by S. C. Stokes
A flicker of black energy like a whip lashed out from the creature’s hand and struck the soldier to my right. The dark power tore him in half, killing him instantly.
“Run!” I shouted.
This time, Section 9 was a lot more agreeable. Lara and I raced over the island and clambered up the debris from the destroyed wall. Soldiers traded shots with the creature as it rained arcane fury down on us.
We were less than a dozen steps from where the Section 9 troop carrier had landed in the wall when the creature launched itself from the top of the temple.
I stole a glance over my shoulder in time to spot a seething orb of dark light pulsing over its taloned hand.
Lara made for the chopper.
“No, no, no,” I shouted, grabbing her and pulling her through the shattered wall of the cavern.
Leaping down, we landed in the mud outside the temple as the beast’s spell struck the super chopper and detonated it in a shower of steel and shrapnel.
The gunfire eased, growing more sporadic, and I knew why. Lara’s escort was being picked off one by one.
“What is that thing?” Lara called over the panicked shouting.
“Something from the realm of spirits. It forced its way into our world. The priest bartered with it for power and now the beast has used his sacrifice and the power of the ritual the priest was preparing to claw its way into our reality.”
Torquemada may not have succeeded in sacrificing me to fuel the ritual, but it seemed that the Veil had been sufficiently thin enough to allow his overlord to break through and possess his champion, or what had remained of him. Once he had a foothold in the mortal realm, he’d been able to manifest himself in his true form. And it was hideously terrifying.
“How do we kill it?” Lara asked as we put more distance between us and the temple.
“We can't,” I replied. “Well, not truly. Not with what we have here. But creatures from beyond are not meant for our world. It can only sustain this form for so long. With time, the Veil will move to restore balance and the creature will be dragged back to its own realm.”
“Yeah, but what about the meantime?” Lara replied, raising her hands. “That thing is going to wreak carnage. We can’t just wait for it to go home of its own accord.”
As if on cue, the creature landed and raked its talons through one of the Section 9 commandos, cutting him to ribbons.
Lara was right. We had no way of knowing just how powerful the creature was. What could normals do against such a creature? We had to contain it. The creature could kill scores of people, perhaps hundreds, maybe even thousands. With enough bloodshed, there was no telling how long it could remain in our realm. There was also no way of knowing what plans it had now that it was here.
Clearly it possessed enough knowledge to bring down the Veil. Torquemada was gone, but he was simply a pawn. Now the creature was here, he could do it himself.
The towering creature slogged through the mud. Its hooves sank several inches into the mire as it brought itself up to its full height. It towered over us and was all claws and malice. The creature looked at me, threw back its head, and laughed.
It just laughed at me. I didn’t get the joke, but clearly it found something hilarious.
“Child, you have no idea who you contend with. We were in the middle of a ritual before we were so rudely interrupted. Come, there is work still to do.”
The creature still meant to complete the ritual. And it expected me to help.
It had lost its damn mind.
The creature seemed to be able to read my mind. “I’ve waited millennia for this opportunity. I will not be stopped now.”
The creature was drawing on its power; I could feel it gathering. With one hand, I gripped the belt of Zeus at my waist and gave the beast a manic grin.
“Let's dance,” I shouted as I drew on my own magic and prepared to throw down with the demon of darkness and hate.
“Come willingly, and I’ll let the woman live.”
“Hard pass,” Lara replied. “I don’t make deals with devils. I put them down.”
The demon creature slapped its thigh and howled with laughter. “I am Mephistos, keeper of shadows. You are… simply food.”
“Take your best shot, chuckles,” I said. “You move a cloven hoof and I’m going to make you wish you’d never left home.”
Mephistos leveled a talon at me, and black flames billowed from it. Drawing on the belt’s energy, I answered.
Thunder peeled overhead, and more lightning than I'd ever seen in my life leapt from my outstretched hands and met his spell head on. Lightning and black magic collided, the two elemental forces vying with each other for supremacy.
