“It doesn’t work that way anymore,” he reminded himself as he floated across the street, checking people’s death dates and looking for parasites.
A couple moved in front of him, their breath visible, the two holding hands. Lucian watched them for a moment, letting the feeling of loneliness pass.
He stopped in front of the Four Seasons Hotel, where he peered inside a large window to see a thin man seated by himself, a napkin tucked into the man’s shirt, bags under his eyes that seemed to hang to the corners of his mouth, sallow skin, stringy hair, an ever-present frown.
The man’s death date flashed over his head, Lucian cracking his knuckles.
Name: Evan McEvan
Date of Birth: 09/16/1963
Date of Death: 12/22/2017
Lucian could see the peach-colored parasite wrapped around the man’s neck, its body pulsing. An eye started to lift off its form as Lucian went for his newly enhanced MX-11.
Figuring he would switch things up, he tossed it over his shoulder and equipped his plasma blowtorch.
Lucian took a few steps back, his two Grim Mechas behind him, his crows not far off.
As he waited for his weapon to charge, and as the parasite inside the glass continued to stare at him, Lucian thought about what he had just told his predecessor, and how happy the man had looked after getting his “alone time” with Leliel.
Lucian couldn’t really blame the two.
If he was able to pull off a similar relationship with Danira, he’d be relaxing in a tent in some faraway place as well, living his best life.
A smirk painted across his face as he placed his hand on the handle connected to the top of his plasma blowtorch, the parasite behind the window growing increasingly alarmed.
“Yeah, that’s right, buddy,” Lucian said as he glanced over his shoulder and nodded at one of his replicants, who released his newest creation, the aptly named Grim Vacuum.
The new device floated in the air to Lucian’s right, ready to do its worst.
After clearing his throat, he returned his attention to the parasite on the other side of the glass.
Lucian’s first shot tore through the floor-to-ceiling window, melting it instantly, and quickly bringing down a portion of the ceiling as he angled the weapon up, the parasite hissing out and quickly expanding in size.
His plane of existence changing, Lucian pulled the lever down and fired another shot as a series of tendrils and muscled arms twisted in his direction.
His two mechas quickly saw to the demon bug’s appendages, yanking them back, the myriad eyes now lifted, the parasite’s body flickering with fear.
“You should be afraid,” Lucian said, his voice not his own as he lowered his weapon, sending his two crows forward with a whistle.
They tore through the parasite’s thorax, Lucian motioned for his Grim Vacuum to give it a shot.
Upon his command, his newest creation spiraled forward, its clear neck and mouth growing in size while the bulb at the back more or less stayed in place.
It latched its teeth onto the parasite, and began pulsing as its throat enlarged, the parasite hissing and screeching.
“I don’t know...” Lucian said, turning to Hugin, who had rejoined him, Munin still hovering to the left of the parasite.
With a whoosh, the parasite was sucked into the holding chamber, shrinking until it was about the size of a deflated football.
It tried to form stingers and fists, but the creature suddenly couldn’t conjure any additional limbs, as if being attached to its host was what gave it power.
“Nice,” Lucian said once he hovered over to the bulb of his Grim Vacuum and examined it, the parasite’s underside reminding him of that of an octopus, dozens if not hundreds of suction cups slapping against the wall of the inner chamber, teeth inside of them.
He flicked his finger against the glass; the parasite made a noise that was partially muffled due to its confinement.
“You shouldn’t doubt yourself,” said Hugin.
Lucian scratched the back of his head. “I really didn’t think this was going to work. But it looks like I got one.”
“And now we have a new pet.”
Lucian laughed. “For some reason, I don’t think Ezra will like this little guy.”
Lucian turned back to the Public Gardens, and from there toward Newbury Street, the popular Back Bay area of downtown Boston. The main shopping hub of the city, Back Bay was always filled with people, enough that Lucian would be able to cherry-pick the parasites he was looking for.
“Let’s go,” he told his small entourage.
His cape swelled up as he shot to the air, heading to the northwest, his mechas and crows behind him, followed by Grim Vacuum.
Lucian flew over the crowd shopping and dining in Boston’s Back Bay area, bumper-to-bumper traffic making it easy for the pedestrians to cross the street.
There were parasites—there were always parasites—but now that he knew his contraption would work, Lucian was looking for a particular type of demon bug.
This meant that he mostly ignored the death dates, his crows twisting around him as he lowered onto the roof of a stalled vehicle, the people behind the man’s van honking their horns, one of the guys sticking his head out the window and yelling, shaking his fist.
Lucian spotted what he was looking for attached to the neck of a woman who Lucian would have taken for a model.
Even though it was cold outside, the lady wore bejeweled high heels, ironed white slacks, a blouse, and a form-fitting cashmere sweater, her hair done up perfectly, her makeup spot on, her nose upturned to a couple passing in front of her.
Lucian could see it, the same brain-like parasite he’d recently encountered in New York, the one that could take a humanoid form and had given him a bit of a run for his money.
But not now.
Holding up a number two, he shook his fingers twice at the parasite, his two Grim Mechas nodding as Lucian conjured a little over two dozen injurecrows, all of which swarmed around him.
