Second Sight: The Rune Sight Chronicles

by Boyd Craven III

  Who are you? Why are you after me? Yes, I killed your sons, but they were trying to kill me, it was self-defense. Why are you an evil hose beast? Is it true that you pulled a train with a locker room full of hellspawn? How much of your soul did you give up to be able to summon not only one, but two greater demons?

  She answered none of those questions, so tiring of waiting, I pulled my backpack off.

  “Goody, I like presents, Mass, Effect, do you like presents?” she asked, clapping her hands together.

  The Calico came out, and I made sure it had one in the chamber, and then dropped my backpack and put the strap over my head and one shoulder, extending the short little stock it had.

  “That doesn’t look like a nice present,” she said, pouting.

  That was when I realized what or who she reminded me of. Angelina Jolie starred in a movie… Maleficent? A wickedly evil woman who had an unearthly beauty, despite the horns? Still, Khrystiana made Angelina Jolie look like Alpo in comparison, even without the horns. I shook my head. I couldn’t focus on her beauty; it was one of her tools, merely a weapon she could use to distract men.

  “It’s not,” I told her, “unless you like holes in that dress,” I told her.

  “Like what happened to my Sebastian?” she asked me, any hint at niceties gone as her eyes blazed with anger.

  The ground shook beneath my feet as the large demons walked around. A long time ago I had run across something similar in India. The spirits that had been summoned were demonic in nature, and they called them Rakshasa. Running water was supposed to be one way to get rid of them if they possessed a body, but these creatures were here as themselves in the flesh. Or ectoplasm, I wasn’t sure. Demonic creatures weren’t something I ran into much because summoners didn’t usually live a long life.

  Of all the mages, summoners and seers had the shortest lifespans. Seers because their gift usually drove them mad and they killed themselves or slowly wasted away, locked in their own minds, lost in the ever-changing futures. Summoners practiced conjuring beings from other places. Most of them resembled demons from Christian mythology, of various degrees. Some summoners were strong enough to pull forth an Imp, and if they were good, they could keep him there in their control for a while before they were sent back to wherever they came from. Really strong summoners could bring forth a demon. What Khrystiana had done was bring forth two greater demons, and she had them bound to her by the look and sound of things.

  The reason summoners usually didn’t live long healthy lives, was because their conjured subjects resented being pulled out of other realms to play a slave for the little flesh monkeys that humans are. They’d rather eat us like a corndog and spit out the bones. That was why most conjurers weren’t human. They were creatures who’d align themselves with creatures such as this, instead of controlling them. To control them took a mastery that was beyond my comprehension, but that was also why when I heard Kiersten comforting Zania I didn’t even look or complain. I felt like whimpering myself, no matter how tough of a face I was putting on.

  “Your son was too good,” I told her simply. “I had to do it, or we all would have been dead.”

  “Oh, you’re already as good as dead. You know what it takes to break a circle?” she asked, bending down and picking up a rock. “See, I know conjured creatures can’t break them, that’s why it’s one of the first tricks the council’s schools teach young mages. All I need to do is toss this pebble—”

  “And I’ll have close to fifty 9mm silver slugs on target the second it does,” I told her, making sure I was standing right in front of her.

  The others took a step back, and I heard bones crunching and looked behind me to see JJ back in human form, shorts only.

  “Boss, how tough are those guys?” he asked, looking at Mass or Effect, I still didn’t know the difference.

  “On a good day, they could probably eat a couple platoons of Navy Seals and only need an Alka-Seltzer,” I told him before turning my attention back to Khrystiana who was now grinning at me, probably plotting my torture and subsequent murder.

  “Your toy guns will do nothing against me or my pets,” she said as one of the red-skinned devils came near.

  She caressed one heavily muscled arm then playfully slapped it to have it start circling us counter-clockwise.

  “Oh, I wouldn’t be too sure of that,” I told her.

  “Your runes? Yes, my servant told me of that. Rather nasty of you, isn’t it? You don’t think somebody as old and as experienced as I wouldn’t have already found a way to counter that?”

