by Kal Aaron
Aisha scoffed. “You’re not going to outdo me, friend. I will not quit until I’m dead or they all are.”
“I’ll remember those words for your tombstone.”
Ryan lifted his hilt. The increased whine and distortion marked the return of his blade. “This job beats killing monsters in sewers. Let’s find and eliminate the last targets.”
“A showstopper into the heart of the enemy formation could devastate it,” Jofi said. “Consider their use in the next battle to lower the risk to your group.”
Lyssa furrowed her brow. He’d been far too eager for her to shoot a showstopper in the mine. She wasn’t going to use them to cut down groups of disposable minions. They’d been able to fight the panthers without them.
He wasn’t wrong. His attack choice might be questionable, but the general idea held promise.
“We need to be a little smarter about this,” she said. “Aisha, during the next fight, how about Ryan and I cover you while you rev up some major fireballs? We need to take these guys out in larger batches.”
Aisha nodded with a proud smile. “I could do that.”
“Antoine, you stay in the rear,” Lyssa said. “If you go down, we could be screwed later.”
He nodded. “I’m more than happy to let you continue the slaughter-fest, and I’m more than happy to pop any lizards or snake-roaches that get too close.”
Reloading her pistols with explosive and penetrator magazines, Lyssa made a mental note to save at least one explosive and one penetrator magazine. She had several ablative magazines left, reasoning earlier that she could kill the panther quicker by getting to its brain than burning off its armor. That caution was paying off in an unexpected way.
“Then we’ve got a plan.” Lyssa lifted her guns. “We’re Torches. It’s time we burn more impurities from this world.”
“Excellent, Hecate,” Aisha said.
Lyssa jogged toward a large tunnel. Sometimes a long battle tried one’s patience, and sometimes even a short, intense skirmish left a woman ready to go home and collapse into bed.
“I’m never going into a cave again after this,” Lyssa stated.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Lyssa continued down the tunnel, unsurprised and satisfied at feeling active sorcery from somewhere in front of her. “Am I the only one feeling that, or did one of you somehow pull a stunt?”
“The rogue’s finally showing himself.” Aisha sneered. “I’ll enjoy seeing his fear. Once he sees how many have come for him, he might surrender.”
“I wouldn’t bet on it,” Lyssa replied. “But I wouldn’t complain if it happened either.”
After all battles against disgusting monsters, sensing the sorcery flooded Lyssa with relief. She wanted the job over and the bastard captured or killed. After the stunt at the library, she’d worried she might not be able to track him down.
“That explains why they’re consolidating forces,” Ryan said. “The rogue might have just arrived during our earlier attack.”
Lyssa nodded. “As long as it means we can finish this, I’m happy.” She turned to Aisha. “Try to take him alive if possible. Given what we’ve seen, it’s highly possible this guy didn’t do all this by himself, and I think Samuel and Theodora would love the chance to call up the Tribunal and send them after the other rogues.”
Aisha frowned and folded her arms. “I’ll do my best, but that’s up to him. I’m not going to risk my life or any of yours on the chance we can gain something.”
“You do what you have to do,” Lyssa said. “It’s like with Allard. Sometimes you don’t have a choice. I get that.”
“This sounds bad, but you can mess him up, and I can save him,” Antoine said with a shrug. “Just don’t kill him and we’re good.”
Aisha’s smile turned chilling. “I’ll keep that in mind. It does increase the number of options.”
“I’d assume some sort of life essence,” Lyssa said. “But we don’t know. Be careful.”
Ryan fell in behind Lyssa. Aisha and Antoine took up the rear. The darkness of the tunnels was almost complete except for the flicker of Aisha’s floating lantern. Light began to filter in from the other side, changing Lyssa’s gray night vision to something more natural.
“There is light at the end of the tunnel,” she joked. “Maybe the twist is we lost that last battle, and we’re already dead.”
Antoine chortled, but Aisha and Ryan looked annoyed. Some people had no sense of humor.
