Wanderers 3: Garden of The Gods (The Wanderers)

by Richard Bamberg

  Turning, I was surprised to see Tess still in the chair I had vacated.

  I fired off another energy blast, just to keep the demon’s attention on me, and then stepped into the room and hurried to Tess.

  “Are you all right?” I asked.

  “I’m just tired. That spell took a lot out of me,” Tess said. Her voice was surprisingly weak.

  I expanded my shield to surround both of us. I placed a finger under Tess’s chin and lifted her face to study her.

  Hell, she looked over fifty.

  “Damn it, Tess. What were you doing messing with that spell? Never mind, I need to lure this demon away from your Aunts while I deal with it.”

  I lifted the crossbow from her hands and then took a good grip on her left bicep. I triggered my levitation tat and we floated up out of the hole Beast had torn in the ceiling.

  Beast and Maia were waiting.

  I dropped my shield and lifted Tess onto Maia’s back. “You two get clear of the building. A fretha demon is right behind me. Wait for my signal to return.”

  “You got it, Rafe,” Beast growled and leapt into the air.

  “No, wait,” Tess said. “I can help.”

  “You’ve done enough, Apprentice. Now move back out of range while you recover your strength. There’s a ley line a couple of miles west of here. Maia, take her that way until she recovers.”

  “As you wish,” Maia said as she leapt to follow Beast.

  A massive hand closed on my calf, and I was yanked back into the building.

  The fretha demon held me upside down in front of it while it laughed. “Caught you, Raphael. That was too easy.”

  I still held Tess’s crossbow in my left hand. I twisted to point it at the demon and fired from a couple feet away.

  The bolt embedded itself fletchings deep in the demon’s chest.

  With a roar of pain, it released my leg.

  I triggered my shield and levitation tattoo and spun around to land softly on my feet in front of the demon. It pawed at the shaft, but the wood broke off in its huge fingers.

  Well, I guessed I wasn’t going to get that broadhead back.

  I slung the crossbow and bent to draw my knife from its sheath in my boot. It was odd that Frazier and Armstrong hadn’t bothered to relieve me of it, but I guess Frazier didn’t expect me to get out of her circle.

  Standing again, I spoke the release spell, and my knife assumed its original katana form.

  The fretha demon had stopped trying to get the quarrel out of its chest and was raising a fist to pound me into the floor. I stepped to the side as its fist came down and slashed my blade down the front of its right thigh.

  My stroke sliced twenty or so pounds of muscle from the demon’s quadriceps.

  It roared in pain and threw a backhand at me. My shield caught the blow, but it drove me through the outer wall and onto a paved area between the hangars.

  I got to my feet and shook myself.

  The demon had fallen but was already trying to stand.

  I caught sight of the sky past the hangar’s curved roof. To the east, the sky was gray.

  I had to finish with this distraction.

  I pointed my katana at the demon and said, “You can’t best me, demon. Surrender, and I’ll banish you without causing you any more pain.”

  “I’m not done with you, yet, Wanderer,” the fretha demon growled.

  I couldn’t remember what I had done the last time we fought, but I must have really pissed it off.

  “Have it your own way,” I said.

  I raised my left and triggered the tat I didn’t want to use.

  Black energy flowed out from my palm. Undulating like some great black snake, the spell’s power reached out for the demon.

  The demon’s eyes widen as it saw the blackness. It began a spell, but it never got a chance to finish it.

  The black energy rolled around the demon and began dissolving its flesh as it did. The demon screamed in pain and fear. Panicking, it began to slap at the blackness as though it were a fire that it could put out. Each time its hands struck, flesh dissolved from its palms. By the third blow with each, the bones were visible in its hands. On the fourth blow, its fingers dissolved.

  I walked to the demon, raising my sword over my head. It stared up at me and screamed, “Mercy, Wanderer! Mercy!”

  “As you wish,” I said and brought the blade down in a sweeping motion that cleaved the demon’s head from its shoulders.

