Accounts Payable

by Blaise Corvin

  Beem’s eyebrows climbed into her hairline and she seemed genuinely at a loss for words. I didn’t know what anything I’d just said actually meant, but I enjoyed her reaction. I continued, “None of that rot matters here, right now. What is relevant is that I have a damn good spear and I know how to use it.”

  The Areva woman bared her teeth. “I own this island, and I won’t be talked to like this. You are surrounded, Jackal.”

  “Oh really?” I rolled my eyes. “If you own this place, why are you sneaking around like children selling stolen food from the mainland? And I’m surrounded? Last I checked, you were hiding from the cultists. Meanwhile, I just got jumped by what I hear is most of their serious combat power, but I killed more than ten of them before I wound up here.” I looked around. “You seem a few dozen fighters and some orb-Bonded short if you want to even match that threat.”

  Up until this point, I’d felt like the room had been full of tension. I silently congratulated myself for taking a hard stance, and I’d assumed that everyone else present would feel as stressed as I did. Then I heard a strange noise, and turned to see Cat trying to stifle a giggle. So much for tension, I thought. Beem scowled at the scout.

  I scowled too, wondering if I should say anything about it, but then Trevor nudged Karen and in a carrying whisper asked, “Do you think they’re going to get naked and wrestle?”

  The orb-Bonded woman responded at normal volume, her tone flat. “I hope so.” To one side, Frederick, the older man who’d remained silent this entire time seemed startled but then went back to frowning.

  “I don’t know if I should be aroused or terrified,” said Trevor with a sudden grin. The expression lit up his face.

  Beem looked like she was about to jump across the table and try stabbing me. I suddenly felt less confident in my negotiation approach. Maybe pushing her this far had been a mistake.

  Anippe slowly shook her head. “Wow, she really is exactly how the letters said she would be.” She placed a hand on Beem’s arm. “You should probably let this go. You both look ridiculous, but she has you by the hair.”

  What did those letters actually say? I wondered, fuming silently.

  Beem began to respond, but a sudden tremor caused every person in the room to freeze. Whumpf. “Did you hear that?” asked Cat.

  Nobody else spoke, and I approved of the preservation instincts I saw on display. These people really were survivors. Nobody moved as we all strained our senses, and I actually began using Vibration to augment my hearing. “Someone is coming,” I said.

  A door slammed open, and a scout I’d seen before burst into the room. “We’re under attack! At least two are dead!”

  Beem shot to her feet. “Demons are attacking? True-d?”

  “True-d, yes.” The scout was grim, and I thought I could see a spatter of blood on her ankle.

  Beem smacked the table and looked me in the eyes. “Time to earn your bed for the night, girl. Let’s see if you are really as good as everyone seems to think you are.” She turned. “Let’s go, Karen, you too. Go show those rotting hellspawn a good night!”

  Anippe nodded. “Not that we have much choice. We don’t have anywhere else to go. They followed us home. Time to prove that this place is ours again.”

  ***

  When I emerged from the bunker-like Serpent command building, I saw true-demons for the first time. I wasn’t really surprised that they were hideous, I’d been expecting that, but I still gasped when I saw them.

  Monsters were usually ugly and dangerous, but true-demons took it to another level. They were just...wrong. The things attacking the Serpents’ island looked like giant bats mixed with lizards, but also had rabbit ears and furry, prehensile tails. Spikes covered their bodies. Fighting them toe to toe would have been difficult anyway, but they were also busy darting in one after another, barely close enough to be seen by magelight. They attacked with their long legs and sharp, jagged claws.

  As I watched, one Serpent got picked up by a true-demon, hoisted by the shoulders into the sky. She screamed, her voice growing fainter until it abruptly stopped. Blood rained down in a fine mist from the darkness.

  “Get more lights out here!” shouted Beem.

  To my left, Karen, the orb-Bonded Serpent, began to shimmer, and was suddenly surrounded by a crystal-like, glowing suit of armor. Then she strung a bow, drew the string back, and an arrow appeared that looked like her armor. She fired into the darkness, missing, but the true-demons scattered.

