The Blade Mage

by Phillip Drayer Duncan

  Faith nodded at me and said, “You’re right. I’m sorry. You’re the professional here. I’ll wait in the car. Just scared for my sister is all.”

  “I know,” I said. “Just keep the car ready in case we have to run.”

  “I will,” she said, opening the front door. “Good luck. And thank you, Wyatt.”

  I forced a smile and said, “Don’t worry. I’ll be right back.”

  ***

  Using the forest to my advantage, I eased my way toward the warehouse. It’s not easy to move quietly through years of dead foliage, especially in the dark, but I managed. I wasn’t completely out of practice. The meager work I picked up around Eureka Springs kept my skills fairly sharp.

  There were a few lights on around the warehouse, making the facility stand out against the dark lake behind it like an oasis. As I drew nearer I came to appreciate the size of the structure. It felt like a crime against nature to build an industrial complex right next to the bank of the lake. The business had died but left its ugly rusting carcass behind to forever remain a blight against nature.

  I paused at the edge of the tree line, taking a moment to scope out the scene. Outside I saw two lone guards. One wore a leather jacket and a trucker hat. The other wore a plaid shirt and sported a long beard. They looked like any of the rural guys you’d see roaming this part of the country. Perhaps that was the point.

  I was working out an infiltration plan when several loud cracks sounded, one after the another, from the other side of the complex. Gunshots. There was no mistaking it.

  The guards turned and looked at one another, then scanned the forest.

  I held still but was confident they couldn’t see me where I hid.

  In the distance, more gunshots sounded and one of the men closed his eyes and touched his temple, no doubt using magic to communicate with his fellows inside. That confirmed it. I was at the right place, but who was shooting? Had Parker lied to me, or perhaps had a change of heart?

  I’d almost convinced myself it might’ve just been the Marauders target shooting when the scattered gunshots transitioned into full on automatic gunfire. Then I heard muffled screams and shouts, followed by more automatic fire, and the sound of crashes and explosions. Yup, I’d walked right into the middle of a war zone.

  The guards concurred with my own reasoning as one drew a gun and the other revealed a wand. They gave each other a reassuring glance, then turned to go inside.

  I waited until they were out of sight and followed. If I hadn’t been excited about sneaking into a nest of hostile mages before, I certainly wasn’t feeling better about it now. It stood to reason that whoever they were fighting wasn’t likely to be friendly, either. Still, it was the closest I’d come to finding real answers.

  I moved up to the back door the guards had used and tried the handle. It was locked. Well, guess that was it. Might as well turn around and head on back. Oh, wait. Magical sword.

  Drynwyn all but melted the door handle and I kicked it open, at which point I was immediately face to face with one of the Marauders.

  It took careful and sophisticated deduction to determine the man in front of me was indeed a member of the gang I looking for. Really next level detective stuff. Okay, so, maybe not… He wore a leather motorcycle vest with a patch over one boob that said ‘Marauders’ on it. Further confirmation I’d found the right people.

  “Who the hell are you?” he asked in a raspy voice. He had a wand aimed at my chest.

  “Blade Mage,” I said, offering a little shrug. I released the veil on Drynwyn, allowing the sword to glow with its unnatural white flames. “I just came to talk.”

  “Cabal!” he screamed, glancing over his shoulder. “Kill them all!”

  As he spoke the end of his wand lit up in green light, which was a clear indication he intended to zap me. I charged forward and swung Drynwyn right through his wand, slicing it in half. The gang member paused to stare at his broken magical apparatus and I kicked him squarely in the nuts. As he doubled over I pushed him to the ground and asked, “What part of ‘I just came to talk’ did you not understand?”

  Then I darted forward as a rainbow of magic spells and bullets peppered the walls around me.

