Petra cursed and threw the corpse out of the window. Then she checked on my blankets and backed the car up. The parking meter was slightly bent, and the hood of the car was tilted funny, but we were still drivable. “Don’t worry, Petra,” Gears said. “I’ll fix the car up for you.” Petra nodded, gunned the engine and we surged forward. Another neo-gremlin tumbled forward off of the roof, bounced along our hood and fell over the edge of the car. There was a thump-thump sound, and the determined line of Petra’s mouth quirked up.
A third gremlin clawed its way onto the hood of the car and Petra slammed on the brakes. This one had been expecting the move and drove its talons into the car’s hood, keeping itself from being thrown. Gears lunged back up onto the dashboard and squatted down. From the back, he looked like a miniature gargoyle. He threw his head forward and opened his mouth, his little body contorting like he was screaming as loud as he could. I didn’t hear anything, but the gremlin on the hood threw its hands over its ears and fell to its knees.
“How do you like it?” Gears hissed under his breath.
Petra seized on the distraction and gunned the engine again. The neo-gremlin slammed against the windshield and then rolled off the side of the car. “Is Vincent all right?” she asked Gears. The gremlin hopped onto my chest.
“He’s still awake, but he’s really cold. His eyes are all glassy, too.”
“We’re not far from the phasilion,” Petra said. “Hang on, sweetie.” The world around me flickered in and out, and then Petra was lifting me out of the car. We were in the alleyway now. The rain was cold and coming down so hard that it hurt as it struck my face. “Help me find it, Vincent,” Petra whispered. “Where do I look?”
“Dumpster,” I said. Petra carried me over. “Her name is Aviorla.”
“Aviorla!” Petra yelled. “Vincent Corinthos is hurt, he needs to get to the Bright Side. Please, open yourself for me!” A patch of the bricks in the wall began to shimmer, and Petra barreled forward. My head was already spinning, so I couldn’t tell when Aviorla granted us passage to the Bright Side. Then the rain was gone and there was sunlight. We’d arrived.
“Thank Aphrodite,” Petra whispered as she bolted into the cathedral.
“We need Lotholio,” I croaked. I already felt a little stronger, but I needed a ritual to purge the sickness from my body. “Top floor.” Petra took the steps by twos, carrying me like an infant. She kicked open one of the ritual chamber doors, tearing it free from its hinges. It clattered on the ground as she ran across it. Lotholio was there, along with the four high priests.
“Put him in the basin, Lady Petra,” Lotholio said, gesturing to the water. The door rose from the ground and settled mostly back into place. One of the Urisk surrounding the basin nodded to himself. Petra tore the blankets from me and settled me in the water. I was mostly submerged, my head resting on Petra’s knees. Her hair hung down in soaked vines and her dark eyes were huge with fear.
“Stay with me, Vincent,” she whispered. “Please, stay with me.”
Lotholio and the priests stood in a circle around the basin and joined hands. They began to chant in their own language. Then their five voices suddenly seemed like five hundred, a thousand, more, as they telepathically contacted my followers and drew their prayers into the ceremony. Lotholio’s voice rose above the others. I didn’t hear what he said, so much as felt it. Light. Life. Faith. Strength. Emotions and sensations flooded through me, and my body began to spasm. Petra held me tight, keeping my head above water.
I felt something being peeled away from me. Something that didn’t want to let go. It was like trying to peel away something that’s been super-glued to your skin, and a particularly hairy patch of skin, at that. I screamed in pain and stars flared in front of my eyes. The Urisk’s chanting grew louder and more faith flooded into me. I could feel the faith raking against the... infection, I guess. It felt like sandpaper being applied on the underside of my skin. My head cleared enough to focus, and I drew on their faith and used it to purge the disease from my body. A thin green haze rose from the pool, and I snarled as I summoned power to burn it from the world. There was a pulse of light and the strong scent of ozone in the air. The disease was gone.
I wearily pulled myself up, leaning on Petra for support. She felt my forehead and smiled. “You’re hot,” she said.
“So are you.”