Mephistos hadn’t reckoned on the Belt’s presence. It was no mortal artifact. Zeus was a supreme being in the world of spirits. He was at the top of the food chain. The power of the God of Thunder arced through the air, dissipating the dark magic before it. Mephistos bellowed and gestured with his other clawed hand. The earth on which I was standing trembled and then exploded, kicking me into the air and pummeling me with rock and debris. The creature howled in triumph.
“Now,” Lara shouted into the radio in her hand.
As I hit the ground, the two sleek outlines of Apache gunships rose up over the open pit of the mine. The gunships gave the creature everything they had, hellfire missiles launching free as their chain guns went to work. The heavy caliber rounds succeeded where small arms had not, blasting chunks of black flesh from its form. No sooner had the pieces of flesh parted from the creature, then they hissed and vanished in a wisp of smoke. The creature drew its wings about it as the volley of missiles impacted all around it.
When the dust cleared, Mephistos stood. Gaping holes marred its wings as it stood there in terrible and deadly majesty. The creature howled and, with a beat of its ragged wings, launched itself at the helicopters. The Apaches were too low to react in time.
They had underestimated the creature’s resilience. The demon sped through the air as the helicopter gunships opened fire once more.
Mephistos batted the first gunship aside, sending it careening into the wall of the pit. The gunship exploded on impact. He wheeled and grabbed the second, demonic claws tearing the gunship open like it was a sardine can. The demon and the severed parts of the gunship crashed to the muddy floor of the quarry. Its fuel tanks detonated, throwing Mephistos clear.
I strode toward the wreckage, the demon rising slowly from the mud. Smoke rose from its wounded form, but its eyes glowed with otherworldly power.
There was no running now. We could never outrun this creature.
The demon reared up, standing in the smoldering wreckage of the gunship, its shredded wings flexing behind it. The wicked claws at the end of its sinuous wings shone with blood and deadly majesty.
“I am Mephistos, herald of He who walks in shadow. He will feed on your soul.”
My body shook with rage as I took in the destruction in the valley. The shattered ruins of my forebear’s temple was spilling through the gaping hole in the temple wall, carried by the rising water level. Water mixed with mud and blood, spilling into the bottom of the mine.
The Inquisition had fled for their lives. Section 9's strike force had been utterly destroyed and whatever hope I had of breaking my curse had been obliterated by Torquemada under Mephistos’ manipulations.
They had robbed me of the life I wanted. My life with Lara, free from my family’s curse and the baggage it brought with it.
Everything had begun here, in this very place. My best chance at fixing everything had been stolen from me.
Emotions boiled up within me. Hatred for the opportunity that had been lost, anger for the Inquisition who had finished what their ancestors had started, plundering my people and then destroying what little of my history was left.
The temple, our family’s site of power, had been corrupted and was on the verge of being destroyed by the power Mephistos had unleashed within.
Wha
t little hope I had for a better life was sinking to the bottom of a cavernous lake in the jungles of Panama.
If I was going to die, I was going to choose the manner of my death.
Mephistos might have been from another realm, but he'd made a terrible mistake. He’d picked his fight in the battered ruins of my family's site of power. I might have been uninitiated, but I was the last descendant of the Brujas de Sangre and beneath their battered temple was a ley line, coursing with power.
I tapped into that power at the source and drank deeply from its current. I could feel the raw arcana flowing through me like fire in my veins. Mephistos cocked his head. I had shot well past the limits any sane wizard would countenance and embraced my fate.
“I am the master of my fate,” I shouted, Henley’s words coursing through my mind as the dam broke. I unleashed the pent-up power in a curtain of destruction.
Mephistos raised a shield, a black mist like a shroud. Crimson sheets of fire flooded from my outstretched hands, while lightning arced down from the storm clouds billowing overhead. Lightning bolts caught the creature’s horns, cooking his flesh as they lanced through him. The fire drove the mist before it and Mephistos howled in defiance.
