“At least they’re dead too,” Adrian muttered to himself, finding some solace in the fact that his people brought down the vampires. He moved through the lobby, surveying the scene and piecing together how the fight must have gone. He found some familiar boot prints in the dust and his shoulders slumped. He stepped into the boot prints and matched their gait. The steps played out a rushed fight, advancing with every move. There were a few places where the prints repositioned for a better vantage, but the movements were all too familiar to the assassin.
“You just had to join them, didn’t you, father?” Adrian sighed. He followed the prints as they backtracked to the elevator and realized his father must have used it. Figuring Dante had gone straight to the top floor to face Ibsen in the absence of the angel army, likely wanting to end the fight before there was a chance for things to go further down the tubes, the assassin pushed the button to call the elevator to him. He waited a moment before the doors opened, and grimaced at the blood staining the floor, walls, and ceiling of the gondola. He gingerly stepped into the elevator, being sure to only place his feet in the cleaner areas. He pressed the button for the top floor and waited patiently, bobbing his head to the cheerful music playing over the speaker. At the top floor, he stepped out of the elevator and walked toward the set of double doors that hung open at the end of the hall. The sound of soft whimpering made him pause at the desk to the right of the doors, and he leaned over to look at the source. There sat a human woman, obviously scared beyond her wits’ end. Adrian glanced at her desk and saw the false bronze placard with the name ‘Mary’ engraved into it.
“Mary?” he asked softly. The woman jumped at the sound and looked up, her tear filled eyes widening at the sight of the crimson eyed assassin. She looked him over and a sob escaped her lips as she noticed his necrotic right arm.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” Adrian assured her. He turned to hide his right arm from her and held out his left hand. She hesitantly took it and he helped her to her feet. The pudgy woman smoothed the wrinkles out of her clothes and tried to wipe away the makeup that had run down her face from hours of crying. Adrian plucked a tissue from the box on her desk and offered it to her without realizing he was handing it to her with his skeletal hand. She took it and let out another whimper as she spotted it again and backed away, her eyes welling up with fresh tears.
“I’m not here to hurt you,” Adrian repeated, hiding his arm from her. He entertained the notion of having a padded sleeve made to hide it specifically for interactions such as this one. He needed information, and humans gave questionable answers when they were scared. “Yes, I am a demon,” he said. “But I’m not going to hurt you, or kill you, or whatever you seem to think I’m going to do to you. I just want answers.”
His calm words seemed to help Mary gather her wits, and she nodded. Her back was against the wall by now, and she held onto the tissue with shaking hands. Adrian knew that she could start sobbing all over again at the slightest chance, so he had to tread carefully.
“What did you see happen here today?” he asked calmly.
Mary took a long, steadying breath and said, “Demons came and killed my boss.”
Adrian nodded. “I figured as much,” he said. “I’m looking for two people in particular. Was one of the demons a human-looking man, about my height and build, kinda looks like me but older?”
Mary thought for a moment and nodded. “He went in to Mr. Ibsen’s office.”
“Then he’s the one who killed your boss,” Adrian informed her. New tears welled in her eyes, but she kept from letting her emotions get away from her, much to Adrian’s delight. “I just want you to be aware. Now, as for the other person I’m looking for. This one is a little shorter than me, mousy brown hair, brown eyes, sickeningly good looking, but in a kind of innocent way? He may or may not have had wings when you saw him. He’s pretty unmistakable.”
Mary nodded. “He and a woman went in with Mr. Ibsen about five minutes before the other one showed up,” she said.
“I’m gonna be honest,” Adrian said, “I was not expecting that. What was his demeanor like? Was he a prisoner? Did he look angry, or like he had tasted something sour? He makes that face when things don’t go his way.”
Mary shook her head. “He looked calm.”
Adrian felt his anger bubbling to the surface, but kept calm for the human woman. “How calm was he? Metal-rod-up-his-spine calm, or slack-faced-and-brain-dead calm?”
“Um… he looked just calm, like he belonged where he was.”
“Shit…” Adrian breathed. “This doesn’t bode well… What about the woman? Who is she?”
Mary shrugged, holding her hands out. “I don’t know,” she said as her face contorted. Adrian knew her fear was winning out and that she felt as if she had given him a wrong answer. It was obvious she thought he was going to kill her for it.
“Calm down, please,” Adrian commented. “You’ve done well. There’s a lot more going on here than you can possibly know, considering your reaction to everything that’s happened today. Go home and take a shower. I think you may have pissed yourself.” Not waiting for another opening, Mary ran away, smashing the button to the elevator as fast as she could while Adrian walked into Ibsen’s office.
The scene in the office was less appealing to him than the lobby. A pile of demon bodies lay in the center of the room, and with just a passing glance, Adrian recognized the wounds. The cuts were expertly placed to kill as swiftly and as painlessly as possible. There was only one man he knew who fought like that.
