by M. Walsh
At last, he understood why his father wanted no part of the Vigorian conflict. Why Lock never took to combat, and what Troa and Seria meant when they urged restraint. His only regret was he couldn’t have understood it sooner. Perhaps, if he had, his family would have been spared this pain.
The Jackal thrust with his claws, but Deck caught his arm and rammed his shoulder into his chest. The Jackal grunted and attempted to plunge his free claws into Deck’s neck.
He ducked the attack and, with his arm still wrapped around the Jackal’s left elbow, jerked up and heard a satisfying pop. The Jackal barked, but was greeted with another head-butt that broke his nose.
Deck threw the dazed lunatic to the ground with disgust and stomped his foot onto the Jackal’s back. He then stepped onto the right set of claws, holding them down with his weight. With one arm pinned and the other broken, the Jackal was helpless.
Deck looked at Cassie and saw relief on her face. He nodded at her, but felt little satisfaction from his victory. Even with the Jackal defeated, they still lost Lock.
“Any last words?” he asked, raising his sword.
The Jackal looked up at him, his face smeared with blood from his broken nose. “Just one.”
He was moving before Deck knew what was happening. He didn’t even feel the claws beneath his foot move—the Jackal slid his arm from the gauntlet with shocking ease and speed. Deck only saw the quick glint of metal before the dagger was slit into his gut.
“Surprise.”
Deck hesitated, staring at the small knife stuck in his abdomen. Before he could react, the Jackal twisted the blade and pulled it up—cutting open his gut. Sounding very far away, Cassie made a noise like a wounded kitten.
He stumbled back and dropped his broadsword before sinking to his knees. He continued staring at his wound, which was now pouring blood, as if he couldn’t believe it was there.
The Jackal got to his feet, his broken arm hanging limp and a bloody dagger in his right hand. “You didn’t really think I’d favor weapons like these,” he said, giving the empty clawed gauntlet a kick. “If I couldn’t slip in and out of them whenever I needed?”
“NO!”
Deck saw Cassie. Somehow she had a sword in her hand and tears were streaming down her face. He wanted to scream out to her—tell her to turn and run. She charged at the Jackal with a clumsy swing, but he sidestepped and slapped her aside.
He hit her with the hand still holding the dagger, and to Deck’s horror, he saw a spray of blood erupt from her face as she fell to the ground. Seeing her face-down, with a puddle of blood growing around her head and soaking into her hair, Deck wanted to let out a howl—but no sound came.
“You know,” said the Jackal as he picked up Deck’s broadsword and held it to his neck. “I told your brother heroes get other people killed, while good boys get themselves killed.”
Deck was frozen. This couldn’t be happening. He couldn’t have let this happen. Not to Lock. Not to Cassie. It couldn’t have gone so wrong …
“You got the worst of both worlds. Lucky you.”
The Jackal swung the sword, and that was the end of Deck Synclaire.
59
“You truly are one of a kind.”
Lily had found a high hill and watched the carnival burn. She was thinking of the things Shade said, wondering if she ever would find a place or way of living in peace without hurting others, when Tobias Dust emerged from the shadows behind her.
He retained his human form, but his glamour was waning. His flesh appeared yellow and too loose. His eyes were dark and inhuman, and his teeth looked like they were rotting from his mouth.
She sensed no anger from him. Despite his deteriorating human form, he looked pleased to see her. Then she realized, in all the chaos of burning the carnival and fighting Shade, she never saw what happened to him.
“You knew what I would do, didn’t you?” she asked.
He smiled and shambled forward.
“You knew, and you let me do it.”
“Shade suspected,” Dust said. “She suspected I had special plans for you. But she never guessed what or why.”
He took another step, but Lily stepped back. “They were your tribe,” she said. “Your people.”
“They were worthless,” he said. “A prison. But you … you are …”
“I’m what?”
