by Jamie Hawke
“Grabbing a bite?” Steph asked with a hint of annoyance.
“Tunnels,” the senator said.
We shared a look of confusion. As he led the way, one of the interns explained, “There are some main ones that go to the Capitol from other government buildings. Some are known, others… less so.”
“Better to travel where we’re not being watched, I figure,” the senator called back.
“Smart,” Ebrill muttered as she moved up next to me. “What’d we miss back there? What happened?”
“Fuck,” I said, and let out an almost hysterical laugh. “A damn lot.”
We moved through gray tunnels beneath D.C., toward the Capitol, while I told them what had happened with Thiten and Thiton joining, only to be absorbed by Fatiha. How I had saved Megha and even released Yenifer, but how both of them had vanished.
“All we can do now is hope,” Aerona said.
“It’s that bad?” I asked.
She nodded. “We’d hoped to have Megha, and that was before Fatiha had… absorbed, as you say… Thitis.”
“What she is trying to politely say,” Kordelia chimed in, “is that we are, how do you say…?”
“Fucked,” Steph filled in the rest. “We’re fucked.”
“Not so fast,” Senator Funai said, turning to us. We had reached another set of doors, although the tunnel continued to our left. “This is it. Through here and up, and we’ll be at the portal location. All we have to do is fight long enough to deactivate the portal by destroying at least one of the magic items holding it open. Defeating Fatiha can come at a different time.”
“Or not at all,” a voice said, somewhat a mixture of Fatiha and her absorbed goddess. The door blasted open and three dog-like creatures the size of bears burst in. Lines of glowing green moved along their bodies like snakes but were like cracks in the stone that made up these creatures.
I was glad they weren’t legit dogs. Maybe it was my dad’s love for them, but I couldn’t see myself being okay with fighting one. These things, though, with their nasty, snarling teeth and their eyes that peeled back to look like demons’ eyes, weren’t going to be a problem.
It was the way they split open after being torn apart by spells and gargoyle claws that worried me. That green glowing stuff came out like ooze, forming into blobs that shot out, tendrils trying to take us, and left sizzling lines on the cement of the passage.
Senator Funai lifted a clawed hand that shook, causing one of the blobs to convulse and squeeze back in on itself until it kind of splatted, done. His interns had those magic gun-looking devices, shooting and sending shocks through the others. Aerona shouted for me to freeze them. I did, then brought them back as remnants—because more enemies were coming. A creature with a hood and robes like Death swept through, each hand wielding long blades, or maybe its hands were the blades. Rilandwas cut, but Ebrill swept him aside and held him while he healed. Kordelia tried to hold her own against the death creature but it was faster than her. Luckily for us, we had it outnumbered. I used my go-to spell, the ice claw, and that distracted it at least long enough for Kordelia and Riland to attack with spells that left it as a slumped pile of robes.
Meanwhile, I saw that the senator and his troupe were dealing with little kobold creatures and several Drow who had made it down. One of them looked familiar, actually, and when the Drow blocked a spell while surging toward the senator, then held his body close, blade sticking through and coming out from the man’s back, I saw why.
It was one of the Drow who had been on guard back in Avalon, before the betrayal. If Rianne were here, I wondered what she would say.
As it was, the others had enough to spit out at him.
“Fucking traitor!” Ebrill howled, lunging at him with blue flames licking her horns and fingers, claws clanging off his armor.
He dropped Senator Funai’s lifeless body and attacked, but then switched to defense as Kordelia joined in.
“We trusted you to defend Rianne,” Kordelia growled between strikes.
“Everyone makes mistakes,” the Drow countered. “That was one of the many that your people made.”
Aerona had seen and was trying to fight her way over through kobolds and others, tearing a path through, but Riland got to him before her, at the same time as an intern’s shot from the magic taser hit and put the Drow on his knees, and then Riland summoned a sword that cut right through the Drow’s head.
