by Nazri Noor
Carver launched the first spell. A web of amber fire leapt from his fingers, flying across the room and cascading over the office workers.
“This should knock them out,” he said.
He must have cast sleeping magic, then, a spell he apparently liked to call the breath-stealer. The office-zombies followed the lattice of mystical energy with their eyes as it flew above them, landed on their heads – then sputtered and fizzled into nothing.
“Um – Carver?” My palms were sweaty. Well, okay, sweatier. “What’s going on?”
“I can’t believe this.” Carver’s face was a mix of fascination and annoyance. “They resisted the spell.” He gestured with his fingers again, preparing something that I prayed would do better than his opening gambit.
“My brother,” Sam said. “Adriel must have cast a protective mantle over them.” He frowned. “Simple disabling spells won’t work here. We can’t stun them or put them to sleep. We’ll have to fight.”
Almost as one, both from the outside and the inside of my head, I heard Sterling and Vanitas make low, amused cackles. I shook my head. Shouldn’t complain, I suppose. At least I knew that the bloodthirstiest things in the building, apart from Adriel, were fighting on our side.
A man in the front rank – loose tie, messy hair, his hand gripped tight around what looked like an incredibly heavy paperweight – lifted a fist and yelled at the top of his lungs. The others followed suit, some forty-something voices shrieking and bellowing in unison, and as one they fell upon us, scissors and box cutters and metal rulers flashing as deadly as daggers.
Vanitas soared forth in response, not even bothering to disengage his blade from his sheath. He smashed into the man who’d unleashed the first battle-cry, pummeling his torso to knock the wind out of him.
Sam had already waded into the fray, talking with his fists and surgically-placed chops to the throat, mowing down our attackers just as well as Prudence would in hand-to-hand combat. The glyphs engraved in his skin shimmered as he fought, probably the source of his inhuman strength.
I sank into the shadows, waiting for an opportunity to strike. I only had a few options. One was a Sneaky Dustin Special – I could shadowstep behind someone, reappear, then knock them out with a smack from a blunt object to the back of the head. The alternative was to get the drop on them, from a darkened spot in the ceiling, except that the newsroom was too brightly lit.
Option one it was then. I dashed and wove through battle, my blood pumping, my body moving to the soundtrack of people screaming and bones breaking. I tumbled as I reached for the very paperweight that man number one had dropped when Vanitas had finished beating the tar out of him.
A spindly woman screamed and came at me with a box cutter clutched in both her hands, using the weight of her body to drive momentum behind an overhead stab. I yelped and stepped into the Dark Room, sinking into the shadows underfoot. Above me the woman screeched her fury and stabbed her blade repeatedly into the spot in the carpet that had been my exit point. Holy shit. What the hell had Adriel done to these poor people? This didn’t seem angelic. Not very angelic at all.
Glass paperweight in hand, I dashed through the Dark Room. I chanced a look at it, narrowing my eyes as I recognized man number one’s picture embedded deep in the glass, along with a woman, and two smiling children.
Damn it. As if I needed another reminder that these were real people. We couldn’t very well hurt them, not when they weren’t in their right minds. But if we didn’t do something, the Comstock horde would surely tear us apart. I gritted my teeth, biting back my anger. I didn’t care how powerful Adriel thought he was. I was going to make him pay for this.
I sprinted through the pinpoint of light at the end of the Dark Room’s tunnel, emerging at the precise point I’d intended: right behind a portly man with rolled up sleeves and a huge metal beer stein in his hand. I whacked him in the back of the head. He crumpled to the ground with a loud thud.
This really was worse than fighting shrikes. With shrikes, I could have unleashed the Dark Room, or thrown some well-placed fireballs to fry them to a crisp. I picked out my next target, watching as Sterling punched and kicked his way through the crowd, very clearly holding back his strength.
Carver thrust both his hands out, a gout of pale fire lancing from his palms. It narrowed to a point, lashing like a whip across the room, and where it touched the hideous sound of bones breaking cracked across the floor.