“A chance for freedom,” he said. “Don’t you understand, Lilith? You are unique. You are special. I don’t think even your masters realized what they had with you.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You are the next step. Don’t you see? I never thought our kind could crossbreed. A succubus and an orc … somehow, it’s made you … made you something unlike anything our kind has ever seen. A human form with an orc’s strength. You can drain your prey right away … no need for seduction or tricks.
“And the way you think … you see beyond mere survival. You have desire. You crave … crave for more than just your next victim. You are beyond our kind.”
Lily stared at him, feeling dumbfounded by what he was saying. She thought of Benedict Vogel again. He had said she was an anomaly—something that would be deemed unnatural by her kind and destroyed. And yet, here was a fellow demon declaring her something grand.
“Dust,” she said. “I don’t … I’m not any of those things. I just … I told you, I don’t know why I am the way I am.”
“It doesn’t matter,” he said, his face continuing to twist into his true form. “What matters is what you can bring to our kind. What you can bring for me.”
“For you..?”
“Through you, I won’t need a tribe ever again. With you, I can transcend being a mere ghoul. I can become more. I can become like you.”
“Dust,” she said, taking another step back. “I can’t change you. I wouldn’t even know how to begin …”
“We can find out,” he said, reaching out to her with a deformed, clawed hand. “Isn’t this what you always wanted, Lilith? A companion..? Someone like you..? With your help, I can become like you.”
Lily hesitated. “Really..?” she said. “You want to be like me..?”
“Of course! And together … together we can sire a new breed of demons!”
She frowned.
“Don’t you see?” he shouted, looking elated and deranged. “We belong together! Together, we can harken a new age of demons and make this world cater to us! It’s as I told you: the humans are beneath us! Together, with you by my side, we will finally take our rightful place above them and the rest of our kind! Isn’t that what you’ve been searching for Lilith?! Isn’t it—”
Dust was cut off when she plunged her dagger into his heart. She could listen to no more. She couldn’t watch this madman—with his human form melting away before her eyes—speak of evolution, new breeds, and domination. Even if she could help him transform into something beyond a reaver, she wouldn’t.
He had a moment to stare at her, shocked and horrified, as his body melted away into inky pus and bone like his fellow reavers before him.
“My name,” she said, before he died, “is Lily.”
60
It was always cold in Sebastian Clock’s tower. Even with Seba burning, a constant, unnatural chill haunted its corridors. The cold was worst in the lower levels and concentrated near the locked chamber at the foundation. There stood a massive door inscribed with powerful spells and runes. It was believed Roderick Bane had hidden something behind this door, though no one knew what or how to open it.
The Jackal knew.
After killing the Synclaire boy, the Jackal proceeded to the tower. The sister was still breathing, but he chose to move on. He had more important things to do, and she wasn’t so pretty anymore with her eye missing.
He encountered no trouble or resistance. He strolled past the sea of bodies littering Mannix Square with a song in his heart. Even his broken arm didn’t bother him. When he found the chamber with its locked door, the Jac
kal felt the power hidden within. He was no mage, but he knew the Black when he felt it, and it was stirring.
Looking at the door, he wondered if the fools who occupied the tower after Bane’s death were aware of what slept beneath their feet. Not that it would’ve mattered if they did, he supposed, but he found the people in Seba and their squabbles for power petty and meaningless in comparison.
What were they against such purity? Such absolute?
He approached the door and put Bane’s Gauntlet on his right hand. A cold chill ran up his arm, and he relished it. He sensed the anticipation coming from behind the door. He, too, was eager to have it open.
Maybe a powerful enough mage could harness something out of the Gauntlet. Maybe those fools who called themselves Bane’s disciples could’ve done something with it. He couldn’t be sure, but the Jackal doubted it. Why would someone as powerful as Roderick Bane store a portion of his power in some random object any fool could use?