“Brother,” Riland said, standing over the corpse, watching it fall.
“Not…?” I started, wondering if he meant real brother, but Ebrill shook her head. The fighting was still going on. Steph was nearby blasting fire as her wraith knights fought just past her, but I then finally processed the fact that the senator was dead.
I stepped over to him, overcame a kobold with my remnants, and stared at the lifeless eyes of the man who had come to our aid. I had hardly known him, and there he was, dead… for me.
Monsters of all sorts were converging on us as Senator Funai’s body lay lifeless at my feet. All I could do was drop to my knees and morph our surroundings so that we were protected. The last of those inside fell with ease. I cast ice walls as well, and was vaguely aware of Ebrill casting booster spells to amplify our defense and speed, while Aerona and Kordelia added to my shields.
“We need more than this,” Steph said, taking a knee at my side.
“Megha,” Riland added.
“We failed,” I replied. “We have no idea where she is.”
“On that note, though, I have an idea.” Riland held out a hand. “Close your eyes, pretend to sleep. I’ll take care of the rest.”
“What?”
“Just… with our mental connection. Me to you, her to that place—I think it can work.”
Doing as he said, I listened to the sounds of attacks on our shields and walls, felt the magic as the enemy tried to barrage our position. And then, with a jolt, I wasn’t there at all but back in the land where I had met Riland and Megha.
To my surprise, a translucent version of her was there. Not nude, this time, but dressed as we had seen her with the coven—a thin, flowing black robe that fell low at the edges to reveal some nice side boob.
She eyed me, grinned, and said, “Knew you’d come looking for me here.”
“I thought I pulled you out of this place. Saved you.”
“You did—but my magic is the type that allows me to reconnect. This time, I’m not really here, but projecting myself. It’s quite convenient, especially since it allows me to do this.”
Reaching out her hand, she grabbed mine. We were instantly torn from that land and back in the tunnel beneath the Capitol. Only, now she was there with me, fully in the flesh but wearing her black robe.
The others gasped at the sight of her Shisa gave her a quick sniff and approving nod. Steph glanced down at our clasped hands, and when Megha saw her looking, she brought my hand up to her face, licked it, and tried to take one of my fingers into her mouth. I pulled my hand away, cleared my throat, and nodded at the surrounding walls—one was starting to crumble and was covered in cracks, clearly about to give.
“Care to help us out, here?” I waved my hands, hoping that conveyed magic. “And then we were thinking you might have a way of tracking down others from your group.”
“Like Yenifer,” Ebrill said as she moved in for an embrace. “It’s good to have you back.”
“You are back, right?” Aerona asked.
Megha smiled wide. “Same me, but new and improved. As I can say for all of you—fuck, Ebrill, your tits were never like that when you were a boring old elf.”
Ebrill looked down at her chest, considered, and smiled. “True. But, as Jericho pointed out—maybe we fight first, then discuss chest size?”
“I have no problem with that.” Megha admitted. She turned to me, then motioned at the walls. “Okay, let’s go.”
“Go…?” I asked.
“Pull the walls down. I’ll take care of them.”
�
�There’re a lot of those bastards out there,” Steph said.
“Who’s the old lady?” Megha asked, which was quite humorous considering the fact that all the others were much older. It just so happened, due to magical reasons, that Steph had white hair.
“Sorry,” I said, holding up a hand in my way of asking Steph to let it go. “But… you’re sure you can handle it?”
“Are you ready?” Megha winked, then said, “Get back, and prepare yourselves.”
She jumped, and as she did a form materialized beneath her. Large, growing larger, until she was sitting on the shoulders of a behemoth of a monster. Thick muscles braided beneath gray skin, no face other than a mouth full of sharp teeth, and her hands through its now-translucent head, massaging its brain.
