by Ariana Kenny
Chapter 16 Finish Them
Locating the Old Ones was more gruesome. Myria rolled out a sheet of animal skin, stretched out to be used like a canvass, and roughly drew in charcoal a map of the city, then cut her hand. She murmured to whatever deity she followed, to show her the way as she dripped her blood across the skin. The drops fell purposefully, unbound by gravity to various locations. Some fell in a heap in one location, known to be the local shipping yard territory, and one of Michael’s favourite haunts according to Viktor. Other drops scattered seemingly at random.
“Now we will know where they are, and when is the best time to go in.” Myria confidently affirmed.
While Myria and Cam were filling shells and orbs on the bench, I gazed curiously at the map. “What sort of skin is this?” I wondered out aloud. No one answered. A few uncomfortable glances were shared, that was all. I shuddered. No matter what I was now, this sort of stuff was going to take some getting used to.
I observed the offending item with disgust on my face until I noted something odd was happening. The drops of blood remained drops, rather than seeping into the skin surface. They rolled in response to movement of the old ones. I wasn’t sure if I should be grossed out or fascinated. I let myself be both. Three drops moved exponentially all of a sudden and I felt a twang of interest. I knew that spot on the map. Oh my god, I thought.
I opened my mouth to warn everyone, but as I did there was a crash through one of the remaining walls.
Stone and decayed wood flew in all directions and two of the great creatures stood in the room with us. Without the darkness of Belil’s cavern, or the fight for my life, I had a suspended moment to take in what they looked like. They might smell like a wet dog, look like a giant Stafford or Pit-bull, but their heads were catlike. Fangs steeped in drool and elongated, like ours jutted out over their jowls, and they seemed almost completely hairless. Talon like claws clattered the concrete. I stood in shock, as did Cassie and Myria. The moment was just that though, a moment. The creature closest to me, to the front let out a cry – half yowl, half howl. It pierced my ears and I winced. The other one snorted like a horse. They were both as big as horses, but all muscle, supernatural muscle at that.
Viktor let out a war cry and rushed at one staking it in the chest. He was flung off it one motion and landed on the table of supplies. Orbs smashed under his weight, shells scattered, and Violet and Cam sprang into action. Violet managed to get a shot off before one ran at her. She fled, and though she was fast, I was faster. I ran at her and grabbed her out of the way. We both rolled to our feet and as it came at us, I stood my ground and grabbed at it. Using all my strength I flung it over my head and to the ground. Cassie darted over Viktor, grabbing an orb on the way. She flung it at the creature as it started to rear up, startled at the treatment it had just received. As the weapon smashed against its face it whimpered and fell to the ground.
The second creature snarled, and scanned the room. Russell was loading one of the shotguns. We had not yet loaded them, thinking we had more time. Russell threw a loaded gun to Viktor but the beast had already fixed its gaze on Myria. Cam propelled herself at it, but fast as she was, shifting in front of Myria, she lacked the strength to push it away. Cam was pawed and flew to the other side of the room. Above her was the entrance the OldOnes had created for themselves to make their way in. As she struggled to get to her feet, a third creature appeared from the hole behind her, grabbed at her, and pulled her in to the dark outside. Cassie flew out after Cam.
Unmoving, Myria was still being eyed off by the remaining Old One. As it launched at her, Myria held her arm up to brace herself. I rushed to place myself on top of her and tensed myself for the pain. A shot rang out and it slumped over my legs instead. Myria looked at me with big doe eyes, full of fear and relief. I pulled her to standing and she grabbed my arm with both hands. She hid behind my form, trembling. “Cam!” she whispered, horror marking her.
The immediate danger subsided, Russell moved to run up the steps, but Cassie was already coming down them.
“Cassie!” I called, but her eyes didn’t look up. Her cheeks were streamed with dirt and tears.
“No, no, no!” Myria wept beside me, turning her head away in grief.
“Cassandra!” I called again. She looked at me, swallowed and shook her head. I could see Violet slump against a wall and Russell’s shoulders lax. Cassie spoke “She…” but she stopped when she felt the breath of the creature at her back. Everyone stood still. With a snarl it extended a giant paw and snagged her with its talons. I ran to her and grabbed her arm.