With a howl, the demon launched itself at me. I brought to bear every iota of power I could, bathing the beast in a symphony of destruction. The creature’s wings snapped outward to propel it forward, but the flames caught them and reduced them to ash. With a shriek, the creature lunged forward, charred horns lowered. I threw a blast of kinetic energy into the rampaging creature as its horns impaled me. I went down as the creature bellowed and raised its talons to rake at me.
I should have been dead. Then I saw where the creature’s horns had taken me.
The bullet proof vest. Enchanted to withstand a beating, it had prevented the creature from turning me into a shish kabob. I grabbed its horns but yanked my hands away. The horns were searing hot. The flesh of my palms blistered as I tore them free. The demon reached for my throat, but I saw a flash of silver and realized that Lara was beside me her pistol raised. She tucked the colt into the flesh at the base of the demon's neck and pulled the trigger. Black ichor sprayed from the wound and the creature went limp.
Kicking and squirming, I extricated myself from the beast’s horns as his remains faded to dust and dissipated on the wind.
I looked at my hands. They were badly burned but I was alive. Which quite frankly astounded me.
I had drawn on the unfiltered power of the ley line and rained hell on the demon. Using that much power should have reduced me to a pile of ash but here I was.
Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted a gold ring in the mud at my feet. It was singed black but here and there the gold still shone through. A few inches from it, I spotted another. Looking around, I found more than a dozen of them, scattered in the mud around me. They seemed familiar. Then I knew why. I felt for the Belt of Zeus, but it was gone.
What was left of it was laying on the ground.
The relic must have borne the brunt of the power instead of me. The power I’d drawn had destroyed a tool of the Gods, but the belt had saved my life.
Feelings started to well up within me. I looked to Lara, her Colt still smoking in her hand. I took two unsteady steps through the mud toward her and threw my blistered arms around her, pulling her close and kissing her deeply.
Lara's lips met mine with an intensity that caused my heart to flip in my chest. Her soft sweet lips. My cares melted away as I relished the fact that I was still alive.
I was almost delirious with joy, until I felt the cold kiss of steel against my temple. I opened my eyes to find Lara’s Colt resting against my skull.
“Seth Ryder. You and I need to have a good talk,” she said, her tone guarded.
I bit my lip and slowly raised my hands. “Yes, dear, but can we do it somewhere else? Those Inquisition creeps might come back. I’d rather not be here if they do.”
She stared at me, her emerald eyes boring into my soul, searching for any sign of duplicity.
“What did you have in mind?” she asked, not moving her weapon an inch.
I looked around the mine pit. “Somewhere with less things trying to kill us. Besides, there is someone who really wants to meet you.”
“Who is that?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.
“My mother. If you’re up for it. She’s been all over me about my fiancée that she hasn’t met.”
Lara eased the pistol away from my skull. “You want to take me home to meet your mother?”
I nodded slowly, utterly exhausted. “Yes, probably best that I do. I'd like to reduce the number of women trying to kill me by at least one.”
“No promises,” Lara replied, holstering the weapon.
I laughed. “I was talking about her. I was kind of hoping wrestling a demon with my bare hands would be enough to win you over.”
Lara made a show of considering it. “It was kind of bad ass. I’m not going to lie. But it was the poetry that did it. You destroy a demon while quoting William Henley. I’m willing to consider giving you a second chance. Not many men out there that can pull that off.”
I wrapped one arm around her waist, not wanting to spoil the moment by collapsing in the mud. “Let’s get out of here.”
“That creature kinda took out my ride,” Lara replied, taking my weight. “You got a plan for getting us out of here?”
I looked around. “Are you ready to take little bit of a sabbatical from Section 9 and learn what the World of Magic is really about?”
Lara studied the fading wisps of Mephistos’ form to me. “I have more questions than you can possibly imagine.”