  “Oh, I’m sure you have,” I told her, hearing a popping sound somewhere behind me, outside of the circle. “But it’s not going to feel good. After your goons trashed the casino, you’re going to have the entire senior council on your ass.”

  “Yes,” she said, “let them. It’s time for us to quit hiding in the shadows. For hundreds of years, we’ve hidden away only to be ridiculed, run out of town, or burned at the stake. Why cower in the shadows of these old draconian laws when we should take our place as the rightful rulers? Imagine a world without famine, without disease, and without the ignorant machinations of a warring society built upon the bourgeois greed of a few wealthy dynasties.”

  The slightly larger demon to my left growled, and I turned and looked up, and up, and up again until I could see his yellow, pus-colored eyes. His teeth looked to be filed to points, and his canines would have given Steven fang envy.

  “Yeah, there’s only one problem with all of that,” I told her.

  “Really?” Khrystiana said.

  “Oh shit, get ready,” Vivian whispered to JJ, and I heard the rustle of people behind me preparing to do something spectacular as they gathered their magic.

  “Good guys win, bad guys lose, and as always, England prevails.”

  Her smile faltered in confusion then she threw the stone underhanded. Immediately I started checking the futures and saw that as soon as the stone broke the circle's power, it was going to drop immediately. I checked the futures where I emptied the Calico at the Empress and saw that she would deflect most of it through some sort of magic, but she’d take a few solid hits before her pets killed all of us. I checked the futures where I attacked Mass and Effect and saw that my bullets would only enrage the demonic beings further and not only would we die, they would attempt to mate with my dying body. Scratch that. Then I got another idea.

  The stone broke the circle and Kiersten shouted, “Now.”

  JJ was already in motion and had timed the stone breaking the barrier perfectly. His hybrid form was closest to the demon on my left, and he tried to bum rush the creature. Size wise, JJ was nearly as tall but didn’t have the mass the larger demon had. That was when I figured out which was which; this one was known as Mass as it was the heavier one. Still, JJ was over three hundred pounds of ugly, and when I thought he was about to hit the red-skinned creature's waist, he went lower and bootstrapped the demon, making him fall on top of the werewolf.

  I had anticipated the stone also and juked to the right, then went straight to the empress who’d taken two steps back after her throw. She put a hand up in front of her as the Calico started chattering. I knew this was going to hurt but—

  Effect, the demon on the right who she had caressed earlier, backhanded me. Usually, such a blow would make me go splat, but with my magic unthrottled I knew there was no way to not get hurt on this encounter. I had to hope and pray I lived long enough for Zania to heal me if any major damage came to me.

  I hit the struggling forms of JJ and Mass and bounced off, scraping what felt like yards of skin off the side of my head, my shoulder, and then my lower back as I slid to a stop. I got up, shaking my head, surprised that, other than the scrapes, nothing seemed broken. Well, except for the end of the Calico’s barrel. It was junked. Cursing, I dropped it, realizing that my pack had engaged Mass, Effect, and Khrystiana all at once. She had some sort of shield up, invisible to the naked eye, but Mage Kiersten’s ma
gic was deflecting away visibly.

  The wolf form that I thought was Dana was tearing at the larger demon, with JJ and the rest of the pack was on Effect, like… well, fleas on a dog if you’ll pardon the pun.

  “Are you ready?” A high pitched voice whispered to me as I drew one of my M&Ps.

  “How’d you find me so fast?” I asked her.

  “You’re predictable, are you ready?” she asked again.

  “What are you going to do?” I took aim and fired at Mass’s exposed head as soon as I had a clear shot.

  The Demon screamed, and a hand slapped over the socket its eye had been in, leaving one side exposed to JJ’s raking claws.

  “Distract the Empress.”

  Suddenly I realized what she was saying. I checked the futures and saw that no matter what I did, I was going to fail about 9,789 times out of 10,000. Still, better than nothing. I told her, “Do it.”

  I heard a popping sound and was drawing the second pistol when Rose poofed into existence right in front of Khrystiana.