  As more fighters gathered, bringing lights with them, Beem began to bark more orders. “Anippe, oversee the lights! Trevor, get your pretty ass down and stay alive! Make it to the field hospital. We need your healing more than that big rotting bow of yours. Karen, cover the lights. If these things are like the others, they’ll fight to the death, but try to take our lights out the entire time. We need to—”

  To our right, an explosion of green light took out one of the crude wooden shacks that the Serpents used as bunk houses. If anyone had still been inside, they were dead now.

  “What the fuck was that?” Beem yelled.

  A scout that overheard ran up, panting. “We don’t know what’s going on! The green shit is new, but we think it might be coming from the beach!”

  “They are in the rotting water now too?” Beem put her hands on her head. “This might be it,” she said quietly, then turned. “Karen, move your ass! Try to take those flying fuckers out. Your arrows are more effective than anything else we have.”

  The orb-Bonded didn’t bother replying, just ran.

  Above the background yelling and crying, another blood-curdling scream rang out in the darkness, and I assumed someone else had been killed. The fact that the Serpents all moved somewhat orderly and none were panicking showed they were tough, and they’d definitely fought these things before.

  The beach, huh? I thought.

  “How many of them were there last time?” I asked Beem.

  “Four. Every time they come, it seems there is one more.”

  I glanced around, making a quick decision. The Serpents were in danger and some would probably die battling the flying true-demons, but they were fighting an enemy they seemed to be prepared for. Whatever had caused the explosions was new, more destructive, and attacking long range. I would go there.

  “Nora Hazard, you should—” I didn't hear whatever else Beem said. The night wind buffeted me as I gained height, using a combination of my Elements: Air and Vibration abilities to hopefully avoid running into any flying demons or be eviscerated.

  I cursed, wishing I could still activate my armor. Crawling through the sky in the dark, I felt exposed, vulnerable. Part of me wondered what I was even doing here. This wasn't my fight. No, I was here because there weren’t any better options if I wanted to do what was right. The enemy of my enemy was my friend. I had a debt to settle with the cultists and anything to lower their combat strength could only be a good thing. Plus, if I’d stayed behind with the Serpents, these green attacks might have killed us all.

  As I flew toward the beach, I realized I didn’t even know which beach I needed to find. On top of that, I couldn’t see a rotting thing other than the lights back the way I’d come. The farther I flew, the more vulnerable I felt, and I reached out with my new ability, using the air around me with Vibration to sense my surroundings in my mind.

  “Damn,” I hissed. The effect, whether because I was in the air, or because my skill was low, felt like walking around a dark room with my arms out. I was surrounded by nothing, with flashes of motion on the edges of where I could sense. “This might get ugly,” I hissed.

  I raised my speed and flew straight up. This way, if one of the bat-things were going to snatch me, they’d have to at least work for it. As I climbed, I cursed myself for overlooking being able to see.

  Luckily, I was looking down when another explosive attack appeared, and I was able to see that it was actually a ball of green fire arcing through the air. “Gotcha!” I hissed, and
dove toward the source. Somewhere behind me on the island, the attack landed with a bang, and I shook my head. Maybe this one had hit Serpent family quarters too.

  When I was almost to my destination, another green ball as tall as I was appeared and began rising into the sky. I thought quickly, angling directly toward it. Flying around aimlessly in the dark wasn’t a great way to stay alive, and the entire reason I’d come this way was to stop the indirect bombing of the island.

  This is going to be close...if it works, I thought. When the ball of fire was about to hit, I created a curved shield of air, far less dense than usual. I couldn’t create air shields very far away from my body, so I was afraid that if I made it too solid, the ball would explode and take me with it.

  My body and magic were tensed, ready to shield myself if the ball so much as twitched, but it held. With a relieved grunt, I began using a curving ramp of air to guide the slow-moving ball to the ground. Once it was on a collision course with a group of trees, I darted up into the sky, making sure I’d be clear of the impact.

