by Ryan Attard
“You are truly your father’s son, Erik Ashendale,” he said, his voice unbroken.
I lowered my sword. A chill ran down my spine but it was not because of the Sin’s influence. No, this was a sobering chill, the kind you got when you drank too much, made a fool out of yourself and then someone told you you’ve crossed a line. The kind of chill that you only got if you were a good person and still cared about others.
I was glad I still had that.
The bad side of it was that now I looked at what I had done to Ubatu and felt like a monster. Excess violence was one thing, but I had liked this.
I had wanted it.
I wanted the Sin, the Knightmare, the whole thing.
I wanted it.
The sword faded away, as did the helmet, but the armor clung on. I was just like them. I may not have chosen to get the Sin of Wrath but I chose to fight with it. I chose to escalate violence.
I chose to bring demons here. Demons!
Holy fuck, who am I anymore?
My jaw hurt as I clenched my teeth.
You are them. You are your dad, and Greede, and every other monster you have fought to put down. You’re the villain now, Erik.
Ubatu stared at me.
“I have shamed you, Erik Ashendale,” he said.
I knelt next to him, folding my knees, and let him rest his massive head on my lap. His hand clenched mine.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
Ubatu smiled. “No, child, this is not the real you. I knew your father’s true nature, the same nature I see in you. Your power is miasma, it is a corrupting disease, but it is also necessary.” He squeezed my hand. “Where your father failed, you must not.”
He coughed. Blood covered his chest and my legs.
“But you must not be foolish enough to do this alone. You and your sister,” he said, “you must learn of your family. Your true family. You must cleanse yourself of the darkness before bathing in the light.”
“Ubatu,” I said. “Did my father tell you something about our curses? About a hidden power?”
Ubatu nodded. “I saw it for myself. The demons guarded it, the Wolf and the Ice. But trust neither, for they fear the Nexus.” He leaned in, teeth clenched against the pain. “They fear its true nature.”
“What is it?”
But Ubatu leaned back and rolled his eyes. I didn’t need to see his aura to know he was on the verge of dying.
“Unshackle yourself from your chains, Erik Ashendale. The ones in your mind and your heart,” he said. “Only then will you be truly free. Trust me. A former slave knows a thing or two about chains.”
He chuckled. It was a beautiful sound, deep and warm, and it was his last ever.
I closed his eyes, and set him down gently.
“I’m sorry.”
Ubatu was right, I thought, once again catching my reflection on the shards of what once had been a full-length mirror. The Knightmare stared back at me.
I eyed the throne room, where Greede was hiding.
“Time to break some chains.”
Chapter 30
I entered the throne room and paused. The open space was similar to the antechamber, save for a couple of large portraits hanging on the walls, too dark for me to see the art they displayed. But I was pretty sure either one of them could cover my bills for the next five years.
The space was small, smaller than what I had imagined when I had thought of a throne room. Cozy even. If anything, it looked like the ground-floor version of Greede’s office back at Ryleh Corp, but devoid of any typical office equipment. Instead, a large black leather sofa stood in the middle.
Alan Greede, in his polo shirt and casual slacks, was leaning against the sofa’s armrest. He pursed his lips when I entered.
“So he’s dead, then?”
I nodded.
He sighed. “Shame. Ubatu was the first citizen of Castello del Relampago. And the best aide a man could have.”
“I think you mean servant,” I said. “He died protecting you.”
Greede shook his head.
“No, no. This is not Ryleh Corp, Mr. Ashendale,” he said. “All the citizens here are just that: innocents. People rejected by the world.” He stood up. “As bad as the world is now, it was nothing compared to four hundred years ago. The Civil War turned more tides than mortals can grasp. The world had no place for the supernatural. Your father understood this, which is why he took Ubatu and everyone else here under his wing.”
“What the hell does all this have to do with my father?” I snapped.
