by Peter John
I waited. Hardly daring to breathe. I wanted to look out the room and down the passage. Surely the officer had moved from the elevator along the passage. Surely he was just now a few meters from me. Just outside the door. Would I get a better chance? Could he really sense me? And how the fuck had he known my name?
Edging myself low down I quickly glanced around the doorway. What I saw left my mind reeling and the complexities of my predicament suddenly came apart.
What I saw, what I could see standing not five meters away from me was a human male. An old man by all appearances, with a white-trimmed beard and sparkling blue eyes. Eyes that seemed to dance with an inner blue flame.
He was looking right at me and he smiled. It could have been a friendly smile from a neighbor, except for the dark malice and a slight twist of the lips, giving the impression that all his smiles were predatory, not genial and even those didn’t happen often. His body was covered from his toes to his neck in a dark and vaporous cloud, shifting and obscuring his shape slightly but leaving me in no doubt that he wore a plate mail straight from the dark ages beneath it.
“Petros” he intoned ingratiatingly. Again that unpracticed smile, “No need to grovel mate. stand up now, let me have a look at ye” His Australian accent left me in no doubt that he was from Earth, but that he could see through my invisibility left me feeling completely vulnerable. A very dangerous man this bloke. I did just as he said and stood up. The butchery was still going on some way in the distance behind me, and it was just me and this arsehole. Exactly the way it was meant to be.
“You came down the pipes, right?” he said while I moved into the corridor. My blade held before me. “They told me you were quite inventive. I admit I didn’t think of it until the ward on the Princesses door was broken. I thought to myself, how on Earth did you get down below me, when we hadn’t even cleared the door for you yet.” He chuckled and seemed completely at ease. Old he was, but his body had that black mist surrounding it, only his head and hands were clear of it. He moved like an agile panther. I would not be underestimating this man.
Careful and cunning. He was dangerous. I could sense it, and every fiber of my being was screaming at me to run.
I stepped back. He stepped forward.
“Now, now, no need to be frightened, digger, I know a lot about you, I know you are a Prodigy, not yet fully developed though, I know you are a retired Colonel from a spec ops background. I know everything about you, mate. We do our homework before we recruit someone to the ‘dark side’.” He cackled ominously as his hands moved to create imaginary inverted commas as he said the last part and I immediately thought of a similar situation from one of George Lucas films.
His fake cackles letting me know he wanted my thoughts to go in exactly that direction. I dispelled the images, not wanting any form of resonance between our thoughts. Instinctively I knew that his mind control would use that and gain a foothold somehow. That was when his hand flicked out and a dark shadow flew at the speed of thought. Ready for any such flicker I stepped back and away, it missed bare inches from me, but as it passed, I could feel the psychic assault quadruple and then recede as it passed.
“Very good, very good, you are a natural,” he stated. He was a talker and the longer he talked, the more I was learning. I stepped back again, and he stepped forward.
“Do you want to know why I have been waiting for you?” I wanted to know, but I would not say anything. Keep talking dickhead I thought. I guarded my eyes and stepped back again. This wasn’t a winning strategy, but I had a plan. It wasn’t a great plan as far as plans went. I couldn’t look back, but if I kept stepping back, I would soon reach the room where I had killed the brave Scalar who had been butchered by these bastards. I just needed to make it to there. It was a once off plan as far as plans go. A dead end for all of us, but a worthy plan.
“The Real Ancients trained me you know, not those sniveling cowards who lead them today, but their real leaders, they made me who I am. I have been with them for more than thirty years now. Ah, I see I surprise you. Yes, yes, your face betrays you. Your good buddy Mala was surprised too. It didn’t take me long to get him to join our cause. It’s amazing the power, Petros. Do you think that those Ancients you call Absinthe are unknown to us? They survive on our whim. We let them carry on, we let them find gifts like you, and then we let them bring you to us. An untrained Prodigy, that’s gold to us mate. You are golden. We had to make doubly sure about you Petros. We had to make sure we got you here. Hence the Princess.”
I shot a lesser lightning bolt at him. The shot hit him squarely in the chest and I saw his face contort in mock fear and then that wicked grin spread across his face. The black shadows seemed to swallow the lightning as if it were but a single ember from a dying flame. The wrinkles crinkled near his sharp observant eyes and he began to laugh a haughty, pompous laugh. Mocking me at every step. It was working too. I was getting angry. But I had to let him keep talking. I had to let him come closer.
“The Elven King was more than ready to trade you for his daughter. We needed some insurance, you understand mate?” His smile as he wiggled his left hand made me tremble with fury. This fucker was responsible for everything. He had cut her hand off to keep her from escaping. The threat of feeding her hand to one of his pets must have been enough to send the king into a state of compliance.
These bastards had been pulling strings from the beginning. Who was this arsehole? How did he fit into the grand scheme of things? He wasn’t the only Reaper Officer, so that meant there was a network of these… these necromancers? I didn’t know what else to call him. He wanted me to become one of them? Fat chance. I ached to match blades with him. To pummel him with my fists, to feel his face contort around my squeezing hands, anything to wipe the smugness out of him. Instead, I took another calculated step back. Closer to the room with explosives. Closer to the end. I wondered offhandedly if there was an afterlife, and fervently hoped there was a hell, and that was exactly where I wanted to send this mocking, sneering coward who preyed on innocents. I had to calm myself. My rage was too hot.
