by Eric Vall
“Sure it will, all two-megapixels,” Todd cackled. “That thing is so pixelated, it’ll make everything Jakey sends look like Japanese porn.”
We all gave the imp a strange stare as he laughed at his own joke, and then he went silent as he wiped a tear of glee away from his eye.
“I, uh--not that I’d know anything about that,” he clarified.
“Indeed,” Metatron said, unconvinced. “We have a deal, then?”
I gave the Archangel a slight nod before I slid back my chair, stood up, and walked over to where he was sitting. I extended my hand, and the blond man shook it with the grip of an eagle snatching a fish out of the water.
“I’ll act as your spy in Hell, and you’ll drop all the charges against me and my friend here,” I agreed.
“Your friend?” Metatron asked.
Raphael cleared his throat loudly, and then Metatron’s face lit up with realization.
“Oh, right,” he laughed. “I had completely forgotten about the charges against Raphael. The jury was going to find him innocent, anyways. Well, until he decided to pull that little jailbreak with you guys. Either way, he’s free to go, as well.”
“Thanks,” Raphael grumbled angrily.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw something small and dark scurry across the floor. A mouse. That was odd, Libidine always made sure to keep this place as tidy as possible, and we’d had our contractors seal up all the cracks in the doors and windows. Then the tiny creature dashed over toward the back of Metatron, and realization struck me.
“Wait, Aruna--” I warned, but it was too late.
In an instant, the small mouse was covered with dark black ectoplasm. The creature flung itself into the air as it transformed, and within seconds the full form of Aruna was behind Metatron with her chakram at the ready.
Metatron turned around just as the Rakshasi’s blade struck him in the chest and sent him tumbling back into the wall. He let out a grunt of anger as he hopped back onto his feet and summoned Divine Light into his hands.
I threw up a wall of purple flames between the two just as Aruna unleashed her weapon, and the chakram bounced off the fire harmlessly.
“Cool it, Aruna!” I commanded. “He’s with us now.”
The assassin gave me a confused glare at first, but then she let her guard down and got out of her fighting stance.
I held the wall of protective fire until Metatron finally cooled off, and then I decast my spell.
“Metatron and Jacob have come to an agreement,” Superbia explained. “There’s no need for violence. At least, not now, anyway.”
“A Rakshasi,” the blond archangel mused as he inspected the large rip in his suit. “You have quite a strange group of acquaintances, Jacob.”
“Are you alright?” I asked the Archangel. “Aruna can be a little too much of a go-getter sometimes.”
“I’ll be fine,” Metatron reassured me. “I’m wearing my armor underneath this thing anyway.”
“Armor and a suit,” Todd chuckled. “It’s no crocs-n-socks, but it’s a strange fashion choice nonetheless.”
“Does this mean my job is done?” Aruna asked as she leaned back against the wall and crossed her arms seductively. “Our agreement was to help Jacob clear his name, and it looks pretty damn cleared to me.”
“What?” I asked coyly. “You weren’t helping me out of the kindness in your heart?”
“‘Kindness of the heart’ doesn’t pay the bills.” Aruna shrugged.
“Wait … ” Todd mused. “What kinda bills does a paranormal shapeshifter have to pay?”
“It’s--It’s an expression,” the Rakshasi shot back. “Now, as much as I’d love to stick around, every second I’m not under contract is another second I could be making some dough. So, if you’ll excuse me--”
“They’re here!” Ariel’s voice cried as she ran into the room, panting. “Jacob, they--they’re here!”
Metatron’s expression went dark as his posture grew tense.
“Who’s here?” he demanded.
I walked over and placed a hand on the Archangel’s shoulder.
“The Order of the Exalted,” I explained. “They’ve come to finish the job they set out to do in Cortez.”
Chapter 16
“The Order of the Exalted are coming here?” Metatron gasped. “In broad daylight? This is bold, even for them.”