  I canceled the night magic spell, and the corrupting energy flowed back into my tattoo.

  I shook excess demon fluids from my blade and then activated my fire tat long enough to burn away any remaining shreds of the demon. Walt had told me that demons don’t really travel here in the flesh, so to speak, but are protoplasm manifestations of their bodies created when the summoner completes the ritual. That’s why the demon had been able to remember me from another time. In slaying its “body,” I had actually been sending its spirit back to its own plane of existence, be that another dimension or hell. I had granted it mercy, regardless of appearances.

  I restored my sword to its knife form and slid the tantō back into its boot sheath.

  “What the hell was that?”

  Looking up, I saw Emily and Ashley standing in the doorway I’d made by crashing through the cement block wall. Tess’s aunts were staring down at the decomposing mass that had been the fretha demon a few moments earlier.

  Both women suddenly covered their mouths as the stench reached them.

  Ashley made a gagging sound and stepped back from the opening.

  “Are you ladies alright?” I asked.

  “We’re okay,” Emily said.

  “Except for that smell. What was that thing?”

  “A fretha demon, Frazier, the witch or mage–whatever you prefer–summoned it in hopes that it could distract me while she escaped. At that, it appears to have worked, I don’t see her trying to continue the fight,” I added looking down the hallway.

  “Yes, right after that creature chased you she ran the other way,” Emily said.

  I knelt and studied the decomposing carcass for a second. Spotting the broken tip of Tess’s quarrel, I stuck my hand into the demon gunk, got my fingers around the shaft, and pulled the broadhead free. I shook pieces of stuff from the metal and wood and then held the broadhead over my head between my thumb and forefinger. I triggered my fire tat and a burst of flames enveloped my hand and its contents.

  Emily and Ashley gasped and stepped farther back into the building.

  I held the flames for only a few seconds and then killed that tat and took a close look at the gently glowing metal. The demon gunk and the remainder of the wooden quarrel had been burned away.

  Some particles of odor still clung to me. I focused on them, dropped their temperature down until Brownian motion stopped. Then I triggered my wind tat and let it carry the particles off on the breeze.

  I used my chiller tat to cool the broadhead, before stowing it in a jacket pocket. Stepping over the rubble from the wall, I joined the ladies inside the hallway.

  “What was all that about?” Emily asked.

  “The broadheads are very special. We can’t afford to lose them since I have no idea if we’ll ever be able to get replacements,” I said.

  I heard the beat of wings and Maia touched down just outside the debris field. Beast lit a short distance away and made another ill-tempered comment about my leaving decomposing demons rather than burning the bodies. I ignored him.

  I saw Tess was looking a little better, but she still looked older than her two aunts did.

  Emily gasped at the sight of Tess and hurried to her. I stopped Ashley from following.

  “Ashley, do you want to press kidnapping charges against Armstrong and her company?” I asked.

  She appeared surprised by my question. “I–I don’t know. Ah, well, yes, sure.”

  “Okay, I can put Armstrong on ice while you call the police. Tess and I can’t stay
. This whole thing was a diversion, and we have to go, immediately.”

  “Really? You’re not going to leave us here, are you?”

  “No, you two mount up. I’ll be back in a second,” I said as I started down the hallway.

  I reached the room where I’d knocked Armstrong and found the woman still unconscious. Checking her, I found she still had a pulse but was bleeding from head trauma, and the fingers of her right hand looked broken where the pistol had been forced back into them. I considered just putting her in a stasis field, but that would require that I return to release her.

  Focusing energy into my muscles, I lifted the woman and carried her across the hall to the table where Emily and Ashley had been restrained. I laid Armstrong on the table and bound both her hands through the metal loop with the same handcuffs she’d used on them. Then thinking better, I cast a spell that made the steel flow as if molten. In a couple of seconds, the handcuffs were almost a single piece of metal.

  I almost cast a healing spell on her, but then I was going into a serious battle if my instincts were functioning properly. I couldn’t leave a spell drawing energy.

