by HDA Roberts
Bill just seemed to drift through the whole thing, largely unaffected by all appearances, but he still put in the work. He kept our spirits up, but I think he detected the underlying and growing tension.
The exams were straightforward enough, if long-running and complex. I think I did alright. I would have used a little Magic, but Hopkins had told me categorically that I wasn't to do that and Demise glared her disapproval when I brought up the topic.
Finally it was done, on a sweltering Thursday in June, and all three of us were too tired to do much more than sleep, and so that's what we did, but we were planning a celebration of some sort for the weekend.
That night I staggered into my room and fell on the bed. I didn't bother to undress, I just closed my eyes and relaxed. It was done, one way or the other, my future was decided. The die was cast and all that.
At some point Demise slid in next to me, but I was completely conked out, just glad that I could sleep without facts and figures flashing before my closed eyes.
Naturally, while I was at my lowest ebb of energy, while the summer cold I'd been desperately fighting off with my diminished Life Energy was starting to gain ground and a good night's sleep would have made all the difference... Price called.
"No, just no. Whoever this is, no," I said without even waiting to see who it was. I had been blissfully asleep, and had no inclination to be in any other state. Demise was still asleep on the bed next to me, wearing almost nothing, far too many bits of her draped over me or entangled with me. It might once have been distracting, but I'd largely become immune to it (which was just sad).
"So forceful, but save that for when we meet in person," Price said.
"Price?" I asked groggily.
"Lord Shadow," she said softly, sensually, "But aren't we really on a first name basis by now?"
"What can I do for you, Vivian?" I asked, settling back down. Demise sighed sleepily and latched back on, her arm around my chest, thoroughly dead to the world.
"Found the last factory. Well, you did. I received an interesting communication. Anonymous source. I believe you met the gentleman in question in a building that is now a hole in the ground? He provided a little sliver of information that led us right to it."
"Oh. And Crystal wanted to kill him."
"She's always been impulsive," Price replied, "You may know something about that?"
"Let's not go there."
Price chuckled, "Oh but we must, and soon and repeatedly."
"Before I try thinking of ways to curse someone over the phone, address, please?"
She laughed out a throaty chuckle that was rather pleasant to listen to. She gave me the information and I thanked her before flopping back down.
Oh... bugger.
"Dee?" I said, pressing her shoulder.
She muttered and held on tighter.
"Dee!" I said and she woke up with a glare.
"What?" she said, as bleary-eyed as I was.
"Drug lab," I said.
She grunted and sat up, allowing me to dress.
I called Hopkins.
"Matty, you'd better be dead or close. It's one in the morning!" she said.
"I know," I said with a stifled sneeze; terrific, that was starting... "but my people found the last Source lab. I need help. This one... this one's big and I don't know if Namia Sutton's there."
"Sutton?!" Hopkins said.
Demise was suddenly very awake and intent. Sutton must be one of those words she was told to listen out for.
"Liaison information," I said pointedly.
"Crap, crap, crap!" Hopkins said. I heard clattering and swearing, "Location?"
I sent it over. She tapped at what sounded like a keyboard.
"There's a park two blocks South-east, meet there in... an hour?"
"Sounds good," I said.
We said goodbye and Demise frowned as I put the phone down.
"Don't start," I said.
"That city will eat you up and spit out the pieces."
"With any luck, this is the last time I'll have to go there."
"As Milord says," Demise replied, which I have discovered is her code for 'Bullshit'.
I grumbled and dressed, hoodie, trousers, heavy shoes. I remembered my staff this time.
We emerged into the park that Hopkins chose after I only got lost a couple of times. Demise wore her usual jeans and shirt. She was already under shields and I felt Death Magic flowing. Hopkins was late, but she brought heavies.
The portal opened and about a dozen of her Wardens came through, all dressed in tactical gear, carrying weapons, including some very impressive enchanted rifles that almost screamed 'don't stand in front of this thing'. Hopkins herself came through, wearing a set of dark blue robes and a variety of items that oozed power. She had a short stave in her left hand, about three feet long and ivory-white.
"I suddenly feel underdressed," I said.
"That's because you are," said Palmyra, who opened up a portal behind me and came through with seven of her nuns, dressed in white and carrying a dark red staff taller than she was, "I mean, you called this gathering, at least put in the effort. I mean, you're not even wearing the signet."
Palmyra gave me a hug and grinned at me. Hopkins too.
"Tethys is fond of it," I said sheepishly, which made both my sisters roll their eyes.
They introduced me around their people, though I knew quite a few of them already. The nuns were just as inscrutable as ever, just as crotchety. Hopkins' people were much more cheerful. Her bodyguards were obviously devoted and utterly loyal. Eight men and four women, most of whom were confident and smiling. They radiated competence and decency. Good people.
"Shall I go take a surreptitious look?" I asked.
"You have all the subtlety of a boulder among pebbles," Hopkins said before turning to her people, "Minnie? Would you?"
"Sure, Boss," said a short, but solid looking girl with a broadsword over her shoulder and a long rifle in her hands. She vanished without a trace and I didn't even hear footsteps.