“They’re running with Beelzebub now,” I explained as I adjusted my armor and tried to think up a battle strategy. “If they really think he’s their ticket to starting a ‘new order’ and bringing balance to the universe, they’ll do whatever he asks of them. Even if that means losing the ‘secret’ part of their secret society.”
“How do you know they are coming?” Libidine asked as she stood to her feet and sprouted her large black bat wings.
“After I finished setting up all the traps outside, I flew up onto the roof to take a breather,” Ariel began. “As I was sitting up there, soaking up the sun and enjoying the view, I saw a bunch of small black dots off in the distance. As they got a little closer, I realized it was a caravan of vehicles!”
“How far away are they right now?” Sia demanded.
Ariel put her hands on her head as her eyes stared off into the abyss.
“I-I don’t know,” she admitted. “They were driving pretty fast when--”
“I’m on it!” Aruna called out as she ran toward the front door.
As the Rakshasi ran, her black ectoplasmic magic encased her body in a sludgy glow, and her figure began to transform. The second she threw open the red door, she fully transformed into a falcon and took to the sky.
“We need to be in position,” I ordered. “We need at least one heavy hitter on each main entrance.”
“Say no more, Jakey,” Todd mused. “I’ve got the front yard covered. LEROOOOOOOY JENKINS!”
Before I could correct the imp, he bolted out the open door and into the driveway. I glanced over at Raphael, who was just shaking his head amusedly.
“I’ll go with him,” he sighed. “Though I admire his enthusiasm, Todd’s ambition is going to get himself killed.”
“Sia, Ariel,” I continued, “you follow Raph and Todd. We could use a good melee fighter and supportive spellcaster out there.”
“As you wish,” Sia said with a nod. “Come, Ariel. I want to see your legendary skills in action.”
“Hopefully they won’t disappoint you, Superbia,” the redhead chuckled as they both dashed through to door.
“Keep an eye on them, Raph,” I warned. “They can be a handful.”
“I would have never guessed,” the Archangel chuckled as he gave me a salute. “Good luck, my friends.”
Then Raphael spun around and then flew out the door.
“Looks like Metatron, Eligor, Liby, and I got the back,” I observed.
“Why do we need to take the back?” Libidine asked curiously. “Ariel said they were approaching in cars.”
“They’re powerful sorcerers,” Eligor explained as we headed toward the sliding glass door. “Surely they’ll try to gain the upper hand on us by teleporting themselves here.”
“That’s why Ariel set up all these traps,” I added. “Stay the fuck away from those garden gnomes. And those bushes over there. And that entire section of the yard in general.”
“If the backyard is already so fortified,” Metatron argued, “then why do we need to be out here in the first place?”
“Most of the traps were set up to be non-lethal,” I explained. “So, we need to make sure we use our powers to make ‘em lethal.”
“Why on Earth would you want non-lethal--” the blond Archangel began, but then his eyes lit up with realization, and a deep frown spread across his face. “These traps were meant for us, weren’t they?”
“So, you do have backup?” I demanded.
“Of course I have backup,” Metatron said with offense in his voice. “What kind of an idiot goes into a wanted criminal’s home without backu
p on hand?”
“Are they watching right now?” Eligor asked.
“They’re just a tap away,” the Archangel clarified as he pointed to a small communicator on his belt. “But, if it’s all the same to you, I don’t want to call them in unless it’s a last resort. No need to have my men lose their lives if the eight of us can handle ourselves.”
“What about Angelo?” Libidine spoke up as we took our places in the yard. “Is he just going to hang around and watch this all unfold?”
“He’s a ghost,” I said nonchalantly. “There’s not a ton else he can do.”
Then, off in the distance, I heard a sound that made my stomach drop. It was the distinct sound of blasting Hellfire, and it was much closer than I would have hoped.
Aruna must have engaged with the Order of the Exalted.
“They’re close!” I hissed. “Get ready, everyone.”