“Dammit, Vincent,” he sighed. “What is going on with you?” He surveyed the rest of the scene before him and he sifted his skeletal fingers through the large dust pile on the desk. A vision of the vampire lord’s death flashed into his mind as soon as the ebon bones touched the dust, and he smiled as he watched his father kill the hated vampire. “Good job, father,” he grinned. His smile faded, though, when he looked to his right. There were the familiar boot prints, but it appeared as if the king had fallen to his knees. Adrian knelt down and brushed the marks with his necrotic hand, hoping to get a vision as he had with the vampire’s death. Nothing happened, though, so he relied on his training as a tracker. There was blood pooled nearby, and the assassin could not help but feel a deeply worrying feeling form in the pit of his stomach. He touched the blood, and was given a brief vision of his father on his knees in front of a dark haired woman and an angelic sword in his back. He heard Dante’s last word and the vision was gone. Tears pooled in Adrian’s eyes and his fists clenched against the pain.
“No…” he sobbed. “Vincent, what have you done?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
The chimeric woman stood over her lifeless corpse, confused. She looked down at her hands and saw that they were translucent. Looking around, she knew that she was still in the labs under Globe Tech, but it looked different, everything colored in shades of grey. The entire area was just as transparent as she was, but it also seemed to be much clearer to her than before. Every tiny detail stood out to her, such as the pores in the skin of her corpse, the faint outline of the invisible demons, or the barely imperceptible freckles on the angel woman’s skin. But, while Sara could make out the minutest details, she could also see through everything. She saw the beating heart of Walter, the dead demons in the lobby, each grain in the pile of dust that used to be Ibsen, and the demon kneeling beside the vampire’s desk. Confusion ran through her mind as she surveyed her surroundings. She tried running away, leaving through the main door of the labs, but as soon as she fled through the doorway, she found herself entering the room again through the very same route. She tried running again, but realized her legs never even moved. Her entire body floated through the air in the direction she wanted to go. It took a few moments to realize there was no sound in the entire room, either. Confusion turned to fear as she began to think she was stuck in this limbo forever. Sara attempted to conjure a spell, but found she was powerless in this monochromatic w
orld. With her magic failing, Sara looked around again for any clue as to how to get out.
“You’re trapped here,” came a disembodied voice that seemed to come from everywhere. Sara realized there was still no sound, but the voice was heard within her own mind.
“What do you mean?” she said in her mind. “Why am I trapped?”
A cloaked figure materialized near the woman’s corpse, its hood obscuring its features. The cloak it wore billowed about as if borne on a wind that only affected the figure, and Sara noticed the cloak was not made of any kind of fabric, but from something that looked like living shadow. It seemed the cloak was as much a part of the mysterious figure as its own body. It knelt beside Sara’s broken body and placed a skeletal hand on her forehead. “Still warm,” the figure muttered to itself. “To be expected though. You were just killed by holy fire.”
“Who are you?” Sara asked. Even in her own mind, she sounded terrified.
The figure finally looked up at the spirit of the woman and the hood slid back just enough to reveal a white skull beneath the black waves of shadow. The grinning skull seemed to stare into her soul. Its expression almost seemed amused.
“Do you really not recognize me?” the figure asked silently. “Surely even you should know of the Grim Reaper.”
Sara’s fear threatened to overtake her. “You were not a part of my teachings,” she shakily admitted.
The way the figure’s shoulders slumped suggested it may have sighed. “I am Death,” it said. “I am the one who collects the souls of the dead. I judge you based on the life you lived and send your soul to its final resting place. Or its eternal torment, depending on how your life went. At least, that is my usual purpose. Nowadays, I’m helping the only remaining god keep the world together. You’re a very odd specimen, Sara. There has never before been anything quite like you. You are, if you’ll pardon my excessive use of descriptors, completely and utterly unique. Most would find that to be quite nice, but I cannot say that is true of you. You were born into a war and built for combat. That is no life to live.”
Sara stood transfixed by the figure of Death kneeling over her corpse. “This is all a bad dream,” she stammered.
“No, it really isn’t,” Death replied evenly. The figure stood and approached Sara’s floating spirit and placed a skeletal hand on her cheek. “I do wish it was. You are destined for something far greater than what the vampires created you for. But, not exactly as great as you might think. Let me clarify.” As Death spoke, the bony hand withdrew from Sara’s ethereal cheek and waved in a circle. Pulling at the threads of reality in the space in front of the two of them. Within the scintillating, swirling air, an image appeared, its vibrant colors a stark contrast to the shades of grey surrounding them. The image swirled and coalesced into something recognizable to Sara. As she watched the events in the image unfold, she felt an intense wave of emotion wash over her. If she were in her physical body, tears would have streamed down her face, and her heart would have pounded in her chest. She felt elated, then crushed, and finally completely heartbroken. But in the end, she understood her true role in the world.
“I know what I have to do,” she said quietly. “But how will I do it? How can I make sure that happens?” She looked at Death for answers.
The hooded figure waved the images away and squarely faced Sara. “It is not within my power to help you. I have lost that power forever. But, rest assured in the knowledge that everything I have shown you will come to pass in due time. You will need to live your life as you wish, and know that everything will happen as it must.”