His bone armor started to press out of his body, rippling down his arms and cascading up to his face before hardening, forming into his skull mask.
Lucian’s two crows now hovered behind him, next to his floating Grim Vacuum, Lucian turning back to his target as his scythe appeared in his hand.
Once he was ready, he shot forward and curved in an upward trajectory, his two mechas coming in from the sides with their blades, skewering the parasite.
The parasite screeched, growing in size as the plane of existence changed, as it formed into a humanoid shape with sword-like arms to combat Lucian’s two replicants, a banshee-like sound meeting Lucian’s ears.
As his creations distracted the demon bug, Lucian threw his scythe forward, the parasite knocking it away with a tendril of blackened flesh.
As he had back at the restaurant, where he’d fired through the glass, Lucian equipped his plasma blowtorch, which he used to cut the parasite practically in half.
The creature’s body regrew relatively quickly, the monster whipping left and right as it fought off Lucian’s helpers.
Once it seemed that it was starting to tire, evident in how its attacks had grown sloppier, Lucian nodded his crows forward, his Grim Vacuum following.
Oblivious to the fact that the parasite was trying to strangle both of them, his Grim Mechas grabbed it by the arms and shot toward the mouth of the vacuum, the humanoid parasite squealing as it was sucked in, the vacuum’s neck ballooning in size.
And just like that, it was finished.
Lucian watched the bulbous canister shake for a moment as the demon bug tried to break out, but eventually, the parasite settled inside, decreasing in size.
“We need a few more like that,” Lucian said as he lifted back into the air, his entourage rejoining him, his spherical IEDs making up the rear of their little party.
He landed on a rooftop and sat there for a moment, looking out toward downtown Boston, recalling how it sometime
s felt like a small town even though it was a big city.
He had come to downtown Boston numerous times, for everything from school field trips to a few dates with Katy, and each time Lucian enjoyed himself.
It was nice to come from Beverly, to be in an older suburb that had its charm, to pass through Salem and quickly reach the heart of the city.
As he looked out at the horizon, the sun reflecting off some of the buildings, the glass and steel mixed with the brick of old churches with gothic spires, Lucian started to think about what Boston would look like in the future.
Of course, this turned to an existential question.
How long would he keep this form? And if he did keep it for a couple hundred years, what would change? Would he be sitting in the same place a hundred years from now? What would America even look like then?
“Flying cars,” Lucian said to himself. Grim Vacuum floated next to him, the parasites inside not happy. He knocked on the outside of the bulbous canister; the parasite that he had just captured slammed itself against the inside wall. “Easy, little guy, I need you to preserve your energy.”
It wasn’t long before the streets below were back to the way they had once been, Lucian again moving through them, looking for a particular type of parasite amongst the crowd.
He spotted the next parasite on a stocky man shouldering his way through people at an intersection, an extinguished cigar strangled by his fat fingers.
The man huffed and puffed, stomping and grunting like a rhinoceros, the brain-like parasite on the back of his neck pulsing happily.
Lucian gestured his mechas forward, the two once again feigning an attack to throw the demon bug off.
This demon bug was a bit larger than the last they had battled, darkened muscles bulging off its body and popping with veins as they hardened, the air spritzed with blips of black fluid.
Once it was in its humanoid form, the parasite tackled one of Lucian’s replicants, the two smacking into a car and turning it onto its side, spilling out onto the sidewalk. It connected a big fist with Lucian’s replicant that sent his mecha straight into a fire hydrant, which burst, and an arc of water spraying into the air.
His next replicant came in from behind, planning to stab its arm right through the parasite’s back when a huge tentacle whipped off its body, locked around the mecha’s neck, and threw it through a storefront window, taking out a line of mannequins.
The first mecha responded with a shot that tore through the parasite’s shoulder. A different tentacle lifted off its other shoulder and cracked Lucian’s replicant on the back of the head.
Lucian’s MX-11 now trained on the parasite, he fired his first shot, a direct hit that sent globs of blackened blood into the air.
The injurecrows he’d conjured earlier, which had been hovering around him this entire time, all blasted forward, the first several connecting and setting off a chain reaction of explosions that blew out all the glass of the nearby cars, kickstarted their alarms, brought down a stop sign that filled the air with shrapnel, and caught some of the exterior paneling that wasn’t brick on fire.
The smoke started to clear and the parasite emerged, flames licking off its back as it locked half a dozen eyes with Lucian.
His replicants fired upon it, the demon bug absorbing all of their attacks as it continued to stalk Lucian.
“So you want to be a tough guy,” Lucian said, going for his lava sword. “Because I’m ready for you.”
His cape swelling around him, Lucian was in front of the parasite in a matter of seconds, hacking away at it as it continually blocked his attacks with tendrils that lifted off its back.
His blade sliced through them only for another one to appear, Lucian never able to fully land a strike. Not one to be deterred, he kept hacking at the demon bug, expecting the creature to make a mistake sooner rather than later.
An uppercut came out of nowhere, a fist attached to one of the tendrils.