  Hurrying out, I found Emily behind Tess on Maia and Ashley sitting astride Beast. I joined her and ordered him up.

  “What’s the rush?” Tess asked.

  Police sirens answered for me.

  I glanced at my apprentice. She was looking perkier, but it would take a couple of hours for her to restore all the energy she’d used in casting that tremblor spell. I really wanted to ask her how she’d managed that little trick. There was no way she should have been able to learn that spell in so short a time and to have cast it that quickly troubled me to no end. Only a spell tattoo could activate that fast. My apprentice had some explaining to do.

  “This was a diversion. They were supposed to keep us away from Rowle’s portal breach until it was too late. We need to get there immediately,” I said. “Beast, let’s drop Emily and Ashley at their home and get to work, double time.”

  “As you wish,” he growled.

  I wondered momentarily if Maia could keep up with Beast, but within a few seconds of Beast beginning to accelerate, I had my answer. It looked as though she wasn’t even straining to keep up with him.

  We reached Tess’s aunt’s home shortly and settled into the back yard long enough for the women to slide down.

  “Will you be all right?” Tess asked.

  “Don’t worry about us,” Emily responded patting the Beretta Tess had returned to her. “If any of those bastards show up again I’ll give them a lead enema. They won’t surprise me a second time.”

  I chuckled. “You should call the cops on them as soon as possible. Armstrong was injured and restrained, but I’d guess her people will have her gone if given time.”

  “Will do,” Emily said. “Good luck and take care of my niece.”

  “Thank you, I assure you I will. Beast, up.”

  We launched like Patriot missiles and headed toward Garden of the Gods.

  It was only five or six miles, as the crow (or Beast) flies and we’d be there in a couple of minutes. The sky behind us was more than gray now, and the sun would be above the horizon shortly. We might get there before Rowle could open the portal.

  Then I felt a ping against my wards as the little amulet that I’d left in the Garden of the Gods triggered.

  Frak!

  Chapter 27

  Therese

  Rafe groaned. “Uh-oh.”

  I looked across to my boss who was riding on Beast about forty feet to my left. His face had tightened in concern.

  “What now?” I asked, wondering what else could go wrong today. A day that hadn’t even begun, yet.

  “They’ve opened a portal. I’d hoped to be there when they did.”

  He took a long look at me, something I wouldn’t have been able to notice ten minutes ago, but the sky was rapidly brightening.

  “Tess, I want you to hang back when we get there. Stay well behind me and keep drawing energy. You’re too weak right now,” Rafe said.

  “No way, Boss-man. I’m your apprentice. I have to be with you in this,” I argued.

  “I appreciate your desire to participate, but you aren’t up to full strength. I don’t want you getting too close to the action. Most of their attention will be concentrated on me, but a stray spell or blast could mess you up.”

  We were passing over I-25. Both northbound and southbound lanes were already thick with traffic, and the lights would have been pretty any other time.

  “I can still fight. I’ve got my crossbow and–”

  “Tess, please,” Rafe interrupted. “Take my direction without argument. This isn’t going to be like the other fights you’ve seen me in. If Rowle has help, then I’m going to be outmatched and outnumbered. I don’t want to risk your life.”

  “Then you need me,” I argued.

  “I’ll get by. I always have. If it’s my fate to fall today, I don’t want you falling with me.”

  “I don’t see that I have a choice. Without you, I’m a Wanderer with all of two weeks of training. You might have thought five years wasn’t enough for you, but that’s an infinity compared to two weeks. There’ll be nothing for me and no way I’ll be able to stand against anyone who defeats you.”

  “Tess, damnit–”

  “No!” I cut him off. “Stop worrying about me. You can always train a new apprentice if I fall, but I can’t train myself without you. If you die today, then I’ll die too, whether it’s immediately, or a few minutes later. I’m fighting with you, no matter what.”

  Rafe stared at me for a few more seconds and then we were flying over the perimeter of the Garden of the Gods. Sheesh, I might die there today and I’d not even learned why they called it that.

