by Ryan Attard
There was no breathing.
It was just cold and dark. My body didn’t even have the time to react or register the life-threatening injuries I’d incurred. The nue slammed me down on the hard asphalt and began slamming its fists down on my back, raining savage blows. My spine broke, and at some point, my skull caved in. My body completely shut down, effectively dead.
Except I’m not exactly normal, even by magical standards. My healing magic is truly an awesome power. The nue soon got tired of bludgeoning me senseless. Before it could take the first step away, my body was already healing. I was in such a bad state that I actually felt the magic take effect.
I felt the red desert on my skin, and the mangrove roots wrapping around me.
I felt the power — that never-ending ocean of potential.
My vital functions came back online in less than two seconds, and before the count of ten, I had already formulated a counter attack. I guess one of my powers is clarity of mind, because I knew exactly what to look for. I noticed a bulge in the snake’s throat, one I hadn’t noticed before. I remembered watching snakes feed in the forest and how they swallowed their meals whole, expanding from the inside. Every instinct told me that there, inside that serpent’s throat, was the key to victory.
Djinn lay by my side. It must have flown from my grip when the nue used me to practice its drumming. Shadows covered my skin like fog. All of the darkness converged on my right hand and elongated like the faintest of ropes. It snaked until it connected with the short sword. I could feel the connection to the channel. I pushed magic into it, and the weapon glowed azure. I gave it a command, because I was its master, and even separated from me, I had dominion over it.
Spin, I ordered.
The weapon rotated, spinning on its circular cross guard. It spun like a buzz saw, emitting a faint, high-pitched whistle. The nue’s enhanced hearing picked up the sound a second too late. I flicked my right index finger and Djinn shot toward the snake tail, still connected by a string of darkness to my hand. The blue blade sliced beneath the bulge, shredding scales, skin, muscle and bone as easily as a knife to butter. The severed head rolled on the ground in a bloody mess, and something solid and heavy rolled on the ground near it. The nue roared in pain and reared up on its hind legs.
Suddenly, my body was moving on its own. With a flick of my wrist, Djinn shot back into my hand, and its blade elongated. The tip brushed against the asphalt and left deep groves. I saw every square centimeter on which I had to step, and my movements were a blur. In a heartbeat, I was under the roaring nue. I saw my first target, a gap in its muscle mass right where its right kidney should be. I brought the sword down and tore through the nue’s side. Blood showered me and the beast arched its back in pain. I saw my second target, a ridge between its abdominal muscles where the flesh was soft, making it easy to disembowel the monster. I swiped Djinn horizontally, and the magic sword left a wide wound. The beast’s intestines spilled, stomach acids cascading in front of me. It bent forward instinctively and then to the side, trying not to expose the torn kidney. But that was where I wanted it to be. My third target was behind its hind foot. I slashed at its Achilles tendon and the nue tipped sideways. Blood splattered like a malfunctioning water fountain and the beast thrashed in agony. I kicked its arm out of the way and brought Djinn down on its throat with as much strength as I could muster. I kept hacking at its neck, yelling like a berserker, until I sliced through its wind-pipe and severed the spine.
The gorilla’s head rolled as well.
I stepped on the body, soaking my leg in blood, and raised Djinn. I let loose all the pent-up fear in one go and screamed into the night as Djinn’s blade bathed the parking lot in bright azure light.
***
I screamed until my throat burned, my lungs were devoid of air, and Djinn’s light faded. I took a moment to regain my composure and stepped away from the dead nue. As I walked away, my foot hit a large stone. I kicked it gently toward the light. It looked like an unpolished gemstone in a bronze color. I picked it up, curious to see what it was. As I wrapped my fingers around it, my body shook violently, and it was as if my soul were being torn out of me. The red desert flashed in my mind like a bolt of lightning. The darkness surrounding me, coalescing in my right hand and into Djinn, dissipated, and I dropped the sword. I couldn’t breathe and felt a familiar throbbing — the same way I felt when trying to use magic the old-fashioned way. I looked at the stone in my palm and shivered. The aura coming from it was faint, but I could still detect it.