I held fast to her arm, unwilling to let her go, but it tore deeper into her flesh. She held tighter to me. Blood spattered and my Cassie screamed. She looked at me, her eyes rolled, and then she let go of me.
It happened so fast, but still Violet had time to get off a shot from her crossbow. It stuck in the thing’s head and it wailed, but drew on whatever reserves it had. My Cassandra was torn into the night.
I ran out after them and saw them in the distance. It dragged her body with it. I shifted to it, but when I got there I couldn’t see it. They were already gone, or shielded somehow, so I had no choice but to go back to the church to get the map. I was going to find it, kill it, then kill it again. When I got back in Violet was comforting Myria. She looked shell shocked, detached. I grabbed the map and turned to head out.
“You can’t go alone.” Viktor grabbed my arm.
“I’m sure as hell not waiting,” I responded shaking my arm free. “She might still be alive!” Viktor was silent, and simply shook his head. I closed my eyes. My world was tumbling. I did the only thing I could in my frustration ad grief and pounded at the wall with my fist over, and over again until Violet stayed my arm. When I looked at her, her eyes glinted with tears and sorrow.
“We’ll go together.” She offered. Violet walked back over to Myria, pulling her to her feet. Myria walked over to the two sleeping creatures and poured salt around them. She had stopped crying and just looked dark, ominous. Aside from the fact the lights had mostly been smashed, the place seemed as though a dark cloud had muted what light was left. Kneeling in between the two bodies, Myria stretched her hands out to either side and placed them on the floor. Each faced the direction of a fallen Old One. She began to whisper in another language. The volume built and she brought her hands closer together but not touching. Sparks lit up between her fingertips, between her palms and she clapped her hands closed in a sudden movement, ceasing her chatter. The two bodies sparked and trembled then vanished in a flash of light.
Myria stood up, turned around and looked at me “Our rules. Not theirs.” she snapped. I led the way out the door without anything further needing to be said.
We approached a secluded warehouse, the one that had shown up near the docks on the map. It was the place we had seen most of the creatures congregate so made sense to target. On arriving, we could see soft light and hear the sounds of heavy beating music oozing out. We stood on a ledge overlooking the place with defiant looks on our faces.
“We need to be clear and prepared going in.” Russell began, taking an instructional lead. As he pointed at an entrance guarded by two vampires he tried to concoct a plan, but Myria just stalked off towards the building. “Myria!” he called after her, but she wasn’t coming back, and I for one wasn’t going to make her. I followed, Violet and Viktor close behind. As we approached the door, the two vamps playing security jumped at the chance to meet us head on. I shifted fast and met one head on, stopping him in his tracks. My strength overpowered him easily and I staked him in the heart. His rapid decay kicked in and he was brittle and withered by the time he hit the ground.
Violet and Viktor made fast work of the second guard. There was a snapping sound and Russell met my stride.
“I’m going around the back.” he informed me.
“Good for you Russell.” Myria snidely remarked “I’m going through the front door. Not sneaking roun
d the back like a coward.”
As Myria stalked forward, Russell broke away with Viktor. I looked at Myria. “No need for that.” I said to her. “He’s earned your respect over the years don’t you think?” She ignored me.
The music pounded even louder as we stepped in to the vast space that was the warehouse, but there were sheer sheets of material hanging from the ceiling about a third of the way in, and a sultan harem set up visible from behind them. We stepped through, Violet, Myria and I, curious that there was no further greeting party.
We slowed as we approached, and saw Michael as we walked through layered silks. He was laying sprawled back on cushions, the amulet about his neck, and a talisman dangling from his wrist. Three women sporting bite marks across their bodies, and barely dressed, caressed and massaged him. He hardly bothered to look up, and I would have jumped him if I hadn’t spotted two of the Old Ones behind him, standing guard in the corners. Eventually, Michael kissed one of the girls, before he dismissed them all by waving his hand. He smacked one on the girls on the buttocks as she walked away. They all skipped past us tittering.
Violet looked at them appalled. “What is wrong with you!” she asked of Michael.
“Where do you start?” I reminded her.