  I glanced over my shoulder at the glow in the eastern sky. Dawn was only minutes away.

  “Okay,” Rafe said. “You know the game plan, stay behind my shield, and concentrate your shield to our rear. My shield will be stronger if I can make it smaller, as will yours. I’ll try to talk with whomever or whatever Rowle is bringing over before we get down to fighting. Spend that time regaining your strength.”

  “You got it, boss,” I said. I unslung my crossbow and checked that the quarrel was still seated properly.

  I didn’t know what we’d be fighting today, but I’d seen these little broadheads penetrate even Rafe’s shield. Whomever I shot at was going to get a nasty surprise.

  We flew over the first of the red monoliths that made up much of the park and the site Rafe and I had identified as the point of Verðandi’s calling came into view. The nearest parking lot was empty. Did the park even open before sunup?

  But there were people there. Bunches of people. At first, I thought they were milling about as though they were waiting on something, us? Then I realized they were moving and more were appearing through the largest portal I’d ever seen. The damn thing had to be fifty feet across.

  “Before anything else, I’m going to make a stab at closing and locking the portal,” Rafe said. “Stay close.”

  I tightened my knees around Maia’s neck as she banked to follow Beast in a steep dive toward the portal.

  Even though I couldn’t see the glow, I felt the power emanating from Rafe as he triggered the tat on his left thigh. The portal flickered as if it were going to close. But then I heard shouts from people standing on either side of the portal and it stopped flickering and refused to close.

  Rafe muttered something, the only thing I caught was “flaming assholes.”

  Beast came out of his dive, leveled off and flew toward the head of the column of marchers. Maia and I followed, and I got my first good look at what Rowle had brought into our world.

  It was for lack of a better term, a menagerie of creatures that I only recognized from mythology and the fiction of my youth. There were winged creatures, but none of them had taken flight. Mounted creatures on beings that were no more equestrian than Rafe’s and my own mounts. It to
ok me time to sort out what I was seeing. There were just too many varieties to identify at first. Then I realized I was seeing, manticores and hippogriffs, sphinxes, minotaurs, griffons, orcs, and trolls. Along the edges of the column were things that didn’t resemble any mythology I’d ever heard of.

  Staring back over my shoulder at the portal I saw enormous shapes beginning to enter our world. The first one through looked like some kind of long neck dinosaur with teeth like a T-Rex. It walked on all fours and had what looked like scales covering its ruddy red body. It wasn’t until the wings came into view that I understood what I was seeing.

  A dragon! Frak!

  I rose up on Maia’s shoulders and stared back at the portal. Behind the first dragon came more. They were similar in form to Rowle’s dragon familiar, but looking closer I could see a few differences. Their heads didn’t look as large, and their tails made up even more of their body length than the black dragon.

  Beast touched down about fifty yards in front of the column on a large red boulder, and Maia landed beside him. Rafe slid off Beast’s shoulders, and I dropped to the rock to join him.

  “Beast, you and Maia move back out of danger and watch. If I need you I’ll call,” Rafe said.

  “You got it,” Beast growled.

  Our familiars leapt into the air and disappeared behind us.

  I moved up to Rafe’s side, and he held out his right hand. I took it in my left. We meshed in a few seconds. His enhanced senses tat activated and I saw everything clearer. Many of the creatures coming toward us glowed with magic; others carried weapons that glowed with their own power.

  I released Rafe’s hand and raised the crossbow to my shoulder. “I hadn’t expected there to be so many.”

  Rafe gave me a sideways glance. “What part of ‘horde’ didn’t you understand?”

  I shrugged. His tone was light as if this were just another day in his world. Would I ever get used to the screwed up job that Wanderers had?

  I felt Rafe focusing energy and then he spoke.

  “You do not belong here. Move back through the portal to your own worlds or suffer the consequences.”

  Rafe’s voice was amplified loud enough to make me wince.