Crowley.
He must have found a way to transfer a portion of his magic into the stone. The damn thing will continue to dissipate my magic and my body will keep trying to heal by pouring even more magic into itself. And that means a boatload of pain for Erik.
I picked up Djinn, trying my best to ignore the pain, and wedged it between my flesh and the stone. I leveraged, and felt the stone tearing from my palm as I flicked the abjuration stone high into the air.
As the stone fell, I swung the sword like a baseball bat and caught it with the edge of the blade. The stone cracked, destroyed, and the fragments sailed over the pier and into the ocean.
I heard the sound of panting behind me and spun. Tenzin emerged between the buildings into the parking lot and rested against a lamp-post. He had the snake deva around him again, and the priest seemed to be healing, albeit at a slow pace. He still panted hard. His robe was torn on the left side, and his white clothes were stained with blood and dirt. He looked worse than I’d ever seen him.
“You okay?” I asked as I went over to him.
He rubbed his chest. “I’m afraid I bit more than I could chew. But the kamaitachi are destroyed and Crowley has retreated.”
My nostrils flared wide. “What do you mean ‘retreated’?”
Tenzin offered me a reproachful look. “He is a slippery one, Erik. I had a choice to make — give chase and risk further injury or even death, or retreat and live to fight another day. Have you never heard of the Chinese General Sun Tzu? A warrior needs to understand when to advance and retreat,” he explained.
I wrapped his arm around me and helped him up. The snake deva reared its head and wrapped around my shoulder too. Its incandescent scales were not as bright as before, making it comfortable for the eyes. The deva had none of its previous hostility and seemed quite friendly now. It wrapped itself around my shoulder, protecting me as well as Tenzin.
“The warehouse,” said the latter. “I must get back to the pocket dimension. My powers are stronger there.”
The warehouse wasn’t too far. True, I had to partially carry Tenzin, but I was still pumped up from my battle. As soon as we got in, Tenzin went straight for the entrance symbols spray-painted on the wall. The snake deva disappeared, and the symbols glowed. A few seconds later we were back in our little paradise - we were completely safe. This universe belonged to Tenzin, and only people whom he allowed could get in. Meaning that even if Crowley followed us here and took the wall apart, all he’d have would be a sour taste and a pile of bricks.
I saw Tenzin’s wounds begin to heal as he sat cross-legged on the grass and let out a sigh of relief. Tenzin would go back to being his charming self, I’ll complain a lot, and the world would make sense again.
And then, I heard it – a snicker. The snicker of a man who had played us. The snicker of a man who knew he’d already won.
The snicker of a man with gray-blue skin, a tattered suit, and a maniacal grin.
38
“Well, well.” Crowley walked across the grass, crushing it mercilessly beneath his expensive shoes. He looked like a ghoul with his gray-blue skin, covered in tattered clothes whipping in the gentle breeze. He had lost his hat and his hair was singed at the ends. But he retained the greasy look and cheesy smile.
“Nice little slice of paradise you got here. All you need are a couple of humpin’ bunnies and you can have one scenic spring time up in here.”
You know that sinking feeling you
get when someone has been in your house and messed stuff up? Like, their very presence was enough to forever taint the purity of your most inner sanctum? I felt violated as I watched Crowley’s ugly face grin like the bastard he was.
If Tenzin felt the same, he didn’t show it. The man had the same serene composure he’d always assume in tense situations. Crowley extracted a large bullet casing from his trouser pocket and threw it casually over his shoulder.
“Just in case y’all were wondering,” he said smugly, “it was the little weasel that opened up your hidey hole.”
“You used the energy you stole from me to open the portal,” said Tenzin calmly.
“And Bingo was his name-o,” replied Crowley. “Only question now is what to do.”
“Erik.” Tenzin had his hand on my shoulder. “Please step backwards. This is my fight.”
“But I-”
“No arguments, please. I have the advantage here,” he insisted. Tenzin had that twinkle in his eyes that reassured me that he was confident.
And this was one man who was rarely wrong.