  They might’ve fancied themselves badasses, but that guy clearly wasn’t ready for magical combat. Few mages are. For one thing, just basic magic has so many intricacies that you never know what you’re going to run into. Every mage has different strengths and weaknesses. Some excel at certain types of thaumaturge, and others are good at shielding, or enchanting. And that’s just basic magic that experienced mages are familiar with. There’s still a great many magics in the world we know very little about. There are beings no one has ever heard of, ancient powers lost through time, and creepy shit from other realms that defy all logic. Couple all that randomness with more common forms of violence like guns, bombs, and good ole fashioned melee, and wizardy combat becomes complex. It’s not like there’s an instruction guide to follow. Most mages make the foolish mistake of only training in magic, which is a great study, but it won’t save your life if you aren’t prepared for your opponent to shoot, stab, or in this case, kick you in the dick.

  Lucky for him, I wasn’t playing for keeps. Not yet, anyway. Sure, they were trying to kill me, but clearly they were under attack already, so I couldn’t blame them for being a little jumpy. If there was a Cabal strike team moving in, the Marauders were all going to end up dead anyway.

  I ran forward, trying to come up with some kind of plan as more Marauders tried to blast me from every direction. The warehouse was full of old equipment, crates, and other random warehouse shit, offering plenty of places for cover. Unfortunately, there was a catwalk above my head which ran around the perimeter of the open room, offering most of my foes higher ground.

  I cut around an ancient machine and found a Marauder with a shaved head and a machete charging me. I parried his attack with Drynwyn, then, using my staff like a spear, I jabbed him in the forehead.

  Before I had time to relish my victory a river of flames hammered against my magic shield like a flamethrower.

  I strolled purposely toward my attacker while forcing more energy into my shield. Every two-bit elementalist with a talent for fire magic wants to learn the ‘flamethrower’ spell. Maybe I was jealous I couldn’t summon it myself, but either way, it was wearing my shield down fast. Fortunately, my attacker didn’t expect me to charge toward him, and before he knew what was happening, I’d sliced his focus rod in half.

  Amateurs always think it’s about who has the biggest swinging magical dick.

  Much to his credit, this Marauder went on the attack and tried to tackle me around the waist. Before he could take me down, I slammed the hilt of my sword on the top of his head and that was the end of it.

  I kept moving, trying to find something resembling a safe spot. At this rate, my ability to perform magic was getting worn down too quickly. It was kind of like another form of tired. Sometimes you were mentally drained, other times you were physically drained, and in a wizard’s case, you could get magically worn out.

  I ducked behind an old crate, and when I wasn’t immediately hit with another spell, I counted it as a small victory. There was chaos all around me, though, and I knew it wouldn’t take long for someone to spot me. Across the warehouse I could still hear the steady thrum of gunfire, yet I still hadn’t seen the other attackers.

  All in all, rushing into the warehouse was a pretty stupid idea.

  Just when I thought it couldn’t get much worse, I heard a scream from above and darted to the side as something fell where I’d just stood. I stared down at the object for a moment, dumbfounded. It was a human head.

  Chapter 16

  Judging by the beard, I made the snap judgment that it belonged to one of the Marauders.

  Forcing my gaze from the gruesome spectacle, I looked up just in time to dash out of the way again as the rest of the body fell. It was definitely one of the Marauders, beheaded and droppe
d from the catwalk. As gruesome as the whole thing was, my focus shifted to the being still on the catwalk. The being who’d dispatched the poor sap.

  I found myself staring up at the face of a young woman with delicate features and no clothes. She might’ve been pretty, beautiful even, if not for her glowing white eyes and stringy black hair. Or the black veins showing beneath her pale, translucent skin. The long, snake-like tongue slithering out of her blood-drenched mouth didn’t help, either.

  When she saw she had my attention she smiled, revealing a set of long canine fangs.

  Then shit got weird.

  Two leathery black wings spread from her back, and her torso began to stretch and elongate. Like something from a nightmare, the flesh around her belly began to tear in stringy strips, until the top half broke away from the bottom.

  At first, I thought something was killing her. Then, in horrid fascination, I realized Miss Muppet was grinning at me as her torso half took flight. Scary-Naked-Torso-Lady flew across the warehouse, her guts flapping in the wind behind her.

  What…in…all…the…fucks?