I winced. These people were going to have serious medical bills when they came to, but getting hit by Carver’s bone-breaker was still a lot better than being turned to dust by one of his trademark disintegration spells.
I worked my way through two more attacks using my Specials. One was a younger dude, maybe an intern or a new hire. The other was a woman with a short bob, probably in her thirties. I felt bad about knocking them both out, but again, better unconscious than dead.
The newsroom was quieter. I looked around myself, panting, my arm heavy from the strain of lifting and actually attacking people with a paperweight. Wonder of wonders: the Boneyard, plus one angel, were the only ones left standing.
Both Carver and Sam looked enviably unmussed – Sam’s hair especially staying infuriatingly in place, as if sculpted that way by some celestial hairstylist. The tips of Sterling’s nails were caked in gore. He was pretty quick about flicking his tongue out to catch the last drops of blood dripping down the corner of his mouth, but we all still knew that he’d fed on at least one of the office-zombies.
“What?” he said, feigning innocence.
I shook my head. Vanitas flew to me, hovering by my side, the blood smeared across his sheath complementing the red of his garnets. I couldn’t tell you how I knew, but something about his demeanor told me he was happy. Appeased, even. I cleared my throat uncomfortably.
“That’s the last of them,” I said. “Now it’s a matter of finding Bastion.”
“And Adriel,” Sam said, his brow furrowed, eyes searching the expanse of the newsroom.
“That way,” Sterling said, sniffing at the air. “I’d know Bastion’s stink anywhere.”
Carver pointed down the same direction, to the end of a corridor, one of his eyes glowing. “Sterling is correct. We must proceed.”
We picked our way through the eerily abandoned office, moving carefully, just in case. Surely, for a space like the newsroom, there couldn’t have been just the forty or so people working that night. Comstock Media ran its own in-house studio, which I knew from catching a few broadcasts on the TV in the Boneyard’s break room – that is, when Sterling wasn’t watching one of his soap operas.
“Have your wits about you,” Carver warned. “I sense that there are more of these pawns lingering here.”
Sterling sniffed again. “Several. Lots. But Bastion’s smell is strongest.”
“It’s his frequency,” Sam said. “Adriel is doing a fine job of cloaking himself and his victims, but my brother has filled this Bastion friend of yours with so much power that he’s burning like a candle in the night.”
“More like a bonfire, really. So bright, in fact, that others can surely see him.” Carver threw his arm out. “Halt. Speaking of others.”
I whirled in place, my eyes checking for anything and everything suspicious. “Other humans? Ones that Adriel is controlling, you mean?”
Carver drew his lips back. “Worse.” Sterling crouched lower to the ground and snarled.
“He means others like us,” said a familiar voice, from somewhere within the labyrinth of cubicles.
Ah, fuck. I knew it. Not him again.
Chapter 27
Royce, a Scion of the Lorica and a certified pain in the ass, peered around a cubicle, then stepped into our path. His cheek was criss-crossed with fresh, newly-healing scars, the underside of one eye still bruised.
“Royce,” I said.
So he’d made it out of the Prism after all. I didn’t know whether to feel disappointment or relief. He was a major asshole
, yes, but I wasn’t sure he deserved a bloody death at the hands of the red sector’s prisoners. Still, the way he leered at me, I had a feeling I was going to change my mind on the matter pretty quick.
“Dustin Graves. I see you’ve brought friends.”
Sterling bared his fangs. Sam remained stoic as ever, but the sudden radiance from his tattoos spoke volumes. Carver muttered under his breath, a curse, perhaps, or a new spell.
“This time,” Royce said, “let’s even the odds. I’ve brought some friends of my own, too.”
From around corners or inside cubicles, in such a way as to very conveniently box us in, appeared two men and two women. Some I remembered from the night I sprung Mona from the Prism. I didn’t need to be told that all four were Hands.
“If you join us,” Carver said, “if you help us retrieve your colleague, then no harm will come to you.”
“The way that no harm came to these innocent people?” Royce guffawed, gesturing at the unconscious, bloodied bodies of Comstock Media’s employees. “I know who you are, lich. Your kind knows nothing but to seek power for power’s sake. I admire your restraint, though.” He held two fingers to his forehead, his eyes scanning. “No fatalities. Quite impressive.”
