by Thomas Duder
Flustered, Jude waved his hands and shook his head, “N-n-no, I didn’t mean it like that! He actually, I mean-”
“Calm down, cowboy,” the demigoddess chuckled from where she sat, watching Cipher the entire time, a snake about to strike the moment he did more than breathe, “I’m teasing you. Frank Todd doesn’t talk about his private life that much. A man as dangerous as him, he has to keep his private and his personal life separate.”
“There’s a difference?” Jude sipped at a bottle of water, holding it out to Mara. Shaking her head, she licked her lips slightly before responding.
“There is. Suffice it to say, Frank has his loves, and so do I. He’s still the man I gave myself to, though…and when he mentioned that Cipher might’ve taken on this situation, it would be good to have someone who can negate him.”
Jude blinked, “You can negate him?”
Mara laughed at that as Cipher answered up, “I can sense energies of all types, but magic-users, Divines and Infernals can be especially annoying to me. Mara, dear, here is half-god blooded. Her dad is Bacchus himself, the god of revelry and wine. Greek, right?”
“Roman,” Mara clucked her tongue, “Though is there any real difference? A pantheon is a pantheon is a pantheon.”
“So it’s said,” Cipher chuckled, wriggling in his bonds. Not one to lose her advantage, the moment Frank had disappeared from sight Mara had struck, tying the man’s hands behind his back, her knotwork expert.
“I’ve had practice,” she explained to Jude.
“Hey, these are kinda tight on me,” Cipher grinned amicably to them both, “If I promise to be a good boy and, like, not do something that’ll piss you off, think you can let me out of these? I have to use the bathroom.”
“Piss in your pants, you little princess,” Mara frowned, “What the hell are you thinking of anyway, Cipher? I know you got this whole stupid ‘warrior honor’ thing with the Shop but signing on with Karsiel…you KNOW he’s mad. He’s out of his gourd.”
“Eh, I wanted to take them on,” Cipher leaned against the wall where he sat and chuckled, “And I wanted it on my terms.”
Jude considered that then nodded, “I reckon I understand where you’re comin’ from. You’re crazy strong, but the Shop-”
“They’re not just strong,” Cipher grinned at the agent, “They’re the strongest. THE strongest. If I caught a one-up on them, even once, well…that’s all I want, really.”
Mara frowned harder at that, pointing at him, “Well YOU are going to sit THERE and not move a goddamn muscle. Don’t even ask to use the bathroom, I know goddamn well what kind of training you’ve got.”
Cipher chuckled at that, considering her through his goggles, “Mara Gould, grade A class bounty hunter and merc who lost her first S grade hunt. Heard you’ve done well since then. Got quite a few bets on when you’ll reach S grade licensing.”
Noting Jude’s puzzled look, Mara snarled, “I tried to take on the Shop as my first S grade bounty. I had been doing wonderfully up until then, but-”
“But she tailed Frank, did a great job of doin’ it too, then botched it up,” Cipher laughed mockingly.
“Shut. Up,” Mara snarled.
“He tapped into her daddy issues, Hookshotted her ass, the whole works,” Cipher grinned, keeping it up, “After he beat her down she fell in love with him. Tamed the Queen of Violence hergoddamnself.”
Mara stood up slowly, her small frame beginning to shake with barely-repressed violence, “Shut. The fuck. Up. Cipher.”
Cipher, realizing where the line was, bit his tongue and smiled, looking away from her. Balling and unballing her fists, she slowly unholstered a small crossbow from her belt. Amongst her various weapons and tricks, all hidden within the belt and hidden pockets, her favorite had always been the easily-loaded crossbow, specially designed for her use.
Unlike a gun, which could jam from certain magical means or other energies, the crossbow and the bow and arrow both mostly held up to the test of time.
Mostly.
Ignoring how Cipher was obviously needling her, Jude stepped closer to her, stopping when her viper-quick gaze turned on him. Holding his hands up slowly, Jude nodded, “So. How DID you meet, then?”
Mara, defused, sighed, and re-holstered her weapon, “It’s kind of how Cipher presented it here, the douchebag. The Hookshot is a well-known attack of his, like his Fastball Special…but I underestimated his sensitivity, his ability to sense even my surface thoughts.
