by Ramy Vance
Fred walked a little farther to get a better look at the imps in the cave. “This is my family.” Fred sighed. “My wife and my child.”
“I didn’t know imps would treat their young so…kindly. Somehow I imagined you just left them to fend for themselves.”
“No, it’s quite the opposite. Eldritch imps spend almost their entire lives with their families. We build entire social networks. Generally, we stay away from other kinds of imps, but occasionally we adopt them into our own and breed them into the eldritch bloodline. There used to be whole planets of us. But you are correct in assuming that this is not how we treat our young. My daughter should be hunting by now.”
“Why isn’t she?”
“Because the rest of the imps on the planet have been wiped out. The Dark One invaded and told us to serve, and we told him to go fuck himself. He wiped us all out. These are moments before the only eldritch imps other than me were ripped from the face of the universe.”
“A genocide.”
“I believe it is very important for you to see with your own eyes what is about to happen.”
Fred pointed to the horizon. Just over its ridge, an army was rallying. Orcs, goblins, and giants were stamping their feet and pounding their chests. They war-whooped themselves into a frenzy and poured over the horizon, running toward the child imp and her mother.
“I loved them deeply.”
The two imps took off into the air. They flew toward the army rushing toward them.
Suzuki looked at Fred, confused and alarmed. “What the hell are they doing?” Suzuki asked. “Why are they—”
“We do not run from fights. We never have, and we never will. No one has but me.”
“You left them?” Suzuki asked.
“No, I am not a coward,” Fred growled. “I was defending the Northern Perimeter. We thought that if I was drawing the Dark One’s attention, the child would be safe. But the child grew hungry, and she needed to be fed.”
The two imps flew over the Dark One’s forces. They rained down fire and brimstone. Orc after orc fell screaming, consumed by the flames.
One of the giants took aim with a giant mechanical spear-slinger. The child imp flew low and collided with the giant’s face, clawing the giant’s eyes out, then spewing fire from its mouth as it tumbled to the ground. It tried to get to its feet.
Another giant brought a club down on the child imp. The ground shook from the force of the attack.
In the air, the mother imp turned and stopped. A spear flew through the air and pierced her heart. She fell to the ground, her wings folded around herself, like a wounded eagle. She hit the ground with an unceremonious thud.
Fred turned and pointed. In the distance, there was a speck in the sky. “That’s me,” Fred explained. “I was flying as fast as I could. I saw the whole thing, but I couldn’t get there in time.”
Fred’s memory sped past Suzuki with enough force that it tore the air open in a sonic boom as the imp broke the sound barrier. He flew straight into the heart of the Dark One’s forces and stopped on a dime. The Dark One’s forces were surprised. They didn’t have time to react. Fred screamed, a soul-piercing sound, shot up into the air and covered the entire army in flames.
Fred sighed as he watched his memory fly above the Dark One’s forces, vomiting a fiery death upon them. “I killed every last one of them. It didn’t change anything. They were still dead.”
The memory ended, and Suzuki and Fred were sitting in front of the fire. Fred looked at Suzuki, his eyes filled with more loss than Suzuki ever could have imagined the imp would have had. “Shortly afterwards, I volunteered to join the Dark One. I believed that I could infiltrate his forces and kill him. I did not have an understanding of how vast his forces were, nor what he was trying to accomplish. Eventually, I defected and joined the MERCs. I knew that the military would not risk me. MERCs on the other hand—”
“I’m sorry, Fred.”
“My first host died. It was not my fault, but everyone assumed that it was. I could not blame them. I sat in that fucking garden forever waiting for someone to take me out so I could have my revenge. When I saw that it was you, I couldn’t believe it. I thought an idiot had chosen me, and I would spend my days helping you fulfill inane missions and my revenge would rot like fruit. But here we are. Every day, you’re bringing me closer and closer to that dream. I believe that you and the Mundanes will end this war. And I am honored to be a part of this. I have not met a human who I respect in a very long time.”
“Are you saying that you respect me?”
“You may infer what you wish.”