Internally, my world was crashing around me. The Absinthe had informants or had been compromised. I was to be the one taken here he had said, and even more clearly the Elf King had betrayed me to get his daughter back. Had Horatio known? No, I quickly reasoned, he couldn’t have, not with his warning letter, although that too could have been an elaborate ruse. What would I do for a family if I had a family? My family was the Corp. What hadn’t I done for them? Could I fault the king for selling me out, a barely known human for his daughter’s life? I had known all along this was a trap though. I had just not known how deep the rabbit hole went.
As if sensing my thoughts were about my brothers-in-arms the man continued to mock me, “Where is your team, Petros? Did they come down with you? No, they left you to do all the dirty work. That’s not teamwork. That’s slavery. but don’t you worry, I will set you free Petros.”
That was good, he didn’t know Raúl had been helping me. His cajoling Aussie accent was really annoying me and the familiar way he used my adopted name was infuriating, I wanted to chop him to tiny little pieces the way he had chopped these poor innocent folk. My rage was cool now. Dangerously cool. Way, way beyond the heat of rash decisions that springs from passionate anger. He would set me free? It would be me setting everyone free. One electric bolt to that pillar was all that I needed. A one-way ticket to oblivion. I just had to get him closer to the room. To be doubly sure he vaporized along with everything else down here in this cesspit.
He had conjured a blade. It was a dull rapier. Sleek and slim with a deadly sharpness. His experimental warmup slashes and swings the hallmark of a master swordsman.
One more step back.
I needed to survive this first clash. I just had to time it right. I had to keep to the plan. I stepped forward as if to engage and then shuffled two steps back. Indecisive.
He was fast, way faster than any human had any right to be.
But then, he was human after all, and I had been honing my skills on Orcs. Stronger and faster than any human. He was faster than them too though, and his sword was light and quicksilver in the gloom of that narrow passageway. I parried his thrust and countered with my own. I was fast too. Faster than he expected. All my rage and fury bottled and strained was unleashed in that thrust. My Katana swift like darkness that flees from the light. Even so, he flicked his sword back to rake me along the arm, forcing my own strike just wide of his head. I felt a touch though, and just like that we were both blooded.
His smile gone, I saw anger in his eyes. He stepped back and dabbed at where his ear had been. The blood seeping from his now asymmetrical features. The ear glistened wetly on the floor. My exultance at the superficial strike was short-lived as my own wound began to throb. His blade had sliced me from elbow to wrist on my left arm. A shallow cut I hoped, but the pain was intense and the blood trickled thickly to my hands holding my sword, making it bloody and slippery. I just had to coax him closer. Not long now. I stepped back, giving more ground.
“You have quite some sword skill, I’ll give you that.” he crooned, disguising his pain. “You will need it in the days to come. You will learn to use that skill on your mates.” The expression in his eyes held no mirth, only a promise of retribution. I guessed he needed me alive or we would not be having this dance. I’m sure he could judge as well as I that we were well matched and the sword fight would not be a certain outcome.
Before he could try anymore of his bullshit psychobabble, I unleashed the full fury of my newly acquired tricks. I sent Fireflare to dazzle him, then a toasty Fireball to follow, I laced it with dark magic, just as Shaman Bab had taught me, I sent lighting and lesser lightning and I even tried “Light the way!”. I did all of this pouring my Mana into it. I had recovered enough reserves to at least put up a good show. I was also careful to keep a full 5% Mana for my coup de grâce. I wanted to make him roast and if I couldn’t do that, then at least make him mad enough to follow me to oblivion.
When the dust settled, and the smoke cleared. I saw that I had achieved only the second part. His damn magical suit of armor just seemed to swallow up all the magical fury I had sent at him. Its dark vaporous clouds swirled agitated like a swarm of bees all around him. Seeming to grow in stature in accordance with my focused magical blasts, absorbing them all. His sword was gone, back to his inventory, and I could see playtime was up.
It was time to move. He would follow me, that was for sure. I turned and ran for the sixth door where I knew the explosives were. I could just make out that very doorway around the curve of the passage. He was hot on my heels, running hard and all pretense at levity or joviality were nowhere to be seen on that angry contorted face. Funny how I could always piss people off. It must be a talent.
A few running steps away from the door, I focused inwardly; I needed to time this right and make sure he was with me in the room. A fine way to go out in a blaze of glory. Sure, it wasn’t ideal, but I had made peace with it, and besides, I would take the bastard with me.
I reached the doorway, looked back to see he was barely meters away. I saw his frown just before he took the next step forward though.
His nose crinkled as if smelling something odd, something besides the odor of dead flesh and corruption permeating from the open doorway, perhaps the smell of what I had been carrying in my backpack and which was now packed around the central column in the centre of that room. I smiled and extended my hand, the spell already on my lips when it hit me.