  “No Hakuna our mattattas!” she shrieked in an explosion of rainbow glitter before poofing out again. I started firing both guns. One round got through when her shield faltered, and I saw her slap her stomach, a shocked look on her face as she was engulfed in flames and black magic from Vivian. Both Mass and Effect shrieked in rage as one voice, and suddenly they were free of furry forms, all converging on Kiersten, their violence meters kicked up a few notches.

  “Get out of there,” I screamed, horror-stricken.

  I turned to fire on the demons who were closing on the fire mage with the Weres attacking, biting and trying to slow their advance. Kiersten turned her fire on them and then, in the last moment, opened a gate behind her. I had a round hit Effect in the knee, and the demon’s fast advance with an upraised claw fell forward, into Kiersten, and through the gate. It closed behind her, with the wolves leaping back once they had realized what was happening.

  Up the slope behind us, Kiersten’s pained shrieks rent the night air and Mass turned to look at his lady. I looked where he did as I was reloading automatically and saw Khrystiana wasn’t there. I knew I’d hit her in the torso, kind of low in the stomach and the fire had gotten her, hadn’t it? I didn’t see her burning and on fire, just fire overtaking her form.

  “Boss, Kiersten is down, JJ is hurt bad, and one of the new pack has a broken back, we need to run,” Rose urged, appearing in front of me.

  “Checking something out,” I told her, scanning the futures.

  Vivian, panting, tugged on my arm, breaking my concentration. “I’m taking Zania up the hill, my aunt might still be—”

  “She’s not,” I told her. “I need you or Zania to find Khrystiana, if she’s still here, killing her will probably stop the demons.” I hoped.

  Vivian screamed in loss, anger, and pain, and turned her focus on Mass.

  “I can’t sense her here,” Zania said at once, touching my cheek.

  I felt the warmth of her healing and flinched when the body of one of my pack went flying over her head. She ducked, almost like she had my gifts, and touched JJ on the ankle then started running. A second later, I saw why. Mass had seen her and decided he wanted a snack. Upslope, something large took to the air, and I knew we were about to be double teamed again.

  “Everybody who can, make a run for the arches. Help those who can’t—”

  Half of my Weres transformed on the spot and I saw that my two newcomers were a man and a woman who looked remarkably alike, as if they were twins. “Got it,” the woman said and scooped up a prone form. I fired my pistols dry at Mass’s joints, the big creature stumbling. I know the rounds would heal quickly like they had with the other one, but I needed two seconds, two blessed seconds, so I could run like hell.

  A hand touched my back, and then I was scooped up, hearing Zania scream in surprise and Vivian curse. I turned, ready to use my pistols as a club when I realized I was being carried by a very naked Dana, my human mage companions being assisted the same way, while the new pack had a shoulder on each side of JJ’s hybrid form. I’d never seen anything move as fast as Dana and the pack did. With it being dark, there were shadows and pools of inky darkness everywhere now that we were beyond the orb of light that Khrystiana had cast, yet it seemed like somehow it had gotten darker. I looked up as I holstered one of the pistols, it empty and me out of reloads.

  I saw twin horrors descending out of the sky on bat-like wings that looked too small to be carrying the creatures that were flying Superman-style at us. Red-skinned, demonic, death in speedos. Instead of musing whether that would make a great death metal band name, I focused on the futures as much as I could to see if we would make it to the arch first. If I had tried this crazy idea on my own two legs, I would have been ripped to shreds a long time back, but with the insane speed and strength of the pack, we had a chance if we—

  “Break left,” I yelled to Dana who juked like she had been playing football her entire life.

  Mass hit the ground like a falling meteor, and rock chips and dirt exploded in every direction. I heard Zania scream in terror, but then we were out of the cloud of roaring death.

  “Here comes the other one,” Vivian screamed.

  With my sight, I saw a lance of energy fly up and hit Effect. Vivian almost went limp, but her shot had gone true and had hit the second creature who faltered and started flying parallel to us, which meant it would hit head first about twenty yards ahead.

  “Scatter,” Lance screamed, and it was like the Weres had practiced the move.