“Don’t worry,” Lyssa said. “You don’t have to see me again anytime soon after this. I’ve got other things I’ll be taking care of.”
After cleaning up this level of mess, including finding the rogue, her ticket to Last Remnant was all but assured.
Something shifted and writhed toward the end of the tunnel, but nothing came at them. The shrieks of the lizards resounded from ahead. Familiarity fed into Lyssa’s cockiness. They could handle lizards, even a horde of them.
She kept expecting a final, desperate monster charge through the tunnel, but nothing happened. Whoever was controlling the monsters, if they were doing such a thing, must have something else in mind.
The presence of the Sorcerer could complicate their plans, but it wasn’t like one man could coordinate the tactics of a whole room full of monsters that well. He probably didn’t have much else planned other than trying to distract and then overwhelm them. He hadn’t been watching them.
Lyssa frowned. That assumption was based on a faulty premise. She hadn’t felt any sorcery walking around the mine, so she’d believed he couldn’t be observing them from afar, but it wasn’t like she would have been able to carefully distinguish the sensation of remote viewing spells in the heat of the battle with three other people performing sorcery right next to her.
Did he know four people were coming for him? Was that why the monsters were being held back?
The group continued their advance until their tunnel emptied into the large room, its oval shape, curved, smooth walls, and huge size reminding her of a stadium. Dull light illuminated the area, leaving patches of shadows, but nothing like the smothering darkness of the rest of the mine.
Masses of lizards and snake-roaches crawled over half the room, their scratching and hissing producing white noise that was easy to tune out. The motion of the carpet of life distracted Lyssa, and it took her a moment to realize there were mounds and other outcroppings spread throughout the room.
Lyssa frowned. The monsters acted like they didn’t even see the new arrivals, and they were rather conspicuously avoiding the team’s side of the room. She could feel strong sorcery from the center of the room, but nothing closer. Before, she’d had to sneak up on the enemy using wraith form, but now they were standing twenty yards away in light without so much as a snake-roach trying to bite them.
“I don’t get it,” she said. “How the hell are these things even being controlled? They split them up and kept them from spilling out at random.” She frowned. “I might not know the methods, but I think I understand the plan. They probably figured whoever investigated would retreat, and the game would be up. They needed to buy time until Halloween, but we ended up checking back and messing up their plans.”
Aisha suggested, “The creatures might have existing behavior patterns they’re acting out.”
“No.” Lyssa shook her head. “Someone lured two people here and managed to get a couple of monsters to attack them, but they kept them from swarming me before and us just now. There’s control here, not fine control, but some.”
“Does that prove what you think?” Ryan asked. “They didn’t demonstrate much in the way of tactics before. I think they’ve been programmed to kill anything that moves that they can see or hear. Don’t attribute human intelligence to a pattern that can be produced without it.”
“I get that, but why aren’t they attacking one another now? Or us?” Lyssa gestured with her pistol toward a hissing acid-spitter lizard. “Why aren’t they attacking the different species, at l
east?” She turned toward Ryan. “Can you check to see if they’re using some sort of sound frequency outside the normal range of hearing? If they are, you could jam it.”
He cocked his head to the side, humming a complicated sequence of high notes. After a moment, he shook his head. “No ultrasound. No infrasound.”
“Then what?” Lyssa looked around. They’d all sensed sorcery, but there was no sign of the Sorcerer. A shapeshifting spell, perhaps? That was a dangerous gamble.
“How do ants talk to each other?” offered a man’s muffled voice from the center of the room. There was a smug quality to it that annoyed Lyssa.
The team spun toward the sound, but there was nothing there but a swarm of snake-roaches. They scurried away, revealing a pocket with a large boulder. A small stream of smoke spiraled up from behind it.
“Smell,” Lyssa called out. “They leave smell trails.” She gagged. “Is that why it smells so awful in here? Everything’s controlled by scent?”