“We do things differently,” I said. “We don’t just burn down an entire warehouse full of corpses to hide the evidence.”
“And what would you have me tell the papers, exactly? Imagine the headlines.” Royce tilted his head, sticking his hands in his coat pockets. The others sank into guarded stances, watching him warily. What if he had a wand on him, or some other device? “Weren’t you a Hound, Graves? Back when you worked for us, I mean.”
“A Hound, yeah,” I said, all the while internally shouting for Vanitas to stand down. He was still sheathed, but I knew that he was only waiting for one false move from the Lorica to fly into a slicing frenzy. “What’s your point?”
We flinched when Royce pulled his hand out, but he only used it to stroke at the bare stubble on his chin. My eyes flew to watch his concealed hand, but my gaze kept going back to Royce’s face, and the way his features rearranged into something so derisive, so irritatingly arrogant.
“So you were a dog, then. You didn’t know anything about how the Lorica worked then, and you still don’t know now. It’s all about communication, public relations, keeping a squeaky clean image for the arcane underground.” He frowned, sneering when he spoke again. “It’s because of my dedication to the Veil that the normals haven’t tracked down and flayed your sorry asses, and you know it.”
“So much talking,” Sterling said. “Are you a Mouth? You are, aren’t you? First order of business: I rip your tongue out, then ram it down your throat.”
Royce gave Sterling a withering look, but he said nothing. No one ever talked about it, but the Lorica obviously had its prejudices against non-humans. Then he pointed at me.
“Hurt them,” Royce commanded. “Take them alive, but hurt them as much as you want.” He grinned at me. “Hurt this one the most.”
The Hands sprang into action, moving as fast as streaks of lightning, as quick as the crackling bolts of electricity one of them fired out of the tips of her fingers. We scattered, each of us instinctively pairing off against one of the Hands. Unfortunately, that left me to deal with Royce one on one.
“No deaths,” I mentally yelled after Vanitas as he sped across the room.
“Blood,” he thought back.
“Okay. But try not to take any limbs. Or fingers.”
His gleeful laughter rang around the inside of my head just as I heard one of the Hands scream in surprise, or possibly pain. I didn’t have time to look and check if Vanitas obeyed – Royce had already disappeared.
“Fuck,” I muttered to myself, slipping into the Dark Room. For once I didn’t have a target. I’d never considered fighting another teleporter before our first encounter in the Prism, and I still had no idea how to handle him. The best approach was to avoid getting touched at all. That was his deal: if he made skin on skin contact, he could gain control of my mind.
I ran through the Dark Room, hesitant about emerging back in reality. But what choice did I have? I wasn’t going to leave Carver and the others to fend for themselves. I reappeared in a far corner of the office, my back to the wall so I could strategize, gain my bearings.
A fist slammed into the back of my head. My skull went ringing, and my vision spun.
“Fuck,” I groaned, stumbling away from Royce. The bastard had Sneaky Dustin Specialed me. Me. Dustin, the guy who invented the move in the first place. I rubbed the back of my skull, grimacing at the bone-deep pain and gritting my teeth against the buzzing in my ears.
“You’re a piece of work, you know that?” I said, my eyes refocusing on Royce’s shit-eating grin.
“Funny.” He shrugged. “You know, that’s what my last two girlfriends said.”
He vanished again, and I doubled over, the air spinning out of me as he reappeared to slam his boot into my body. I fell to my knees, wheezing, clutching my stomach.
I spat onto the floor. “You’re a fucking asshole, Royce.”
“Quit flirting with me,” he said, chuckling. I yelped when he grabbed a fistful of my hair, pulling my head up to face him, the way he’d done at the Prism. God but I hated myself. How the hell had I fallen for the same tricks?
“Not this shit again,” I mumbled. “You’re not getting your hooks in my brain this time.”
He laughed. “All it takes is a couple of fingers on your forehead, and I’m in.” He flexed the fingers of his other hand, his knuckles popping, cracking. “Buckle up, Graves. Or don’t. This is going to hurt either way, and I’m going to enjoy it.”
