Summoned to Destroy

by C L Walker

  “What?” Bannon said. “You put him back?”

  “Yes, and let’s make sure nobody can ever summon him again, alright?”

  The world vanished completely as I was locked away in prison. I had a moment to wonder if the world would still exist when I was next called.

  It could have been two minutes or two billion years, but the words eventually sounded in the silence to call me back.

  “Agmundr, vochex.”

  Chapter 31

  “Agmundr, vochex.”

  It was her voice dragging me out of the darkness. Her voice bringing me back to the world.

  “Agmundr, vochex.”

  Erindis, the woman I had sacrificed my life and my freedom for. Erindis, who had betrayed me.

  “Agmundr, vochex.”

  Her voice split the dark and brought the world into focus. We were in an empty parking garage. Faded paint told me we were on level B3, but otherwise I had no idea where, or when, we were.

  She stepped out of a circle drawn with blood and globs of muscle and bone. She paced around me, observing me as I seethed. She had to step around soldiers lying dead on the ground to return to her initial circle.

  She bowed her head and mumbled the words to complete the summoning.

  “How long has it been?” I said. “How long did it take?”

  “Three days,” she said. She was wearing tight jeans and a dirty white top. She had blood on her hands.

  “What’s happening?”

  I didn’t want to care what her answer was. I didn’t want to hear it; I wanted to treat her like every other misguided master who’d dared summon me. I wanted to threaten her and wish her harm, to warn about the dire consequences that would befall her if she didn’t put me back and leave me alone.

  But she was Erindis, and despite myself I wanted to do whatever she asked.

  She approached me and tried to put her hand on my naked chest. I took a step back and out of reach.

  “What do you want, Erindis?”

  “I had to return you,” she said. She was checking the corners of the room, glancing at me briefly as we spoke but focusing on her lines of sight. “He would have killed you otherwise.”

  “You didn’t want me to free you. You resisted from the moment I found you with Bannon. Don’t lie to me.”

  “I have an order for you,” she said, finally settling and gazing into my eyes. “I want you to see what happened, and to see what I need you to do.”

  Memories appeared in my mind, brief snippets of conversations and situations that were important to her orders. They were her memories and her knowledge, meant to fill in the gaps for her slave.

  Erindis, being threatened by Invehl. He wanted her to summon me and didn’t understand why she couldn’t. He told her he’d kill her if she disobeyed, that he’d find her and flay her if she ran.

  Erindis, fetching the locket and choosing not to kill my friends. Handing it over to Invehl and accepting his plan for dominating the other gods.

  Invehl, crowing about me, about my strength and the world I was about to deliver to him. Erindis playing along.

  I didn’t get her thoughts and feelings but I could see them on her face. I could read her better than the cruel men who held her captive. She wanted to rebel, to fight the evil that had captured her, but she knew better. She’d learned better through centuries of hardship.

  Erindis, handing the locket to Invehl in the lobby of his fancy building only to see him hand it to Bannon and order it effectively destroyed.

  Erindis, tracking down the men charged with completing the task. She killed them all from the shadows, shooting them and cutting them, ending their lives with precision and skill.

  “You learned to fight,” I said.

  “A long time ago, my love. I had to.”

  “Why? Why lie to me? Why hide this from me?”

  She looked away again, checking the corners once more. “Because he was listening. Always listening. Him and that disciple of his, following me around and making sure we weren’t colluding.”

  “And now?” I said. “Can we run now?”

  She shook her head before she spoke and I sighed in response.

  “He is too powerful to ignore,” she said. “And getting more powerful. He’s already been through the gate.”

  I didn’t want to care. Not about her and not about the heavens. I found, though, that I didn’t have a choice.

  “You want me to stop him,” I said.

  “I want you to kill him.”

  I drew her attention to my nakedness and the dormant tattoos covering my skin.

  “I can’t face a god. I don’t think I could have done it in the lobby but I certainly can’t now.”

  “You had power, before.”