The next few seconds were all a blur. Dozens of portals made up of green Hellfire suddenly appeared all across our backyard. Cultists wearing their dark gray robes passed through the interdimensional gateways with their spells at the ready, and the second they had us in their sights, they unleashed a flurry of attacks.
I threw up a shield of purple Hellfire around myself, while Libidine, Eligor, and Metatron took to the sky. Blasts of red, yellow, silver, and black bounced off my shimmering barrier as I planned my next move. Within seconds, several of the cultists turned their attention to their airborne enemies, and I had a chance to make my move.
I decast my shield and began to move forward, toward the Order of the Exalted. Every few seconds, I would have to knock away a blast of Hellfire with a cast of purple and a wave of my hand, but that was just the beginning.
One of the fuckers started to charge me with his hands aglow in yellow fire, and I made him pay.
I tossed out a portal of green at his feet, and the bastard wasn’t able to halt his momentum in time. He extended his hands and caught himself as his lower half plummeted, but it was too late.
I swiftly decast my emerald fire, and the fucker was sliced in two at the waist.
He let out a gasp of surprise and horror as his severed torso fell forward, and then he wriggled around for a second or two before he died.
I heard the crackle of Hellfire behind me, and then I ducked as a bull-headed dagger covered with green flames shot past where my head had just been. I twisted my body around, summoned yellow flames into my hand, and slapped my open palm on the front of the cultist’s face. I unleashed a flurry of enchanted shuriken at point-blank range, and his skull was turned into a fleshy swiss cheese.
The cultist tried to scream as he fell backward and clutched at his porous face, but all that came out was a wet gurgle. Blood gushed out of his wounds like a million tiny waterfalls as he fell to his knees, and then he collapsed forward onto the ground.
I glanced up just in time to see a blast of incendiary Hellfire coming my way, but I dispelled it with a quick cast of my purple Hellfire.
There were three cultists about fifty feet away from my position, all with their spells at the ready.
Unfortunately for them, Eligor had them all in her sights.
A flash grenade appeared above my opponents’ heads, followed up immediately by a flash of red Hellfire.
I averted my eyes for a brief second, but the screams of the men in gray told me the weapon had done its job. As I turned back to my attackers, I saw Eligor already on the ground.
The fallen angel stabbed two of the bastards through the torso from behind, and small spurts of blood sprayed from their chest cavities as they crumpled to the ground.
Still blinded by the flash bang, the third attacker held out his hands in frustration and fired randomly. Flits of red and blue shot past the blonde woman’s head, but none of them even came close to hitting their mark. Instead, the attack just reminded Eligor that she still had one last asshole to take down.
In one quick motion, the blonde knight ripped her swords out of the two dead men, twirled around, and shoved the pointed ends directly into the man’s eye sockets.
His mouth opened as if he wanted to scream, but his voice was silenced as his body went limp.
Another small group of cultists appeared in a flash of green, ready to attack, and I was forced to throw up a portal of my own jade spell. Blasts of red Hellfire vanished through the interdimensional portal before I forced them to reappear underneath their bodies.
The red flames erupted from the ground in a deadly wave, and the cultists’ bodies caught fire as if they were made out of kindling. They flailed around for a second as they tried to put out the thousand-degree flames, but within seconds their flesh and bones were reduced to nothing but piles of ash.
I spun around just as another cultist was upon me.
The man in the gray robe had his bull-headed dagger in one hand and a small ball of yellow in the other. He lashed out at me with his weapon first, but I was more than prepared for this asshole.
I summoned silver flames into my right hand and held it up in front of the dagger’s trajectory.
For a split second, my heart hammered in my chest as I wondered if I’d miscalculated. If this dagger was made out of enchanted metal, my Hellfire would be completely ineffective against its composition, and I would be destined for a world of hurt.
At least there was nothing vital in my palm.
I heard the man let out a gasp of surprise as the dagger in his hand turned into liquid metal and seared his palm. He tried to bring around his glowing yellow fist and unleash a deadly blast, but I was too quick.