I just let the grin spread across my face. “I’ll do what I can. There is plenty that went on here today that I don’t even understand.”
“It’s a start,” Lara said. “I’ll take it.
I reached for my earpiece. “Murdoch, you still there?”
“Yes, boss,” he replied. “Things got a little hairy there for a minute. Are you okay?”
I took a deep breath. “It was far too much like Rome for my tastes.”
Murdoch made a choking sound. “I’m glad I stayed with the plane. What about the temple?”
I looked at the crumbling ruins behind me. “It hasn’t blown up yet, but there’s still time.”
His hearty laugh echoed through the comms. “At least you’re consistent. Dr Jones would be proud.”
I grinned. The good doctor would have managed to save his hat. What was left of mine was probably drifting to the bottom of a lake filled with the largest crocodiles I’d ever had the misfortune of looking at. I wasn’t going in after it.
“Mind picking us up?” I asked.
“Us?” Murdoch asked.
“We have a passenger.”
“The lady Stiel?” His voice had an approving air to it.
“Indeed, she arrived with some friends to join the party, but her ride’s shot and she’s decided to slum it with us. I'll see you at the river.”
“Roger that,” Murdoch replied.
Leaning on Lara for a little support, I turned to her and asked, as nonchalantly as I could manage, “Care for a stroll, dear?”
She looked at me, her eyes dancing with mirth as the corner of her mouth crept up into a smile. “Just like the old days in Central Park. You know, before you robbed my office and tried to get us both killed.”
I managed a smile. “Yes, just like that.”
21
Lara and I walked hand-in-hand through the sprawling gardens of Weybridge Manor. She had peppered me with questions all the way home from Panama. It felt good to be able to share everything with her.
Panama had changed things. For both of us. I’d always been afraid to bring her into this part of my life. Sure, I was afraid of being rejected, but more than that, it was dangerous. Skulking about in ancient ruins, pursuing dangerous and powerful relics, being an arcanologist was an occupation with a short life expectancy.
Risking my own life was one thing, risking Lara’s was another. If I didn’t find answers, my curse was going to kill me. I had less to lose.
Feeling Lara’s hand in mine, I knew that was no longer true. She had her foot in the door now. There was no way she was going to be left behind.
I slowed my pace, “You know, I would have never taken the mask, Lara, but for this. I wanted to share all of this with you. That's pretty hard to do when you know it’s all going to be taken away.”
Lara’s grip tightened to something that threatened to break my fingers. “That’s quitter talk. I won’t have it.”
“Oww. Not a quitter, just frustrated, I guess. Panama was my best shot at curing this thing. Now the temple is in ruin and the evidence that might have helped me was obliterated by a demon and a pair of hand grenades. I was hoping for so much more.”
I was trying not to complain, but it was hard not to be disappointed.
We’d gone toe to toe with a demon and lived. I ought to be counting my blessings.
“Sorry,” I mumbled, taking both of Lara’s hands in mine.
“For what?”
I smiled. “For being so glum. We’re alive and you still haven’t shot me. Life’s pretty good, when you think about it.”
“Seth, your father's almost sixty. No matter what happens, you can have a long full life. Curse or no curse. But you can't spend your whole life running away from what you might lose. You’ll trade the life you have for fear and regret. I won’t live like that. If you are serious about this, about us, you need to be all in.”
I nodded. It was an argument I'd had with myself many times. Could I make the most of my life, living every day to the fullest, knowing that one day the curse would take me? True, my father had lived longer than most, but he was an anomaly. He had done far better than many of our forebears. There was no guarantee the curse would spare me for that long. I’d had Aleida in my mind for a few minutes and it was maddening. I needed to fix this thing, and Lara was right. Self-pity wasn’t going to do it.
“Oh, I’m all in,” I replied. “I’ve robbed the CIA, traded favors with a crime lord, and knocked off one of the Inquisition’s senior members. All in a little over twenty-four hours.”