My breathing quickened as I watched his fingers loom in. Too late to summon Vanitas, or even to call on the Dark Room. My hand twitched as I very briefly considered setting him on fire, but then he’d just teleport away, put it out, then come back to harass me again. That was it, then. Only one option.
Null Dagger in hand, I stabbed him, deep and hard in the meatiest part of his thigh. Royce screamed. I shoved the blade harder. He let go of my hair and I staggered away, perhaps enjoying the look of panic on his face a little too much.
“You trying to teleport away? Come on, Royce. Fun’s just getting started. Stick around a while.”
He kept screaming, his hands hovering over the Null Dagger.
“Don’t be such a baby. You’re not gonna bleed to death.” Hell, what did I know? I wasn’t a doctor. But I could help in one regard, make him forget some of the pain.
“Vanitas,” I thought. “Send the scabbard.”
“On it.”
From far across the newsroom Vanitas’s blunt half came whistling. Royce was too busy yowling about the blade stuck halfway through his leg to see the threat coming. The scabbard slammed into his face, leaving a nasty imprint of its ornate engravings in his cheek, and likely, another black eye to go with the first one. His lashes fluttered, his eyes losing focus. Then Royce toppled to the ground with a heavy thump.
“Good dog,” I said to his motionless body. “Stay down.”
I got to my knees, swerving out of the way as Vanitas’s scabbard flew right back into battle, then retrieved the Null Dagger, wiping its blade on the corner of Royce’s coat. Hah. He deserved that cleaning bill, on top of the wound in his leg and the possible concussion.
I ran back towards the center of the office, the Null Dagger’s field still generating that odd, fuzzy buzzing around my hand. Lucky that it could only dispel magic in a small range, and even luckier that it truly worked its best when thrust deep in someone’s body.
It meant I could still use my magic with it in hand. If we timed things right, if we got him distracted enough, I could quickly shadowstep behind Bastion when we found him, stab him nice and deep, and end Adriel’s enthrallment. No sweat.
But to be safe, I kept the Null Dagger lowered as I approached the thick of battle. Correction: what was once the thick of battle. Tw
o of the Hands were softly snoring on the ground, no doubt struck down by one of Carver’s breath-stealers. Sam stood silently over a third Hand, his unconscious face swollen and bruised. Sterling was bent over the body of a fourth, this one riddled with nicks and cuts, courtesy of Vanitas.
“Dude,” I said. “Sterling. Come on, not cool.”
He wiped his mouth guiltily as he turned to me, frowning. “It was a freebie, okay? I didn’t even bite him. I just lapped up whatever your sword cut out of him.”
“Gross.”
“No,” Sterling said. “You are.”
“That doesn’t even make sense.”
Carver coughed. “If you children are quite done, then perhaps we can move on – finally – to seeking out and neutralizing the Bastion boy.”
“Agreed,” Sam said. He’d hardly broken a sweat, though his knuckles were redder, both from repeated impact, and a little bit of blood. A Hand’s blood, evidently, not his.
“Back to the end of the corridor,” Carver said, leading the way. We followed, Vanitas hovering at my side, flanking me with blade and scabbard.
“So did you have fun?” I thought to him.
“Oh, yeah. Lots. And I didn’t even cut off any extremities.” He sounded satisfied, and maybe a little proud of himself.
“Good for you,” I thought. “The night’s not over, though. I’m convinced there’s more violence on the horizon.”
Vanitas laughed. “Bring it.”
It almost felt like a video game. You make your way through the mooks, all the low-level goons, then you hit a mid-boss, the penultimate Big Bad. And then you make it to the final boss and hope against hope that you’ll live through the encounter. The difference, of course, was that this was real life. You don’t get extra lives. One wrong move and it’s game over.
Carver cast one last spell as we approached the door at the end of the hall, one that wrapped cocoons of orange fire around our bodies. As the flames faded, I felt more durable, empowered. We had to hope that Carver’s shields would be enough to protect us from what was coming next.