Sara nodded, accepting Death’s words, but still felt somewhat confused. “But all I know how to do is to fight. That is all I was created for. All I know is war and death and murder. How do I live my life in a way that allows all that to happen?”
Death looked deep into Sara’s eyes with the empty sockets inviting her into bottomless wells of eternal darkness. “I cannot answer that. All I can do is to bring you to the moment in time where the one who can is waiting for you. I am there with him already, but be not afraid. I will guide you there. It is not far, I promise. In the meantime, you will see much of what is going on in the world outside your normal perception. Do not stray away from me, or you will become lost, a wandering soul doomed to this existence forever.”
Not understanding, Sara reached for Death’s cloak. Her spectral hand passed through the shadowy material. Death turned and began floating away. Sara followed closely behind the figure, not wanting to find out the meaning behind his words of warning. Although they floated along, neither being seemed to move from the place they stood. Instead, time seemed to resume its usual movement. Sara realized after a moment that they were moving through time, rather than space. While she watched the demons take Vincent away, and were soon followed out by the angel after she untied Walter, Sara also saw the rest of the world playing out its own events outside of Globe Tech. She saw Jake and Montgomery running up the stairs to the lobby. She witnessed the flight of the demons with the two angels. She saw the feline demoness collect the bodies of her comrades. As she and Death moved through time, she saw everything that happened around her, as well as everything beyond her surroundings. Heeding Death’s warning, she stayed close to the otherworldly being and never wandered away.
When they finally came to a halt, Sara surveyed the room again. Now, her body was on a table and she was surrounded by Walter and the two dragons. Jake stood over her, hands outstretched. Time had come to a halt once more. Another figure stood nearby, and Sara quickly realized he was looking directly at her spectral form. This figure stood just over six feet tall, and was firmly planted on the floor of the labs, rather than floating above it as Sara and Death were. His body was clothed in black metal armor, seemingly made from the same shadowy material as Death’s cloak, but much more solid. His hands were clasped behind his back, under his calmly folded black-and-blue feathered wings. His face held a hint of a scowl, and vicious scars peeked from beneath a strip of ebon silk. His raven hair fell around his pale face, framing his sharp features. In the monochromatic world, he was the only source of color. Sara felt fear and trepidation well up inside herself.
“I have brought her to you as you asked, Artemis,” Death said to the armored man.
Artemis stepped forward, and Sara could feel him staring into her very being, despite his apparent lack of eyes. “Thank you, Death,” he said in a calm baritone voice. To Sara, he said, “Be still, child. I will not harm you.”
“Who are you?” she asked.
“I am Artemis, the only remaining god in this existence. But who I am does not matter. What does matter is who you are, and what you are meant to do. Death has shown you your future, and therefore your purpose. And now you wonder how you will complete that purpose.”
Sara nodded. “Yes, I do. All I know is hatred and bloodshed. What I was shown has no room for it, but it is all that I am, all that I was created for.”
Artemis brought one gauntleted hand forward and placed it on Sara’s head. Unlike when Death had touched her, she actually felt Artemis’ hand. She felt the cold metal of his armor against her head.
“It has been many, many years since I last used this power,” Artemis stated. “I will rewrite your mind. You will still be the same person, but now, you will know what it is to be a person, rather than a creation.”
Sara’s mind exploded with feelings and thoughts she had never experienced in her short life. Hatred was replaced by longing, her urge to kill replaced by a desire for peace. She fell to her knees, feeling the impact against her joints. Tears rolled unabated down her cheeks. Sadness, despair, longing, yearning, joy, and anger all mingled within her mind, and she was utterly overwhelmed. When she opened her eyes again, she looked at Artemis, and thought for a brief moment she could see through his blindfold. She thought she saw a pair of crystal blue eyes staring back at her. The image passed before she could find out if it was real or a hallucination.
Artemis re
moved his hand and looked upon the renewed woman. “I am done here,” he stated curtly before vanishing. Death helped Sara back to her feet and looked her over.
“I must leave now as well,” the hooded figure said. “You will be alive again very soon. For now, I bid you farewell.” With that, he vanished, leaving Sara alone again. She reached out for the shadowy being, but there was nothing left. She looked again at the scene around her and felt a comforting warmth spreading throughout her ethereal body.
Jake followed Montgomery out of the vampire labs and back to the lobby, but felt a horrible sinking feeling in his gut. He had looked over his shoulder on the way out of the labs, and saw Sara squaring off with the angel woman. What he saw left him much more fearful for Sara’s safety. As the angel settled into her stance, her eyes became clearer. In her eyes, Jake saw the wisdom of thousands of years of combat training and experience. His feelings of trepidation grew exponentially upon seeing the determination in her eyes. Once he and his mentor were out of the labs, he put a hand on Montgomery’s shoulder to stop the older dragon. He turned to see what Jake wanted, and his face screwed up into a confused and worried look as he looked into the young dragon’s eyes.
“What is it?” he asked.
“I don’t like this,” Jake muttered. “Are we really going to leave this all in the hands of a vampire and an angel? What if Sara loses the fight and the demons call in more of their brethren?”
The Assassin and the Knight Page 26