“I’m going to kill him, Fred. I’m going to make him pay for everything that he’s done.”
Fred nodded his head as he rose. “If you are done with your carnal pleasures, I will resume my occupation of your body,” Fred hissed.
“Done? Dude, I’m making Beth a cup of coffee and waking her ass up. I am far from done. That was just round one.”
“Ugh…filthy humans.”
Suzuki slid back into bed with Beth. He laid there, staring up at the ceiling of the tent for a little while, uncertain of what to do with his body. All of the bravado from speaking with Fred had burned away. This was still all new to him. Well, not everything, but it felt like everything was new. He was almost afraid to turn and look at Beth. It was as if she would vanish if he made the mistake of looking at her. Even thinking back to the night before, none of it seemed real. A dream—that’s what it felt like, something mercurial and liquid that was going to slip out of his hands the moment he tried to grasp it. Maybe it was better for him to wait outside. People say that they love you all the time. This could have just been one of those near-death experiences, hormones all jacked up and shit.
This kind of thing could be fleeting. Hell, it could even be meaningless. He’d seen movies and heard stories all of his life. People say shit when they’re horny. He knew that he hadn’t been talking to talk, but still, what if…
Beth sneezed in her sleep and rolled over. She tossed her arm over Suzuki’s lap and nuzzled her face into his side. She sneezed again and woke up suddenly, sitting bolt upright, her eyes bright and searching. “Suzuki!” she shouted.
“Hey, I’m right here.”
Beth whipped her head around and she was face-to-face with Suzuki, only a couple of inches away from him. She grabbed him and kissed him, her mouth parting and melting into his and they fell back onto the bed, their bodies intertwined as they embraced. “Shit,” Beth whispered. “I had such a fucked-up nightmare. And then you weren’t here. Or I thought you weren’t here. I thought you left in my dream.”
“Why would you dream that I left?” he asked.
“I don’t know…none of this has been easy for me, all of this emotional shit. It’s not…I mean, it’s not that it isn’t me. It’s just not something that I like to do.”
“You mean the whole love thing?”
Beth shook her head. “No, fuck, no, that’s not what I meant. It’s…goddamn it, that’s not what I’m… Fuck this. This is what I’m talking about. Talking about things. Trying to explain how I feel. It’s not fucking easy. You try doing this shit.”
“Fine. I love you. I was sitting here worrying about whether or not what happened last night was just a one-night thing, a whole marine ‘I didn’t die, I gotta fuck the first person I see’ type of thing. I don’t know, I got scared. I got real scared.”
Beth nodded and kissed Suzuki again. “You know how you think about things forever. Just think about them every day, not quite obsessing, but it becomes a part of your life. That’s kinda…fuck, this sounds so fucking stupid.” Beth took a deep breath. Her hands were trembling, and she clasped them together. “You know, people leave. People say they’re going to be around forever and shit, but they don’t mean it. Everyone leaves. But you didn’t. And, when I was locked up in that cell, I kept…I don’t know, I kept thinking about you. Even before that. When we were playing in VR, I’d go to sleep thinking about you. And the
n I finally saw you and I almost couldn’t keep from laughing. I thought you were going to be some dried-up dweeb. But you weren’t. You were fucking handsome. You could work on maintaining eye contact but, other than that, it was a pretty impressive first look. I just…you know, you don’t expect things like this to happen.”
Suzuki laughed until his sides hurt. He had to double over to catch his breath. “Yeah, who would have thought that we would end up confessing our love and fucking underneath a hollowed-out mountain that’s been converted to an orc prison for a dark lord who wants to enslave the universe.”
“Well, when you put it like that, me being in love with you is definitely the most normal part of all that,” Beth agreed.
“So, this is a real thing?”
Beth nodded. “It’s been real for a long time. I was just afraid.”
“Same here.”
“But now we know.”
“Yeah, we know.”
“So…we should probably stop talking now…”
Beth threw herself onto Suzuki and kissed him. Outside, they could have heard the rest of the MERCs getting up, making breakfast, pouring coffee, and talking about what their plans were. But they didn’t hear any of that. The outside world ceased to exist for a while.