He pressed the Gauntlet’s fist into the center padlock and twisted. There was a loud clank, and the room shuddered. Removing his hand from the Gauntlet, the Jackal grinned and stepped aside as a low hiss filled the room. The chains keeping the doors contained burst, one by one, and a sound like laughter echoed—for the Jackal knew the Gauntlet wasn’t a source of power.
Its true purpose was a key.
The shadows danced as the door crept opened and the Elder Demon within slithered out. The ancient beast flourished in the darkness, formless and made of shadow, free at last to wreak whatever havoc it chose.
* * *
Katrina didn’t allow herself time to mourn Jagger. After his death, she escaped the tower and left Seba through the north. By the time she reached Noel, the worst of the riot had passed and the burning city glowed in the night like an enormous lantern.
The district was like a ghost town. It appeared most residents fled, and if anyone remained, they were hiding. Needing a horse, she passed the stable only to find it burnt and deserted as well. She sighed, worried she might have to go on foot or find a ship in Frank, when she came upon a familiar steed rummaging through the stable ruin.
“Did you wait for me?”
Hyde snuffed and snarled, but went to her with his head down. She patted the black destrier and rubbed his neck. She looked at the scars that mapped his body and found herself oddly comforted to be reunited with the ill-tempered horse.
“I guess we’re stuck with each other.”
She rode through most of the night and following day, staying close to the coast. Around sunset, she stopped to rest. The sky turned a golden pink, and a gentle breeze came from the sea. In the distance behind her, Seba was shrouded in a fog of smoke. After spending so much time in that stifling hell, she welcomed a chance to savor some beauty and peace.
In a few days, she would reach the port near where Gain used to be and charter a ship across the Spade Sea. She’d head west, but beyond that, she didn’t know. She wasn’t even sure what to feel.
There was a time when she was the Vigorian Princess—destined to save her people and bring them a new golden age. Most of her life had been spent for that purpose. But it was for nothing, and she’d been trying to dull the pain with a steady stream of alcohol ever since. She understood now that as much as she thought she was letting go, she was just carrying it with her like a burden.
She looked at the sea before her, towards the north, and imagined that small village by Lester. There the last remnants of her people lived. The thought of trying to join them again came briefly, but she cast it aside. Vigor was gone, and what remained of her people didn’t want her. That life was over and her inability to save Jagger was the final proof of that.
She took out her black-bladed sabre and stared at it. She was not the Vigorian Princess anymore—but she couldn’t be Rien the wandering drifter either. All the years she spent as Rien, hoping to forget the past, was her way of trying to be dead inside. But all she was doing was hiding. Letting the pain and hate eat away at her.
Scifer was right: as much as she tried, she couldn’t stop caring.
Anathema.
The word came to her suddenly, and it had an appeal. It seemed a fitting name for her sword. It suited her. Anathema—the unwanted, cursed, and doomed to die.
Taking a breath, she sheathed her sword, mounted Hyde, and rode on. She didn’t know where she would go, but that didn’t matter. She wouldn’t keep clinging to her life in Vigor. Not just hoping she could reclaim it in some way, but letting it haunt her. It was time to move on. She would not be Rien any longer.
She was Katrina Lamont—but not the fallen Princess of Vigor either.
As for what that meant …
“Whatever I want it to mean.”
* * *
Before leaving Seba, Krutch stopped by one of the looted shops and helped himself to a satchel for the shells. He resisted the temptation to escape the city via the Goblin’s Vein canal again and walked out through the western gate into Frank. Although several fires were still raging, the worst of the riot had burned itself out by then.
He ended up back at the Ugly Pig. The liquor had been stolen and several tables were shattered, but the place was deserted. Racked with pain and exhaustion, he went upstairs and eased into a bed with Arkady at his side in case someone came knocking. He passed out immediately and enjoyed a deep sleep.
He awoke the following morning feeling better, though still sore. He was eager to find a ship and get away, but relished a chance to sit and relax first. His head was still ringing after the explosion in the Tombs. His thigh throbbed from where Vident stabbed him. He had numerous other aches, pains, and bruises from getting smacked around by guards and blown up again.