I backed away, far enough to see everything and not be caught in any explosions, but still close enough to strike. Djinn’s energy spells provided good long-distance support if needed, and if Tenzin was in danger I’d step in no matter what he said.
When Crowley saw me retreat, he grasped the situation.
“Wait, wait, so lemme get this straight,” he sneered at Tenzin who stood rooted in front of him. “I got no more weapons up my sleeve. Hell, I ain’t even got a sleeve no more.” He tore off the remnants of his silk shirt. “Just plain old me left. But you ain’t got much either. Your powers don’t work on me, old man, and all the kung-fu fightin’ in the world ain’t gonna be enough to bring me down. So, what the hell kinda advantage you think you got? Face it, buddy, we’re at what they call an impasse.”
It was Tenzin’s turn to chuckle. It wasn’t a nice sound. He removed his jacket, letting it curl around his backside. Half of it was torn anyway.
As he chuckled, I heard the popping of bones as he flexed his muscles. Veins throbbed around his thin arms that were once laced with thick muscles. His aged body rippled as it revealed the remnant of a once-ripped physique. But despite his age and apparent frailty, Tenzin went from old man to grandpa-on-steroids. At first, I thought it was the bull deva at work again, but I didn’t sense any energy from Tenzin.
This was no magic - this was just pure physical badassery. Scar tissue gleamed under the sun as its rays reflected from his back, shoulders and chest. Still, Tenzin flexed his body. I felt foolish for thinking that Tenzin needed my help. I even felt foolish when I thought he was too weak to chase after Crowley. Even the villain took a step back, with his mouth slightly agape.
“Did you really believe that you could just walk in the Ryugyu’s most sacred place and pillage it to your evil heart’s content?” Tenzin’s voice had an aura of power and dominion to it. Crowley’s mouth moved, but Tenzin’s voice boomed again, drowning any sound the abjurer might have made.
“I will show you my true calling, Alastair Crowley. I will show you the true power of an exorcist.”
Light exploded from Tenzin like a flare going off. He stretched his arms apart, palms facing outwards. The light became an infernal blaze. Fire erupted from him, covering the exorcist and the surrounding vegetation, and seemed to reach the clouds above. And yet, there was no scorching and no burning. That is, until Tenzin brought his hands together and pushed outwards, toward a stunned Crowley. Flames twisted into the shape of a tiger as the deva rocketed toward the villain. The area was soon a sea of flames. Grass, trees, soil – all became ash. Even the sky darkened as clouds formed overhead. I heard Tenzin’s cry and the tiger deva’s roar as one sound. The fire raged, emitting its own scream. Red flames became yellow, and then white, until I couldn’t see anything. The last thing I heard was the roar of fire, and I smelled the acrid odor of ash.
Then, there was just fire, burning with the intensity of a thousand suns.
***
The flames receded, and I could feel again. The landscape was scorched, but my senses picked up a blanket of energy coming from the very core of this pocket universe. The soil repaired itself, and tiny green seedlings sprouted from the ground. The trees were regaining their brown color again as their stumps grew into tall trunks. The plane was slowly, but surely, re-growing into its previous splendor. Tenzin was in the middle of a large patch of ash, still jet-black from his previous spell. The snake deva was wrapped around him – steam hissing out as red patches of skin reverted back to their tanned state. The tail of the snake deva shot out, reaching towards me. It wrapped around me and I understood. The tiger deva’s flames attacked the body and soul. Only a deva can fully heal a deva’s power, and my healing abilities would only heal my body, not my soul.
The process took half a second, but for that short time I felt part of Tenzin’s spiritual connection to God.
I can’t describe it. How do you describe something that you cannot even begin to understand? But I can say this - whatever Tenzin was connected to was so far from human reach that it is enough to make you cry with its sheer beauty, and wish you were dead in utter desperation at never achieving that perfection. Not even in a thousand immortal lifetimes, with all the power in the universe.
Then again, I suppose that’s why they call him… it… God.
Tenzin cut off the connection, making the snake deva disappear. I grabbed Djinn’s blade and sliced my own palm against its sharp edge. The pain was real, it was human. The experience with the divine would probably haunt me for the rest of my life, but I could ask Tenzin later. Right now, I needed to be here in this reality, where imperfect and damaged beings run the show.
