by Bryan Fields
Fine. Let them think it was part of the show.
Risenue stroked the side of Gordon’s face. “These people follow you and do your bidding. Now, they will do mine.” She held the chalice to his lips. “Drink, and surrender your authority to me. You and the woman will both live, and I will place you high in my councils.”
Gordon pulled back. “I’d rather die.”
“You will. Eventually, you all do. That attitude is so boring.” She grabbed the back of Lorena’s neck and wrenched her around so Gordon could see the scars on her face. “I am the Bloodmaiden. It is given to me to see every wound that has ever drawn blood from your flesh, and to make them anew. Behold my touch!”
She ran the tips of her fingers over Lorena’s scars. Lorena’s cheek tore open, spraying blood everywhere. It was bigger than I thought, running from ear to chin and leaving her cheek gaping open far enough to pass a golf ball through. Lorena gasped but didn’t scream. She spit blood at Risenue and lunged at the demon’s wrist with her teeth. She missed.
Risenue slapped Lorena on her unmarred cheek. “I will awaken every wound on your body, slattern! You will serve me!” She drew her hand back to strike Lorena again.
“No, she shall not! Nor shall any here!” A woman stood up in the audience, undoing a clasp and letting her cloak fall to the floor. She was full Drow, wearing a dress of glowing silver chainmail and a matching tiara set with sparking blue gems. “You are no goddess, and these people will not be yours.”
Nadia chuckled. “Sweet! That is Sandy Llewellyn, and I think she just pulled aggro.”
It certainly seemed that way. Risenue’s eyes narrowed and her lips twisted from a pout into a snarl. “Well, hello, Asendrathae. This is where you’ve been hiding all these years? How disappointing.” She snapped her fingers and the scarecrows covering the audience pulled back, forming a line in front of the stage. A few kept their guns on the audience, but most aimed at Sandy and cocked the hammers on their guns. “Any last words, apostate?”
“I could ask you the same thing, demon. Go from here, false goddess. Swear never to return to this world and you can keep your life.” She pointed to the line of scarecrows. “That offer extends to all of you as well. Take your lives and go.”
Risenue sneered. “Shoot her!”
Dozens of guns discharged, over and over again, and it wasn’t until the first shooters stopped to reload that they realized Sandy hadn’t been hit even once. The bullets stopped in midair and dropped to the floor right in front of her.
Sandy waved her hand at the line of scarecrows and shouted, “Hasath!” Even I got the gist of that one.
All along the back and sides of the theatre, Dark Elves dropped their disguises, drew swords, and attacked the nearest scarecrows. The Drow all used the same opening attack, slicing up from groin to mid-chest followed by a horizontal slash across the throat. It was like a can-can line, but with a body count.
In front of the stage, Angus and eight other Drow dropped their cloaks and charged into the scarecrows. Most were trying to reload their guns. Angus and the others…disarmed them.
Risenue howled and backhanded Lorena, sending her sprawling. All over Lorena’s body, a frightening number of wounds reopened. In moments, her clothes were covered with bloody splotches. Judging by the rings of blood on her pant legs, blood was also seeping out of the sockets on her prosthetics.
Gordon screamed and snapped the zip tie around his wrists as though it were paper. He rushed to Lorena’s side and dragged her toward the side of the stage. Nadia ran out of the wing and dropped to the floor next to Lorena. While she dug through her purse, Eric released the rest of the band members. Together, they hauled Lorena into the wings.
Risenue ignored everything else on the stage, staying totally focused on Angus. Dark tendrils of spell energy swirled around her arms, seething and lashing out. She raised her hand to hurl the spell, and Rose caught her across the ribs with a vicious spinning tail whip. The blow ripped Risenue’s side open down to the bone, sending the demoness flying and disrupting the spell she was trying to cast.
Rose finished her turn and lashed out with her wings, knocking several Sanguine Vanguard to the floor and scattering them across the stage. Rose aimed a foreclaw strike at Risenue, but one of the Sanguine Vanguard hurled himself in front of Rose’s talons. She tore him to ribbons, but it was enough to spoil her aim, and Risenue scrambled out of reach.