Then I underestimated his brutality.
I gave myself to him, the only Master I’ve ever recognized, because of that brutality. It’s something I’ll gladly defend, even when some people talk and whisper rumors. It’s more important to me that he fulfills me, and that he asks me to help from time to time, like this.”
Mara held herself slightly, smiling to herself. In the moonlight, despite himself and his own declared beloved, Jude stopped himself from gulping automatically at the sight - for all that he had been impressed by Mara’s violent capabilities, he couldn’t but help to notice the lush figure that lay under those tight, black leathers she wore, the jacket open enough to reveal that she was either shirtless or wearing something that purposefully exposed plenty of pale cleavage.
Feeling his eyes on her, Mara’s suddenly opened slightly, taking in his gaze, practically feeding on his lust. Breaking off his gaze suddenly, Jude hissed with a smile, “Sorry.”
“No offense taken,” the demigoddess chuckled, “My very nature is Fae, even as a half-breed. I help reinforce the lustful nature of humans and take them in as nourishment. It’s…not quite what I had wanted, but I’ve come to terms with it.
It happens from time to time, that little slip.”
Jude chuckled, fanning himself with his hat as Mara murmured softly, “Besides. I see red hair, a cascade of red, within your heart. A cutie, she is.”
Jude blinked and, this time, gulped aloud as she continued, “And now you’re probably thinking of how all this long, blonde hair of mine would look writhing against hers.”
Cipher laughed, “Awwwww shit. It’s startin’, yeah?”
Both Mara and Jude looked at Cipher as he stood up, rubbing at his wrists, “The counter attack. It’s about goddamn time t-”
Cipher dove to the side as arrows riddled his previous location, Mara’s battle cry rending through the enchantment that had subtly been cast over them.
Jude quickly drew both his specialized guns, the chakram on the back of each stabilized against his forearm as he threw himself back-to-back with Mara, the shadows coming alive all around them.
“Do you see what I see?” Mara hissed, a crossbow in each hand. Cipher had disappeared completely from sight, and a part of her both feared and thrilled at how Frank would punish her for such a thing.
Jude grinned as his blue eyes shifted to a dull red glow. The special technique taught to all Spook Squad cadets, the Evil Eye allowed him to see with his somewhat naked eye the various energies and their patterns and weavings, allowing him to see with the same sight as a fully-trained Magus.
“I spy, with my little eye, some very dark weavings,” Jude grumbled, his gaze shifting this way and that. As far as their gazes went, the shadows trembled and danced, beginning to grow upwards and out, encasing them in darkness completely.
“Do you have your Evil Eye up, little human?” Mara asked, panting slightly.
“Little?” Jude retorted, “And yes.”
“Good,” with that she took off into the darkness, rushing headlong while yelling back, “FOLLOW ME!”
Jude, without hesitation, hurtled after her, his customized pistols ready to blow away their unseen foe.
****
Covered in gore, Tyler tapped the ground with the business end of his bar mace, grinning as he beheld the spectacle.
“Man, you guys really know how to put on a spread.”
The throne of bones and scraps of metal arose from the center of the main exhibition center. The Necromanc
er sat atop of it, dressed in a pair of well-fitted blue Levis and loose red jacket, shirtless save for a glowing amulet of gold and onyx about his neck.
Glaring down at them through eyeless sockets, the Necromancer smiled wildly as Tyler and Tim, the Wormwood Agents, fought their way to the exhibition hall. Several stories high with ornate tapestries of the kind of creatures found in the tar pits, the exhibition hall once sported glass cases full of bones and other works, art pieces and more.
Now nearly all the skeletons were noticeably gone, the glass shattered.
“Well well well, hello there, Wormwood,” the Necromancer chuckled, his voice slightly breaking as he squeaked, “So you’ve come instead of The Shop. You’ve been quite naughty tonig-”
“Oh my fucking God,” Tim began to fume, gripping his customized bazooka with a white knuckle grip, “I swear to the fucking Nobles if this guy doesn’t shut up, I’m going to kill myself. I’m going to kill him. I’m going to kill him, then myself!”
