The Abandoned Sorcerer

by Nefarious

  Kora knocked on the house’s bright-yellow door.

  Orion imagined how it must feel to have a loved one murdered metres away from you. He had endured worse, but he hadn’t seen split skin or heard any banshee screams. But, on the other hand, this lady still had her house, her wealth, and her kids. He had been left with nothing, nothing but hatred.

  Noticing no signs of life from the house, Kora was about to leave when Wes stopped her.

  “Sophie, it’s the Seekers. We’ve nearly got the monster, we just need to know one thing,” he shouted.

  They waited. Then, the door clacked and creaked open, a fat lady with tanned, tear-stained skin eyeing them spiritlessly.

  “Seekers? Again? What do you want?” she asked as if desperately searching for a reason to whine. She stood by the door and blocked the hallway, intent on keeping them outside.

  “Your husband, tell me what happened and what his body looked like afterwards,” Kora said.

  “Have I not retold the horror enough times? Why do you torment me!?” Sophie screeched. Her eyes spoke of sleepless nights.

  “One last time, Sophie. Kora’s an expert tracker, she just needs to hear the facts first-hand to find the monster,” Wes said, plucking facts from thin air.

  Kora stopped, then nodded.

  “Fine, continue your torture! I was inside, making dinner when he went out for a smoke,”

  Orion wondered what that meant? Did he make fires for fun? Nonetheless, he didn’t interrupt the shaking woman.

  “Then, a scream. I ran out and saw some thing, its long and bony limbs holding my husband’s face. Its mouth, its mouth,” she sobbed, “it was slurping up his face and his brain. It looked like a human that had been stretched, with black eyes. Pure black.”

  Kora placed a hand on her shoulder and stopped her. “That’s enough,”

  Sophie backed away and nodded too many times while staring through the Seekers. Suddenly, her body collapsed and smashed against the wooden floorboards, blood leaking from her scalp. Orion rushed forward while the others momentarily froze.

  Realising this was the perfect opportunity, Kora smiled and cracked her fingers against Wes’s face, making him fall and clamber back. Rover growled and charged at her, before being sidestepped and tripped.

  “It’s a Korshi,” she said from above them. “It’ll suck your blood to regain energy, and you two are too slow to not get caught, let alone be any use,”

  They stood and righted themselves, embarrassed at failing but angry at her way of testing.

  “Or do you need more proof you’re too slow?” she asked.

  Wes didn’t move but Rover did. Kora strode forward and propelled her foot up. He crossed his arms in time but still staggered back, his eyes wide at her strength.

  “Stay here with Sophie. I’ll kill it with Jax,”

  Orion stood once Wes came to Sophie, and he walked past Rover who clutched his forearms with a downcast gaze. The pale Seeker nodded at the other two and followed Kora who had ran ahead.

  She wandered down the road, peeking down each sewer opening they came across. It was at the eighth one she stopped. “The Korshi must have felt safe in this city to assimilate so nearby,”

  It looked like any other sewer opening with metal bars and a lever lock beside. It smelled of shit and vomit and had green stains across it. Kora pushed the lever and pinned it in its hold. She grinned at Orion and pointed down.

  “In,”

  Shit.

  14. Sewers Canal

  “Can you not bait it out?” Orion asked.

  “You’re a bit of a dim one, aren’t you? Unless you’ve got tens of gold coins and a week of time, it’s impossible to bait out a Korshi so near the end of its transformation.”

  He peered into the dingy hole and gulped. Had he really sunk so low in three months?

  “Can we at least not get nose-plugs or something?” he tried.

  “In!”

  Tightening his nose, he gripped onto the railing and climbed down. The stench was atrocious; it reeked of shit, of piss, of rotten fish, and rotten eggs. And these were only the severely offensive ones, not forgetting the countless odours that nuanced the smell.

  They hit the ground sometime later. Before anything else, he stumbled to the static liquid flowing through the middle and retched his vomit into the putrid mix. Oddly, he felt better because the stench no longer held his stomach in ransom, but also worse because his stomach had escaped by getting shot. Kora wasn’t as deeply affected, instead leaning on the wall with gloved hands. Soon, she regained her bearings.