  When the ball exploded, it wiped out most of the trees and in the aftereffect of the flash, I could see some of the crater it had made. Luckily, it also caught some of the resulting debris on fire, creating an eerie, wavering green flame—light that was just barely enough to see by.

  I rose further into the sky, watching the green fire spread, slowly becoming normal flame, and thanked the Creator. Now I had a fighting chance, and I could spot the things creating the huge green mortars.

  A couple large, fleshy true-demons had pulled themselves mostly onto the shore, and a third, smaller one shaped like a nightmarish spider with half a human face stood between them. I could barely spot a green glow coming from the back of one of the larger creatures, and the spider-thing had several hands on top of it, no doubt waiting for another projectile. When it turned to look at me, I hissed. Its face was like a nightmare mashup of a human child’s face with chitin parts. One cheek was deformed, rotting, and the green light from the spreading fire glinted off the thing’s carapace.

  Feeling something I’d never experienced before, I dove. Deep down, I was offended that the true-demon even existed. I whipped Pewpew in a line, attacking all three creatures at once, then cursed. The violet beam had been stopped by the true-demons’ natural armor, and I had to dodge a sudden throw by one of the spider creature’s long, nightmarish limbs. Even as I swerved to avoid a whistling projectile, I noticed that the creature’s arms were covered in spikes, and its hands looked human, but stretched out and clawed.

  Some part of me knew that using Pewpew again was not a real option. My fight in Bittertown had taken too much out of me, and even using it this once was going to hurt. As I rose, I grabbed Vistvis, opening communication with the Areva woman. “You have any ideas here?” I growled.

  Vistvis’ voice sounded much more somber than usual.

  I let go of the dagger. “Really helpful. Great.” I activated the enchanted shield of force I wore on my arm, but I had zero confidence that it would actually be able to block the projectiles being slung at me. They created enough disturbance in my air-sense I was still maintaining to know they had tremendous force.

  After flying in a zig-zag, observing the huge, unnatural killing machines for a while longer, I decided it was time to counter attack. I dove down, dodging more rocks, or whatever the spider thing was throwing at me, then threw Eneus at one of the huge, fleshy nightmares.

  Up close and in the increased light of the spreading fire behind me, the creature looked like an old Earth whale mixed with an insect and a squid. It rolled a huge eye toward me and swung a tentacle, but I darted away. My spear hit true.

  The true-demon screamed, thrashing in pain, but I definitely hadn’t killed it. When it moved, I could see the hole on its back where it could create green, explosive bombs. Killing the spider thrower would probably end the threat, but that true-d also looked far better armored than the ones making its ammo.

  I jerked back on Eneus’ sash, returning the ichor-covered weapon to my hand. A green glow kept growing from the other ammo-former, but I couldn’t get close enough to even attack it. The spider thing was so fast, and so well-armored that I was afraid it could grab Eneus. Without my spear, I’d be left with a few mundane bronze knives I carried, a magic ring I couldn’t use any more today, and Vistvis.

  “Damn,” I growled. I rose again, keeping an eye on the sky in case a bat thing tried to take me from above. The situation was grim, and I wasn’t sure what to do. Without my armor on, the spider thing’s barrage of rocks could put me down. I rose further, heading out over the water. From this angle I could more easily see the growing green light on the uninjured creatures’ back. I noticed a matching glow beginning on the injured, whale-like true-demon. “Rotting stars.

  Without many options, I decided to act on another hunch, more like a wild-ass guess. Eneus didn’t do a lot of damage to the big, bloated demons, and I doubted I’d even get a clean hit on the spider thing, but what if…

  I pumped Eneus with all the Vibration energy I could handle, waiting for the right moment. More projectiles hurled at me buzzed through the air. Now, I thought, and screamed “Hazard!” Eneus sped down like a comet. I managed to dodge the next few throws by the spider demons, but one hit the outside of my arm, cutting me from my hand to my elbow. A triumphant yell escaped my throat as I watched my spear hit where I’d aimed.