Patting his smaller partner on the shoulder, Tyler called out, “You, Necromancer. We recognize you, S grade bounty ‘Brent Glimming.’ This isn’t an official hunt from the Guild but, rather, the Wormwood Agency. You have the option of deactivating all enchantments and enhancements and handing yourself to us for due processing-”
“Or we’ll brain you and eat your fucking skeleton,” Tim cackled.
Tyler looked at Tim slowly before looking back at Brent, “Or we’ll…brain you and…eat your skeleton, apparently. That’s a thing we do now. We, the professionals of the Wormwood Agency. Totally not racist against skeletons or animated bone-based undead or anything like that.”
The Necromancer laughed, “I am thoroughly operating within the legal boundaries of my rights! The Knobs can take a hike, I haven’t touched your zombies whatsoever.”
Holding up a smartphone in his hand, Tyler took two steps closer and hurtled it through the air with a snarled curse. Catching it smartly, the young-looking Necromancer brought the phone up before his face, looking at photo after photo of his handiwork.
As he frowned and looked at the evidence, Tyler considered the Necromancer, noticing the tell-tale spell-work that allowed such creatures to continue living long after they should have died. Some would replace parts from corpses, eventually succumbing to the rot and decay and requiring fresh parts in order to continue their dark works.
Some, on the other hand, would acquire the ability to simply reverse the ravages of time upon their natural body, in a constant state of decay. These, then, would eventually become a Lich, the worst undead that the Wormwood Agency would, eventually, have to find and “brain” in order to put a final halt to their activities.
So long as such creatures existed, then the quiet dead would be prey, base materials without proper respects and rites given.
In his youth, Brent had been a brown-haired, mousy young man, gangly in late puberty and somewhat unremarkable. Outside of his pallid color and eyeless sockets, lost in a reported contract with otherworldly forces, Brent could have been any thousands of shy young adults.
Except for his penchant for necromantic experimentation, Tyler figured he would have ended up all right.
Snarling, Brent crushed the phone within his hand, “I suppose you have backups, but still. I’d hate to give you the satisfaction of having this back.”
“Awwww. Actually, I didn’t make any backups of those photos,” Tim grunted, leaning against his bazooka to glare at the Necromancer, “Plus we don’t need ‘em. OUR legal right to operate supersedes this Thirteenth Clause bullshit. We’ve caught your energy readings there, and we’ve come across fresh zombies with your marks. Your ass is ours, bucko.”
The Necromancer stood up slowly, his hands gripping the sides of his throne as he marshaled his powers, a wave of black and dark purple energy surrounding his aura, empowering him as he snarled, “I am the purest Necromancer here in the American Federation. Do you honestly think you two idiots can take me on, here?!”
“Eh, we wouldn’t be here if we didn’t think we could,” Tyler hefted his cross-bar mace and chuckled.
Tim slipped a foot into the stirrup of his bazooka, his density already shifting as he tossed his hat into the air, “Time to shut this guy up, get his fuckin’ brain and get PAID!”
“You will both DIE!” The Necromancer roared as a word of power sprang up before him, a glowing, flame-like sigil that burned with dark, foul powers.
Tim took off, immediately bouncing into the air and crossing the distance in the blink of an eye. Directly overhead of the Necromancer, the Agent shifted his density again, dropping with immense force, the bazooka’s blade heading for Brent’s head.
Crying out, Brent leaped to the side as the Agent speared his way through the throne and into the small mountain of bones, disappearing from sight save for the complaint, “Awwwww, he dodged my 10 Ton Guillotine!”
The Sigil floated in the air, glowing once before springing forth tendrils from its form, diving into the mountain of bones and further. Brent laughed, holding a hand towards it, “Once my spell activates the bodies I have hidden here, they’ll all rise to-ACK!”
Swaying and dodging swiftly, Brent did his best to escape Tyler’s furious assault. Whirling about his European bar mace with effortless skill, Tyler strode forward, eating up distance with his long legs as he pressured the Necromancer. Not giving him time to marshal forth any more of his forces, Brent realized that no matter how much he backed up, the Agent would stick to him as closely as possible, seeking to hit him even once.