  “And it didn’t come with me into the locket. You’ve summoned me here on a fool’s errand, my love.”

  Now it was her turn to step away. She put her hand over her mouth and turned, still checking the parking garage for any sign of enemies.

  “We should run. There is no way we can face him now.”

  I was lying. Or, rather, I wasn’t telling the whole truth. As I was at that moment I couldn’t face him, and I did believe we should run. But I already had a plan, stupid though it was, for how I could face the god and win. I didn’t have to tell her though.

  “Then what good are you?” she said, slowly turning to face me. Her expression had changed again, turning hard and cold. “This is when I need you, Agmundr. This is what you can do to make things right. Find a way to kill him.”

  “This isn’t you, Erindis. You can’t—”

  “You don’t know who I am. You’re in love with a phantom, a dead elder god who lived in my head for a year. Thousands of years ago, at that. I am not her, and if you want to find out who I am you’ll find a way to kill Invehl.”

  She had ordered me to do it, even if she didn’t realize she’d said the words. I didn’t have a choice.

  More pitifully, I wanted to help her. I wanted to do what she told me to, even if it would lead to my death or the death of others.

  I slowly nodded and watched her face light up. In a moment she was her old self again, even with the blood caking her arms.

  “I’ll need clothes,” I said.

  “I’ve got you covered.” She ran up the ramp to the higher level and returned with a bundle in her hands.

  I put the clothes on – jeans and a t-shirt, good boots – and tried to think through the next steps. I needed something to power the tattoos and though I didn’t want to mess around with vampires I suspected they were my only option. The angel guarding the gate would probably have worked, but if Invehl had gone through he would have had to take care of him. The hollow man was most likely dead, which left me with very few other options.

  “We need to visit some friends of mine,” I said. Bec would know how to get in touch with Artem, and he wanted my help with the rebels. He’d give me what I needed. “You’ve met them.”

  “Your former master?” She was surprised, as though the idea had never occurred to her that I might speak to Bec again. Normally she would have been right.

  “Let’s get out of here. Do you have a car?”

  “Yes,” she said. “It’s outside.”

  The door to the stairwell opened and Invehl stepped out. Erindis pulled further away from me instinctively.

  “Now why would you do this?” he said. I could see he was more powerful by how unreal everything looked compared to him. It was like he was seared onto my eyes.

  “Don’t come any closer,” Erindis said. She was still backing away. “I’ll have him kill you.”

  Invehl laughed. Bannon and a handful of soldiers were running down the ramp, guns ready.

  “If he could do that he would have already,” Invehl said. “Sergeant, get my prisoners.”

  Bannon’s men lifted their rifles and took aim while one moved to grab Erindis, but Bannon approached me himself. He dropped his firearm on the ground and drew a large
knife.

  “You’re going to fight me?” I said. Even without the tattoos the man stood no chance. I was twice his size and I’d been doing this a lot longer than he had.

  “Let’s see what you’ve got,” he said. He stopped a few feet away, outside striking distance. “I’ve finally got the green light to take you down.”

  The soldiers had Erindis and the tattoos were itching to do something about it, but I had to deal with their leader before I took them on. And it was all for nothing, because I’d seen Invehl fight when he was just testing me, before he’d grown in power.

  We were screwed, so I figured I’d go down fighting.

  I feinted left and struck right, scoring a hit immediately. My fist slammed into his face and immediate pain exploded from it. He didn’t move. He didn’t even flinch.

  “Surprise,” he said, grinning sadistically. “You’re not the only one cheating anymore.”

  He slashed at me and I barely dodged the blade. Another strike and I was backing away and he was starting to laugh. He stabbed and I stepped aside, only for him to kick me in the side and drive me to my knees. His blade was at my throat, his free hand pulling my head into the killing position, and there was nothing I could do.

  “I liked working with you,” Invehl said as he started walking toward us. “So I made them like you. It’s expensive, but I’ve got divinity to burn these days.”