  “Come on, kiddo, we’ve got a vampire to hunt. The blood is strong here,”

  “What? How can you smell anything past the Korshi’s shit?” he said while rising.

  She walked past him into the unlit gloom as if she knew where she was going, as if she could somehow smell the Korshi in this stench. He didn’t care how and spent no time thinking about it, instead, trudging after her.

  A mountainous hike seasoned with rats later, she stopped and began kicking at faeces. Or maybe not faeces. Where they stood, the sewer walls seemed to be plastered with grime, but he knew better. The smell of blood was distinctive.

  She spun and faced him.

  “It’s here,”

  Their front was dimly lit by coppery-green beams. The sewage lake drew into a waterfall, a large brick wall hiding what followed. He would be able to see the rest of the stream if he dived past the wall, but he wasn’t curious. Unlike an actual waterfall, there were no sounds of rushing and crashing water, instead, wet slops that churned his empty stomach.

  Suddenly, a groan bounced off the walls.

  Orion wasn’t scared: if worse came to worst, he could still use Szu and live, although Kora would then have to die - a thought that stung his heart. Nonetheless, the echo made him tense.

  Out of character, he put his hand across her back.

  “We’ll be fine, easy kill,”

  “Get your shit-stains off my cloak,” she grumbled back.

  Tough love. Now, with the foul backdrop, he understood why she enjoyed poking him so much.

  He pushed her forward and stepped around the corner.

  When the sewers had first been built, there had been large hatches to enter it. But, over time, Lesan had learnt big entrances allowed monsters easy access in and out, so they bolted the hatches and dug smaller openings across the city.

  A disused stone hatch lay over the Korshi, its countless stains the monster’s stars at night. The monster stood on a few metres long by a few metres wide concrete platform. There were tough weeds growing through the hatch, dropping sickly green hair onto the Korshi.

  The Korshi itself looked like a naked, dishevelled man. It had a large nose and thin eyes, long brown strands filing the weeds. It was emaciated and had sallow skin. Around it lay blood stains and flesh, a lot of flesh. Despite this, it grinned, showing crooked, but otherwise normal, teeth.

  “Human, you why here?”

  Its voice was high-pitched like a woman’s screech and punctuated by squeaks. It clearly hadn’t completed its assimilation.

  “Human, why…” it paused, searching its victims’ minds for the right words, “… with her?”

  Orion gripped his sword and took a defensive stance. He knew Korshis were fast, but he didn’t know how fast. So, he’d let it teach him its flow before ripping it several new ones. However, unlike him, Kora strode forward, her sword still by her waist.

  “Why… higher…” the Korshi said.

  Kora shushed it loudly before beckoning it closer. It obeyed…

  Orion knew she was well-read on many things, more so than him on monsters, so the naivety she now showed gave him the shivers.

  “Kora, it’s dangerous. Don’t be fooled,” he warned, his voice quivering. Did she know something he didn’t? Or was his … next Seeker about to die as well?

  The monster now stood two metres away, warily eyeing her, before taking another step.

  “Di
d m—”

  Kora swiftly flicked her sword out and slashed up. The Korshi leapt back with inordinate force but not before her blade gashed its shoulder, causing its arm to be bent across its chest. Its wound spurt blood and its mouth fizzled spit as it landed metres away.

  “YOU… YOU!”

  She didn’t allow it anymore words as she chased, her sword sweeping low.

  The Korshi growled and bones ripped out of its skin, the dim light exhibiting a massive human-hound mutant. Its teeth grew finger-long and claws extended from underneath the nails. Black ovals replaced its eyes. Due to Kora’s strike, it crouched on three limbs instead of four but even that seemed of no effect to its speed as it exploded from its spot, sprinting to the sides.

  The Korshi pushed off the walls and leapt at Orion, its maw gaping and its tongue lusting blood. It seemed to have deemed him the easier target, the fuel-box for it to refill its energy. In the face of danger, Orion sneered at this thought: a Zakari, an easy target?