“It’s effective,” the man replied. His shadow marked him as a normal-sized human on the other side of the rock, and a brief flash of his hand revealed the source of smoke: a burning incense stick. Given the sorcery they were feeling from that direction, it was almost certainly a shard.
Lyssa wondered if she could have convinced the monsters she was one of them if she’d rolled around more in the sludge of the hatchery and queen’s chamber. But without Antoine protecting her nose, she wasn’t sure she could have continued to fight with that level of filth all over her.
“Who the hell are you?” Lyssa asked. “I guess now I know how you were able to control the creatures, but that doesn’t explain everything.”
“The rogue finally shows himself.” Aisha scoffed. “Yet still you cower. You understand our power, so you should surrender.”
“I’m honored,” the man said. “The great Hecate, Flame Deva, and Ultrasound all gathered. I don’t know your other companion. I assume he’s another Torch. Four Torches to deal with one problem. This proves how dangerous my pets are.”
“Give it up,” Aisha shouted. “Your wickedness ends here, friend. You’ve shamed the Society and misused your power by creating these disgusting creatures. We will give you one chance to surrender, but we have been authorized to kill whoever is responsible for this army.”
“My power?” He laughed. “You don’t understand anything. I have no power other than what I’ve been given. I serve a grand family of Sorcerers, even if I don’t have the gift. But you shouldn’t threaten me. What I do today, I do for the Society in the future. You should be helping me as loyal Illuminated.”
Lyssa scoffed. “This is a sanctioned Society contract. Flame Deva’s right. Surrender now if you know what’s good for you.” She kept her guns pointed toward the rock, but the man wasn’t exposing much more than the tip of the incense and a couple of fingers. “I don’t know what BS you’re spouting there or how you did all this, but if you don’t want to die, you’re going to use your shards to draw down your army. We’ll destroy the rest of it, and you’ll be turned over to be taken to Last Remnant.”
He laughed. “Are you attempting to intimidate me, Hecate?” The incense disappeared behind the rock. “I must say I’m disappointed. I thought with your reputation, you wouldn’t bring so many helpers.”
“You wanted me here?” Lyssa asked. “Why? This is way too elaborate if it’s just about assassinating me. Even I’m not that paranoid.”
“No, I never wanted you here, but I anticipated you might come, given the location.” The man’s pale hand extended past the rock. He clutched a rune-inscribed flattened stone. “You now have a choice. We both know you came here to stop the monsters more than anything. The Society won’t care about a non-Illuminated servant. You could let me go.”
“We care about whoever you’re working for,” Lyssa shouted. “And where you got your shards. I’m assuming that is one, and the incense is another. Someone else obviously made the monsters, and you’re just keeping watch, right?”
“Here’s your final choice,” the man replied. “You can turn around and leave with the understanding that in the years to come, you’ll welcome and praise what I’ve done, or you can try to capture me, and I’ll use this shard to collapse the entire mine. It doesn’t have much power left, but there’s enough to damage the key structural points in this place. Once this hits the ground, you’ll have no chance to escape, and this place will become your tomb. Four Illuminated will die, and for what? To avenge a couple of idiots?”
Antoine tilted his head, the quizzical look humorous in the plague-doctor get-up. “Not to point out the obvious, but you’ll die, too.”
“You don’t have the guts to do it,” Ryan said. “Flame Deva’s right. You’re a coward.”
Lyssa thought taunting a man with a suicidal plan was the worst possible idea. She’d prefer to dare him into surrender.
“I have my orders,” the man replied. “If I can’t carry them out, death is the only acceptable alternative. The only reason I’d flee is that my master has told me I should.”
“And who is that?” Lyssa asked.
“You’ll never know, Hecate. My master will be furious. You’ve destroyed so many hand-crafted creations, including his latest masterpiece that could produce new creatures for him. The level of effort you wasted!”
That explained why they hadn’t run into more queens, but it didn’t explain who was behind the whole thing. There was an even more dangerous Sorcerer still out there somewhere in need of a good three rounds to the face. She still also didn’t understand why he’d drawn the victims there.