  Then everything went green. I felt like a giant swatted me out of the sky with the back of her hand. The sea below filled my eyes, the tips of the waves reflecting green-and-orange fire consuming the nearby forest. As I fell, as I felt my consciousness fading, I made a bubble of air around my head. I hadn’t practiced this ability much, and it wasn’t very powerful, but it was the best I could do before I hit the water and blacked out.

  ***

  I woke up in darkness, nothing but points of light overhead, like green stars. Memories flitted around, like magic messenger birds. Everything seemed hazy until water touched my face. My thought went still and I suddenly felt the cold water on the rest of my body. Water against my face climbed higher, rising faster. Memories returned, and with them came fear. My rotting air bubble is about to fail, I thought.

  Luckily, I’d grown up in Bittertown and I’d practically begun swimming from the moment I could walk. Panic would kill me as surely as breathing water would, so as calmly as I could, I gathered my feet on the sandy bottom, and pushed off in one smooth motion. The water in my bubble was right under my nose as I realized the air wasn’t going to hold out long enough. I held my breath, hoping I hadn’t gotten disoriented. Luckily, the air bubble I’d created still protected my eyes and helped me see, tracking the green lights.

  My lungs were burning. Where the hell is the surface? I could feel my body pushing, trying to drag my mind into panic. No. After everything I’d been through, I refused to drown. I thought desperately, mentally searching for anything I could do other than kick my way upward. If I hadn’t been orb-Bonded, the weight of my gear and armor would have already killed me.

  Then I grabbed hold of an idea, firing up my Flight ability and gently lifting myself. It worked, and when “up” ended up being a different direction than I had been swimming, I felt despair war with relief.

  Finally, as I was reaching my limit, I broke through the surface of the sea. My hands splashed against the waves, but my face was still surrounded by water. I almost drowned before I remembered my magic air bubble was full of water and dismissed it.

  Drawing in huge, ragged gasps, I looked up at the sky and cried. “Thank Creation!” I whispered. Then I collected my wits and found the shore where I’d been fighting. I gulped. Where the three true-demons had once been lobbing energy mortars toward the Serpents’ base, nothing remained. Ravenous green flame lined the entire beach, and even floated on the water near shore.

  I’d hoped that hitting the glowing energy on the whale-t
hing’s back might have had...some effect. I hadn’t expected it to create a crater that was still filling with sea water. “That was close,” I muttered. Maybe the other true-demon’s new green glow had contributed to the explosion. I didn’t see any sign of the spider thing, either. Good.

  My entire body ached as I jerkily swam to shore. I’d lost Eneus’ sash at some point, so I held up a hand, waiting for the cloth to tickle my palm. As soon as I felt it, I yanked back, catching my spear after it sped toward me and threw it at hard as I could toward the beach. Despite not understanding how it worked, I knew that Eneus could sense my intentions to remain in place or not. I used the spear’s sash to help get to shore.

  After I was back on land, I made sure the sand at my feet wasn’t burning or about to burn, and I flopped on my back. “This has been a long, long rotting day,” I complained. I ran a hand through my hair, but winced when I realized that a lock of hair had been burned away. Adrenaline and other helpful chemicals still filled my body, but I knew I was probably singed and cut all over.

  “Shit,” I sighed.

  ***

  About fifteen minutes later, I crashed down into a skidding stop on top of one of the flying true-demons. I’d landed near a few Serpents including Karen, still in her glowing, ‘Bonded armor. The bat-like true-demon I’d stabbed with Eneus and cut up with Vistvis still weakly moved, so I grabbed my spear’s shaft, levering it up and back, working it deeper into the disgusting creature until it finally shuddered one last time and went still. It smelled horrible.

  I could hear Jadanak roaring somewhere in the distance. I’d caught sight of him earlier, chasing a wounded true-demon with a shredded wing on the ground. He’d obviously gotten involved with the fighting, and I trusted him not to eat any people...for now.

  Since I’d left this part of the island earlier, the Serpents had lit it up with dozens, if not hundreds of lights—mundane candles, lanterns, and magic stone-powered torches. I could see the distant body of the other bat-thing I’d killed in the sky a few minutes ago. When it fell, it’d almost hit one of the Serpents. Oops.