"I can do invisible, you know," I said, slightly put out.
"Sure you can, Sweetie," Palmyra said, patting my head like I was an errant labradoodle.
I glared and she stuck out her tongue.
Minnie came back a minute later.
"It's empty," she said.
"What?" I asked.
"Three floors, vacated summoning circles, silver apparatus at each one. No people, no other equipment," she said, giving me a glare.
"I am going to stake that vampire," I said.
"Yeah you are..." Palmyra said lasciviously.
I glared again and started stomping towards the factory.
"Where are you going?" Hopkins asked.
"I can break the extraction devices, and knocking down the building will make me feel better," I said.
"Ooh, sounds like fun," Palmyra said, walking up onto Hopkins other side.
"I know, I so rarely get to do mayhem anymore, it's a pain to be respectful in the information age," Hopkins replied.
"That's why I wear a disguise," I said.
"Yes, and who would ever penetrate such a well thought through outfit?" Palmyra asked.
"You're not very nice to me," I said.
"I was fast asleep, you bugger. I had a pretty, pretty man underneath me, and now I'm in Gomorrah; you deserve it," Palmyra said.
"I called Hopkins, she woke you," I pointed out.
"You are such a weasel," Hopkins said.
"I'm not having the best night, either, you know," I said.
"He was also sleeping with someone pretty," Hopkins pointed out.
"I'd electrocute you if you weren't so much stronger than me," I said.
"Get used to that, it's well known that the First Shadow's the littlest Archon," Palmyra said nastily.
"How pretty was that guy that you're this snarky right now?" I asked.
"Think you, only with muscle tone, and a nice arse," Palmyra said, "and big, manly a
rms."
"You're scarring me for life again."
She blew a raspberry at me and we strolled into the factory. It was just as it had been the last time I was there.
It was a testament to just how stupid I can be, and how tired I was, that it took until then to occur to me that this wasn't quite right.
Now that I thought about it, wouldn't Sutton have moved the whole thing after she'd caught me making my way out with a Demon?
So why would the extraction equipment still be there? Except to provide a juicy target that was easy to smash, and almost entirely without risk...
"Stop," I said.
They did, the Wardens too.
"What?" Palmyra said.
"I think it's a trap," I said.
That was enough for the Wardens.
They had their hands under Palmyra and Hopkins' arms faster than you could say knife, and had bodily dragged them back out the door while I was still turning to run.
Demise was carried away by the crowd. I ran after them as fast as I could. Naturally, I was too late.
Far, too late...
A circle flared into existence, and I smacked into it, to rebound and fall to the ground. Palmyra and Hopkins were already working Magic to get me out, but that was a Fortress Shield, it wasn't coming down quickly.
And then I felt the binding circles firing up below me. All of them.
"Ladies, please get me out of here!" I said, backing against the field.
I started casting, my shields snapped into place and I started conjuring globes of Light, Force and Heat. I moved away from the barrier, to get a little manoeuvring room.
I felt them coming for me, hundreds of them, and even more arriving every second. I needed to keep them contained. I might just manage, too, there was just the one hole leading to the lower levels.
And indeed quite a few came out of there.
But just as many simply tore themselves a path up through the concrete.
And these weren't the little ones either. Not just Lesser Demons. They were at least Common. Bigger, stronger, more vicious, all bestials, thank God. The earth shook, and I heard a scream of joyous freedom as something even nastier made itself known.
The Demons were all of a similar type, looking like carnivorous black squids crossed with sea anemones, all reaching tentacles, snapping mouths and beaks. Their skin was black streaked with other evil-looking colours without a human name, slick and oily.
I channelled my power through my staff, and Demons started flying apart, any innate defences no match for the dispels my staff wove around my attacks. The air reeked from gasses discharged from their mangled bodies as I cut them down. Only hits to the central mass did any real harm, anything else was shrugged off, as any severed tentacle was only one of dozens or even hundreds.
There were so many of them! They rolled out of the holes in the floor, grotesque spinning masses of inhuman horror. I used my Shadows, but these ones seemed... resistant somehow, the darkness sliding off, unable to get traction, so I stopped using them, they'd just be a drain on the energy needed to keep me alive.
I took in a breath of that reeking gas and coughed, my throat searing with heat. I spat and red came out to land on the concrete floor. I barely noticed.
I kept fighting, but every one I banished threw out more of that gas as it was torn apart. I started coughing more and more. I redirected some of the Force into the surrounding air. Air Magic wasn't my thing, I'd never had much use for it, other than calling a little Electricity, but I focussed hard, and the gas swirled, dispersing and spinning away. It didn't help much as there was always more gas. I was coughing with every other breath, which were becoming harder to draw, each accompanied by burning pain.
The Demons were getting closer; they were coming from all directions. One leapt and bounced off my shields, taking a few layers away with it before I could fire on it and banish it. If enough of them got close to me, they'd take all my defences apart.
My strategy wasn't working, there were too many, and most of the offensive Magic I knew for crowd control was either non-lethal (which would be useless) or Shadow Magic (same problem).
My breath was becoming ragged and I could taste blood in my mouth. The situation was becoming desperate.