  Effect hit the ground, already turning and trying to land on its feet and swiping at us as we ran past. Twenty more feet. Ten. Five. I heard Dana scream, and she lost her grip on me. I hit the ground going probably twenty miles an hour or better, rolling and hitting everything as I made it through the arch. Dana roared in rage, and when I scrambled up, I saw JJ back on his feet. Mass had somehow caught up with us, and I could see Effect regaining its feet. Mass had Dana in one hand, holding her up by the skull as she screamed.

  JJ went into a rage and pushed past the two who were helping him stand up and launched himself, claws first. Vivian and Zania rushed to me as the other Weres ran into the fray against the demon.

  “What do we do?” Zania asked.

  “Boss, I have an idea,” Rose said poofing into existence next to us.

  “You all stand in front of the arches here,” I told them.

  “Or not,” Rose said, “You may proceed.”

  “These arches are a natural circle,” I screamed.

  Zania looked up at me in confusion, but Vivian smiled, her face streaked with tears, and she knelt down as I put my hand on one side of the arch.

  “Kid, go to the other side of the arch and push your will into the circle, gonna circle trap these bitches.”

  “But circles—”

  “Move your ass before I pix your boobies into bowties,” Rose screamed, pointing her wand.

  Zania almost stumbled over her feet and took off, the other side of the arch not that far. Rose landed on my shoulder.

  “You think it’s going to work?” she asked as I began pushing my will into the stone.

  “It has to work,” I said, gritting my teeth, drawing deep on my power.

  “I’m going to regret this,” Rose said and then put both her hands on my neck.

  I felt her channeling her magic, pushing it through me. I don’t know who started screaming first, Rose, me, Vivian or Zania, but I was pushing so hard my vision started going dark. Twenty feet away, my pack was being beaten and eviscerated. I wanted to cry, to scream out to them to hold on… when a gate shimmered into existence just behind the demons as our circle suddenly snapped into place.

  The thing about circle traps is that summoned creatures can’t move through a circle. If they are in the circle, they cannot move out, and if that happening cuts off their power from the mage who summoned them… it isn’t pretty.

  Both demons exploded as the latent
energy from our circle, and their own constructed bodies, erupted into the night, briefly lighting things up enough for me to see a dozen figures rushing our way. I slid down the rock face, spent.

  “You ok, short stuff?” I asked Rose who was breathing heavily into my ear.

  “I think…” she said and took two more gasping breaths, “that you’ve got your mojo back. All of it. I don’t want no more,” she panted the rest out.

  “They just exploded,” Zania said, walking to us slowly.

  Vivian had collapsed, but I could see her eyes open, and she turned her head, looking downhill, tears still falling, but half a smile lit her face.

  Carnage was everywhere, but as I watched, the torn flesh from JJ going head to head with Mass started knitting shut, and the Weres who had been in human form had shifted and were healing also. Nobody looked unscathed, and nobody could stand straight, except for the large group headed our way. My pistols were empty, and I had lost one somewhere, but I still had my runed Gerber. I pulled it out of my pocket and flicked it open. The black parkerized blade didn’t reflect light, except where I’d honed the edge to a razor sharpness.

  “I don’t know who to help first,” Zania said.

  “My aunt—”

  “I’m sorry,” I murmured to Vivian, “I saw her fall.” I tapped my temple, “She’s beyond Zania’s help.”

  Vivian pushed herself to her knees and then retched, her body shuddering. I got to my feet shakily and looked into the future to see what happened if I approached the group coming for us. I saw that it was—

  “Wright,” Rasmussen’s voice came out of the darkness.

  “Need healers up here,” I called back, my voice shaky.

  “I’ve got you…” Zania said.

  “Help the others first,” I said pulling my necklace out of my shirt and taking it off. “I’ve got Vivian,” I said as I got the healing charm out and put it against her forehead and activated it.

  Now that I was waiting for it, I could actually feel the charm start its work and could tell when it started drawing on my own ‘mojo’. I broke contact, and her shuddering ceased. I should have been like that; I felt like I did when I woke up after nearly burning myself out. Vivian herself was nearly at death's door again from using so much raw power.