging inside him, hot coals in his belly powering him like an old unstoppable train.
He stumbled and tripped over a DirecTV satellite dish, sending it tumbling while recovering from his last leap. Crap! At least twenty feet that time. Probably ruined some dude’s night. Sorry, bro. Picking up the mangled dish and setting it back on its post with gentle care was almost futile. It took a few tries. Crouching and backing away like a person facing an angry raccoon, Mike eased himself off that particular rooftop before breaking into a sprint.
He hadn’t experienced nightmares the past few nights. Gone
were the cold shakes and vomiting, replaced now with the strength to lift a car and move very fast. Electrical wires and transformers overhead whizzed by in the December night as he continued his run. Mike didn’t worry about the skinless taxicab driver burning rubber like a bat out of hell to catch him.
Mike grinned. Come on, Frankie. You can do better. I’m three blocks ahead of you, and I’m not even tryin’. Mike grabbed a fire escape rail and slid down a few stories, hopping with loud clangs at each landing before getting impatient and vaulting over the rail. It just seemed like a good time to walk in the street and give out some high fives.
A little yippy dog barked at him from the purse of a Lincoln Park Trixie, her North Face vest buttoned up and giant Versace sunglasses resting on her head. Mike waved and smiled. When she pulled back, Mike gave a deep bow, his green coat fanning out behind him as she hurried on her way. I did just land in front of her after jumping from two stories up. “Have a nice night!” he shouted after her.
It reminded him of his three ex-girlfriends who were visiting him over the past few days. Yelling and belittling him for forgetting birthdays, anniversaries, and flowers. To the dead, it was as if they were trapped, waiting for someone to notice them. To Mike, it meant that they were not gone forever. It meant they had a second chance. It also meant that he was alive. More alive than ever.
The only thing that Mike didn’t like about his newfound power was that he could see how the living were doing. The world appeared duller, more ashen and gray to him all the time now. He could tell the girl he just walked past was a smoker and, if he focused hard enough, that she would die hooked up to a set of oxygen tanks with a hole in her neck. He couldn’t quite remember if it was Frankie or Morris who told him there was a drawback to drinking the blood. If I could pass the tests, I’d make a hell of a doctor now. Ha! Who am I kidding? I’ll take the super strength.
