by Jamie Hawke
It was all too confusing, and right now I simply wanted to focus on getting my ladies back. Oh, and finding Arthur and Morganna so we could kick their asses.
“Hey,” my hand reached out for her arm, stopping her, though the slightest touch sent a slight shock through my body that I hadn’t been expecting. I dug into my pockets and found some damp euros that Elisa had given me, then pointed to an elevator. “Says it takes us to the top. We just give them some of this.”
“I’m familiar with payment systems,” Sekhmet said with a sneer, but then smiled. “Good thinking. Much easier than what I had in mind.”
We entered the elevators with several other tourists after buying tickets, and were almost to the top when the elevator suddenly stopped, the doors ripped open, and one of the stone gargoyles—now alive with fierce, red eyes, stared right at me.
As much as I’d seen lately, somehow this still gave me the sudden urge to shit myself. To my credit, that didn’t happen, but I still felt like a big ol’ wuss when I let out a whimper, even as my hand went to Excalibur and I prepared to fight.
It wasn’t until then that I noticed that one of the people in the elevator was a small boy, staring at the gargoyle with as much fright as likely showed on my face. Maybe more.
I had to be brave, for him—though I was slightly bothered by the fact that he could see the monster—so I stepped in front of them, Sekhmet and Bastet already moving, and prepared to face the gargoyle.
42
When a gargoyle with skin like stone comes at you, the best course of action is to run. We did exactly that, only we ran at the gargoyle instead of away, as was our way of doing things. Shrieks came from behind us, but aside from the boy who’d clearly seen the gargoyle, the rest of the tourists probably thought the elevator was simply malfunctioning.
They’d be fine, as this monster was after us, not them.
My first blow actually hit, only to be deflected by the strength of the gargoyle’s skin. Sekhmet’s blades came in fast at my side, diving under my blade as it ricocheted, then coming up with two quick strikes that actually sent the beast stumbling back. As it recovered, I got a good look at the thing—about the size of a large dog, it had a hooked jaw with sharp teeth, wings that spread out behind it in a way that reminded me of a dragon, and sharp claws to match.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me, I said, sooo wishing this was an episode of that amazing Gargoyles show that used to be on. Sit me on a couch with a box of Oreos and a liter of Coke any day instead of making me fight one of these things.
Sekhmet and Bastet joined in the fight, charging in with the goddess making several large slits in its stony hide with her fiery blades, and the cat boxing it in with purple light so there was only one direction of attack. We lined up, me with my sword held high, Sekhmet with her blades at the ready, and Bastet hissing and showing her teeth.
The gargoyle flapped its wings and charged us.
“Move!” Sekhmet said, and took a step to her left, away from me. I did the same as she said, “Go for the wings,” and we attacked as one. Excalibur sent a crack through the wing on my side while her blades cut the other wing clean off, and then the gargoyle went over the other side of the narrow walkway, trying to flap its wings to get balance, and then desperately trying not to fall. One wing was gone though, so it spun, and then the one I’d damaged broke off.
The gargoyle’s expression turned to fear, an emotion it probably hadn’t ever felt before, a second before it fell from sight, shattering far below.
“I thought gargoyles only came to life at night?” I admitted, and she gave me a confused look. “Sorry, too many cartoons.” That didn’t seem to make it any clearer, so I moved on from the subject.
Or wanted to, but the gargoyles didn’t seem to think it was that sort of time, as three more had just clawed their way over the side of the roof.
“Charge through them,” Sekhmet said.
“Just… charge?”
She nodded. “Let us handle the rest.”
Fuck it, why not? At her nod, I turned and ran, prepared for whatever they’d bring my way. But as I did, each foot founding on that narrow parapet high above Milan on what would’ve otherwise been a glorious day for standing and staring over the red roofs of this stunning city, the gargoyles seemed confused. They turned and swung at the sky, then one hit the other. When they came at me, it was only to dive for a spot three feet to my rear, followed by a good clobbering from Sekhmet before she and Bastet were coming after me.
