Brightblade

by C. T. Phipps

  Then again, feeling the gathering magical energy around me, it might not be too long until Nakoso manifested himself. That was a fight that would make Jessica stabbing Sophia in the back less like a reprieve and more like a prelude to us getting smashed to pieces. I mean, I didn’t actually think the Nakoso was a god, but super-powerful wizard fairy lord vampire was pretty bad on its own.

  Shut up and fight! Zadkiel shouted in my head.

  My group of vampires, witches, and dhampyrs (oh my) tore into the army of ghouls surrounding the ritual center. They sought to fight back but the suddenness of the assault combined with the fact we were all carving our way to Jessica meant that I was through three before they even were aware I was there. The vampires did better but after one was incinerated by Alex throwing an actual fireball from his hands, the majority decided to make a break for it. Too bad for them I suspected Carl Baron would be less than pleased when they informed him of the fact they’d left his daughter to meet the Last Death.

  I hadn’t really had a day’s training in swordplay my whole life, but Zadkiel seemed to impart some notion of skill to me. At the least, I didn’t feel that I was likely to chop my own limbs off accidentally.

  Jessica was still throwing her arms around in motions I could only assume generated arcane power, versus just making her look spasmodic.

  Can I throw you? I asked.

  Yes, Zadkiel replied.

  Good, I thought as I leaned back to try.

  But it won’t be successful.

  That was not the time for a mathematician’s answer!

  Swords are not throwing weapons!

  Okay, there was nothing for it but to chop through the remaining ghouls to get to her. While trying not to think about how many were dying.

  “He comes!” Jessica shouted.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Clara shouted, teleporting behind her.

  “Getting our lives back!” Jessica shouted, turning around with the wand in hand. “With the power of the spell, we can force him to turn us back into normal people.”

  “We could have done that with Sam!” Clara shouted, rushing for the wand.

  “And trust a vampire?” Jessica hissed, holding Clara away with her tentacles. “We’ve suffered for decades! We deserve more! Eternal youth, riches, anything.”

  “Bella is dead!” Clara said, reaching the spear tip. “You killed her.”

  “I can force him to bring her back!” Jessica shouted, shoving the spear tip of the wand into her chest. Clara’s eyes bulged and the lizard woman fell to the ground. Her blood added itself to the ritual, rising from her corpse as it became the basis for a swirling black cloud of the magical energy around us.

  The Nakoso appeared moments later, or at least what I assumed to be the Nakoso. It wasn’t like there were that many seven-foot-tall albino-skinned elves with long white hair and bodies like basketball players. Well, no, that wasn’t a good description. There was a lot “off” with the Nakoso in terms of appearance.

  The undead fairy king had arms that were twice the length of a normal human being and fingers with an extra set of joints that ended in inch-long claws. His eyes were coal black and lips a similar shade of obsidian. I also noticed his feet weren’t exactly the shape of a regular humans either, being more like a bird’s with three-long toes and one hook in the back. He was naked but his fifth appendage, you know the one I mean, wasn’t normal and more like a tentacle. Man, Tolkien got elves wrong.

  “Get the hell out of my way, bitch!” a vampire shouted at me in a thick Jersey accent as he pulled up a pistol to aim at the Nakoso. He looked and dressed like a mobster from the Thirties, which meant he was probably Big Sal Baron and a lieutenant of their house.

  I would have told him we were on the same side, but I was done with vampires tonight (err ones that weren’t my friends or family or on my side). Plunging the Sword of Zadkiel through the back of its heart, the interior of Sal’s body glowing briefly before his body disintegrated into ash. I felt my own psychic powers growing as the magic in the air, black and evil or not, increased the amount I could channel through my blade.

  I hope he had that coming, I said, running forward.

  He was a multiple murderer, but we are past the point of guilt or innocence, Zadkiel replied. The Nakoso must be stopped, no matter the cost.

  Does she have any chance of controlling the Nakoso?

  No, Zadkiel replied.