  “They will stop you,” I said, with no idea who ‘they’ were.

  “The angels?” he said. “They can’t touch me, even in the heavens. The other gods? They’re nothing compared to me now. Anger is pissed, unsurprisingly.”

  “Agmundr,” Erindis said, a desperate edge to her voice. “Kill them all.”

  The tattoos had me fighting Bannon, forcing me to rise. But the soldier was stronger than me and he pushed me down with ease.

  “Knock him out,” Invehl said.

  “I can kill him,” Bannon replied. He pressed the blade against my skin until I felt the fire of him cutting.

  “I want to see if I can draw out the blood used in his tattoos,” Invehl said. “That’ll be a boost unlike any other.”

  Bannon pushed the blade deeper, breathing heavily in my ear. He was so angry he was shaking.

  “Now, sergeant.”

  Invehl’s order finally got through to the soldier and he pulled the knife away from my throat. I knew what was coming next.

  A sharp pain in my head, and the world went black.

  Chapter 32

  His first punch knocked three teeth loose. I swallowed one before spitting the other two out.

  “I hated you,” Bannon said. “So superior. So arrogant.”

  His next punch came so fast I wasn’t prepared for it. I didn’t roll with it. It fractured my jaw and agony wrapped around my head like a vise.

  “But I see now why you were that way. You actually were superior. Catching that bullet scared me. I still can’t do that, but I can do a lot of other things.”

  He kicked me in the stomach and I tumbled away from him. My hands were tied behind my back and I couldn’t stop myself.

  “Why you let me live is a mystery to me,” he said. He grabbed me by the neck and lifted me off the ground, then dragged me back into the circle of light in the middle of the dark room.

  “Invehl wants me alive,” I said. I heard the desperation in my voice.

  “Sure, so I won’t kill you until he’s done. Doesn’t mean I can’t have a little fun while we’re waiting.”

  I’d woken up in the room with no idea where we were. The only person I’d seen was Bannon, and all he’d been doing was beating me. I had no idea where Erindis was or what state she was in; Invehl could have tried to kill her, testing the limits of her immortality. Not knowing what was happening to her hurt more than what Bannon was doing.

  “Do you know,” he said as he forced me back onto my knees, “I think I’m getting younger. Check it, I’ve got gray hairs popping up all over the place these days, but this morning I woke up and I think there’s fewer of them. Isn’t that something?”

  “When I kill you I’ll be sure to check.” It was false bravado, the desperate babbling of a condemned man. I’d seen it enough times, when an enemy knew they were going to die and suddenly had to keep talking, as though the world would save them if they just kept making a noise.

  It was pathetic, a sign of my weakness, and I hated it.

  “I didn’t know how I was going to get you,” Bannon continued. “I knew I would, though. Just not how.”

  He punched me in the stomach and I felt something inside burst. The feeling was painless but it had my heart thumping hard in my chest. This man could kill me and there wasn’t anything I could do about it. I was at his mercy, like so many of my enemies had been over the years.

  The metal door clanged as the bolt was drawn and Invehl entered. Bannon paused, staring at me for a moment before standing aside to let his god have his way.

  “I have a theory,” Invehl said. He crouched before me, bringing his eyes level with mine. “I think your tattoos are the last remaining trace of the elder god Ohm. And I think I can take that trace from you.”

  “They are tattoos, mad god,” I said. I was swallowing blood and my head hurt every time I moved my broken jaw. “Nothing more; not anymore.”

  “Au contraire. I can see the power in them, even if you can’t. Bring her in.”

  A soldier entered and pulled Erindis in after him. He positioned her before the door, his hand on the back of her neck.

  “I want her to watch this,” the god said. “You know, it was her idea to bring you back? It was her idea to fetch the heartstones. It was all her idea, even double-crossing me once I had what I wanted.”

  I watched Erindis for a reaction and saw what I’d hoped: stunned disbelief. He was making things up to get to me, but I knew my wife better than he did.