I shaped the fluid silver into a long, sharp, point and drove it into the cultists’ temple before he could get his shot off.
The dark-haired man’s eyes rolled back in his head as the color drained from his face, and the fire in his hands went out.
I heard the sound of splattering, and then I quickly whipped around to see four more cultists coming around the side of the house.
Unfortunately for them, they’d stepped right into the path of one of Ariel’s traps, and were now covered from head to toe in sticky black ectoplasm. They tried to ignite their flames and burn the substance off, but their powers were overtaken by the soul-based magic. Soon, they realized they were trapped, and they began to furiously tear at their own flesh in the hopes of escaping.
I unsheathed the Unhallowed Sword as I dashed at the cultists. Once I got about ten feet away, I tossed down a wall of purple flames horizontally, hopped up onto it, and then dashed safely across the sticky trap until I was right up next to the bastards. Then I hauled back my blade, swung it forward as I ran, and severed the first guy’s head at the neck.
As the spray of gore shot up from his corpse, I halted my momentum, raised the weapon above my head, and then brought it down hard on the second cultist.
The blade tore through the flesh of his noggin all the way down to his shoulder blades, and his head split apart like a freshly-sliced orange.
Only instead of delicious citrus fruit, all this orange contained was brain matter and fractured bone.
“Jesus fucking hell!” one of the other cultists screamed, but then I silenced him with a quick stab of my blade through his open mouth.
The last fucker’s eyes grew wide, and he struggled with every fiber of his being to escape.
That wasn’t going to happen.
I grabbed the top of his head with my hand and snapped the man’s neck snapped like a dry piece of spaghetti.
As I went to turn my attention back to the battle at hand, one of Eligor’s throwing axes zipped past my head. There was a loud, wet “thunk,” and I saw another cultist’s body fall to the ground as I glanced back.
“Thanks for the save, Eligor!” I called out to the hovering knight.
“Don’t make it a habit!” she retorted in an uncharacteristically flirty tone.
On the other side of the yard, Metatron was absolutely destroying all of the fools who came up against him. The Archangel had changed ou
t of his pristine white suit and was now in a suit of armor made of pure Angelglass. He held the largest broadsword I’d ever seen in his hands, and he was using it as both a sword and a club.
A blast of red Hellfire struck the Archangel in the chest, but he shrugged it off as if it were nothing. The blond man simply smiled at his attacker before he swung his weapon like a baseball bat. Blood sprayed from the cultist’s head as the blunt side of Metatron’s sword smashed into his face.
Even more brutal, the blow had knocked loose one of the fucker’s eyeballs. The cultist fumbled at his dangling orb frantically, but then his head was separated from his neck with another swing of the Angelglass sword.
“Damn,” I whistled, impressed with Metatron’s brutality.
I dispelled another flash of yellow Hellfire and blasted back with red flames of my own.
My unidentified attacker shrieked as his face was melted off his skull, and then I moved on to the next unlucky bastard.
I tossed a few fireballs at the next group of cultists as I ran, but they were prepared. They knocked away my attacks gracefully before responding with a hailstorm of yellow daggers.
I threw up a shield of purple to protect myself from the onslaught, but these guys were relentless. I let out a grunt of frustration as I pushed back against the force of the attacks and slowly made my way forward. These guys weren’t that strong, but the combined power of their attacks was enough to at least slow me down.
That’s when I saw the falcon circling their heads.
Aruna was here, and these guys were fucked.
Without warning, the falcon in the sky was covered with black ectoplasm as it slowly began to transform. It’s body grew to nearly ten times the size of a regular bird as its feathers turned into scaly skin and its beak stretched out into a snout. The tailfeathers went slender and elongated until they were nearly the same size as the creature’s body.
Aruna had just turned into a fucking alligator.
The airborne alligator plummeted down to the ground, just behind the attacking cultists, and then let out a loud grunt.