Beth and Suzuki both woke up an hour or two later. They talked together while they dressed, talking in a way that neither of them felt they had ever spoken with another person before. For the first time, Suzuki heard Beth speak about her family, not as if she were putting forth an effort to inform him about her past, but more like the information was just flowing out of her. It was as if a dam had just broken. Suzuki saw Beth as he had never seen her before, in a way that he never could have imagined.
Outside the tent, the Mundanes and Horsemen had already gathered for breakfast and coffee. Some of the soldiers had joined them. Stew was slaving in front of the fire, cooking a small array of meats, filling the cavern with the smell of sizzling fat, the savory allure of campfire cooking mixed with excellent ingredients. Diana was standing next to him, coaching or critiquing his technique as Stew whined and disagreed. Sandy was by the fire, her nose in a book as usual, twirling her amulet around her finger. She looked up at Beth and Suzuki when they sat down. “I’m going to have to teach you dicks that sound dampening spell,” she teased.
As usual, the mere mention of sex caused Suzuki to blush brightly, this time taking on the complexion of a red dwarf. Beth was unfazed, though, reaching forward to grab a cup of coffee and asking, “Why the fuck would I want to dampen the sound? From what I’ve heard, you and Stew have been fucking like rabid rabbits hooked up to a Frankenstein sound amplifier. It’s about time someone heard the sound of a sweet dicking that wasn’t you two douchenozzles.”
Sandy looked up from her book this time. “Finally.” She sighed. “The old Beth is back. It’s good to see you still know how to talk shit.”
Beth leaned forward and jerked a finger at the soldiers who were timidly making their plates of food. “You would think marines could talk shit, but these guys are a bunch of pussies. They can dish it, but they sure as fuck can’t take it.”
“Not like you took it last night, eh?”
“More like giving it to Suzy.”
Suzuki stood up suddenly, his face still bright red, and walked over to where Stew was cooking. José and Chip had joined Stew, standing around him like ravenous beasts. They smiled at Suzuki as he walked up to the campfire. “Sounds like someone had a right-on enjoyable evening,” Chip teased.
Suzuki raised his hand to fend off any further teasing as he knelt next to the fire. “I came over here to escape being embarrassed,” Suzuki whined. “I can’t deal with Sandy and Beth, but you three, I can easily tell to shut the fuck up and let’s get back to work.”
José tapped Stew on his shoulder and, when Stew turned to see who had tapped him, Chip swiped a couple of pieces of bacon, stealthily sliding them into José’s hands when Stew turned back around. When José spoke, it was with a mouthful of bacon. “I didn’t think you’d be so prudish.” José laughed. “However, we do have things that need to be figured out. We can honor your lost virginity another time.”
“Good. So, where are we at?”
“Well, last time we talked, we thought it seemed like a good enough idea to raid the Dark One’s fortress and swipe that human ringtone, along with anything else we can get our hands on.”
Suzuki looked around the cavern and wrinkled his nose. “I, for one, would like to not spend the next few hours digging around in new tunnels.”
There was a loud braying and Suzuki whipped around to see where it was coming from.
GB was standing behind Stew, peeking out from behind Stew’s legs. “You mean, we aren’t going to be digging no more?”
Suzuki lifted a calming hand. “No, I said that I don’t want to be doing anymore digging, but digging underneath the prison and up into it still might be our best bet, especially if we’re planning on bringing all of these marines to the fight.”
Chip was fixing herself a plate and was being very liberal with the bacon. “I already sent out a requisitions request for weapons and armor,” she chimed in. “It might not be as classy as our gear, but it should be able to get these sods ready to get all stabby and warlike.”
“Good. I suggest splitting into two different-size groups: a small group to travel overhead and a larger group that can tunnel through to our location once we’re ready. The small group can sneak in and get to the ringtone while the larger group pops out to thoroughly fuck up the Dark One’s shit.”