“He started all of this,” Greede said. “This whole community. Your father was like Mother Teresa and Martin Luther King all wrapped in one. He helped us all, me included.” He sighed. “Then your curse took hold of him. Add a pregnant wife to that equation, and… Well, you know the rest.”
Yes, I did. Goodbye hero daddy, hello crazy murdering asshole.
“Ubatu wanted to meet you in private,” Greede said. “I’ve long suspected he’s been holding on to secrets not even I knew. Secrets about your family.” His eyes narrowed. “I was right.”
“Why?” I asked. “Look at me, Greede. I’m the Knightmare.”
“Yes.”
“I’m the Sin of Wrath! I’m just like you!”
He shook his head. I saw something in his hands, a book that had not been there before. The Necronomicon.
“Not like me,” he said with disdain. “I chose this, I wanted this. But not you. If this carries on, your influence will corrupt the Sin as much as it will corrupt you. It will be a battle of wills, and demons are not known for their iron resolve.”
“Get it out of me,” I said.
“Oh, you think it’s that easy?” he asked. “By all means, Mr. Ashendale. Shall I grant you two more wishes or are you content with just the one for today?”
“Greede,” I said. “Get. It. Out. Of. Me.”
He nodded.
“I can, you know?” he said. “This is why I’m getting shafted by Azazel. I accidentally discovered the Sins, and then I got an audition.” He chuckled. “Did your sister ever find out what the Sins really are? No? I’ll tell you. They’re a virus, Mr. Ashendale. They find the most suitable host and grow. And grow. And then they reach a point of sentience. Now, I don’t know what Azazel plans to do with them but I know he wants them ripe and ready for the picking. But I plan to collect them before he does.”
Something inside the Necronomicon glowed. Greede fingered it until he got purchase and pulled out a bookmark.
No, not a bookmark.
A feather.
It shone red and yellow and orange and amber, with tinges of green and blue and purple, changing color with every centimeter it moved.
Looking at it, I had a flashback. I was back in that helicopter, looking at the creature that had halted space and time just by showing up.
A creature with twelve wings, each bearing thousands of similar feathers to the one Greede just pulled out.
“You recognize it,” he said. “This is the key to separating you from Wrath. You’re not the only one bearing Life magic, Mr. Ashendale. This feather here will overload your system. Then only one of you will remain—man or demon. Either way, I win. I get the demon, I one-up my boss. I get the man, I’ll have someone who will go after Azazel and the rest of the Sins.”
“You’re a dick, Greede,” I growled.
“Perhaps,” he said. “But I’m a dick holding all the cards.”
“Is that so?”
Gil emerged from nowhere with a flash of light. Plumes of white smoke rose from her form, giving her a divine appearance.
Abi sauntered from the shadows wearing her full gear. The Sun Wo Kung staff was in the shape of a baton, held at her side.
And then Amaymon was just there, popping into existence. The ground beneath his feet cracked and became mushy, softly trembling.
Gil raised a Druid’s wand, a meter-long length of wood once used by the Druids to channel magic.
�
�Drop the book and the feather,” she ordered. “Or prepare yourself for a last stand.”
Greede pursed his lips in amusement.
“You got here,” he said. “How?”
I shrugged. “What, you thought that just because I was possessed by a Sin I wouldn’t be saved by my family? That's the difference between us, Greede. I’m human first and foremost, and I will always have people in my corner.”
“Your sword,” he said. “You abandoned it to create a beacon.”
“And your assassin,” Gil said. “Berphomet provided all the intel we needed to subdue the other demons.”
“Oh please,” he said. “If I wanted to kill you, I have other methods than a mercenary. Nah, Berphomet is obsessed with finding his lost former leader. I knew you’d find that info in Hell, Mr. Ashendale.”
I gave Amaymon a look that said ‘we’ll talk about it later’. He nodded, never taking his eyes off Greede.