  I could feel the Nakoso’s power from a dozen feet away and it threatened to overwhelm me. His will was inhuman, and I didn’t mean that as an exaggeration, it was a simple statement of fact. There was a set of emotions radiating off him that could not correspond to anything I’d ever felt in my life. A casual assumed dominance of all he surveyed was the easiest one to understand but the rest was wild, untamed, and deranged. It was like a set of loud music going off in my ears, causing me to want to curl up in a little ball at his feet.

  “I command you, Nakoso!” Jessica shouted, feeling terror as well as determination. “I command you to—”

  The Nakoso opened his hand and his wand flew into it. It then became a fully intact spear as a suit of gilded shining form-fitting armor appeared around his body, complete with a rainbow cape. It would have looked ridiculous outside of a Marvel Cinematic Universe Thor movie and did but somehow still terrified.

  “Pets don’t talk,” Nakoso said, waving his hand.

  Jessica’s mouth disappeared.

  Jessica tried screaming but couldn’t. She had completely believed she could control him and now her despair was palpable to me, even over this battlefield full of overwhelming emotions. The Nakoso was now the center of everyone’s attention.

  “But you will be rewarded for restoring me!” he glowered, apparently unconcerned with those of us around him. “With a chance to serve me forever!”

  I surged forward, throwing a ghoul aside. I had to get to this monster before he did anything else. I could feel him drawing in power from everything and everyone around him.

  “I see the sword of failure is back to fail again,” the Nakoso shouted. “Bring it to me, my new pet.”

  He pointed the wand at me, and his power washed over me. His will pressed against my mind, demanding obedience. I felt Zadkiel shouting at me, but it sounded distant, small. While I was struggling to keep any of my own thoughts against the torrent of his overwhelming will, I felt my body changing in response to his power.

  My skin was forming scales and my mouth was elongating. Something was happening to my teeth I couldn’t quite define. Then the inner seams on my pants split as my legs were physically merged together into a long tail. I would have fallen to my knees except I didn’t have knees anymore. I tried to say something, but it came out as a hiss.

  “Welcome to my harem, serpent girl,” Nakoso said with satisfaction. “Now, bring me the sword.”

  My body wasn’t my own. I hardly knew how to move like this, but Nakoso’s command pulled me forward, as I crawled across the ground toward him. His words echoed in my head, demanding my obedience, causing pain if I even tried to think of resisting. But pain was something I understood. Empathic powers weren’t about reading other people’s emotions but feeling them.

  Every day of my life, I felt other people’s joys and sorrows, elation and despair, pleasure and pain. Knowing what emotions were my own and which were things I was absorbing was the struggle of my life. I fought every day to be myself, to not let myself become a reflection of the people around me. He stroked my chin as I came up next to him. “Now, now, pet, what’s your name?”

  I drove the sword into his heart, using my TK to add to my own strength.

  “Ashley Morgan,” I said. “The last woman you’ll ever fuck with.”

  The Nakoso looked into my eyes and struggled to speak as there was a look of pure outrage in his face, then amusement.

  “Oh crap,” I said, before being blown backward by an invisible force that threw me backward twenty feet.

  The Nakoso pulled
the Sword of Zadkiel out from his chest as he choked out. “Do you really think I fear the power of petty gods like the Hebrew God? As drunk and fattened on the worship of billions as he may be? He may have fooled many into believing he is the One Above All but I am a god akin to him. The Chosen of Dagda, the King of the Elves!”

  “You are a vampire and a rapist,” I muttered, standing up. I reached out to pull the sword to me. “I deal with those all the time.”

  It didn’t budge in his hand.

  The Nakoso stared at me. “Too many humans have forgotten their place in this time period. They have been poisoned by diseases of things like free-will, self-worth, and equality. You will know what it is like to serve and this time will understand why it was wise to fear the dark.”

  Jessica charged at the Nakoso and pulled out a sacrificial dagger she jabbed into his shoulder. He looked more irritated than wounded but it did draw blood. He instinctively clung tighter to the Sword of Zadkiel, though, as his grip on his spear weakened. I reached out and grabbed that instead.