  She flew straight to another member of the Marauders who was on the opposite catwalk. The poor fool never had a chance. She lifted him off the ground, snapped his neck, and pitched his corpse like old trash.

  I turned back to her legs, which were still just standing there…by themselves… just hanging out on the catwalk. I’d seen some weird shit in my life, but that took the cake. Well, half of it anyway. Ba-dum-ching.

  As Torso-Lady attacked another gang member, I heard someone scream, “They’ve betrayed us! Kill them all!”

  I thought about yelling back to ask specifically ‘who’ had betrayed ‘us,’ but it’s never that easy.

  Besides, another of the Marauder mages had spotted me and hurled pink orbs in my direction. The spell looked like jazzed up cotton candy, but I had a feeling I wouldn’t enjoy getting hit by it. I blocked with my shield and responded with a blast of raw energy.

  As mentioned previously, I wasn’t the most developed spell caster, but I could manipulate more raw energy than most wizards of my experience level. In a magic fight, energy balls were my best friend. It was a basic spell most mages learned early on, but then disregarded as they went for the big dick flamethrower, lightning bolt, acid clouds, or whatever showy spell they thought would make them look cool. Since I had never found a real talent for the intricate stuff, I spent a lot of time practicing energy balls until I could fire them off like Ryu in Streetfighter.

  Unfortunately, the Marauder in question was smart enough to keep his shield up, so my attack dissolved on impact.

  Of a greater concern was the mage standing beside him, who was reading from a floating book while green and orange energy swirled around him. As a rule, it never bodes well when a mage is reading from a spell book in the middle of combat, especially if it’s a floating book. It basically means they’re summoning up something nasty, and for a wizard of my tenure, it was almost surely going to be something my shield wouldn’t hold up against.

  So much for what Parker had said about them being low-level goons.

  I thought about screaming at the mage to aim his spell at Torso-Lady, but I had a feeling we weren’t on speaking terms. I also had a feeling that Cotton Candy Mage was shielding him, and if I tried to hit him with an energy blast it wouldn’t do any good. So instead, I banked my next blast of energy around to the stack of crates beside them and brought the whole thing tumbling down on top of them.

  I bolted from my hiding spot and ran around the corner while I tried to decide on my next move. The intelligent part of my brain suggested I should leave, but I tended to ignore that part of my brain as much as possible.

  But there were way too many things in the warehouse that wanted to kill me.

  But I was the Blade Mage, and the damned place was full of the things that needed chopped. More importantly, whatever the hell was going on here, I had a strong impression it had something to do with my investigation. If not, I was going to feel like an ass.

  Still pondering what I should do, I rounded a corner and found myself across from one of the Marauders. He raised a sawed-off shotgun, but before he could fire, an ash gray form dropped from the catwalk and landed on top of him. There was a yelp, followed by a crunch, and then some gurgling as the Marauder died beneath the feet of the Abasy.

  “Hello, Blade Mage,” it said, grinning at me with its ugly face. “Axel sends his regards.”

  “Oh, fuck off with that already,” I replied, noticing the fingers I’d removed earlier had grown back. Nice of Parker to warn me the bastard could regenerate limbs. “Clearly you don’t know anything about Axel, or you’d know how stupid of a lie that is.”

  “My master is great,” the Abasy replied, still grinning like an asshole.

  “That may be true, but your master isn’t Axel,” I said, drawing in energy as the conversation wore on. I had a feeling I’d need it. “Tell me something, are all Abasy bad liars, or just you? I’m guessing they’re all just as ugly and useless.”

  “The Abasy are a species, you human fool,” it said, eyes narrowing. “We are all different, and of varying intelligences.”

  “Ahh,” I said, nodding thoughtfully. “So, you’re basically the one that wasn’t smart enough to make the cut. Did they send you away in disgrace? Poor little guy.”

  “You won’t leave here alive, Blade Mage. Even with your little magic sword. This time I’m ready for you, and Lord Axel has demanded your death.”