Lyssa kept her guns holstered while she murmured a Phrygian incantation under her breath. A single thin shadow tentacle extended behind her, born of her shadow. The man had given her a clue about how to survive this and capture him, and she hoped it’d be enough.
She did have one major advantage. He’d already admitted he wasn’t a Sorcerer, which meant, most importantly, he couldn’t sense sorcery.
“If you come for me, you’ll never be able to get me in time,” the man shouted. “The incense will ensure my horde stops you before you can get close to me. You will allow me to leave, and then we shall all survive.”
“I’ve got a new plan,” Lyssa murmured.
“Use your ultimate sanction,” Jofi said. “The showstopper will annihilate the shards and end their threat.”
She ignored him. “Just keep the monsters off me.”
“I thought we were keeping them off Flame Deva,” Ryan said, sounding annoyed.
Antoine stepped forward. “I’ll keep them off her, and you keep them off Hecate.” He looked at Lyssa. “I hope this is a good plan.”
“It’s a plan.” Lyssa shrugged.
Aisha stepped forward. “It’s fine. I can push myself if I know it’ll be over soon. You two concentrate on Hecate. I’ll stay in the air while I deliver the fireballs. But are you sure we shouldn’t just kill him from here?”
“If you blast him, that might set off the shard,” Lyssa said.
“What are you talking about over there?” the man yelled. “You’re outnumbered, and you have no chance of stopping me with the army attacking you. You can leave or die. It’s simple, really. There’s nothing to debate.”
“Last chance,” Lyssa shouted. “You don’t have to die in a hole in the ground surrounded by monsters, especially for some asshole rogue who is willing to make you take all the blame.”
“No, I don’t have to die here,” he called back. “But it seems you do. Fine. Face the last of the army.”
The trail of incense smoke ended, the last whisps floating into the air. The monsters all stopped crawling over each other and turned toward the group.
“I won’t need long!” Lyssa shouted.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
The monsters surged toward the team. Lyssa concentrated on the rock, not paying much attention to anything else. She couldn’t make out anything different among the monsters. They seemed t
o be what they’d fought before.
Aisha roared into the air, rapidly chanting in Sanskrit as she made intricate motions with her hands. Antoine stepped in front of Lyssa and brought his staff back, ready to strike. Ryan moved to her other side, lifting his sonic sword.
They might have been tired. They might have fought a huge horde of monsters already, but none of them was ready to quit. The final enemy wasn’t a skilled life Sorcerer but nothing more than a Shadow with some toys and a pack of borrowed monsters.
Lyssa concentrated on growing her shadow tentacle without lowering her arms. She murmured the incantation while visualizing the thin tenebrous strands stretching it. She couldn’t see the incense anymore, but the runic shard remained visible.
This could work. It wouldn’t have been possible without the team. She could get used to that.
Antoine yanked out several potions and threw them into the advancing monsters. The vials shattered and splattered dark liquids over lizards and snake-roaches. Their skins and hides sizzled as the liquid ate through them. One lizard vaporized in a puff of yellow smoke.
Lyssa was almost startled out of her concentration. She’d not known Antoine could pull that off, but they’d wanted him to stay back earlier, and his staff attacks hadn’t done a good job. He must have known his potions wouldn’t work against the armored panthers.
A roaring fireball screamed down from Aisha and blasted apart the center of the advancing horde. The mindless monsters continued to advance, reinforcements from the sides filling the gap in the formation. The man’s crude control wasn’t enough to introduce impressive tactics.
Antoine continued tossing potions with skillful accuracy. His newest ones didn’t eat away at their victims, but their bodies began flaking away, dark patches spreading until they collapsed to the ground.
For all his protestations, he wasn’t half-bad in a fight. She wasn’t ready to suggest he become a Torch, but he was a powerful reminder there was no such thing as a weak Sorcerer. Even Tricia could be scary under the right circumstances.