“Illusions?” I asked, remembering what we’d faced when first finding Sekhmet.
“My sister’s quite good at them, even in cat form,” she replied, and then put her blades away and got out the scepter, stopping to shoot a blast back at the pursuing gargoyles with it.
They fell back, and we ran.
We were almost to the base of the spire with the golden Madonnina when a final step sent us through what had been an invisible barrier. As soon as we passed through, gold light shot out, surrounding us, and we found ourselves on another section of the cathedral’s roof, an entrance just ahead of us, a bench and some holy water next to it.
No sign of the pursuing gargoyles remained.
“So you’ve come,” a voice said, and I noticed feet from the corner of that entryway, then the man standing. He was regal, to be sure—standing tall, but a look of defeat on his craggy face, a dark shadow hanging over him. While his clothes were those of a great king, red over a white tunic with gold trim, his eyes were red, vampire fangs clearly visible when he spoke. “And led her right to me.”
I glanced at Sekhmet in confusion, hoping she had some idea of what was happening, but before either of us could act, one of the women from the elevator laughed, drawing our attention back to the direction she’d come.
“You thought you could hide from me?” she said, transforming into Morganna as she lifted her hands and black, swirling tendrils emerged. The tendrils moved across the golden barrier, so that cracks began to show. “Oh, Arthur, we’re connected now.”
Arthur let out a roar as the shadows burst in through the barrier, surging around him. Sekhmet and Bastet turned to face Morganna, Sekhmet tucking the scepter away and drawing her blades while I held Excalibur up, not sure which direction to go, trying to look in both directions at the same time. Wasn’t Arthur evil and on her side? It seemed there was more to their story than I understood.
But when the shadows hit him, surrounding and engulfing the man, he rose with fangs extending, eyes going red, and turned on me.
He charged, going faster than even Red could move with her cloak—in a flash he had me, head back and fangs about to sink into my neck, when a flash of gold hit and he stumbled back. I fell to my knees in horror, struck with the realization of how close I’d come to death, and turned to see that Sekhmet had managed to lodge one of her blades into Morganna’s side, while Bastet was making purple barriers that helped stop the darkness.
“I told you,” Sekhmet said with a grin my way as she twirled her second blade, “she’s no match for me.”
“No,” Morganna admitted, pulling the blade free and tossing it to the ground, stumbling as she muttered a spell with a hand over the wound. “I might not be yet, but I soon will be.”
Another surge of darkness hit, managing to work around Bastet’s barriers, and Arthur was up and charging as he growled like a monster. He wasn’t coming for me, though, but running for the edge of the roof. I was about to go after him, but became confused when I saw Morganna leap at the same time as him, the darkness catching both of them and darting about like black lightning in a thunder cloud before folding in on itself and disappearing.
We all stared in dumb shock.
“Arthur…?” a voice said, and a woman came stumbling out of the area he’d first emerged from.
Bastet hissed, instantly on guard, and Sekhmet rolled, recovering her second blade and turning on the woman. Now with legs and fully clothed, it took me a moment to recognize Nivian
, the Lady of the Lake. She wore a green dress now, one that clung to her quite nicely, and she no longer looked the part of a monster. Even her skin almost had a normal look to it, her hair seemingly more blonde than blue here.
“You should’ve gone with your friends,” Nivian said, staring at us in horror. “You’ve doomed him… doomed us all.”
“What are you talking about?” I said, lowering my guard as I realized she wasn’t about to attack. “Where are my friends?”
“They’re safe, in the spirit realm. But us?” She shook her head in disbelief. “Morganna’s going to bring back Merlin and all the power he has, all the power he stole over the ages… and take it for herself.”
“We’re familiar with the concept,” Sekhmet said. “Where?”
“Where else?” Nivian stared at the spot they’d vanished for another long beat, before saying, “The land of magic. The Druids… Stonehenge.”
Everyone let that process silently for a long moment before I interrupted by saying, “So… more plane tickets?”