  He sidestepped and stuck his sword point into the Vampire’s path. Realising speed was no longer its ally, the Korshi used its remaining front limb to claw at the ground and alter its path. Despite its escape, it still lunged its foot at Orion as it went past, its claws ripping fabric.

  Shocked by the sharpness, he hopped back and stood with Kora. Not for long, though, as she hounded after the monster, her cowl flinging off to reveal caramel-brown hair and glimmering eyes. She was… excited?

  The Korshi’s black ovals regarded her and saw the same thing. It grew desperate - it growled, and its inky eyes lightened.

  Orion, with his back to the stone hatch, saw blood rise from the half-eaten flesh around him. They sharpened like needles and began to quiver.

  Kora glanced back as she ran and then stopped. She turned and cast her palm against monster: blood flooded out of its gash and circled its waist.

  The Korshi screamed in anguish, knowing its demise. But it still didn’t give up, instead, grasping onto its sanity as more blood-needles rose around Orion.

  Click.

  The blood-needles shot out, dotting him with holes.

  Click.

  The blood-saw contracted and sliced the Korshi’s waist, its legs standing for a moment longer as the torso toppled onto concrete.

  Kora looked back in dismay. Her eyes were pale.

  Orion stood with an ice-shell covering him. It was cracked and full of holes. His eyes were pale.

  15. Of Monsters and Women

  * * *

  He breathed out, releasing dragons made from willowy cords of steam. The ice barrier fractured and crumbled onto the concrete, forming thorny, frigid dunes over pools of blood. Tiny shards from the impact bloomed out, setting Orion in the centre of a light-blue smoke cloud. It was cold, but he was a Zakari, conditioned to the cold.

  “Jax…”

  He didn’t respond. It stabbed at his soul, but he had to kill her. No one could know. No one.

  “Jax…” she repeated, her eyes wide and head shaking in disbelief, “You’re a Zakari,”

  Her shortsword slipped out of her loose grip and clattered against stone.

  He breathed in, he breathed out. Steam billowed out, his heart cried out. He steeled himself and broke thought. He moved.

  His fears were perverted into speed, his true speed. He became a spectre, his steps faint whispers, his speed like lightning. He gripped the hilt of his sword with sweaty hands, his blade awaiting the resistance of supple flesh. His mind obsessed with anticipation, the strike, the glorious strike.

  It was here.

  He whipped his sword up, his muscles straining. It sliced through the air and met her, her breasts, her neck.

  Crack.

  The sword flew out of his hand and he soared through foul air, using his feet to bounce off the wall before he smashed. He righted himself and turned.

  She stood still, her now-stained maroon cloak covering her figure. Her tanned skin and pink lips were darker in the coppery light, but her caramel-brown hair and pale eyes were the same. She was beautiful.

  He tasted a bitter build-up in his mouth and spat. She was beguiling.

  “Fullhorn,” he said while his lips curved into a sneer. “Full fucking horn,”

  It made sense: her pale eyes, her light skin but undue strength, her speed. But more so what his brothers had hinted about the House of Fullhorn, one of the four great Houses. Blood magic, they said, disguises, they said. Vampire, he saw.

  Her bleak smile drew even thinner, barely a line. She said nothing, but the silence was proof to his ears.

  “Do we have to? Do I have to kill you?” she asked, keeping her smile.

  “We are the greatest,”

  “And yet you’re the only dead House,”

  “As you will be,” he barked, his voice booming through the hollow sewers.

  Ice spurted from his right hand as he stared at Kora, forming a sphere. She lifted off her cloak and graced him with the body she hid so well. She was full-figured and wore leather trousers and a snug green jacket. She was dressed for a market-trip, not to hunt a monster. Blood drained out of the halved Korshi and began to circle her as she stripped off her jacket, revealing a thin white shirt. She was teasing him in both ways.