  The Nakoso stared at Jessica as she screamed, turned human before my eyes, and then aged from a thirty-year-old woman with hair like my grandmother in old photos into an ancient crone that soon crumbled into dust. He turned to me and shouted, “Give me my—”

  I impaled him in the heart with it. “With pleasure. You see, the trick is saying the Bond One Liner after you do the thing.”

  The shaft of the spear was blessed wood, the Chosen Weapon of a God. Holiness. He was a vampire, cursed and damned. Would it work when the God was the one damned? I was interested in finding out.

  The Nakoso fell backward, impaled and imprisoned as the supernatural energies flowing into him started levitating him in the air. I felt the spear start to leave his body, only for me to jump in and keep it pushed down with all of my strength. That was when Alex and Sam started some sort of chanted ritual, in a mixture of Hindi along with something I believed to be Klingon (that was probably Alex).

  The energies started to pour out of the Nakoso’s body, and his beautiful but alien features started to decay before my eyes. I can give you whatever you want, the Nakoso whispered, dropping the Sword of Zadkiel from his hand. Wealth, power, immortality. You are destined to become a vampire. To meet a horrifying end. I can avert that. Even goddess-hood is not beyond my power. I know where the others keep their ambrosia and apples.

  I’m not religious, I thought back. Angel buddy aside.

  I can find where your sister is and tell you secrets only the gods know!

  I hesitated but only for a moment. “Screw you.”

  It wasn’t exactly my best one-liner, but I’d blown both of those on what turned out to not be the killing blows. Instead, I just held the spear shaft in place as I could feel most of the Nakoso’s power drained away and he felt like a shadow of his former self.

  He was no longer a god or, if he was, it was no greater a deity than any other vampire his age. His face was withered and lacking in any glamour, he looked like one of the many hideous Ancients I’d seen in film or movies. Bald, bat-eared, huge teeth, and scaly almost batrachian skin. Wow, there was a word I didn’t use often.

  In that moment, I felt the first completely recognizable emotion from him: fear. It was soon followed by Arthur, Sam, and Ashura rushing to his side. All three of them grabbed a different vein of the withered Ancient and started biting down on wrists or his neck. They sucked away on his divine blood and I saw the Ancient weaken further. The Nakoso started to scream, only to finally crumble to bones and ashes.

  It was horrifying and I pulled away, still holding the spear in my hand.

  “You should give that to me,” I heard Bryce say behind me. I turned around and saw my assistant had a Beretta pointed at me, his stance lacking all his previous inexperience.

  I could also no longer feel his overwhelmed goofy inexperience. Instead, I felt nothing from him at all and realized he was a Blank. One of those brights who could not only cancel out the ability of other psychics but create false impressions of feelings or even thoughts.

  “Holy plot twist, Batman,” I said, holding the spear tightly. “Who are you?”

  “Just a government agent,” Bryce said, not watching his back as Minji and Tracy came up behind him. “I know I can’t stop you guys if you choose to go against me. I’d kill maybe one or two tops before Alex or Ashura put me down. However, I think you’ll find the people I represent are much better suited to handling something like the Spear of Destiny.”

  “It’s not the Spear of Destiny,” Alex said, coming up behind the two Youngbloods. “It’s not even from the same continent.”

  “It’ll be the Spear of Destiny in our reports to the President,” Bryce said. “The Men in Black need support, funding, and patronage. Supernatural threats are the new terrorism and the other world governments are starting to realize that it’s better to use the occult rather than stamp it out. The Nakoso is the kind of threat the Men in Black were created to stop. That you were made in a lab to eradicate.”

  “This could do a lot of good,” I said, feeling the power of the weapon and tempted to simply blast him into oblivion, “but not if it’s locked up in a warehouse somewhere next to the Ark of the Covenant and the crate with everyone’s missing socks.”

  “Yes,” Alex said. “Or a lot of evil. The House sat on things that should never be used. The Men in Black are not people fit to rule the world behind the scenes.”

  Bryce sighed. “I’ll make you a deal, Ashley.”