Greede laughed. “I mean, you people can be so thick sometimes. Think about it: using the same drug that Alastair Crowley invented, planting dealers right in front of Erik and subconsciously triggering the Knightmare—nice look by the way, very Game of Thrones—and making sure there would be an investigation.” He sighed. “Azazel nearly screwed it all up but Anael’s presence was timed impeccably.”
“Why?” Gil asked.
“Because I am the embodiment of greed,” Greede said. “Azazel is a creature of the old world. He wants power of course, and I’m sure that whatever his reason, it would be boring. Same with all the other Sins. Mindless automatons, the lot of them. But me, I can actually make this world a better place. I can reshape the laws of physics, end suffering, make death a thing of the past.” He looked at Amaymon. “I can break down the walls and make this multiverse into just one. One plane, one world, one power. All for me.”
He raised the plume. It glowed and dissolved into nothing.
“Stand down,” Gil repeated. “I will not warn you again.”
She, Abi, and Amaymon all shifted, ready to pounce on him. Greede chuckled. He raised his hands slowly, the plume descending from his grip.
The Necronomicon was open in his hands.
“I must bid you all a fond farewell for a while,” he said. The air around him shimmered, like a heat haze. A whine grew louder.
Greede looked at the page and chanted, “For as I walk through the Valley…”
The whine became deafening, and suddenly Greede was sucked into nothingness.
The plume fell on the ground. It flickered, then began shining brightly.
Two seconds later I was on my knees, screaming. There was no warning, no emerging power. It was just an otherworldly pain.
It was the Sin’s pain, not mine, but I felt it deep down in my soul. I felt it tear me apart, clawing at the thing that made me human.
The Sin was taking control. I felt my body rise up, metal encasing my form, power surging wildly. Wrath’s rage mixed with mine until I could no longer tell where it started and I ended.
My friends all leapt away from me, torn between saving an ally and capturing an enemy.
Fortunately, Anael made that decision for them.
The angel lady swooped in, love and calm radiating from her like the soft heat of a fireplace in the dead of winter. Like a hug from a friend, a parent, a loved one. A caress, a whisper telling me it was all going to be okay.
I looked at Anael and smiled.
Right before she stabbed her spear into my chest.
Chapter 31
When I opened my eyes, gentle light surrounded me. The familiar space around me was cozy without being overwhelming. I was sitting on a simple black couch, while Dr. Annalise Tompkins—aka Anael—surveyed me from her chair like she always did during our sessions.
“Where are we?” I asked.
“A mind-space,” she replied. “Think of this as your inner sanctum.”
I raised my eyebrows. “I should fire my interior decorator.”
She laughed. For a back-stabbing angel, she had a pretty cute laugh.
“Why am I here, Doctor Annalise, or Anael, or whoever the hell you are?” I asked.
“You may call me Anael,” she said. “I am the Virtue of Love and Kindness. Wrath’s counterpart.”
“Yeah, I got that much,” I said. “So why not just kill me? End me already? Or are you just prolonging this to bill me for more hours?”
She smiled. “You’re scared, I get that.”
“No, doc. What I am is pissed,” I said. “I am, you guessed it, angry.”
“Why?”
“Are you kidding me?” I snapped. “I get killed, then I wake up being chased by the Angel of Death, resurrected as an accident to summon the Demon Emperor, and now—now that I finally get a semblance of my life on track, I discover that I have become possessed by one of the very things I’d been fighting against.”
I didn’t realize I was on my feet, but apparently I was because the edge of the glass coffee table between us dug painfully into my shin, further fueling my ire.
“I am the very darkness I’ve been fighting all this time,” I told her. “The fucking Knightmare. I killed all those people and I’m barely aware of it.”
I sat back down. My hands clenched my face.
“I don’t even know what I am anymore.”
Her sigh echoed like the chirping of a thousand birds. “You are what you always were, Erik,” she said. “A survivor.”
I looked up.