Another Sanguine Vanguard warrior rolled under Rose’s wing and went for her left hindleg. His glass sword cut through her scales and left a trail of blood behind it. Rose howled and kicked out at him. He dodged the kick and moved in to hamstring her. He forgot to watch his back and her tail blade ripped him in half.
All my instincts demanded I summon Kindness and charge in to protect Rose. I held my position, looking for an opening. As the remaining Vanguard formed a skirmish line in front of Rose, Tony’s Einherjar hit them from behind. All I could see were their shadows, but they were real enough to drop four of the Sanguine Vanguard before the rest could turn and engage.
Risenue threw herself at Rose and the two of them turned into a hissing, roaring flurry of teeth and claws. I started forward, eyes on Risenue’s naked back. She ducked, and a thrust from Rose’s tail blade nearly gutted me. I backed off again.
A few scarecrows were still firing into the audience. Sandy had her arms out to her sides, maintaining the bullet shield. Aerin stood next to her, covered in a mantle of golden light. She was playing Whack-a-Scarecrow with a ten-foot flying war hammer made of the same golden light.
Next to Aerin and facing the audience, Toni Aguilar hovered a few inches off the ground on iridescent dragonfly wings. Her hair and mantle were a matching sky blue, both fluttering out behind her as though blowing in the wind. She projected an aura of peace and relaxation, calming the audience and averting a panicked rush for the exits. I snorted. This is not a firefight you are looking at.
A scarecrow dived past the bullet shield and charged Toni with a knife drawn. I grabbed a belt dagger off one of the Sanguine Vanguard and hurled it. It hit the bullet shield and dropped to the floor.
One of the shadowed Einherji knocked me to the side. It cleared the ten feet or so between the stage and the scarecrow in one leap, solidifying into a wolf-sized war dog in midair. It seized the scarecrow’s shoulder and shook its head, tearing the dead man in half. The war dog took up position guarding Toni’s back, eyes and ears alert for trouble.
I shook my head to clear it and looked around. Rose was still locked together with Risenue, fist-to-claw, both straining to force the other off her feet. Blood poured from wounds on Risenue’s arms and torso, pooling into ropy, congealed tendrils of corpse-mold-green ooze. The tendrils lashed out, wrapping around Rose’s neck and forelegs. Everywhere the slime touched, Rose’s scales hissed and smoked.
Rose’s head jerked back, trying to dislodge the acidic tendrils. They clung to her as though glued on. She snarled and exhaled her arctic breath, freezing the tendrils and encasing the Bloodmaiden’s head and upper chest in a layer of inch-thick ice. The tendrils around Rose’s neck shattered and dropped off. Several spots on her neck and the base of her skull were still smoking slightly, but her scales had held up.
The urge to charge in and save Rose was near to overwhelming me. I tightened my grip on the spear and charged Risenue’s unprotected back
Her head might have been wrapped in ice, but her legs weren’t. Her first kick went wide. I moved in to attack. She bent her knee backward and kicked again. This time I went down, but I kept my grip on the spear tip.
Eric and Nadia stood up, hands and arms wreathed with magic. Nadia blasted the few remaining Sanguine Vanguard with streams of golden fire that reduced them to ash. Eric summoned a nest of coiling, hook-tipped chains out of the darkness above the stage. The chains wrapped around Risenue’s arms and legs, sinking their hooks deep in her flesh. The chains pulled taut, lifting her off the ground. Somehow, Risenue kept fighting, fingers clawing air and
legs kicking in all directions.
Rose dropped into a crouch, favoring her left foreleg. Her tail blade moved back and forth like the head of a cobra, poised to strike. She looked at me and nodded.
I rolled to my feet and charged, bracing for the spray of acidic blood. Risenue’s head moved a fraction of an inch, sending cracks through the ice encasing her. Shards of ice fell away, allowing the gaze from one eye to fix on me. She hit me with something that turned my blood to ice, literally. I fell in front of her, arms and legs trembling, unable to breathe. The spear point bounced out of my hand and spun away across the stage.
Rose exhaled streams of lightning that danced around Risenue’s body, filling the air with sparks and flaming bits of charred flesh. Risenue’s muscles seized up, wrenching and twisting her body in unnatural ways. Rose bellowed, pushing as hard as she could to keep pouring on the assault.