  “What kind of deal?” I asked.

  “You’ll be free,” Bryce said. “The Men in Black has a lot of former House resources and are recruiting. You won’t have to join up like the other Solomon Kids. We’ll even let Alex go since he’s no longer reliable. We’ll also tell you what you want to know.”

  “About?” I asked.

  “You tell me,” Bryce said. “But it’s a one-time offer and the Spear will never be safe in your hands later. It might not be us who come for it next.”

  “Is it safe in yours? Or do I hear about vampires being cured and murdered in six months? And, on a purely selfish level, what about me? If I’m supposedly doomed to be turned, should I let this out of my sight? And why would I trust you? You’ve been lying to me for months!”

  Bryce looked at her and put his gun away. “Who hasn’t? And are your hands any cleaner?”

  The Nakoso’s Spear was mindless, not possessing the soul of the dead god but merely an impression of his malice and hatred. It was evil and corrosive but there was also something good inside it, a remnant of Lugh as he used to be. It could be used for good or evil but maybe that was just what I wanted it to be. After all, it would be far more useful to me than an obnoxious sword I could barely use.

  I moved the spear over to Clara’s body and felt the power move from my surroundings into her prone form, resurrecting her from the dead or at least near-death. There was some spark left in her body that made it easier—or so I told myself.

  “Gah!” Clara said, sucking in her breath and bolting upward, her features gradually turning human again. Another “gift” I decided to give and barely required any energy to bestow.

  I made sure to alter her body and restore her original appearance. The magic flowing easily to her now with no need of chants, spells, or incantations. I suddenly found myself dressed in the attire of the Red Widow and imagined being a superhero again—a real one. Able to inspire the world and terrify it in equal measure.

  I felt the three vampires behind me get up and briefly considered turning them human. My brother was a fool to like being undead. He’d be much happier as a human man—or something better. Yes. I could feel what it was like to be a goddess. I also…didn’t like that feeling.

  I stared down at the spear and then tossed it to Bryce, who grabbed it then held it with both hands.

  “You’ve made a wise decision, Ashley.”

  I pulled the Sword of Zadkiel to my hands and then swung it with both hands, striking
the head of the weapon and shattering it into a dozen stone fragments. All the power of the spear vanished in an instant and disappeared in a bolt of lightning to the sky. Whatever remnant of the original Lugh had returned to the Circle of Life ala The Lion King or maybe just wherever gods went when they died. I didn’t particularly care if it meant I never had to see him or any of his incarnations again.

  Bryce stared at me in outrage.

  “Yeah,” I said. “I did.”

  “Do you have any idea what you’ve done?” Bryce demanded.

  “Kid, I held that for thirty seconds and I was already half-way to putting on a metal mask and referring to myself in the third person like Doctor Doom! Nobody can use that thing safely! You said you wanted to keep it safe, well, it’s safe! It can’t get any safer than destroyed! So, if that’s what you really wanted, you’d be thanking me. That you aren’t tells me you expected your bosses to use it. So, don’t get smug with me, asshole.”

  Bryce sighed and turned around to walk away. “Fine.”

  “Fine?” I asked, I really hadn’t expected him to take it so easily.

  Bryce continued walking. “There will be other artifacts and other battles. The real question you should be asking yourself is why I was embedded in your life in the first place.”

  “I’m actually pretty curious why most of my friends were spies, yeah!” I called back after him.

  He waved goodbye, which I’d never seen done sarcastically before.

  I shook my head. “I need a drink.”

  Epilogue

  To Alcohol, the Cause and Solution of All Problems

  I was exhausted. In the past twenty-four hours, I’d been almost killed, turned into a dhampyr, turned into a humanoid snake, and turned back. So, I’m going to say I was exhausted on a cellular level. I also needed a drink. I was shaking, and my nerves were on fire.

  And, since we needed to get out of that cemetery before anything that remotely resembled cops showed up, heading back to the bar seemed like the best bet. We didn’t have much time before sunup now, though. Another night without sleeping.