José motioned for Diana to hand him her wand. When she gave it to him, he leaned over and started drawing in the dirt, concentric rings with a massive, deep circle in the middle. “So, this is the set up that we have right now,” José said, pointing to their position in the second circle. “We still have a little bit of a hike until we get into the final ring where the tower is. I’m with Suzuki. I think a small group pushing forward would go undetected from what Chip’s recon shows. The defense rings past the prison section use local flora and fauna as a defense. There’s the occasional defense party, but nothing serious. Shit doesn’t get bad until the final ring. That’ll be the toughest section to deal with.”
“We’ll go in with our familiars that way. It’s been working—” Suzuki started.
José shook his head. “That was before you found out that the viceroy is actually here. You can’t keep posing as one of her guys if there’s a chance you’ll run into someone who knows she’s in there.”
Suzuki stood. “It’s a risk worth taking. We shouldn’t have to wander around that long, trying to figure out where the fuck we’re going. We know what we’re looking for and it should be pretty easy to find. It’ll probably be in an area similar to the research area we found in the prison, where most of the tech is.”
“And if we come across the viceroy?”
“Kill her. Same as everyone else.”
“Do you know anything about the viceroy?” José asked.
“No,” Suzuki said, feeling somewhat defeated. He wished that he had been able to glean more information from their first meeting. Everything that he knew, he had already told the Horsemen. She was some kind of commander underneath the Dark One. On their last quest, the Mundanes had found that the viceroy was organizing the birthing of an Elder One by using vampires as her proxy. Suzuki had come across her when he accidentally touched a communication device. That was when the Mundanes realized that whatever the Dark One was using to keep his forces organized wasn’t magic. Now everything was coming together: the technological communication, microchips, soundwaves, and ringtones to control. There was something else, though…
“When Chip was busted up!” Suzuki exclaimed. “I completely forgot about this. The viceroy looked a lot like that. The same kind of…I don’t know…internals underneath. But worse. So much worse. She looked like whatever technology was attached to her was killing her…or like the tech was killing her flesh. I
don’t know what it was, but that shit looked a lot like what Chip looked like when she was…falling apart.”
José turned to Chip and cleared his throat awkwardly. “Any idea what he’s talking about, Chip?” he asked.
Chip shrugged and looked down at her hand. Her fingers fused together, rounding out and separating until her arm was a plasma canon, complete with a glowing blue orb in the middle, radiating energy. “Looking something like this?” she asked.
Suzuki shook his head as he looked down at Chip’s hand. “No…not quite,” he murmured as he thought. “It looked…older. Much older…”
“No idea. I mean, honestly, I don’t have any idea about anything. I think I’m just some half-elf fuckup from New Jersey who liked to make things go boom a little more than necessary. I never quite took to thinking about myself as a robot half-elf manic pixie chick, but alas, my cliché even includes amnesia. I got nothing, boy-o. The most I can say is that if the viceroy is packing heat like me, ye might want to tread lightly.”
“Then that’s it. Nothing can be done about the viceroy until we see her. Hopefully, we can just avoid running across her.”
Diana shook her head as she took her wand back from José. “I think that is being willingly naïve,” Diana interjected. “You’ve been posing as the viceroy’s lackey for the last few days. She’s got to know by now. When you walk in there, you’ll be a moving target.”
“I will be for her and her higher-ups. The grunts aren’t going to give a shit. Most of the orcs working in the prison only knew the viceroy as a name. It’ll work.”
José stood and brushed himself off. He grabbed another couple of pieces of bacon and crammed them into his mouth before combing through his beard for any scraps. “The Mundanes and I take the small dispatch position. We find a good spot and have the marines dig their way to us.”
Suzuki shook his head. Something in the plan didn’t quite add up for him. It needed a tweak. “How about after we get past the flora and fauna circles, we split. That many people are going to be too much to get past the innermost circle. So, Sandy and Stew will stay back at the halfway point and help organize a joint digging situation with the marines and the rest of the Horsemen. Besides, from what I heard, GB is a digging fiend. He should be part of that squad, and I don’t know what the fuck Sandy was up to when she went all ‘flower girl’ and shit, but it seems like she’s pretty decent at the dig too.”