I crawled forward, hoping movement would raise my body heat. It helped, but not enough. All I could do was take shallow, gasping breaths. Even those hurt like knives in my chest and throat. I glanced at Rose and pushed forward again. She couldn’t keep this up much longer.
My fingers touched the spear and warmth flooded through me. I took a deep breath and scrambled to my feet—awake, alive, and burning to get some killing done. I looked at Rose and nodded.
The lightning ceased and Rose sagged backward, spent. I seized the Bloodmaiden’s shoulder and asked, “Excuse me, may I see your ticket, please?” She made a gargling cough. I snarled, “No ticket, no admission!” and drove the spear point under her ribs, into her heart.
Her body collapsed into red dust. A blast of wind rushed out from where she had been, dissolving the bodies of the scarecrows into yet more dust. The wind forced the doors open, pushing on and out until it rushed out the front door and dispersed the dust into the hot Nevada night.
I fell to my knees, exhausted. Even warmed up, something hurt in my guts, and I tasted blood in the back of my throat. I hoped Aerin would still have some healing mojo left once the injured bystanders were patched up.
Gordon knelt down next to me and whispered, “What the hell is going on? Who—actually, never mind. Lorena needs a doctor, now! That gal with the green hair gave her something that stopped the bleeding, but…oh, God, all those wounds…” He looked up at Rose. “You’re a...that’s…um…Dragon. Ms. Dragon…um…Mighty One, can you…would you, please, fly us to the hospital? I’ll pay whatever you ask. I’m begging you, please, help us.”
Rose positively glowed. “Oh, I like a Human who knows their place. How much do you have?”
I shook my head and told Gordon, “This is Rose, my fiancée. This is what she really looks like. Save the Dragon ride for when you’re feeling better. Right now, Lorena needs Angus and Aerin Cullan. Well, Aerin, anyway. She’ll get Lorena fixed up.”
“If you say so.” Gordon looked out at into the theatre, gauging the level of fear and the number of the injured in the audience. “If you have any ideas how to salvage this mess, I’d love to hear them.”
“Not at the moment.” I got to my feet and patted Rose at the base of her neck. “Is there anything you can do to buy us some time, beautiful?”
Rose looked smug. “See, you do need me after all. One big party, coming up.” I felt her charging up another spell as she filled her lungs with air. This time, her breath was a cloud of sparkling pink gas that filled the theatre all the way to the far walls. The gas pooled around everyone in the audience who didn’t have Elven blood, soaking into their skin and leaving them smiling in vacant bliss. Rose looked down with a smug, toothy grin. “There. They’ll be stoned out of their minds for five minutes and high as kites for two hours or so. Better get busy.”
Down in front of the stage, Nadia and the assembled Houseguard were casting the biggest version of Retcon they’d ever attempted. Between new memories and a major high from Rose’s happy gas, nobody in the audience would ever believe they had been in mortal danger.
Aerin was patching up wounded members of the audience. I waved at her while Gordon and Eric carried Lorena out onto the stage. Someone had taken off Lorena’s prosthetics and wrapped clean towels around her stumps. Nadia’s healing potion had stopped the bleeding, but she still had a horrifying number of wounds that were far from healed.
Dried blood had crusted one of Lorena’s eyes shut, but her other eye was alert. She smiled at Gordon despite the tears of pain. “Might…need a bit more makeup than I thought, but…I still want to be on the expansion’s cover.”
Gordon patted her hand. “I want you in the opening cinematic, too. Just relax and focus on breathing. There’s a…high-level cleric coming to heal you.”
“Better be…heroic level. I’m pretty damn messed up.”
That’s it! I laughed and clapped Gordon on the shoulder. “Lorena just salvaged this mess for you! Everything that just happened was a live-action preview of your next expansion. Dark Elves! Heroic classes for the priest, mage, and warrior. Emissary, Archmage, Warmaster. Rangers get dragons as legendary hunting partners.”
Gordon’s eyes glazed over. “That’s…insane. We already have an expansion to announce…” He closed his eyes and nodded. “Screw it. Won’t be the first time we’ve scrapped eighteen months of work overnight.”
I waved at Aerin again and this time she waved back. I turned back to Gordon and said, “Oh, you should let Rose enter the costume contest.”
“What do you mean, ‘let’ me enter?” Rose snorted smoke rings out over the audience. “Who’s going to stop me?”