Michael smiled, seemingly unaffected, his confident intact. He stepped forward and I took a responsive step back. “It’s not like I have to be worried now is it?” Michael said in a jovial tone. “The three of you here to seal my doom!” he emphasized the last words with drama and smiled as though he had made a clever joke.
“I’d be worried if I were you.” Myria started at him. She hissed an incantation at him as she moved forward, but nothing happened.
“Well that’s just not nice is it?” He toyed. “Didn’t they teach you any manners, or history. Long as I am wearing this…” he tapped a charm at his wrist “…you aren’t going to be doing much of anything to me.” He held out his hand towards Myria. It had a symbol drawn on it, pyramid like with a design in the middle. “Vole Ale.” he said and with those words Myria flew across the room and hit her head on the stone wall. She was conscious but stunned at the treatment.
Michael laughed. “You don’t think you are the only one with a sense for the good stuff do you. We all have our gifts, and it seems magik is one of mine.” He smiled pleasantly. “Matthias, I am so glad you joined me. I missed you. Brother. That’s what we used to mean to each other anyway.”
“I am going to crush you Michael.” Not very smart, but all I could honestly think to say at the time. I do still wish I had thought of something more prolific.
“You’ve turned in to a barbarian Matt. You never would have said anything like that when you were alive. You should thank me for freeing you from your mundane life.”
“I intend to thank you just the same way you thanked me.” I said moving forward. A shadow strode out in warning from behind the curtain, another of the OldOnes, but I didn’t break my momentum.
On cue, as it came for me, Russell shot it from the window outside and it fell to the ground. Michael lost his smile as I came closer to him. He touched the amulet around his neck and immediately two more creatures moved to stand in front of him. A screech from one of the creatures erupted from outside the window and stopped me in my tracks. It came from where Russell, and I assumed Viktor were, so I could count on them having their hands full.
Violet sidled over to me. “I’ll take the one on the left, you take the right.” She whispered to me. Meanwhile, Myria had started walking back to where we were, rubbing her head and wincing in pain.
“I have something you want.” Michael taunted, walking past us, but still shielded by the two figures. He pulled back a curtain and revealed Elias, hanging upside down, helplessly chained in silver manacles. Cuts to his body were seeping blood across his torso and face. It was hard to tell if he was still alive. Violet gasped involuntarily. “He came here to prove himself. Isn’t that thoughtful? And you let him come straight to me….” came Michael’s unwelcome explanation. Violet ran to free Elias on automatic response, but an OldOne jumped in her way. It snarled and dripped saliva from its fangs. She froze and her gloved hand grabbed at a silver stake by her side.
Myria was pressing forward now.
“I want Cam back!” Myria screamed at him.
Michael screwed up his face as though he sucked a lemon. “Was she your mother little one?” He drawled with fake concern, then dipped his voice darkly glancing my way. “Seems I have a thing for mothers doesn’t it?” Enough was enough. I ran at him and shifted past the two guardians. Myria and Violet both threw orbs at them, which exploded, but only one creature went down.
Michael evaded my first blow, running across the deck, and then across a wall until I shifted in front of him. Startled at the speed he turned to run the other way but I threw a stake that just caught him in the leg. He fell to the ground and I pinned him with my arm across his shoulders.
“You are strong aren’t you?” He bit at me. “Good for you. You going to kill me? Is that what you think?”
I faltered. “I’d offer you to come with us if I thought it would be any good.” Two more shots rang out behind me and I heard two bodies fall to the ground. Viktor jumped through the window. He motioned for Myria, and I saw her head towards Viktor and follow him out.
“You could offer to kiss my feet and I would still make it worth my while to take everything you have from you.” Michael spat at me and kicked himself free. As he ran, he was hampered by the wound to his leg, and of course I caught up with him. I saw flashes of light from outside as Myria disposed of two more of the OldOnes that Russell and Viktor had taken down.
“Come protect me.” Michael bellowed. By now though, none of the creatures were left to come to him.
“About that,” I said pinning him again, this time against a wall “I think we may have cleaned the place out for you.” I pulled the amulet I had once taken from Belil from his neck and tossed it. He glared at me and tried to put his hand out to me “Vole A…” I punched him in the face and he was finally mute.