She smiled wider and hugged me tight. I breathed in her smell and closed my eyes. I leaned against her for a few minutes, enjoying the feeling of being alive. Then I stood up and stepped out of the basin. I turned to the high priests. “Thank you,” I said. I didn’t know what else to say. Hallmark doesn’t exactly make “thanks for saving your god’s bacon” cards. I blessed them, granted them strength. It wasn’t enough, but it was all I could think of for the moment.
They left, and I walked over to Lotholio. “Thank you, my friend. You saved my life today.” Lotholio’s eyes paled slightly, the equivalent of blushing.
“We would be lost without you, Lord,” he said. I clapped him on the shoulder and used my powers to dry Petra and myself off. Now that I could finally think straight, I needed to get back to Boston and deal with Leevan.
Hostiles approach.
The words echoed in my head. Aegeon’s voice. “Show us,” I commanded. An image of five more of the crystal soldiers bloomed in my mind. They were approaching from the south. “Only five?” I asked.
Yes, Lord, came the response.
Petra’s expression was confused. “The city’s about to be attacked again,” I explained. “We’ve got more of those crystal soldiers rolling in.” I looked at Lotholio and smiled. “Let them try,” I said. “Nothing’s going to get past Aegeon.”
Lotholio returned the smile.
“Vincent,” Petra said slowly, “I am hearing a voice in my head, and seeing pictures of crystal men.”
I blinked. “Huh. I kinda based Aegeon’s design on what I knew of you, hon. I didn’t mean to connect you together. It must’ve just happened.” Petra’s expression was thoughtful, but she didn’t say anything more.
Urisk approach.
“What?” I asked. An image of a farming crew formed in my mind. Twenty of them, pulling a cart loaded with the flowers that the Urisk milled for food. The crystal soldiers noticed them and changed their march to intercept. “Shit, no! Aegeon, will the farm crew make it in before the hostiles catch them?”
No.
“Fuck!” I lurched out of the ritual room. My strength was returning quickly, and the ritual had fully replenished my faith reserves. I was at a dead run by the time I’d cleared the fourth stair, and back at full strength. Petra was right behind me. We charged, barefoot, across the grass of the city toward the wall. “Aegeon!” I called. “Open, now!” A hole ten feet wide opened before us. I surged forward, Petra right on my heels.
A sonic boom blasted out as I shot forward. The world blurred around me and less than a second later, I had covered the distance to the hostiles. Dirt and rocks sprayed out as I skidded to a stop right between the crystal soldiers and the farm crew. They were about sixty feet apart. I threw my hands up and a wall of earth and stone erupted from the ground, separating the groups. The Urisk were on one side, the crystal soldiers and me on the other. I ground my teeth and the extended the wall all the way to Aegeon.
“Run to the city,” I yelled to the Urisk. “Don’t stop for anything.” I clenched my fists and turned to the crystal soldiers. Their bulk and the way they were lined up next to one another made me think of a crystalline football defensive line. “All right, boys, let’s dance.”
The first one swung a massive fist forward, much faster than its size should’ve allowed. I dodged, my speed taking me well out of the way before the strike came close. I stopped behind the soldier and whistled. “Over here, Waterford.”
The creature’s closest companions charged forward and I dashed away from them. They crunched into one another. I laughed out loud. After a night of scrambling away from zombies,
neo-gremlins and plant golems, this was kind of fun. It was nice to be on the giving end for a change.
The red runes on the creatures’ chests were dark. Last time, they had brightened each time they were struck by pyrokinetic blasts and telekinetic pushes. That probably meant the explosives they were carrying were keyed to psychic energy. And since there were only five this time, either this was all my adversary had left, or they were carrying a bigger payload of explosives. I’d need to play this carefully.
I raised my arms again and columns of earth exploded from beneath the soldiers. They were thrown into the air and crashed down to the ground in a heap. They gathered themselves slowly, but they stood. “Who are you working for?” I demanded. “Who sent you?”
I couldn’t even tell if these things had mouths, or if they could understand my language, but I had to try. I caused roots to erupt from the ground and bind the creatures in place. They strained against these, and by the time they’d broken free, Petra was standing next to me. “What can I do to help?” she asked.