  He growled and touched the swelling ice ball with his left hand. Ice flakes hurtled at her, barraging the blood-shield she had formed, chipping away at it. A few seconds later, Orion slapped himself. His pride was subconsciously giving her time to transform while he fronted an effortless attack, all because he wanted a fair fight. But he couldn’t let it be one: the stakes were too high.

  Crouching, he placed his left hand on the ground and sensed the earth’s pulse. Right there. Wide cracks formed under Kora, building on each other as the earth sank, dragging her down and under.

  But she leapt, landing to his right. And far away from her blood-shield: perfect. He turned his ice ball and began splintering it at her, each bullet fast enough to tear flesh.

  She ran, escaping most of the shots and enduring the ones that hit. Her jaw had extended to her collarbone. It tightened her red-tinted skin and housed three inky talons the size of fingers. There were two curved horns ranging from her hairline to her ears, and her nails had been replaced by claws the size of hands. Her physique had become thicker and sinuous, her muscles flexing, her trousers skin-tight.

  Orion followed her steps with his bullets, wearing down her skin and creating bruises. She circled his line of fire and made a beeline for him. She was fast, but he was faster. He dashed across the concrete with her on his tail, ice sprouting out of the ground to slow her. Bending low, he picked up his shortsword and turned, striking the blade against her face.

  Clang. He stepped back and slashed again, only to be blocked by the claws. The clashes resonated through the sewers, ringing their ears, the stench burning their noses, the weapons nicking their skin, drawing blood.

  He sidestepped and lunged, crouched and rolled, leapt and smashed. She clawed and swept, kicked and followed, dodged and scratched. They fought until he fell and she stood.

  She kicked his balls and knelt over, blasting hot breath over his cringing face. Her ravenous teeth revealed themselves and she picked him up, putting her lips against his neck. He screamed and shook as she tasted and gasped, moaning with pleasure.

  The blood of another House, so opulent and rich. Her body burnt the blood and released vast amounts of energy, her cuts visibly healing. She stared at her love bite, hypnotised by the crimson blood that trickled out over his milky skin.

  Suddenly, he slapped his left hand against her waist and roared. Her pulse became his and her flesh, well, it became his to break. Her skin tore as she fell, gasping for breath as he froze her body, slowing her movement. He glanced at the emanated cracks over her stomach, showing upturned skin like icebergs in the Red River. His hands stung and burned from magic overload. Orion felt weak, his body threatening to topple any second as a vicious headache came over him. He barrelled over to his sword
and stumbled back.

  “You’ll die if you kill me,” Kora spluttered out.

  He ignored her and held the blade over her neck. One swift strike.

  “I’m tracked. The Fullhorns will kill you,” she gasped.

  Orion stopped. He knew she was lying, but it made him remember the obvious: the Fullhorns would follow up on her actions, determined to find the cause of her death, to find him. Then, they would kill him.

  He breathed in.

  No, it was ok. All he had to do was hide her body in the sewers and run. He’d have to make another plan but that was better than dying. That was better than failing his, their revenge.

  “I know why your family actually got slaughtered,” Kora said after seeing her words take effect.

  He froze. The ambush, the escape, the shout, the coma, the conspiracy: all of it rushed to his head. He remembered his mum screaming, his sister’s image, his dad’s roar, his own weeping. It was too much.

  He had one second of fear, pure, utter fear of his death and incompetence before he collapsed, her body breaking his fall.

  …

  16. Talking the Talk

  * * *

  Hands caressed his face, waking him. He opened his eyes and saw his family holding onto him. They softly smiled and promised him safety from the world. Yet, behind them, he could see sable helmets with scarlet visors. The shadows wore pitched cuirasses over silver hauberks. They had on pauldrons, gauntlets, chausses, graves, and boots. Their whole bodies were covered and unduly armoured.

  They pulled his family away from him, ignoring their struggles. Then, a figure strode to his lying body. It wrapped its gauntlets around his neck and lifted him, squeezing the air out of his lungs. The touch was rugged and the grip was tight, unlike that of metal.

  He began to choke, his eyes set on the bloody visor. They had slaughtered his family, they had ambushed his mum, and now they were strangling the life out of him, the last Zakari.