“No costume is no costume,” Gordon said. “Those are the rules. You’re not wearing a costume, so you can’t enter. How about you being our special guest hostess for the show tonight?”
“Do I get a trophy?”
“I can do a big bag of goodies, candy, gift certificates, whatever schwag I can toss together.”
“Done.” Rose flared her wings out and bellowed, “All right BuzzCon! How great was that? Nothing like some raid content live on stage! Yeah!” She pumped her foreclaw in the air, triggering some feeble cheering. She shook her head. “Pathetic! Yell like you got a pair!” She roared again. People started joining in, and Rose kept encouraging them until the whole theatre was clapping.
As the applause died down, Rose looked around the stage and shrugged at the audience. “I can’t wait to show you what’s coming next, but there isn’t enough room up here! I guess I’ll just have to make some!”
She cast a handful of fireworks spells around herself, leaving plumes of colored smoke in the air to hide her transformation. I could see her Dragon body vanishing into dimensional storage, shrinking and smoothing into Rose’s Human form. She was wearing the red number I’d bought her when we met Mister M and his family. I think the crowd applauded harder for the dress than for the Dragon.
Rose bowed and said, “Now we have a surprise sneak peek at what you can look forward to in the next expansion! First up, Dark Elves as a player race! And here’s Angus, demonstrating the Fighter Heroic class, the Warmaster!”
Angus rolled his eyes, but started an elaborate Drow sword kata for two blades. With his near silent, matte black half-plate armor, he looked like a shadow come to deadly life. While he kept the audience enthralled, Aerin and Sandy made their way over to us.
Aerin knelt next to Lorena and looked her over. “Hmm, yeah, I’ve seen worse. Tell me, do you want just a patch job, or the full-body reset to default?”
Lorena pushed herself up to look at Aerin. “What do you mean, ‘reset to default’?”
“Full-body regeneration. Your legs grow back, scars vanish, and any cosmetic surgery you’ve had is undone. You will be as you should have been.”
“I’ll take you as you are,” Gordon said. “For better or worse, richer and poorer, to have and to—”
“Shut. Up.” Lorena took Aerin’s hand. “You must be the priestess David mentioned. Whatever that bitch was, she was evil, and you stood against her. That tells me what I want to know abo
ut your god. Heal me, and marry us, and I will follow your faith all my days. Please… I want to dance at my wedding.”
“There could be questions,” Sandy said. “People close to you are going to notice you have legs again. Your fellow veterans might want to know how this happened, and you won’t be able to tell them. Are you sure you want to deal with all that?”
Lorena nodded. “Yes.”
Aerin nodded. “As you wish, then.” She took a calming breath and held her hand over Lorena’s head. “Crom! This warrior has done great things and won honor for her name. Grant me the power to restore her body that she may rise and fight anew!” Aerin touched her hand to Lorena’s forehead, and in the blink of an eye, it was done.
“Oh, whoa…everything itches.” Lorena stood up, weaving back and forth like a drunken sailor. She grabbed Gordon’s shoulder for balance and patted her chest for a moment. “Hunh. I guess these got reset to default too.”
“They’re fine,” Gordon said. “But if you want, we can go to the best surgeon in Beverley Hills. Anything you want.”
Sandy took Lorena’s hands and concentrated for several seconds. “There. How do those feel?”
Lorena checked Sandy’s work and her jaw dropped. “Oh, wow. They’re spectacular. And...real! How did you do that?”
“Flesh shaping. A gift resulting from generations of horrific breeding experiments my ancestors carried out on their own children.” Sandy smiled and patted Aerin’s hand. “Your husband is nearly finished. Shall we go amaze the masses?”
“Absolutely.” Aerin gave Sandy an elaborate bow. “After you, Matriarch Llewellyn.”
Sandy returned it. “I couldn’t possibly. We are but humble guests of your honored household. After you, Matriarch Cullan.”
“You know perfectly well I can’t refuse the frigging guest-right. Oh fine, you win.” As they walked off, waving to the crowd, Aerin added, “Your dress is great. Do you still have those bunny slippers? The ones made from real rabbits?” As she passed, Aerin touched my shoulder. It only lasted a moment, but afterward I felt whole and healthy for the first time in weeks.