“Not sure,” I said. “They’re living bombs that detonate when exposed to psychic energy.” Petra nodded, then to my shock, charged the nearest creature. Her fists flashed out, striking the creature’s chest like a jackhammer. For its part, the creature seemed stunned by her attack. Fine lines appeared along its chest, and suddenly the creature shattered. A glowing orb of energy hovered in the air for a moment, and then vanished.
Petra looked over her shoulder at me and grinned mischievously. “Well sure,” I said. “Do it the easy way.”
Petra’s attack held my attention, so I hadn’t noticed the four other creatures lining up. They stood one behind the other, with their backs to the sun. The light illuminating their crystal bodies was so bright, it hurt to look at. Then a blazing lance of pure energy shot forth from them, amplified by each of the creatures’ bodies. The lance struck Petra square in the chest, and she was slammed into the wall I’d summoned.
There was a sickening crack, and a cloud of dirt and dust exploded all around us. When it had cleared, I could see that Petra had been blown clean through the wall. My heart rate tripled. My vision narrowed. I don’t remember climbing through the hole, but suddenly I was on the other side, staring down at the fragments of a shattered marble statue.
Chapter 22
Time seemed to stop around me. The whole world seemed absolutely still. Petra was shattered. The pieces of her torso that were intact had her T-shirt chiseled into them, and I could clearly make out a quarter of the Ghostbusters logo. A piece of her head let me see how wide her eyes were when she’d been struck. One of her hands was at my feet, her fingers extended as if to say, “Stop!”
I don’t know how long I stood there. It felt like forever. Red rimmed the edges of my vision, and something inside me snapped. I roared and flashed back through the hole. I struck the first creature so hard that my fist punched through his body. I turned to the next one and threw my arms out. Geysers of steam and water exploded beneath him, launching him into the air. I snarled and hurled one of its fellows right after it, and they struck each other with such force that they shattered as they collided in mid-air.
One left.
“You,” I snarled. “I don’t know if you can hear, if you can speak, or if you can think. But I’m going to find a way to make you talk.” The creature backed away from me, and the glyph on its chest brightened. A self-destruct mechanism, maybe?
“Oh no,” I said. “You’re not getting off that easy.” I shot forward and put my hands on the creature’s chest. Then I Opened it. I was taking a chance here, but the creature that Petra had broken had released a ball of energy, and I was betting that ball was what animated the soldier. Which meant that the soldier body was just a container for that ball. Which meant that it could be Opened.
Sure enough, the soldier’s chest cavity opened and a ball of light drifted out. It quivered and tried to float away. I called up walls of earth and dirt, forming a thirty foot dome around myself and the creature. Suddenly the world was pitch-black, save for the light the ball gave off. I willed some of the rocks within the dome to become phosphorescent, and the dome’s interior was bathed in a pale green light.
I advanced on the ball and reached out to it with my mind. The ball had intelligence, I could sense it. I gifted the creature with the ability to speak and understand my language. “Who sent you?” I demanded. No answer. I applied pressure from all sides, beginning to crush the creature. It did not react. I looked into it again. It had been built without the ability to feel pain.
I blessed it with that ability.
Then I increased the pressure again. The creature screamed. “Talk!” I demanded again. “I am running out of patience and I’m tempted to just crush you here and now!”
“Enough!” It yowled in a voice like a cat’s. “I will talk.”
I stopped the pressure. This thing had never felt pain before; it must have been very traumatic for it. “Good,” I said. “Now, who sent you?”
“Treggen,” the voice returned immediately. “Warlord Treggen.”
“Who is Treggen? What does he want?”
“Treggen wants to conquer all of this realm,” the ball said.
“Why?” I demanded. I had visions of Treggen amassing all of the Bright Side’s nastier residents and leading them on to conquer other realms.
“He just wishes to unify and hold this realm,” the ball said weakly.
“That’s it?” I asked incredulously. “My people have been killed, my girlfriend shattered, because some megalomaniac wants to hold the Bright Side?”