If his experience with the dragon taught him he was no hero, his time in Seba confirmed what he already knew: he was no pirate. Whatever he achieved was based on dumb luck and his cursed reputation. Even if he accepted Serk and the Goblins hoisting him as the new power in Seba, he would never be able to hold it. He wasn’t clever or ruthless enough. He could never be like Sebastian Clock or Jonathon Gash.
And maybe that’s not such a bad thing, he thought.
He considered sleeping another day in the Ugly Pig, but decided to get moving. He stepped outside and glanced at Seba. The smell of fire lingered in the air, and black smog hovered over the large city like a sinister storm. Taking a final look, he felt no regret turning his back on the plateau once and for all.
He started down the street for the docks, when he found a familiar looking man clad head-to-toe in armor kicking the Ugly Pig’s bartender as he lay on the ground. It took a moment, but Krutch recognized him as Brick—the violent-tempered member of the Brute Squad. He was holding onto a young woman with auburn hair, who looked terrified.
“You don’t talk shit to me, you brastid!” Brick roared. “I takes what I want, when I want! You don’t talk back to me, brastid!”
Krutch limped forward and said, “You talk too loud, and I think the lady isn’t interested.”
Brick hesitated, turning to him, and smirked beneath his steel helmet. “Who the hell are you?”
“Name’s Krutch Leeroy.”
Brick threw the woman to ground and held up his war-hammer. “Well, well,” he said. “The great Krutch Leeroy..? Tell you what, brastid, I always wanted a chance to—”
Arkady fired, and there was a deafening clang of metal. The big man hunched over and made a noise that sounded very much like a woman. Blood poured from his crotch, and he crumbled to the ground in a heap. The woman and the Pig’s bartender both looked on in awe.
“Help me!” Brick shrieked, clutching his wounded groin. “HELP ME!”
Krutch glanced at his smoking pistol, a little impressed the bullet could pierce armor. He was only counting on it hurting a lot. He strolled over to the downed man and pointed the gun at his face.
“By the way,” he said. “It’s pronounced bastard, you ignorant piece of shit.”
He squeezed the trigger, a
nd the burst of thunder sounded with a loud clang from the bullet cracking Brick’s metal helmet. For good measure, he fired one more time.
There was a moment of stunned silence as the shots echoed to nothing. Brick’s body twitched as blood squirted from the holes in his helmet. The woman, bartender, and anyone else watching stared with their eyes wide and mouths agape.
Krutch stuffed the pistol in his pocket and limped away. Behind him, the woman said, “Th—thank you! Thank you so much..!”
He looked at her and sighed. He was no hero, nor was he a pirate. So what was he?
“Don’t thank me, ma’am,” he said. “I’m just an idiot with a gun.”
* * *
Lock Synclaire remembered cold and wetness. But he awoke to warmth and comfort, and for a moment, he thought it had all been a dream and the scarred, grinning monster standing over him nothing more than a nightmare. It was when he moved and felt the terrible pain in his gut he realized it was no dream.
He wasn’t sure where he was, but he was in a bed, and it was raining outside. He looked over and saw Seria sitting beside him. His first thought was she looked better. Her color had returned, although she still looked tired. When she noticed he was awake, her face lit up and seemed to glow even in the overcast light.
“Thank the gods!” she said, her eyes filling with tears. “I was afraid we were going to lose you!”
He attempted to speak, but the effort made the pain in his stomach flare.
“Easy,” she said. “Don’t strain yourself. You’re lucky to be alive.”
“He’s lucky you were there to get him to safety,” said Troa, coming in from the other room. The Eldér was bruised, wearing a sling, and limping, but alive and well. “You are fortunate, Lockhart. There were times we feared the worst. It seems you share your brother’s tenacity.”
He had many questions, but every effort to speak sent sharp pains into his abdomen. All he could manage was a hoarse choke of: “Deh. Cah.”