It hit me and threw me against the opposite wall. I was so blindsided it took more than a few seconds for me to realize what had happened.
CHAPTER 36
What is your Name?
A Reaper! A Reaper had been in the room. No, two of them. Well, one was a fully fledged Reaper, he was the one who had hit me. The other was a Reaper in the making. A Scalar prisoner had hidden here in this very room and been caught, and eaten, at least partly and she was now in the process of changing into one of them.
No! it can’t end like this. Please, no! I was crumpled against the passage wall. Sliding down as my legs lost the ability to carry me. The hit had been so unexpected, so powerful, it had knocked me clean across from the doorway to the opposite wall. My feet had even left the floor.
Broken ribs for sure, sharp pains in my chest. I must have also hit my head; my thoughts were all over the place. Get up, shoot the lightning. Do something. I urged myself onwards.
It was all too little, too late. I had not factored in the Zombies. Smart arse! I thought to myself. Never ever forget the zombies. Sighing as I tried to regain my breath. I turned my head, the fight gone completely out of me.
The necromancer was upon me. His one-eared head hovered inches from mine. His mocking infuriating grin plastered on his blood-streaked face. My Katana had sliced him good. Small victories, I thought as I strained to get my hand up. I needed to set off the charge. Now if only I could just get my thoughts focused, I could shoot the….
He broke my arm then. Right above my wrist. The snap of it loud in my ears. The agony, just another in the long list of pains wracking my body. The zombie shoulder charge had been the perfect sucker punch. I had been so focused on one enemy when instead I should have been focused on all of them. I was beyond pain though. Dazed, my head ringing, my one arm sliced, my other now bent at an impossible angle. I didn’t have the ability to cast a spell. My world was crashing down. I had lost. I had lost so completely I didn’t even know which way was up. My eyes rolled back, and I wanted to cry. I wanted to cry with anguish and fury. I wanted so much and it seemed that the Universe had conspired to deny me. I… blacked out.
Unfortunately, Techno-necro guy didn’t like me sleeping on his time. He slapped me to consciousness and then forced something into my mouth. I coughed, coughed some more, and then swallowed. It was a healing potion and I could feel it working on me, each ailment, each injury filled with power and realigning to perform a miraculous heal.
The thing about this particular healing potion was it healed you by accelerating the healing process. Charlie had mentioned to me about the different healing potions. Some healed you by taking over and performing the heal for your body magically. These were the best healing potions, with the least painful side effects. Unfortunately, this healing potion was not one of those. It was one that used your own body reserves to heal you, speeding up the healing and similarly concentrating the pain quotient. While the first type of potion took moments, sometimes seconds, definitely no more than a minute for the worst wounds, this one would take minutes and possibly hours. I screamed.
I screamed and screamed until I was hoarse. Then before I blacked out, Necro dude spoke. “No, no, no, mate, can’t have you napping while there’s work to be done. Stay with me. I want you to see this.” He reached out for my arm, the right one, the one he had just broken and he pulled it straight. The bones had been in the process to realign anyway, so who was I to complain? I complained though. Too hoarse to scream I just gurgled a throaty raw rasp. How much could my body take? I thought to myself. Surely not much more. Just let me die already.
Then very deliberately, once he had set the bones in my forearm he pulled out a knife. I watched in morbid fascination. I knew what it was for. It was probably the very same one used on Mala. The one used to slice off his pinkie finger. I gritted my teeth. No more. I would not give this man… this thing that looked like a man the satisfaction. Sharp pains wracked me inside my chest as the bones began to realign. This potion was worse than torture. I think I preferred the injuries.
Before I could react, before I could even put up a struggle, or even reach over with my other hand. He held the hand down on the floor and severed my pinkie finger at the second knuckle. It was done so quickly and businesslike that I had trouble comprehending what had just happened.
With the healing potion I had just taken, the stump hardly bled at all. The pain was absolute and all encompassing.
When
I realized why he had my finger, I lost all hope. God no! He had me in the palm of his hand. I had no choice but to comply with his every wish or he would feed me to one of his zombies. I looked across to see the struggling, changing Scalar woman, a woman who had taken refuge in that room only to be changed to that which she feared. The transition possibly the most evil and twisted thing I had ever seen. Ironically, she lay next to the head of the Scalar I had beheaded earlier. I had ending his suffering. His lifeless eyes baring witness to my shame. Who would end my suffering? I thought ruefully.
I was broken inside now. Because if they asked me to turn on my comrades, I would not do it. I could never betray them. It wasn’t in me. Even to save myself, I would not do it. Somehow I had to kill myself. I needed some way to set off those explosives.
Wait a minute, I was free, why not just blast them now? Despite the agony coursing through me, the severed finger, the fast healing fractures and concussion with their concentrated pain, I sought a place inside me, a place I could nurture some semblance of calm to conjure this last magical miracle. This was my moment. I couldn’t help but feel a surge of hope, of retribution, of rightness with the world as it seemed that time almost slowed in anticipation.