Nivian’s eyes flashed to the sword in my hand, then to Sekhmet and Bastet. “I don’t think that’ll be necessary. Excalibur has a connection to him that will never be broken. Combining that with your tracking and my ability to travel—”
“I don’t see any lakes here,” Sekhmet pointed out.
“Leave that part to me,” Nivian said, gesturing us back over to the bench where Arthur had been standing when we first arrived. She stopped at the bowl of water, and gestured for us to stand at her side. “Holy water—whether there’s a direct connection to the heavens or something else, it has a magic to it. A magic that helps me stay like this, versus how I was when we met.”
“You mean it fights off the shadows?” I asked, eyeing the water with awe. We’d already faced several instances where that could have come in handy.
“And right now, it’s going to serve us in another fashion. You’ve learned how to harness the blade’s magic?”
I frowned. “Maybe? To a degree.”
“We’ll have to hope that’s enough.” She turned to Sekhmet. “I’ve heard enough about you to assume you two set up the tracking spell. It’s still in effect?”
After a quick glance at the cat, Sekhmet nodded.
“And my friends?” I asked.
“I’ll be able to send you to them after we save Arthur,” she replied.
While I had no way of knowing if it was true, I knew it was my best chance at the moment. So when she poured holy water on the blade and told me to focus on the sword and its connection to Arthur as we stood facing each other, I closed my eyes and did as she commanded.
A burst of light flashed and my eyes were open again, our surroundings spinning, becoming a blur, and then, in another flash, we were there—at the outskirts of Stonehenge. Morganna was there with Arthur, an army of Shades and Legends surrounding us in the dusky evening light. All manner of fairy tales had been gathered for this occasion, I saw—flying monkeys, trolls, witches and spirits. A few celebrities were in the mix, such as a woman with three bears, who I assumed to be Goldilocks; a man with a blue beard, Medusa and several other snake ladies, and even Captain Hook. I wondered how the captain was doing without Pan around.
Morganna had Arthur on his knees, leering at him.
43
Morganna’s eyes slowly rose to meet ours, and she laughed. “Isn’t this cute? You came to witness my victory.” Turning to the kneeling Arthur, she waved her hand our way and said, “Give the rest of our visitors a show, while I finish the ritual.”
Arthur spun on us, and this wasn’t the same Arthur we’d seen at the top of the Milan cathedral. He wore the same clothes and had the same look, but his red, glowing eyes showed the ferocity of a demon. When he came at us, fangs extended and claws at the ready, I had no idea what I was supposed to do. It wasn’t like I could just let him suck my blood, but we couldn’t really kill him either.
Sekhmet charged in with Bastet at her side, and I saw for the first time how truly dangerous they could be. Bastet was darting around, leaping and changing directions as she created patterns of purple light that worked to contain Arthur’s movements. While he was fast, if he was suddenly blocked in his direction, then blocked in his next move, speed didn’t do much for him. And in the meantime, Sekhmet had her scepter in her hand again and opted for it here over her blades in a way that sent streams of flame at him. Neither, I saw, was working to kill him, but to contain him while Nivian shouted for me to get in at him with the sword.
The Legends crowded in, some flying overhead, clearly wanting a piece of the action. I tried to keep an eye on them, waiting for the moment that Morganna gave them all the go ahead to charge in.
At the moment, however, Arthur was keeping us busy. I was finally close enough and deflected a blow with my newly-upgraded shield, while Nivian called to him in one breath and then shouted for me to strike him with her next.
“Won’t it kill him?” I shouted back, narrowly avoiding a strike from his long claws as Sekhmet pounced on him in her lion form and then rolled off, shooting flames that nearly took him. She lifted the scepter and the flames arched, so that Bastet could, instead, dive in and again block off Arthur.
“The blade still has the magic of the holy water,” she said. “Strike him, but not lethally.”
“Great, make it easy next time,” I countered, again charging in. My Tempest tattoos were glowing, going crazy as they swirled across my skin, and the power within me was surging in response.