  “Are we really still doing the ‘Axel is my master’ thing?” I asked, walking toward him. I wasn’t sure what else to do. I certainly wasn’t going to show the demon my back. He’d knocked over Parker’s car like it was nothing. And while it was moving. I wasn’t as fast or as heavy as a Rolls Royce. My only chance was to go toward him with Drynwyn leading the way. “Let’s see if you can regenerate your head, Humpty Dumpty.”

  From the corner of my eye, I caught the glimpse of a blur and dove to the side just as Torso-Lady tried to swoop in on my flank. Apparently, demons don’t fight fair. Who’d of thunk it?

  I swung my sword out wide as I rolled back to my feet, nearly catching the Abasy as he tried to charge in on me. He hadn’t lied. This time he was ready for me and darted out of the way before I could hit pay dirt.

  A nearby Marauder came to my aid and fired a lightning bolt at the Abasy. Between the two of us, clearly the Abasy was the bigger threat. Unfortunately, despite the sizzling black flesh where the spell struck, the demon didn’t bat an eye. Instead, he turned his stupid grin on the mage, and then he ripped the man in half. Literally. In half. Two pieces. Just like Torso-Lady.

  Having watched this occur in real time, I reconsidered my whole ‘walk toward the demon’ strategy, then realized it was still the only viable option I had.

  I charged, hoping I might catch it off guard while it finished toying with the Maraurder. Instead, I caught a backhand to the face that sent me reeling backward end over end.

  I was momentarily stunned, and despite the pain in my tailbone and head, I was trying to recover my wits before the Abasy came over to finish the job. I forced opened my eyes and caught the blurred image of Torso-Lady swooping in on me again.

  I rolled to the side, narrowly avoiding her strike. I struck out with Drynwyn, but only managed to sever a few strands of dangling guts.

  She circled above me like a hawk and descended again. Fortunately, her trajectory brought her right in the path of the Abasy, who was also charging in to finish me off. The two demons crashed into each other and both hit the floor. It was like a scene from Home Alone, if Harry Lime and Marv Merchants had been creepy ass demon monsters instead of dimwitted burglars.

  I rose back to my feet as the Abasy shoved Torso-Lady off of him. She took back to the air with a hiss and went to find a different target.

  “You guys related?” I asked, pointing my staff toward her. “You seem really close.”

  “You’re very funny, Bl
ade Mage,” the Abasy said in its raspy demonic baritone.

  “Thank you, thank you,” I replied, bowing slightly. “I’ll be here all week.”

  “You’ll be dead in a week,” the Abasy replied. “You’ll need more than a sense of humor to survive this.”

  “It’s gotten me this far,” I said, charging toward him again. I held my staff pointed forward like a spear and held my sword out to the side. When I got in close, I hurled my staff at his head and ducked low to jab out with my sword. The idea was to catch him off guard and get in a quick jab.

  It worked.

  Sorta.

  I pierced his abdomen with Drynwyn but received another backhand that sent me stumbling across the floor.

  I still took pleasure in the demon’s howl of pain.

  “I learned that move from Dancing with the Stars,” I said as I rolled back to my feet and wiped the blood from my lip. Bastard had a nasty backhand. “Next I’ll show you what I learned from Keeping up with the Kardashians. You’d better be afraid.”

  The Abasy hissed at me, then, much to my surprise, he ran away and disappeared behind some crates.

  As astonished as I was by this sudden turn of events, I wasn’t out of the frying pan yet. There were still hostile Marauders all around, and I doubted I’d really scared the demons away.

  I scooped up my staff and went on the move, again trying to work out something of a plan. I still needed information and I had a feeling it was going to be hard to come by. Especially if all the Marauders were dead or busy dying. I had no idea how many members they had, but there were an awful lot of bodies strung out across the floor.

  I found a nice spot to tuck down for a moment to consider my options. My best chance to learn something useful was to get some alone time with one of the Marauders. Maybe jump one and see if I could scare some info out of him. The problem was that most of them were sticking together at this point.

  I saw two injured men approaching from the other side of the warehouse, the side where the majority of the gunfire was still coming from. Who were they fighting over there? Another demon? Two was plenty, thank you.