In front of Tenzin was a large, black husk that was making the slightest of movements. The Asian man, still retaining his calm but domineering composure, simply observed as Crowley rose up like a zombie. His skin was charred and parts of his hair had been burned off, leaving him with bald spots, but otherwise, he appeared as solid as ever.
“That,” he rasped, “was somethin’ else.” He laughed maniacally. “Can we do it again, please?”
“You are damaged, Mr. Crowley,” said Tenzin with a sneer. “Perhaps your specialization did not account for magic that damages your soul as well as your body.”
“Oh, shut up,” shot back Crowley. Tenzin’s comment clearly pushed his buttons. “I ain’t got no soul. That’s just a fairy tale. All I know is I ain’t hurt, much. So, is that the best you could do, Mr. Exorcist?”
“Not quite.”
Tenzin placed his hands together in prayer and energy flowed from his body. Static crackled around him, producing thin bolts of electricity.
“I will show you the most powerful of devas in its unrestrained form,” he said as he made a circular motion with his arms until his right palm faced outwards and bent high, while the left palm faced outward with the fingers pointed downwards.
I remembered that pose from one of our training sessions. Tenzin had explained the concept of opposites and how one can generate energy from the harmony between the two. My senses saw that mass of power around Tenzin break in two, each vibrating separately, before coalescing back together into a separate form of energy. I knew that pattern. My mind brought up the memory of my sister explaining the concept of electricity for a physics class to her dumber brother. Something about electricity being the product of positive and negative charges rubbing against each other. At the time, I had made a stupid joke using the word “rubbing” in a less than appropriate manner.
But as I saw Tenzin’s process, I couldn’t help but notice the similarity. Both memories were about the same concept, opposites. Positive and negative – might as well just call them Yin and Yang.
Electricity crackled around Tenzin. A lightning bolt descended upon him, filling the air with the smell of ozone and the sharp crack of lightning. The blue-white lightning bolt arced from Tenzin over the dark clouds that ha
d assembled. The entire sky was dark, with one continuous bolt racing through it.
Behind Tenzin, lightning bent and twisted, transforming into a titanic, horrific Chinese dragon with its head reared up, complete with a pair of long incisors, whiskers that trailed sparks into the clouds, and horns that branched into a million lightning bolts and disappeared through the clouds. Its long body snaked behind Tenzin and all the way up. It was as wide as the entire field, and it planted a pair of claws around Tenzin, each of its three talons as large as a tree trunk. Everywhere it touched, it scorched. Grass and bark sizzled in a shower of blue-white sparks. The dragon dwarfed everything by comparison. I couldn’t see the rest of its body, which had disappeared beyond my vision. The full length of its long serpentine body reached beyond the sky and disappeared into the clouds. It seemed that the lightning dragon was too large to stretch comfortably in this pocket universe. The entire beast was formed from white-blue lightning, like the personification of the most horrendous storm that ever existed.
“The embodiment of harmony between Yin and Yang,” boomed Tenzin’s voice above the loud crackle of lightning that had become the very nature of the sky. “The dragon deva!”
The dragon deva roared, and more lightning descended, bestowing destruction everywhere it met. Crowley cowered in front of it, physically trembling.
“What are you?” he screamed.
“I am the messenger of Kami-sama. And by his power, you shall be defeated,” roared Tenzin. It didn’t sound like him anymore. He was completely taken over by the deva, or perhaps, by God itself.
How could I tell? Because I felt godlike powers emanating from him – or from the deity to which he was connected. I didn’t know if he had become a god or an avatar or whatever, but I could tell that Tenzin had stopped being human and had transcended into something beyond us by calling upon the power of his god.
Crowley, on the other hand, stood defiantly despite his trembling. “Every fiber of my being is telling me to run away, that I can’t beat you,” he said. A psychotic smile stretched across his lips. “But I wanna know.” His hands squeezed into claws as he looked at his tense fingers. “I wanna know what happens after I decay a god.”