Michael looked panicked “I have what you want. Let me go!” he gasped.
“You have nothing I want. You took everything!” I yelled. I tossed him against the wall as he had tossed me at our last meeting. I was towering over him before he had time to open his eyes. I took him by the throat…but he pointed to a back room. As he pointed the small charm at his wrist that he had shown us before, struggled free of his sleeve and hung, dangling, and I saw it was fastened not by a chain, but some kind of braid. Blonde and smelling of Cassandra. I let his throat go, and grabbed at the charm on his wrist. I wrenched it free. It was, as I suspected, Cassie’s hair.
“Let me go. And I will give her back to you. Kill me, she stays buried.” He stammered, but it was me who was taken aback.
“She’s alive?” I half asked, half stated in awe.
“Of course! Think I was going to let them kill her? She was always my back up. Crazy blonde bitch.” I punched him again, for fun this time.
I glared at him. “Show me.” I snarled. No way was I letting him go, but he didn’t need to know that.
Michael led the way, limping to a door in the back. In the dark I made out plastic sheeting all around and an earth floor with a door secured in the middle of it. He stood back as I bent down and tried to open it, but when my hand met the wood it sizzled and crackled my skin. I drew back in pain. I turned back to ask Michael how to open it, but he had disappeared. Rushing over to where he had been standing, I pulled aside plastic sheeting that hung from the ceiling only to find a second entrance behind the door where he had been standing that led down in to a dark passage. I wanted to run after him, find him, kill him, but then I heard her voice calling for help behind the door.
I dropped to the floor again, looking for where the charm might fit like a key. I became aware then that Myria was standing next to me. I looked up at her. She peered down at me. She appeared saddened, defeated.
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“They’re gone, all of them.” she said calmly. There was an eeriness to her, that made me uncomfortable. “You let him go didn’t you?”
“He ran while I was trying to open this.” I looked back at the sealed door.
“You let him go, for her.” She nodded towards the door and sounded angry now.
“I wouldn’t let him go, He said I needed him to open the door. How am I going to do that, if he’s gone.” I reasoned.
I could hear Cassie from below. Faint. Muffled. “Matt. Is that you?” I heard from below. “I can’t open the door. It keeps burning me if I try. Matt are you there? Please be you up there.”
“You didn’t need him to open the door. I think you knew that, but you let him go anyway.” Myria said flatly.
“Myria.” I was shocked. “No. You’re wrong.”
Looking a little more peaceable again she turned to walk out. “It’s not like a key. You just have to break it to open the seal.” She walked away and I looked over the charm in my fingers. Putting the two together, I snapped it and reached for the door again, and this time it easily gave way and I reached into the pit, pulling Cassie out. We hugged each other and I led her out, supporting her weight as she had difficulty walking.
Viktor and Russell had joined us inside again, and Violet had just freed Elias. He was barely moving. Viktor helped Violet pick him up.
Russell came over to Myria, and she grabbed him like a small child would for security. She gave him an apologetic look, and he stroked her hair out of her face “You don’t need to say anything.” Russell offered as comfort.
“I can’t believe he floored me like that!” she whimpered.
“Only because you didn’t see it coming.” he replied soothing her. “We can work on that.”
“There’s a lot of things to work on.” Myria considered out loud, and our strange party headed home. “First, we have to find out how this works….” She said holding up the amulet.
Russell took it from her. “Myria, we have to destroy it. It’s too much of a liability.”
Cassie piped in. “I agree. It needs to go.” I nodded but Viktor and Violet, who pressed ahead of us stopped.
“You don’t want to use it to draw them here?” Violet questioned.
Viktor looked stunned. “I can’t believe after everything you went through, you are even thinking about it. Besides – You know how to control it?” Viktor retorted, before I heard him mutter under his breath: “Or did you want Myria taking the lead on that one?” Violet looked back at Cassie and I.
“Maybe it would be safer.” Violet relented.
Russell dropped it to the ground. And picked up a rock to smash it. He hit it, but nothing happened. I left Cassie for a moment, took the rock from him, aimed carefully then crushed it. I kicked the pieces, scattering them. With that, we spent a moment of silence, before pressing on towards home, and rest.