Lucian was sent flying backward, where he clipped the back of his head against concrete steps that led to an Asian restaurant, everything flashing black and red for a moment.
As Lucian came to, he noticed that just about every element seemed to be represented in the skirmish now; wind, water, fire, pandemonium. Lucian rolled to the side and pressed back to his feet as his two crows zipped over him, Hugin and Munin leading a pack of spherical IEDs.
Lucian could feel the blast caused by his injurecrows, his hand coming up to shield his face from it, bits of debris raining down onto the sidewalk.
His cape pulled him back to safety, which happened to be on the other side of the street considering how big the blast radius was.
“A tough guy,” he mumbled to himself as he considered his options.
He glanced up to see that his two replicants had already moved back into battle, Lucian figuring he could aid them by adding some electricity to the mix.
Lifting his hands, two enormous bolts shot out of his palms and struck the parasite, its body writhing in agony as another pair of injurecrows struck their target.
Moving forward again, he summoned a blast of ice from one hand, wind from the other, the effect allowing him to freeze the parasite.
He kept up the pressure as the demon bug tried to break the ice, cracks appearing in its surface, fissures moving their way down the parasite’s body as Lucian strengthened his ice trap.
Lucian kept it up for much longer than necessary, the demon bug now in a block of melting ice, still trying to break free.
“Now!” Lucian called to his Grim Vacuum, which flew forward, the opening at its receiving end growing in size so it could accommodate the cube of ice, its teeth salivating.
It chomped down on the frozen parasite, the demon bug’s body instantly sucked up and deposited in the holding chamber, despite its larger size due to the block of ice around his body.
“Shit is tight,” Lucian said to no one in particular as he took a breather. He walked over to the canister and looked into it, seeing that the parasite was still partially frozen, the other two that were in there not happy about being imprisoned with it.
“So ice works,” he told Hugin, who now hovered in front of them.
“It appears so. How many do you plan to collect?”
A sign that had been hanging on by a power cord fell into a seating area in front of a restaurant, taking down some of the fencing as well. It sparked for a moment, Lucian ignoring it.
“It really depends on my power…”
There was no sweat on his brow, but he brought his arm up anyway, wiping it as if there were, his bone armor starting to melt back into his skin.
Lucian’s Soul Points appeared in front of him.
“Let’s go for one more like this, and then we need to find another type,” he said, his plan once again playing out in his head. “That one will be more difficult, but we need to make it happen. After that, I’ll take a nap, and then we can meet Danira and the others at the beach. As I said, it’s going to be a long day. Did I say that already?”
Hugin shook its head.
“Heh. Well, it’s going to be a long day.”
Chapter Fourteen: From Desert to Desert
Lucian awoke from his nap.
He briefly checked his Soul Points to see that he was topped off, that he had timed everything just right.
He had a backup, of course, Hugin instructed to wake him up after about an hour.
But Lucian had awoken on his own, raring to go, energized and ready.
No weird nap dreams, either.
As he sat up, he looked out to the lake which glistened in the sun, the blanket he had placed beneath him slowly melting into the soft green grass.
It was time.
One glance over to Grimzilla told him that there was always another option, that he could call upon his giant robot, even if it wasn’t designed for this kind of attack.
And perhaps it was a way forward.
But no, he’d already gone to the trouble of capturing p
arasites, Lucian deciding to stick with his gut.
Lucian motioned his crows over to him, his two Grim Mechas coming as well, the two imposing replicants floating just a few inches above the ground, their shoulders back, their chins held high.
“Now or never,” he told Hugin and Munin, his second crow responding with a barrel roll.
Pressing his thumb and pinky finger together, Lucian flashed away, appearing above the desert in Old Death’s world, the miles and miles of sand dunes that ran along the perimeter and stretched as far as the eye could see.
He only had to fly around for a moment before he spotted a pair of enormous tents which were white with gold stitching, the threads big enough for Lucian to see them as he neared the shelters, almost as if they were made of enlarged yarn.
He landed, and rather than go in himself, he sent one of his Grim Mechas, just to be sure.
“I’m ready,” he heard Old Death call from inside the large tent, which was somewhere between the size of a circus tent and something that could double as a gazebo. “And come in here, my boy, don’t send your blasted robot in to do your dirty work.”
“Here goes nothing,” Lucian said to Hugin as he strolled into the tent, finding his predecessor relaxing on a throne of pillows, Leliel sitting beside him, her head in his lap.
Lucian took in the space, noticing the way in which their tent had been decorated with its fur rugs, throw pillows, something almost Middle Eastern about the space, yet modern, a bookshelf in the corner, a few plants near the door.
It was a strange setup, and they’d changed some things around since the last time he visited earlier in the day.
Old Death looked vibrant in his metallic robot body, the muscled replicant smirking at Lucian. Leliel glanced up at her lover, barely paying attention to Lucian, her cheeks slightly red. A tray of grapes floated over to her and she plucked a few.
“I suppose we should go,” said Old Death, lightly patting Leliel on the shoulder, the tray of grapes disappearing.
“Hi, Lucian,” the fallen angel said, finally turning to look at him, a lock of her hair spilling over her forehead.
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