A purple wall of light faded and Arthur was roaring as he leaped for me, but I managed a burst of speed, ducking under and slicing—and sure enough, the sword tasted flesh.
It hit him in the side, coming out with a spurt of black blood.
But when Arthur turned to me, the red glow from his eyes was fading even as the wound healed itself.
“Thank you,” he mouthed.
We weren’t given time to celebrate our victory, because Morganna had risen into the air, gowns fluttering in the wind as clouds rolled past. She shouted, “That was growing dull, at any rate. Let us get on with it.”
Then, bringing her hands together, the clouds above erupted in bursts of lightning and one shot down, straight into Arthur, so that he was stuck in place, the light too bright to see what was happening, while Morganna’s mad laughter filled the air.
Cheers erupted from her gathered Legends.
“Do something!” Nivian screamed, for the first time apparently not having answers.
Sekhmet changed her fire attack to Morganna, but the latter threw up a hand that created an emptiness where the fire vanished.
“You fools,” Morganna said, floating over to the center of the standing stones, a jerk of her hand causing Arthur to fly out of the lightning and land next to her. “Didn’t you know that by the time you got here, it was already too late? The second we arrived here, it would’ve been too late.”
I tried charging, but a burst of energy shot out from the stones, knocking me and my companions back.
“Go ahead, get rid of them,” Morganna said to her horde. As the enemy started to close in on us, she muttered a chant, hands lifted to the sky, and more magic flowed out of the gigantic standing stones.
The first to reach us, as we were recovering and getting to our feet, were the flying monkeys and those who could move in bursts of magic, like the witches. If not for Bastet’s magic I would’ve been toast in seconds. She and Sekhmet were both damn powerful, and Nivian began to get more involved too, muttering chants that acted as buffers and enhancers. When I lunged for a counterattack against three trolls, the sword felt like a toy as I cut through them, moving faster than I was pretty sure Mr. Vampire Arthur himself had.
A claw snagged me and yanked me back, throwing me to my ass. I lifted my arm so that my shield appeared to block as a sword came down, and when I looked up I saw Hook there, sneering at me.
“The man who killed Peter Pan,” Hook said, and laughed. “You’d think I’d be
thanking you.”
“You still can,” I said, realizing it had been a hook that had yanked me down, not a claw.
“Not likely,” he replied and came back with a strike from his hook and then his sword, the later catching the side of my arm but only with a slight cut.
“See, after all these years I was growing rather fond of the lad,” Hook said, trying again as I rolled aside and recovered. He squared off against me, the two of us going blow for blow. “I even liked him bossing me around. Poor form, perhaps, but jolly good fun.”
“You’re fucked,” I replied, coming in for a strike, “in the head.”
“Ah-ha.” He blocked the blow and came in for an uppercut strike with his hook, pulling blood from my chin but not landing in my neck as he’d attempted. “So you do get me.”
“I get that you’re about to meet your maker, fucking pirate.” I lunged and struck, but only as a feint before kicking out one of his legs and bashing him with the pommel of my sword. For some reason, killing the good ol’ captain felt wrong, so I left him there, moaning in pain, and turned to face my next opponent.
There were plenty left to keep me occupied.
More enemies and Shades kept coming, and my levels started stacking on top of each other to the point that I think I leveled up to twelve. I was pretty sure I’d gotten an Ichor or two along the way as well.
All the while we were trying to reach the standing stones, but couldn’t quite make it. Bursts of light and darkness, explosions and what looked like opening rifts formed and surrounded the sky above the stones, until three flying monkeys were sucked in and a couple of witches. The rest started steering clear of it, some even forgetting to fight, simply focusing on trying to escape this force that was acting like a magnet, pulling those nearby into it.
And then, as Morganna lifted Arthur to her and pressed her lips to his—almost like in the fairy tales, but in a much darker, twisted turn of events—he turned to ash in her grip, floating up and into the void she had created.