He knew full well the power of the weapons of the Agency. No Necromancer within the Guild, either freelancer or full-fledged member, didn’t know of the specialized weaponry of the Wormwood Agency, the fighting dogs and long arm of the Immortals. He also knew that a single touch wouldn’t be lethal, but would certainly begin to spell his doom.
A single touch with either the mace or the blade of the bazooka would begin to slice away at his magical energies, suppressing his connection to the undead until nothing remained.
The cross-shaped mace slicing through the air, gleaming silver and dark blue in the badly-lit exhibition hall, Brent finally knew the true terror of the Wormwood Agency. It was rumored that the more they did for the Immortals, the stranger the powers they gained, granted to them upon successful missions. Though he had seen Tyler’s tough flesh in action, armored against the piercing and slashing of his feathery vanguard, it was the fact that he realized Tyler hadn’t taken a breath once since he last spoke, yet was swinging the heavy mace with full, unrelenting force that drove fear into his black heart.
His spiritual eyes, long since sacrificed to the undead creature he had betrayed and devoured, saw it all as if in slow motion. With each swing, Tyler would forcibly change trajectory, sometimes closer and sometimes farther away, purposefully throwing him off pattern. Without needing to breathe, the assault was both furious and completely unstoppable.
Dodging his way around the mountain pile, Brent finally reached out and drew out a large femur bone. Bringing it up, he blocked an overhead strike with the ringing sound of steel on steel. Snarling in Tyler’s face, the femur took on a new form within his hands, glowing with the strange, otherworldly powers that fueled him - driving Tyler back, he whirled the bone-staff about him, taking up a battle stance.
“If you think I’m just a magic-user type, you need to rethink your-”
Brent grunted as the blade from the bazooka’s bayonet thrust out of his chest. Emerging from the bone pile, Tim hefted the Necromancer high into the air, cackling.
“Do it TO it, Ty!”
Tyler, leaping up into the air, brought the mace down with a vicious battle cry as they both activated their Advanced Wormwood Combination: Smashed Kebab.
Brent grunted, raising the staff up and bracing himself on the bazooka, blocking Tyler as he came crashing down upon them both, “DENIED!”
Tyler applied heavier pressure, bringing his face closer to Brent’s. Grinning wicke
dly, greenish-black clouds began to swirl out from between his teeth. Underneath them both the small, infernally strong man, ten times denser and heavier than a normal human, began to cackle as flames escaped his own mouth.
Brent had exactly one second left and in that second, he knew regret as the gruesome twosome unleashed their greatest Combination technique: Funeral Passion.
The mountain of bones exploded, the throne completely smelted as the strange corpse-gas within Tyler met with the crematory flames that escaped from Tim, doing damage to just about everything but the Agents themselves.
The explosion itself rocked the building, sending a shower of dust down. Coughing and waving his mace about, Tyler stumbled out of the building, dragging half of what was left of the still smoldering, groaning Necromancer. Letting him fall to the ground, the Agent sucked in a lungful of clean air to dispel the last of the uncomfortable gas he had been building up since earlier and practically groaned, clutching at the smoldering remains of his clothes.
“Shit, SHIT! The Immortals are going to fucking KILL us, just…Tim, TIM?! You okay?”
Coughing as well and patting his own smoldered and tattered clothing, Tim held up his hand and grinned despite the coughing, “I, look…ugh, my hat came through!”
Tyler sighed, “I thought you said these were the explosive-resistant clothes. What the hell, man, these things are a grand a pop!”
“Yeah, well we won, didn’t we?” Tim dropped Brent’s right leg onto the ground with a sigh, patting his clothes before realizing that both of their smartphones had been destroyed in the explosion.
“At least we’re not fully naked this time,” Tyler sighed, picking up Tim’s smoldering torso with both hands, “Come on. Let’s go find a phone somewhere and call this in.
We just made bankings, my friend.”
****
Karsiel growled as he glared at the various ethereal windows open before his gaze. His hands folded over a crystal ball of strange materials, he watched from afar as his forces maneuvered and engaged the enemy. Though he had despaired, at first, at the idea of this strange combat he had since become accustomed to the benefits it also granted. Though his own form of clairvoyance afforded him room to maneuver, his ability to witness the actions of his opponents had become strangely obscure as of late.