“Rampage mode, motherfuckers!” Megha shouted, and then the creature she rode charged forward with fists swinging. It broke through my walls in a matter of seconds, spinning and jumping and starting to pound on the enemy beyond a moment later. Blood was flying, Megha riding it and cooing softly between giggles, as if this was her pet cat simply playing with a ball of yarn.
Shisa whimpered, which I could one hundred percent relate to, then joined the rest of us as we darted out to press the assault. We formed a convex semi-circle, fighting but staying clear of Megha, and working our way in the direction the senator had been leading us.
“Wait,” I said, and turned back to make the ground absorb the senator. Not the burial I was sure he deserved, but the best we could give him in the moment. Plus, we didn’t want his body showing up and questions being asked. “May he rest in peace.”
There was nothing else to be said for now, and my attention was drawn back toward my team as the night filled with the sound of screams.
23
We emerged in the Capitol and ran out onto the steps, looking across the National Mall and seeing the portal there. It rose in a massive beam of light, monster after monster emerging to cause havoc.
A crowd of them stood at the bottom of the steps, some with snake bodies, others with long horns. There were the dog-like things we had faced in the tunnels, and flying creatures like I had seen in the Dark Lands. It was actually happening—the army was coming, some of it already here on Earth.
Fatiha appeared in the crowd, smiling as she floated toward us, several of her retinue in tow.
“These games have carried on long enough.” She lifted her hand to attack, but in that instant, I felt a pulse go out from Megha.
A gust of wind tussled my hair and then Yenifer was there, landing so hard that she cracked the marble stair she had landed on. Wings spread, eyes glowing, she snarled at Fatiha. Still no recognition of us yet, but at least she was facing the enemy.
“I see you have new friends,” Fatiha said. “But it won’t matter.”
“You killed the senator.” I thrust out my hand, and my staff—wherever it had been—suddenly appeared in my grip. Light circled around the tip, then the Liahona appeared. “We’re done with this shit.”
With a sneer, Fatiha flew forward, flames trailing.
I wasn’t about to let her kill anyone else. Rage at the idea that she would try was boiling up inside of me. Megha began to summon a creature. Yenifer braced herself and roared. Steph summoned her wraith knights, and the others braced themselves for the onslaught. All the while I let my rage well up, and then turned it into a deep focus that pulled simultaneously on Avalon and the Dark Lands.
It was like all of my focus before had been a whisper, and now I was shouting. Energy poured into me, magic from those lands, mine for the taking. Deep legends and ancient rituals all flooded into me. In that moment, I pulled on the powers of past mages before me. So much so, that as I thrust my staff and the Liahona forward, the surrounding air lit up and I realized I was wearing robes that fluttered in the wind. A mask, too, had come to rest on my face. I wondered about its history, how much of that would come to light in the near future.
For the moment, all I cared about was kicking Fatiha’s ass.
As if on cue, both sides charged. Watching my newfound power sweep over them was like watching those old movies where the first wave of charging soldiers falls to a wave of arrows. Light shot out, almost like blue flames. Kobolds and the like were blasted away, one giant vanishing only to be called upon by Megha a second later. She had her hands in its head and was on its shoulders, whooping as she rode it down the steps to go berserk on the enemy.
My thought then, was that when we ‘killed’ the enemy, they were sent back to the Dark Lands. As long as that portal was open, they could repeatedly keep on coming.
I sent out another blast, aiming this one for Fatiha. She braced herself but was thrown back slightly, burn marks smoking on her skin. But she wasn’t defeated, not with the power of Thitis in her.
My power was great, but I couldn’t hold it long. Like trying to play a role, the minute I ‘broke character,’ the magic faded. I was back in my jeans and t-shirt, the remaining enemy still charging.
Yenifer and the two larger gargoyles swept through the sky, descending on the enemy with a barrage of strikes and spells, while Shisa stayed with me for defense and Ebrill kept toward the edge of the fighting in order to hit us with buffers. Steph’s wraith knights were giving the enemy hell, and the senator’s interns, to their credit, were holding their own.