“You’ve always borne responsibility for your actions,” she continued. “And as such you have never allowed yourself to be happy. That’s one of the symptoms of PTSD, did you know? You think you deserve what is happening to you, that you somehow merit all the crap you are going through. Something like that can make you lose sight of what’s really important.”
“What’s that?” I asked.
“Love,” she replied. “Love towards yourself, towards others, towards a creed or a mission. You’ve been helping people, yes, because it’s who you are, but you have neglected yourself, and now you can’t see who you really are outside of this monster hunter persona.”
“I am who I’ve always been,” I told her.
She shook her head. “You were once happy. As a child. Before you lost your magic in that tragic accident while trying to save your sister’s life.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I can’t use magic. I dealt with it. I had no other choice.”
“You resent your family.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” I snapped. “No shit I resent my family. My father tried to kill me. I had to murder him in cold blood.”
“You resent yourself.”
I fell back on the couch, refusing to look anywhere but the spot between my feet.
“Maybe,” I said. “And now you’re gonna tell me that I deserve the Sin because I’m angry and I brought this on myself.”
“No,” she said. “Like I said, PTSD makes you think you deserve the bad stuff you’re going through, but that is not the case.”
I felt her reaching out, her soft hand brushing against mine. That one touch held within it a gentle electricity, a charge of magic that instantly made my heart lighter.
“What you deserve is love,” she said. “You have a right to be happy, Erik. You just have to allow yourself to be open to the possibility.”
She pointed at the coffee table.
“Look here. I want to show you something.”
Our reflection in the table shifted. The landscape became unfamiliar but I recognized the woman. She was the bartender at the pub Abi and I had gone to, right before the Knightmare struck again.
I saw the Knightmare stride inside the pub, slaughtering everyone. The image shifted and there was the Knightmare again, this time stalking the bartender. Watching him—me—after her, a familiar feeling crept up. I was angry at her for talking to the cops, for creating a deeper connection between the mysterious killer and the wizard detective on the case.
I had spared her
, but only because the Sin still hadn’t completely taken over.
My next victim was not so lucky.
The image changed again and I saw Detective Diaz. She was on the floor, her shoulder bleeding from a deep cut. Her collarbone was broken and part of it jutted out of the wound. But warrior that she was, she kept firing on the black-armor-clad figure who deflected her bullets with the sword that he brought down on her.
A thug, Ice, running away from an armored figure. I thought he’d been scared of me and my reputation. I knew that fight had been too easy. Now I knew why.
The police station. Armed officers yelling at someone—me—to stand down. To drop the sword. Demanding to know where I had come from. Their bodies exploding around my blade and armor.
The starry night sky as two creatures dueled over Humboldt Bay: the Knightmare and Anael. There was no Erik. It was never a three-way fight. I was the Knightmare. Period.
Something splashed on the table. A tear distorted a small corner of the image. I felt something moist and hot on my face and wiped away the rest of my tears.
“That is not you,” Anael said. “You are a human, capable of love and tears, of empathy and heroism. This is a living nightmare. Yes, it took over your body and infected your mind, but you are still yourself. And the only way to defeat a cacodaemon is to starve it.”
I nodded, inhaling twice. I forced myself to unclench my jaw and relax.
“I need to know everything about Wrath,” I told her. “That’s why I’m here, right? In this mind-space. You want me to eject it from my head first.”
She nodded. “Wrath is a cacodaemon, a species of parasitic Mind-Flayers. Alone it is weak but once attached to a host it will begin taking over.”
“The Knightmare’s armor,” I said.
“Yes,” Anael confirmed. “The more you use that armor and that power, the more permanent the changes. The good news is that Wrath has not bonded permanently with you. Your internal power, your curse, has prevented that.”
“Dark Erik,” I said.
I recalled the last time I had engaged with the manifestation of my curse ability, and how it had transformed into a tick-like creature. Guess that was Wrath taking over the first line of defense.