The ball was silent. I snarled and made the ball feel like chains of white-hot razor wire were being dragged across it. It shrieked in agony. I reveled in its suffering for a moment, savored its pain. I wanted this creature to hurt as much as I did right now. I gave myself a shake and released the chains. I had to get control of my temper before I did something I’d regret. The ball whimpered in the after-effects of my attack. I detonated the dome, sending chunks of earth and dirt out in all directions. Anger and frustration welled within me, and I lashed out at the ball. “Tell me where Treggen is,” I hissed.
“I do not know,” the ball replied. “He contacts us through the hobgoblins.” I wanted to kill the ball. Destroy it, teach it more about pain. But I’d done too much already. I was dangerously close to a precipice that if I went over, I wouldn’t be able to stand myself anymore. I released the ball.
“Get out of here,” I said. “You go back to Treggen, and you tell him that the Urisk are under my protection. You tell him that I will tear out his eyes and piss on his brain if he attacks my people again.” I pointed at the ball. “And if I ever see you again, you’ll regret it.” The ball shot away and I scrambled back through the hole in the wall. I knelt next to Petra’s shattered form. The tears came then, and I’m not sure how long I cried. I tried to reform her, and while I was able to get some of her pieces to reattach, I couldn’t make her whole. It was the same as it had been with Megan; some things I could only do for my followers. And while I’m a god here, Petra isn’t of the Bright Side. I didn’t have the power to recreate her. I cradled her head against my chest as I cried. There had to be a way to bring her back.
Gearstripper.
He’d helped fix her once before, back before we’d met. Maybe he’d know what to do now. I conjured a bag and gently placed Petra’s body into it. I checked three times to make sure I had all her pieces and then walked back to the city. Tears were still running down my face. I didn’t care. Aegeon opened for me and I passed through. I was greeted by a crowd of cheering Urisk. I found Lotholio. He looked at me and the mirth drained from his eyes. “Lord?” he asked.
“Have your scouts watch the hobgoblins, Loth,” I said. “This Treggen character is behind these attacks, and the hobgoblins are his pawns. Contact me once you’ve learned anything.”
“Lord, where is the Lady?”
“She’s badly hurt, Loth. She might be dead. I
need to go home to get her some help.” The cheers and chants died away as my priest telepathically communicated this to my followers. There were a few heartbeats of silence, and then the Urisk began to hum a song of mourning. More tears came, but I somehow found my way to Aviorla.
“Vincent Corinthos,” she said. “I am pleased to see you well again.”
“Back home, Aviorla,” I whispered. “Please.” The phasilion sensed my distress and said nothing more. Then I was back in the alley behind the Children’s museum. The sky was still dark in Boston and the rain had dwindled to a clinging mist. The windows of Petra’s car were foggy, but I could see Gears’ silhouette in the driver seat. He pushed the door open. His face lit up when he saw me.
“Vinnie! You’re okay!” He jumped and wrapped his tiny arms around my neck. He glanced around. “Where’s Petra?” I looked at the bag and Gears’ eyes went wide. “Oh, Vinnie, no.”
I swallowed the lump in my throat. “I need you to fix her, Gearstripper. Please. Can you do that?”
Gears’ yellow eyes were shining with tears and determination. “I’ll do my best.” I drove the car back to the office. The power had come back on, and Jake looked at us as we walked in. I didn’t acknowledge him. We got to Gears’ workshop and he cleared off one of his tables. Then we carefully laid out Petra’s pieces on the work surface.
Gears sat down next to Petra’s head and his ears drooped. His tiny clawed hand gently traced her marble hair. “This is bad, Vinnie,” Gears whispered.
“But you can fix her, right? She was broken when the Caulborn found her.”
Gears’ mouth worked and I could tell he was trying not to cry. When his voice finally came out, it was barely a squeak. “Her arm was broken, a few of her fingers. Nothing like this.”
“Try anyway.” It came out as a rasping snarl, and fire enveloped my clenched fists.
Imperium (Caulborn) Page 20