I took off down the steps, finding it odd that most of the fallen had vanished into the other world. Not all, though, or not all yet. Those who were only injured, and the dying but not yet dead, stayed, clawing their way across the ground and trying to lash out when they could. I leaped over a two-headed bear, thrusting out with my Liahona power again as I landed so that I finished him and the snake-like lady next to him. Then I spun, aiming for Fatiha, but she was in the air. One second ahead, shooting around in bursts of flame the next.
“This is all you have to throw against me?” she said with an ugly laugh. “Come, Jericho… you’re not as pitiful as that… are you?”
She flashed into flames, appearing as a spiral of fire that came right for me. I threw an ice wall her way and dodged. The ice wall didn’t do anything to stop her but had at least blocked her vision so she couldn’t see that I had rolled out to the side and was now up. Two ice claw spells nearly caught her, and then I used my remnant spell. When they rose, I realized the creatures had that same blue-gray tint as the ones Megha called upon.
To be able to send the enemy right back at themselves felt great. Even better when half of their forces stared at their former companions in shock, right before being pummeled into the ground. My remnants could only take a hit or two, but it was enough when paired with a surge of flurries I threw at them. Each time we took down enemies, I summoned more remnants. Although, like Steph with her wraith knights, I began to feel the toll.
And, at the moment I stumbled, Fatiha was ready to strike. She hit me with a blast of flame. It didn’t kill me, thanks to Shisa nearby, but it hurt like hell and left me with a singed eyebrow, I was pretty sure.
Moving back to Shisa, I said “Carreg,” and kept moving as attacks and spells bounced off me. I didn’t have the energy for more, and felt the stone skin effect of the spell actually slow me down, draining me of energy. It was a good defensive spell if I didn’t need to charge in kicking ass two seconds later. Shisa’s protective spells took over right as the stone skin faded.
“Doing okay there, boss?” Riland pulled back to my side, sword at the ready. His powers seemed best suited here for sword fighting or a skill that allowed him to send creatures back to the Dark Lands. Since the sword did the same thing, it made more sense in combat of this nature.
Watching another troop emerge from the portal, I shook my head, but had a thought. “She’s sending them in waves. Why?”
“I don’t follow.”
My words were mostly for me to figure it out, anyway, so I continued, “Waves means surges of energy. Just like my energy is low, she must be recharging it… or recharging an item.”
> Eyes scouring the battlefield, I noted Aerona going up against Fatiha on one side, Kordelia trying to take the other. There, by an art sculpture in the grass, I saw what I hoped was what I had been looking for.
The ground was glowing, in a sense. More like heat waves of light. Another search, this time knowing what I was looking for—sure enough, there was another spot opposite the portal. More became apparent, and I focused on seeing it from above, as if flying. Using my transmorph power, I was able to make a line of light appear before me to draw it out.
“As I thought,” I said. “A simple rune pattern.”
“No shit?” Steph said, and I turned to see that she had apparently joined us.
“It’d seem so. Meaning, she had to arrange the magical items in certain locations to set up the portal. Disrupt them, and it closes.”
“Close,” Steph said. “But… I’d caution that it might have been to open the portal, not keep it open. You might have to do a counter-rune to really close it.”
“Shit.”
I looked at the rune, realizing it was similar, maybe even the same, to one back at Gertrude’s.
“We’ll need to disrupt it before we can alter it,” Steph said, apparently having seen something in my eyes.
“Then let’s focus on that.”
I nodded to Riland and was about to charge for the closest glowing spot of the rune, when a roar came to my left. We all turned to see a massive lion with wings, and there alongside him was Galahad and other fighters attacking the enemy’s flank. The cavalry had arrived!
Taking advantage of the moment, I sprinted. Whatever force Galahad had brought with him was likely to at least be enough to give me the time I needed. I reached the ground and knelt, hand on the ground and fingers in the dirt, willing it to move aside.