  “I was there, at the end of days,” Invehl continued. “I saw what she could do. The ease with which she reshaped reality to her whim. Do you know how we reshape reality? The regular, garden-variety gods, that is. We work hard and build empires.”

  “You are still weak, Invehl,” I said. “Killing me won’t make you stronger.”

  “And? It will still be what you deserve, even if I’m wrong.”

  He stood and spared a moment for Erindis. She gave him nothing, squaring her shoulders and hiding her feelings.

  “You had her inside you,” he said. “You felt what it was like. Tell me, do you still dream of it?”

  I saw the flash on her flash, quickly hidden; she did still dream of her time as Ohm.

  He spun again to face me. “That’s what I want, even if it’s just a taste. I want to be able to change reality with a thought. To reshape the world because I will it. And you’re going to help me.”

  He held his hand over my head and closed his eyes. I couldn’t tell if there was anything happening; my jaw hurt and I felt a strange wetness inside, but neither of those were his doing.

  Bannon stood to the side, glaring at me. He had his knife in his hand, ready to jump to his god’s defense if he felt it warranted. I didn’t think he was going to need to do anything.

  The tattoos began to squirm, twitching and shifting around on my skin the way they did when I was disobeying a master too bluntly, or about to go into battle. Invehl lowered his hand and laid it on my head, his eyes still closed as he focused on something I could imagine.

  He was doing it, I realized. The tattoos were going insane, their constant moves driving me crazy as well. They were reacting to him, and as he moved his hand down the back of my head they seemed to follow him, like metal near a magnet. I felt my skin bulging beneath his hand.

  He took a small glass jar from his pocket and awkwardly unscrewed it with one hand. Then it was pressed against my back and I felt something I’d never thought I would: a tattoo disappearing.

  It was like losing a toe. It was something you didn’t need and something you never thought about, but whe
n it was gone you missed it. I felt the spot where it had been like someone was holding a lantern up to it, like my skin was feeling the air for the first time.

  He stepped away, jamming the lid on the jar and stumbling backward into Bannon’s arms.

  “That was harder than I thought,” he said. “I’m almost tapped out.”

  The jar in his hand held blood. Old blood the color of dirt, partially congealed and dead. But I could feel the power in it without my tattoos, a deep, dark pull that I didn’t want to fight.

  “I’ll be fine,” Invehl said, pushing himself away from Bannon. “Again.”

  He repeated the action, running his hand over my skin until he found a tattoo that matched some criteria and holding a new glass jar to it. Another tattoo removed and this time the toll on him was more obvious. He looked like he hadn’t slept in a month, his hair hanging in dirty streaks across his cheeks, his eyes sunken in his skull.

  “You’re going to hurt yourself, my lord,” Bannon said, but he didn’t stop Invehl when he came back for even more.

  This tattoo was on my chest and I saw what happened. My skin stretched to reach his hand and ran into the lip of the jar. The tattoo seemed to crawl from my skin, inching its way inside before he pulled it away and slammed the lid on.

  Invehl’s legs gave out on him and he fell to the floor before me. Bannon was there immediately, shielding his god from me and helping him to his feet.

  “Now to see what it can do,” the god said, smiling despite the obvious pain he was in.

  He opened one of the jars and held it to his lips, then tossed it back like alcohol and swallowed.

  The effect was instant: he was his former self again, more real than reality. Then he was gone from the room and Bannon looked around as though he might be hiding in a corner. Then he was back and smiling so much I thought he’d gone mad.

  “Can you feel it, Agmundr? Erindis? Bannon, my disciple? Can you feel it?”

  I could. I’d felt it before, when I’d sat on a throne beside Erindis, after Ohm had given her power. It was like sitting beside a parent when you were scared, or standing before your father when he was angry. It was like loving and hating, being terrified and attracted, desperately wanting to serve and to run at the same time. It was all these things and it was more, like a pain in my bones that could only be remedied by this being before me, if only I could discover how.