I gestured, and a bright ring of Chaos Energy assembled above my staff. I released it, and a blast of lightning-blue power washed over the incoming ranks of horrors. About twenty of them evaporated, burned and blasted away. I did it again and again, burning through my gathered energy far too quickly.
I actually thought I was making progress... until the floor fell out from under me, and a mass of black tentacles wrapped themselves around my shields. I put Will into a sphere around me that shoved back those reaching limbs, and it bowed under the strain of a ten foot beak as it closed on my construct.
I gritted my teeth, choking back another wracking cough as I flexed the sphere and shoved the crushing beak apart. This was the thing that had screamed. Huge and awful and insanely powerful. A Greater Demon, thank God it didn't know any Magic.
My Will met infernal muscle and tendon.
Will won, and the beak came apart in a fountain of gore. The Demon recoiled and I pointed my staff right at the heart of it, releasing a lance of pure, focussed light. It screamed even louder as my attack speared straight through it and carved it up into chunks.
More gas billowed out as it came apart. I took a great lungful of it this time and fell towards the ground as it vanished. I was at the bottom of the building, having fallen through two holes in ceilings, but I was still far enough above the ground that when I fell, and landed badly, my ankle snapped with a wet crack. That thing has been broken so many times at this point, you'd think I'd be used to it...
I screamed, but couldn't spare the time to take care of the injury, as the rest of the Demons were already coming after me, and some were too close for comfort. I quickly cast a numbing spell that released me from the pain and called my Shadows to prop me up as I continued blasting and reinforcing my shields. There was too much to do at once, I was reduced to channelling simple energy through the staff, which wasn't as effective as a Chaos strike, so more Demons were getting closer before they were banished.
I flew to the far end of the room to buy myself some time, and just managed to cast Shade Armour before a whole wave of them converged on me. Shadows erupted from crevices, surrounding and covering me before condensing into hundreds of micron-thick layers of hardened darkness, moulded and shaped into a suit of heavy-looking armour. It actually weighed nothing, but made me vastly stronger and more resilient. Most importantly, it would keep me alive just that bit longer; hopefully long enough for Hopkins and Palmyra to get through that barrier.
I surrounded my Staff with Will and laid about me. I had no talent for close combat, but it didn't matter. They were everywhere, and not even I could miss. The hits were hard enough to send them flying, but their forms were too flexible to take more than superficial damage. They didn't even have bones I could break.
But I cleared myself a space and recast my shields. I channelled pure Force straight through the staff, condensed down to a needle thickness, and Demon pieces went flying. I backed away, fetching up against the wall so that they couldn't get behind me, though that left me without a line of retreat. Again, that didn't matter, as I was feeling dizzy, breathing very hard, and yet still felt like I wasn't getting enough air. I wanted to throw up, but to pause was to die. Even Shade Armour wasn't invulnerable.
My heart was pounding, both with terror and injury. I was hurt, and the gas was everywhere. I couldn't smell it inside the armour, which hopefully meant that there was a built-in protection (or it could well have been that my nose had been burned as well, as I couldn't smell anything else, either). I tried to open a Gate, but the whole place was a maelstrom of light and flickering shadow, nothing stable enough for me to use. I gathered more energy, as much as I could from every source within reach, and released a blast that lit the room up like
the sun.
Dozens of them were banished, but there were always more, so many more. Always coming, always hungry.
Too many of them.
My shields started taking hits. And then more hits. Every Demon I threw off or banished was replaced by two more. My shields fell and they had at my armour. Layers fell away, damage built up faster than the regenerative spells could keep up.
I lost my staff, wrenched away and smashed to pieces by one of the horrors. I laid about me with Force and Will, trying to cut my way free, but they piled on, wrapping around all of me, dragging me down. I called more Light, and seared them off me, but more came.
The armour around my head was down to its last few layers. I could see my death coming.
Then, just before I was about to die, I felt a great 'pop' at long last, and the world around me exploded with light as my sisters simply tore the concrete separating us away, sucked into a massive portal above me. I focussed and locked my armoured feet to the ground as the Demons flew up, screaming into the rift. Palmyra shone with terrible, vengeful light, her elementals diving by the dozen into the fray, tearing the demons apart with their energy as she disabled the summoning circles with a single wave of her hand.
That power washed over me, and the Demons recoiled, darting away. I borrowed some of her Light and let their retreating forms have it, banishing a few more of the monsters. The Wardens dropped into the pit Hopkins had made and went to work with Fire, Lightning, Air and Death. It was an astonishing display of Magical might, and I was deeply impressed.
The monsters were driven back, foot by foot. Demise was suddenly at my side, just as my legs turned to jelly and I fell to one knee. I released the armour and collapsed to all fours, vomiting up a stomach-full of blood. I started shivering as I fell against the wall, barely able to breathe.
"Don't you leave me, Mathew Graves," Demise said, touching my chest. I felt Death Magic go to work as she pulled entropy from my dying cells. You'd be amazed just how versatile Death Magic could be. But it wasn't enough. I was poisoned; badly if I was any judge.